Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TASTE, AN EPISTLE TO A YOUNG CRITIC, by JOHN ARMSTRONG First Line: Range from tower-hill all london to the fleet Last Line: Will find this letter long enough. Adieu! Subject(s): Critics & Criticism | ||||||||
RANGE from Tower-hill all London to the Fleet, Thence round the Temple, t'utmost Grosvenor-street: Take in your route both Gray's and Lincoln's Inn; Miss not, be sure, my Lords and Gentlemen; You'll hardly raise, as I with Petty guess, Above twelve thousand men of taste; unless In desperate times a connoisseur may pass. 'A connoisseur! What's that?' 'Tis hard to say: But you must oft amidst the fair and gay Have seen a would-be rake, a fluttering fool, Who swears he loves the sex with all his soul. Alas, vain youth! dost thou admire sweet Jones? Thou be gallant without or blood or bones! You'd split to hear the insipid coxcomb cry 'Ah charming Nanny! 'tis too much! I die!' 'Die and be dn'd,' says one; 'but let me tell ye I'll pay the loss if ever rapture kill ye.' 'Tis easy learnt the art to talk by rote: At Nando's 'twill but cost you half a groat; The Bedford school at three-pence is not dear, sir; At White'sthe stars instruct you for a tester. But he, whom Nature never meant to share One spark of taste, will never catch it there: Nor nowhere else; howe'er the booby beau Grows great with Pope, and Horace, and Boileau. Good native taste, though rude, is seldom wrong, Be it in music, painting, or in song. But this, as well as other faculties, Improves with age and ripens by degrees. I know, my dear; 'tis needless to deny't, You like Voiture, you think him wondrous bright: But seven years hence, your relish more matured, What now delights will hardly be endured. The boy may live to taste Racine's fine charms, Whom Lee's bald orb or Rowe's dry rapture warms: But he, enfranchised from his tutor's care, Who places Butler near Cervantes' chair; Or with Erasmus can admit to vie Brown of Squab-hall of merry memory; Will die a Goth: and nod at Woden's feast, The eternal winter long, on Gregory's breast. Long may he swill, this patriarch of the dull, The drowsy mumBut touch not Maro's skull! His holy barbarous dotage sought to doom, Good Heaven! the immortal classics to the tomb! Those sacred lights shall bid new genius rise When all Rome's saints have rotted from the skies. Be these your guides, if at the ivy crown You aim; each country's classics, and your own. But chiefly with the ancients pass your prime, And drink Castalia at the fountain's brim. The man to genuine Burgundy bred up, Soon starts the dash of Methuen in his cup. Those sovereign masters of the Muse's skill Are the true patterns of good writing still. Their ore was rich and seven times purged of lead; Their art seemed nature, 'twas so finely hid. Though born with all the powers of writing well, What pains it cost they did not blush to tell. Their ease (my lords!) ne'er lounged for want of fire, Nor did their rage through affectation tire. Free from all tawdry and imposing glare They trusted to their native grace of air. Rapt'rous and wild the trembling soul they seize, Or sly coy beauties steal it by degrees; The more you view them, still the more they please. Yet there are thousands of scholastic merit Who worm their sense out but ne'er taste their spirit. Witness each pedant under Bentley bred; Each commentator that e'er commented. (You scarce can seize a spot of classic ground, With leagues of Dutch morass so floated round.) Witnessbut, sir, I hold a cautious pen, Lest I should wrong some 'honourable men.' They grow euthusiasts too''Tis true! 'tis pity!' But 'tis not every lunatic that's witty. Some have run Maroand some Miltonmad, Ashley once turned a solid barber's head: Hear all that's said or printed if you can, Ashley has turned more solid heads than one. Let such admire each great or specious name; For right or wrong the joy to them's the same. 'Right!' Yes, a thousand times.Each fool has heard That Homer was a wonder of a bard. Despise them civilly with all my heart But to convince them is a desperate part. Why should you teaze one for what secret cause One doats on Horace, or on Hudibras? 'Tis cruel, sir, 'tis needless, to endeavour To teach a sot of taste he knows no flavour. To disunite I neither wish nor hope A stubborn blockhead from his favourite fop. Yesfop I say, were Maro's self before'em: For Maro's self grows dull as they pore o'er him. But hear their raptures o'er some specious rhyme Dubbed by the musked and greasy mob sublime. For spleen's dear sake, hear how a coxcomb prates As clamorous o'er his joys as fifty cats; 'Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, To soften rocks, and oaks,'and all the rest: 'I've heard'Bless these long ears!'Heav'ns, what a strain! Good God! What thunders burst in this Campaign! Hark, Waller warbles! Ah! how sweetly killing! Then that inimitable Splendid Shilling! Rowe breathes all Shakespeare here!That ode of Prior Is Spencer quite! egad his very fire! As like'Yes faith! as gum-flowers to the rose, Or as to claret flat Minorca's dose; As like as (if I am not grossly wrong) Earl Robert's Mice to aught e'er Chaucer sung. Read boldly, and unprejudiced peruse Each favourite modern, even each ancient muse. With all the comic salt and tragic rage The great stupendous genius of our stage, Boast of our island, pride of human-kind, Had faults to which the boxes are not blind. His frailties are to every gossip known: Yet Milton's pedantries not shock the town. Ne'er be the dupe of names, however high; For some outlive good parts, some misapply. Each elegant Spectator you admire; But must you therefore swear by Cato's fire? Masques for the court, and oft a clumsy jest, Disgraced the muse that wrought the Alchemist. 