To paint a sailor, mid the winds and waves,
When on a broken plank his life he saves?

Why will you thus a mighty vase intend,
If in a worthless bowl your labours end?
Then learn this wandering humour to control,
And keep one equal tenour through the whole.
But oft our greatest errors take their rise
From our best views. I strive to be concise;
I prove obscure. My strength, my fire decays,
When in pursuit of elegance and ease.
Aiming at greatness, some to fustian soar;
Some in cold safety creep along the shore,
Too much afraid of storms; while he, who tries
With ever-varying wonders to surprise,
In the broad forest bids his dolphins play,
And paints his boars disporting in the sea.
Thus, injudicious, while one fault we shun,
Into its opposite extreme we run.

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One happier artist of th' Æmilian square, Who graves the nails, and forms the flowing hair, Though he excels in every separate part, Yet fails of just perfection in his art, In one grand whole unknowing to unite Those different parts; and I no more would write Like him, than with a nose of hideous size Be gazed at for the finest hair and eyes.

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Examine well, ye writers, weigh with care, 55 What suits your genius; what your strength can bear.

To him, who shall his theme with judgment choose,
Nor words, nor method shall their aid refuse.
In this, or I mistake, consists the grace,
And force of method to assign a place

For what with present judgment we should say,
And for some happier time the rest delay.

Would you to fame a promised work produce,

Be delicate and cautious in the use

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And choice of words; nor shall you fail of praise, 65 When nicely joining two known words you raise

A third unknown. A new-discover'd theme
For those, unheard in ancient times, may claim
A just and ample license, which, if used
With fair discretion, never is refused.

New words, and lately made, shall credit claim,
If from a Grecian source they gently stream
For Virgil sure, and Varius, may receive
That kind indulgence, which the Romans gave
To Plautus and Cæcilius: or shall I
Be envied, if my little fund supply

Its frugal wealth of words, since bards, who sung
In ancient days, enrich'd their native tongue
With large increase? An undisputed power
Of coining money from the rugged ore,
Nor less of coining words, is still confess'd,
If with a legal, public stamp impress'd.

As when the forest, with the bending year,
First sheds the leaves which earliest appear,
So an old age of words maturely dies,
Others new-born in youth and vigour rise.

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We and our noblest works to fate must yield;
Even Cæsar's mole, which royal pride might build,
Where Neptune far into the land extends,
And from the raging north our fleets defends;
That barren marsh, whose cultivated plain
Now gives the neighbouring towns its various grain;
Tiber, who taught a better current, yields
To Cæsar's power, nor deluges our fields;

All these must perish, and shall words presume 95
To hold their honours, and immortal bloom?
Many shall rise, that now forgotten lie;
Others, in present credit, soon shall die,
If custom will, whose arbitrary sway,

Words, and the forms of language, must obey. 100
By Homer taught, the modern poet sings,
In epic strains, of heroes, wars, and kings.
Unequal measures first were tuned to flow
Sadly expressive of the lover's wo;

But now, to gayer subjects form'd, they move
In sounds of pleasure, to the joys of love:
By whom invented, critics yet contend,
And of their vain disputings find no end.

Archilochus, with fierce resentment warm'd,
Was with his own severe iambics arm'd,
Whose rapid numbers, suited to the stage,
In comic humour, or in tragic rage,
With sweet variety were found to please,
And taught the dialogue to flow with ease;
Their numerous cadence was for action fit,
And form'd to quell the clamours of the pit.

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The muse to nobler subjects tunes her lyre;
Gods, and the sons of gods, her song inspire,
Wrestler and steed, who gain'd th' Olympic prize :
Love's pleasing cares, and wine's unbounded joys.
But if, through weakness, or my want of art,
I can't to every different style impart

The proper strokes and colours it may claim,
Why am I honour'd with a poet's name?
Absurdly modest, why my fault discern,
Yet rather burst in ignorance than learn?
Nor will the genius of the comic muse
Sublimer tones, or tragic numbers use;
Nor will the direful Thyestean feast
In comic phrase and language be debased.
Then let your style be suited to the scene,
And its peculiar character maintain.

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Yet comedy sometimes her voice may raise

And angry Chremes rail in swelling phrase:

As oft the tragic language humbly flows,
For Telephus or Peleus, 'mid the woes
Of poverty or exile, must complain

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In prose-like style; must quit the swelling strain, And words gigantic, if with nature's art

They hope to touch the melting hearer's heart. 140 'Tis not enough, ye writers, that ye charm

With ease and elegance; a play should warm

With soft concernment; should possess the soul, And, as it wills, the listening crowd control.

With them who laugh our social joy appears;
With them who mourn we sympathize in tears: 146
If you would have me weep, begin the strain,
Then I shall feel your sorrows, feel your pain;
But if your heroes act not what they say,
I sleep or laugh the lifeless scene away.

The varying face should every passion show,
And words of sorrow wear the look of wo;
Let it in joy assume a vivid air;

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Fierce when in rage; in seriousness severe :
For nature to each change of fortune forms
The secret soul, and all its passions warms:
Transports to rage, dilates the heart with mirth,
Wrings the sad soul, and bends it down to earth.
The tongue these various movements must express;
But, if ill-suited to the deep distress

His language prove, the sons of Rome engage
To laugh the unhappy actor off the stage.

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Your style should an important difference make When heroes, gods, or awful sages speak;

When florid youth, whom gay desires inflame; 165
A busy servant, or a wealthy dame;

A merchant, wandering with incessant toil,
Or he, who cultivates the verdant soil;
But if in foreign realms you fix your scene,
Their genius, customs, dialects maintain.

Or follow fame, or in th' invented tale
Let seeming, well-united truth prevail :
If Homer's great Achilles tread the stage,
Intrepid, fierce, of unforgiving rage,
Like Homer's hero, let him spurn all laws,
And by the sword alone assert his cause
With untamed fury let Medea glow,
And Ino's tears in ceaseless anguish flow.
From realm to realm her griefs let lo bear,
And sad Orestes rave in deep despair.

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But if you venture on an untried theme,
And form a person yet unknown to fame,
From his first entrance to the closing scene,
Let him one equal character maintain.

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"Tis hard a new-form'd fable to express, And make it seem your own. With more success You may from Homer take the tale of Troy, Than on an untried plot your strength employ. Yet would you make a common theme your own, Dwell not on incidents already known; Nor word for word translate with painful care, Nor be confined in such a narrow sphere, From whence (while you should only imitate) Shame and the rules forbid you to retreat.

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Begin your work with modest grace and plain, 195 Nor like the bard of everlasting strain;

"I sing the glorious war and Priam's fate-”
How will the boaster hold this yawning rate?
The mountains labour'd with prodigious throes,
And lo! a mouse ridiculous arose.

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Far better he, who ne'er attempts in vain,
Opening his poem in this humble strain;
Muse, sing the man who, after Troy subdued,

Manners and towns of various nations view'd;

He does not lavish at a blaze his fire,

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Sudden to glare, and in a smoke expire ;
But rises from a cloud of smoke to light,
And pours his specious miracles to sight;
Antiphates his hideous feast devours,
Charybdis barks, and Polyphemus roars.

He would not, like our modern poet, date
His hero's wanderings from his uncle's fate;
Nor sing ill-fated Ilium's various woes,
From Helen's birth, from whom the war arose ;
But to the grand event he speeds his course,
And bears his readers with resistless force
Into the midst of things, while every line
Opens, by just degrees, his whole design.

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