The First Epistle Of The Second Book Of Horace Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A B C D B EEFFGG HHIIJJKKLLMMNNOP BBHHQRBB SSTUVVWWUUGG BBGGXX UUBBBB G YYBB Z A2A2BBB2C2 GGD2D2E2E2PF2G2G2 UUG2G2F2F2BBH2 I2I2BBGGCCOOYYUUJ2J2 GG BBK2DBBH2H2ZZBB BBL2L2BBH2H2UUGGM2CB BGGN2N2 O2O2P2 GGBBQ2Q2GGR2R2WW NNS2S2BB T2T2GGA2A2VVU2U2BBV2 V2M2M2K2K2F2F2 W2W2BBGGUU S2S2KKUUKKDDX2X2 BBS2S2V2Y2BBZ2Z2R2R2 BBBBA3A3G2G2BBB3 C3D3UUBBBBBBE3E3UUV2 V2 SSUUA2A2GGZZKKF3F3G3 G3YYBBF2F2 BBBBUUUUUA2K2DH3UUUU I3I3DDBBE2E2F2F2N2N2 BBUU BBM2M2BBNN F2F2J3J3K3K3BBBBBBUU SSL2L2D2D2K2K2BBL3L3 WWM3M3GGA2A2 N3N3BBBBG2G2A2A2 S2S2M2M2Z2Z2F2P O3P3RRBBUUFFUUZ2Z2UU Q3Q3UU UUBB A2A2E2E2X2X2BBA2 R3R3KKZ2Z2O3I3RO2L3L 3UUBBS3S3D2D2BBB BBBBBB

ADVERTISEMENT	A
	-
The reflections of Horace and the judgments past in his Epistle to Augustus seemed so seasonable to the present times that I could not help applying them to the use of my own country The author thought them considerable enough to address them to his prince whom he paints with all the great and good qualities of a monarch upon whom the Romans depended for the increase of an absolute empire But to make the poem entirely English I was willing to add one or two of those which contribute to the happiness of a free people and are more consisten with the welfare of our neighbours	B
	-
This epistle will show the learned world to have fallen into two mistakes One that Augustus was a patron of poets in general whereas he not only prohibited all but the best writers to name him but recommended that care even to the civil magistrate Admonebat praetores ne paterentur nomen suum obsolefieri c The other that this piece was only a general discourse of poetry whereas it was an apology for the poets in order to render Augustus more their patron Horace here pleads the cause of his contemporaries first against the taste of the town whose humour it was to magnify the authors of the preceding age secondly against the court and nobility who encouraged only the writers for the theatre and lastly against the emperor himself who had conceived them of little use to the government He shows by a view of the progress of learning and the change of taste among the Romans that the introduction of the polite arts of Greece had given the writers of his time great advantages over their predecessors that their morals were much improved and the license of those ancient poets restrained that satire and comedy were become more just and useful that whatever extravagances were left on the stage were owing to the ill taste of the nobility that poets under due regulations were in many respects useful to the state and concludes that it was upon them the emperor himself must depend for his fame with posterity	C
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We may further learn from this epistle that Horace made his court to this great prince by writing with a decent freedom toward him with a just contempt of his low flatterers and with a manly regard to his own character	D
	-
	-
TO AUGUSTUS	B
	-
While you great patron of mankind sustain	E
The balanced world and open all the main	E
Your country chief in arms abroad defend	F
At home with morals arts and laws amend	F
How shall the Muse from such a monarch steal	G
An hour and not defraud the public weal	G
	-
Edward and Henry now the boast of fame	H
And virtuous Alfred a more sacred name	H
After a life of generous toils endured	I
The Gaul subdued or property secured	I
Ambition humbled mighty cities storm'd	J
Or laws establish'd and the world reform'd	J
Closed their long glories with a sigh to find	K
The unwilling gratitude of base mankind	K
All human virtue to its latest breath	L
Finds envy never conquer'd but by death	L
The great Alcides every labour past	M
Had still this monster to subdue at last	M
Sure fate of all beneath whose rising ray	N
Each star of meaner merit fades away	N
Oppress'd we feel the beam directly beat	O
Those suns of glory please not till they set	P
	-
To thee the world its present homage pays	B
The harvest early but mature the praise	B
Great friend of liberty in kings a name	H
Above all Greek above all Roman fame	H
Whose word is truth as sacred and revered	Q
As Heaven's own oracles from altars heard	R
Wonder of kings like whom to mortal eyes	B
None e'er has risen and none e'er shall rise	B
	-
Just in one instance be it yet confess'd	S
Your people sir are partial in the rest	S
Foes to all living worth except your own	T
And advocates for folly dead and gone	U
Authors like coins grow dear as they grow old	V
It is the rust we value not the gold	V
Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote	W
And beastly Skelton heads of houses quote	W
One likes no language but the 'Faery Queen'	U
A Scot will fight for 'Christ's Kirk o' the Green'	U
And each true Briton is to Ben so civil	G
He swears the Muses met him at The Devil	G
	-
Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires	B
Why should not we be wiser than our sires	B
In every public virtue we excel	G
We build we paint we sing we dance as well	G
And learned Athens to our art must stoop	X
Could she behold us tumbling through a hoop	X
	-
If time improve our wit as well as wine	U
Say at what age a poet grows divine	U
Shall we or shall we not account him so	B
Who died perhaps an hundred years ago	B
End all dispute and fix the year precise	B
When British bards begin t' immortalise	B
	-
'Who lasts a century can have no flaw	G
I hold that wit a classic good in law '	-
Suppose he wants a year will you compound	Y
And shall we deem him ancient right and sound	Y
Or damn to all eternity at once	B
