AN EPISTLE TO Sr. Richard Blackmore, Occasioned by The New Session of the POETS.  
LONDON, Printed for A. Baldwin, in Warwick-Lane. MDCC.   

AN EPISTLE TO Sir Richard Blackmore.  

NOT that you need Assistance in your Wars,  
Or have received dishonourable Scars,  
By Critics worried, as by Beasts of Prey,  
Men void of Sense, and full as wild as they;  
Who against Wit Infernal Batteries raise,  
And tear with Envy what they ought to praise.  
Yet though undaunted you maintain the Fight,  
And force your Foes within the Shades of Night,  
Grovelling far distant from the Realms of Light,  
Suffer an humble Unexperienced Muse  
Your sacred Harp and trembling Strings to use  
(A Muse was only by yourself inspired,  
And only by the Heat you gave her, fired)  
Who owns what Merit may to her belong,  
Is always due to your Immortal Song.   

How blest, how happy were the Infant days,  
When Poets only sang their Maker's Praise?  
When in united Notes they did rehearse  
The mighty Founder of the Universe,  
Who forced out Light from the Abyss of Shade,  
And this vast Orb of slender nothing made;  
Whose Surface, watered with Celestial Dew,  
Unto our sight most pleasing Objects threw;  
Of Flowers and Herbs a Treasure did unfold,  
Wondrous in shape, and beauteous to behold;  
Whose fertile Womb did every thing produce,  
Which might suffice for Ornament or Use?  
They saw with wonder the amazing Sea,  
How near the Earth it kept its rapid Sway,  
And yet eternal Orders did obey;  
How its vast Waves in wat'ry Mountains rise,  
Whose foaming Pyramids do threat the Skies;  
Lashed by the Winds, how bulky Billows roar,  
Yet know their Bounds, and break upon the Shoar:  
They saw the Rack dividing from afar  
With weighty Clouds the thinner space of Air;  
Thunder they heard, which thro' the Aether rang;  
They saw God's Works, and what they saw, they sang.   

The selfsame God in ancient times did raise  
The Heathen Bards to celebrate his Praise.  
Tho by Eternal Wisdom he was seen  
Only to them with a thick Veil between;  
Yet such their Knowledge, that their Harps they strung,  
And an Eternal Deity they sung;  
They taught the Nations its indulgent Sway,  
And by Example drew them to obey:  
They kept their Passions in severest awe,  
And made Lust stoop unto impartial Law;  
When men grew vicious, and inclined to Hell,  
They did the Lash of pointed satire feel.  
Both for their Counsel and their Justice feared,  
No vicious Kings or Potentates they spared:  
To future Times they did the Truth declare,  
Which were the Lewd, and which the Virtuous were.   

So much we now decline from Virtue's ways,  
The Poet works his Labours into Plays;  
Each Bard is grown a Mimic or Buffoon,  
And what was satire once, is now Lampoon:  
They meanly flatter for the Bread they eat,  
And not by Virtue, but by Crimes grow great.   

'Tis true, your Genius was by Fate designed  
To show us Virtue and exalted Mind;  
And those blessed Paths, alas! we seldom find.  
Like Daedalus, an equal distance show,  
You neither soar too high, nor creep too low;  
'Tis natural all, and not attained by Force,  
You guide with steady Reins th' unruly Horse;  
Whilst those who neither Rule nor Distance keep,  
Like Icarus descend into the Deep.  
To move their Rubbish you yourself demean,  
Yet cannot this Augean Stable clean;  
The nest of Viper-Criticks there you found,  
Their snaky Heads erect, and hissing round;  
Like the old Serpent, ne'er will they grow wise,  
Nor quit their Venom, but retain their Vice.   

Of all your Foes, the Rhymer of most note  
Is he who the new Session lately wrote,  
Who, that his Lines may better pass for Wit,  
Has stamped with Honour all the stuff he writ.  
If we mistrust him, we are not to blame,  
Who shows his Honour, but conceals his Name;  
No Suit of Scandal can we undergo,  
His mighty Honour being incognito.  
And could we see this wondrous Son of Wit,  
Who late as Scribe did to Apollo sit,  
I dare believe his Title he'd disown,  
Nor call himself Apollo's hopeful Son:  
In threadbare Verse, perhaps in threadbare Clothes,  
He does his honourable Wit impose;  
Whose show of Honour signifies as much  
As Citt's confined within a Booby-Hutch.  
Tho he attempts the Regions of the Sky,  
Flutters o'er Earth, nor can ascend on high;  
His Pinions broken, and his Lute unstrung,  
He sings a horrid and confounded Song.   

His mighty Dr— n to the Shades is gone,  
And Con— ve leaves Successor of his Throne:  
Tho long before his final Exit hence  
He was himself an abdicated Prince,  
Disrobed of all Regalities of State,  
Drawn by a Hind and Panther from his Seat:  
Heir to his Plays, his Fables and his Tales,  
Con— is the Poetic Prince of Wales;  
Not at St. Germains, but at Will's his Court,  
Wither the Subjects of his Dad resort;  
Where Plots are hatched, and Councils yet unknown,  
How young Ascanius may ascend the Throne,  
That in despite of all the Muse's Laws  
He may revenge his injured Father's Cause.   