'But to the ancients.'Faith! I am not clear, For all the smooth round type of Elzevir, That every work which lasts in prose or song, Two thousand years, deserves to last so long. For not to mention some eternal blades Known only now in the academic shades, (Those sacred groves where raptured spirits stray, And in word-hunting waste the live-long day) Ancients whom none but curious critics scan, Do read Messala's praises if you can. Ah! who but feels the sweet contagious smart While soft Tibullus pours his tender heart? With him the Loves and Muses melt in tears; But not a word of some hexameters. 'You grow so squeamish and so devilish dry, You'll call Lucretius vapid next.' Not I. Some find him tedious, others think him lame: But if he lags his subject is to blame. Rough weary roads through barren wilds he tried, Yet still he marches with true Roman pride: Sometimes a meteor, gorgeous, rapid, bright, He streams athwart the philosophic night. Find you in Horace no insipid odes? He dared to tell us Homer sometimes nods; And but for such a critic's hardy skill Homer might slumber unsuspected still. Tasteless, implicit, indolent and tame, At second-hand we chiefly praise or blame. Hence 'tis, for else one knows not why nor how, Some authors flourish for a year or two: For many some, more wondrous still to tell; Farquhar yet lingers on the brink of hell. Of solid merit others pine unknown; At first, though Carlos swimmingly went down, Poor Belvidera failed to melt the town. Sunk in dead night the giant Milton lay 'Till Somers' hand produced him to the day. But, thanks to heaven and Addison's good grace, Now every fop is charmed with Chevy Chase. Specious and sage, the sovereign of the flock Led to the downs, or from the wave-worn rock Reluctant hurled, the tame implicit train Or crop the downs, or headlong seek the main. As blindly we our solemn leaders follow, And good, and bad, and execrable swallow. Pray, on the first throng'd evening of a play That wears the facies hippocratica, Strong lines of death, signs dire of reprobation; Have you not seen the angel of salvation Appear sublime; with wise and solemn rap To teach the doubtful rabble where to clap? The rabble knows not where our dramas shine; But where the cane goes pat'By G that's fine!' Judge for yourself; nor wait with timid phlegm 'Till some illustrious pedant hum or hem. The lords who starved old Ben were learn'dly fond Of Chaucer, whom with bungling toil they conn'd. Their sons, whose ears bold Milton could not seize, Would laugh o'er Ben like mad, and snuff and sneeze, And swear, and seem as tickled as you please. Their spawn, the pride of this sublimer age, Feel to the toes and horns grave Milton's rage. Though lived he now he might appeal with scorn To lords, knights, squires and doctors, yet unborn; Or justly mad, to Moloch's burning fane Devote the choicest children of his brain. Judge for yourself; and as you find, report Of wit as freely as of beef or port. Zounds! shall a pert or bluff important wight, Whose brain is fanciless, whose blood is white, A mumbling ape of taste, prescribe us laws To try the poets, for no better cause Than that he boasts per ann. ten thousand clear, Yelps in the House, or barely sits a peer? For shame! for shame! the liberal British soul To stoop to any stale dictator's rule. I may be wrong, and often am no doubt, But right or wrong, with friends, with foes 'twill out. Thus 'tis perhaps my fault if I complain Of trite invention and a flimsy vein, Tame characters, uninteresting, jejune, And passions drily copied from Le Brun, For I would rather never judge, than wrong That friend of all men, generous Fenelon. But in the name of goodness, must I be The dupe of charms I never yet could see? And then to flatter where there's no reward Better be any patron-hunting bard, Who half our lords with filthy praise besmears, And sing an anthem to all ministers: Taste the Attic salt in every peer's poor rebus, And crown each Gothic idol for a Phbus. Alas! so far from free, so far from brave, We dare not show the little taste we have. With us you'll see even vanity control The most refined sensations of the soul. Sad Otway's scenes, great Shakespeare's we defy: 'Lard, Madam! 'tis so unpolite to cry! For shame, my dear! d'ye credit all this stuff? I vowwell, this is innocent enough.' At Athens long ago, the ladies(married) Dreamt not they misbehaved though they miscarried, When a wild poet with licentious rage Turned fifty furies loose upon the stage. They were so tender and so easy moved, Heavens! how the Grecian ladies must have loved! For all the fine sensations still have dwelt, Perhaps, where one was exquisitely felt. Thus he who heavenly Maro truly feels Stands fixed on Raphael, and at Handel thrills. The grosser senses too, the taste, the smell, Are likely truest where the fine prevail: Who doubts that Horace must have catered well? Friend, I'm a shrewd observer, and will guess What books you doat on from your favourite mess. Brown and L'Estrange will surely charm whome'er The frothy pertness strikes of weak small beer. Who steeps the calf's fat loin in greasy sauce Will hardly loathe the praise that bastes an ass. Who riots on Scotch collops scorns not any Insipid, fulsome, trashy miscellany; And who devours whate'er the cook can dish up, Will for a classic consecrate each bishop. But I am sick of pen and ink; and you Will find this letter long enough. Adieu! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LINES FREELY TAKEN FROM CALLIMACHUS by CHARLES MARTIN FORM DESTRUCTIONIST?ÇÖSCULPTOR by ROBERT MCALMON POETS AND CRITICS by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS LINES TO A DON by HILAIRE BELLOC TO A REVIEWER WHO ADMIRED MY BOOK by JOHN CIARDI SONORA DESERT POEM by LUCILLE CLIFTON THE SEVEN ARTS by ROBERT FROST IN MEMORY OF DAVID KALSTONE by ANTHONY HECHT METAMORPHOSES: 16. PROSERPINA (JOHN RUSKIN) by WAYNE KOESTENBAUM A DAY: AN EPISTLE TO JOHN WILKES, OF AYLESBURY, ESQ. by JOHN ARMSTRONG |
|