Go nauseous Rhymers, into Darkness go,  
And view your Monarch in the Shades below,  
Who takes not now from Helicon his Drink,  
But sips from Styx a Liquor black as Ink;  
Like Sisyphus a restless Stone he turns,  
And in a Pile of his own Labours burns;  
Whose curling Flames most ghastly Fiends do raise,  
Supplied with Fuel from his impious Plays;  
And when he fain would puff away the Flame,  
One stops his Mouth with bawdy Limberham:  
There, to augment the Terrors of the Place,  
His Hind and Panther stare him in the Face;  
They grin like Devils at the cursed Toad,  
Who made 'em draw on Earth so vile a Load.  
Could some Infernal Painter draw the Sight,  
And once transmit it to the Realms of Light,  
It might our Poets from their Sins affright:  
Or could they hear how there the Sons of Verse  
In dismal Yells their Tortures do express;  
How scorched with Ballads on the Stygian Shoar,  
They Horrors in a dismal Chorus roar;  
Or see how th' Laureate does his Grandeur bear,  
Crowned with a Wreath of flaming Sulphur there.   

Tho Con— may in time, when he has merit,  
The Prophet's Throne in peaceful sway inherit,  
The Poets all with one consent agree  
His Mantle falls to G— by Destiny,  
Who did whilst living wear his Livery;  
Who never did a Hero form in Verse,  
But what he fashioned still in Dr— n Dress;  
Like him's ill-natured, and abounds in spleen,  
As if his natural Issue he had been;  
Like him's Malicious, Envious, and Uncivil,  
The three good Properties of Mr. Devil,  
Which Dr— n held unto the very last,  
Improved in Malice as his Life did waste:  
His dying Epilogue with Curses crammed,  
Has both the Arthur's, and their Author damned.  
No one so fit as G— in all the Nation  
TO harangue the Crowd in Funeral Oration:  
That nauseous Crowd of Mourners, void of Brains,  
Stood more in need of Tie— ns Bedlam Pains.   

The former Times produced prodigious Men  
During the Reigns of Chaucer and of Ben,  
Who showed a Virtuous and exalted Mind,  
Which from that time has ever since declined.  
Cowley indeed endeavoured to retrieve  
The Fame of Verse, and Life to Virtue give;  
But that vile Age was in a League with Hell,  
And he in the Attempt successless fell.  
A Court debauched, a Theatre profane,  
Were all the Blessings of that virtuous Reign:  
Poets themselves by Lewdness than did raise,  
By servile Flattery, and by fulsome Praise;  
He than wrote best, that made the lewdest Plays.   

The Poet now the selfsame method takes,  
His Reason, Virtue, and his God forsakes,  
Declines Instructions of the Good and Wise,  
By Vanity and Vice attempts to rise;  
Some Packhorse for a Pegasus he strides,  
And stumbles on Preferment as he rides.  
No matter how unfurnished be his Scull,  
Be he a Sot, incorrigibly dull:  
If some lewd Courtier he can meanly praise,  
He never fails of Honour and the Bays.  
Thus St— ay rose to be a Chit of State,  
And Pr— r grew magnificently great;  
P— r, who was with M—ue allied,  
For by their Hands the Hind and Panther died;  
They both in Partnership the Monsters shot,  
But M—ue the praise of Conquest got.   

Great M—ue, the wonder of the Nation,  
Only a Poet is by Imputation,  
And others Works of Supererrogation.  
Haughty and proud, he highly does disdain  
To bless us with the Labours of his Brain.  
When e'er we see a Comet in the Sky,  
We straight conclude some Potentate will die;  
So when the stormy Winds come puffing on,  
Disturb the Waters of smooth Helicon,  
This Mountain Poet does bring forth a Mouse,  
Larger and bigger than a Soldier's Louse.  
What need he writ to make Mankind abhor him,  
Who has so many Bards to scribble for him?  
Not one dares boggle, or his Patron lash,  
Who has the hap to keep the Muse's Cash,  
Which bribe's into his Service all the Rhymers,  
The Sonneteers and little Doggerel Chimers;  
Yet always culls amidst the Multitude  
Such as are very dull, or very lewd.  
He plants fresh Laurels for each Impious Head,  
And builds fine Tombs and Statues for the Dead.  
But what vile Bard will e'er lament his Fall,  
Or write a Poem on his Funeral?  
He like a Tyrant on the Earth will drop,  
And no one deign to take the Monster up.   

Some Fumes of Claret do from Hogsheads drown,  
Such as Ned W— d, or libelling Tom Br— n;  
Others being made of different sort of Metal,  
Are lewd as De— is, or as dull as Sc— le;  
Yet all in Council do together sit  
How to dethrone the beamy God of Wit;  
How to defame all virtuous Men that writ,  
They rally Forces, and their Strength unite.   

This, Sirs your Fate, cursed Critics you oppose,  
The most Tyrannical and cruel Foes:  
Dr— n their Huntsman dead, no more he wounds,  
But now you must engage his Pack of Hounds.  
So have I seen an English Mastiff pass  
Along the Streets with a Majestic Grace;  
The little Dogs come barking from their Cell,  
And whine and growl with a confounded Yell;  
The numerous Crowd on the bold Mastiff stare,  
And think each minute he the Curs will tear,  
When he who with his Jaws might have undone 'em,  
Lift up his Leg, and only pissed upon ' 'em.   

You need not value what the Critics say,  
Keep on your Course, and lead in Virtue's way:  
Col— r already has undone the Stage;  
But if you strive to mend this vicious Age,  
You must with Tie— n, Sir, employ your Pains,  
And try if you can cure their want of Brains.   
FINIS.   

POEMS lately published, and sold by A. Baldwin.  
The Dream, To Sir Charles Duncomb, Alderman of London.  
A Description of Dryden's Funeral, 3d Edition.  
The Way to Heaven in a string; or Mr. Asgill's Argument burlesqued.