At ninety nine a modern and a dunce	B
	-
'We shall not quarrel for a year or two	Z
By courtesy of England he may do '	-
	-
Then by the rule that made the horse tail bare	A2
I pluck out year by year as hair by hair	A2
And melt down ancients like a heap of snow	B
While you to measure merits look in Stowe	B
And estimating authors by the year	B2
Bestow a garland only on a bier	C2
	-
Shakspeare whom you and every play house bill	G
Style the divine the matchless what you will	G
For gain not glory wing'd his roving flight	D2
And grew immortal in his own despite	D2
Ben old and poor as little seem'd to heed	E2
The life to come in every poet's creed	E2
Who now reads Cowley if he pleases yet	P
His moral pleases not his pointed wit	F2
Forgot his epic nay Pindaric art	G2
But still I love the language of his heart	G2
	-
'Yet surely surely these were famous men	U
What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben	U
In all debates where critics bear a part	G2
Not one but nods and talks of Johnson's art	G2
Of Shakspeare's nature and of Cowley's wit	F2
How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher writ	F2
How Shadwell hasty Wycherley was slow	B
But for the passions Southern sure and Rowe	B
These only these support the crowded stage	H2
From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age '	-
	-
All this may be the people's voice is odd	I2
It is and it is not the voice of God	I2
To Gammer Gurton if it give the bays	B
And yet deny the 'Careless Husband' praise	B
Or say our fathers never broke a rule	G
Why then I say the public is a fool	G
But let them own that greater faults than we	C
They had and greater virtues I'll agree	C
Spenser himself affects the obsolete	O
And Sydney's verse halts ill on Roman feet	O
Milton's strong pinion now not Heaven can bound	Y
Now serpent like in prose he sweeps the ground	Y
In quibbles angel and archangel join	U
And God the Father turns a school divine	U
Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book	J2
Like slashing Bentley with his desperate hook	J2
Or damn all Shakspeare like the affected fool	G
At court who hates whate'er he read at school	G
	-
But for the wits of either Charles's days	B
The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease	B
Sprat Carew Sedley and a hundred more	K2
Like twinkling stars the Miscellanies o'er	D
One simile that solitary shines	B
In the dry desert of a thousand lines	B
Or lengthen'd thought that gleams through many a page	H2
Has sanctified whole poems for an age	H2
I lose my patience and I own it too	Z
When works are censured not as bad but new	Z
While if our elders break all reason's laws	B
These fools demand not pardon but applause	B
	-
On Avon's bank where flowers eternal blow	B
If I but ask if any weed can grow	B
One tragic sentence if I dare deride	L2
Which Betterton's grave action dignified	L2
Or well mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims	B
Though but perhaps a muster roll of names	B
How will our fathers rise up in a rage	H2
And swear all shame is lost in George's age	H2
You'd think no fools disgraced the former reign	U
Did not some grave examples yet remain	U
Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill	G
And having once been wrong will be so still	G
He who to seem more deep than you or I	M2
Extols old bards or Merlin's prophecy	C
Mistake him not he envies not admires	B
And to debase the sons exalts the sires	B
Had ancient times conspired to disallow	G
What then was new what had been ancient now	G
Or what remain'd so worthy to be read	N2
By learned critics of the mighty dead	N2
	-
In days of ease when now the weary sword	O2
Was sheathed and luxury with Charles restored	O2
In every taste of foreign courts improved	P2
'All by the king's example lived and loved '	-
Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t' excel	G
Newmarket's glory rose as Britain's fell	G
The soldier breathed the gallantries of France	B
And every flowery courtier writ romance	B
Then marble soften'd into life grew warm	Q2
And yielding metal flow'd to human form	Q2
Lely on animated canvas stole	G
The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul	G
No wonder then when all was love and sport	R2
The willing Muses were debauch'd at court	R2
On each enervate string they taught the note	W
To pant or tremble through an eunuch's throat	W
	-
But Britain changeful as a child at play	N
Now calls in princes and now turns away	N
Now Whig now Tory what we loved we hate	S2
Now all for pleasure now for Church and State	S2
Now for prerogative and now for laws	B
Effects unhappy from a noble cause	B
	-
Time was a sober Englishman would knock	T2
His servants up and rise by five o'clock	T2
Instruct his family in every rule	G
And send his wife to church his son to school	G
To worship like his fathers was his care	A2
To teach their frugal virtues to his heir	A2
To prove that luxury could never hold	V
And place on good security his gold	V
Now times are changed and one poetic itch	U2
Has seized the court and city poor and rich	U2
Sons sires and grandsires all will wear the bays	B
Our wives read Milton and our daughters plays	B
To theatres and to rehearsals throng	V2
And all our grace at table is a song	V2
I who so oft renounce the Muses lie	M2
Not 's self e'er tells more fibs than I	M2
When sick of muse our follies we deplore	K2
And promise our best friends to rhyme no more	K2
We wake next morning in a raging fit	F2
And call for pen and ink to show our wit	F2
	-
He served a 'prenticeship who sets up shop	W2
Ward tried on puppies and the poor his drop	W2
E'en Radcliffe's doctors travel first to France	B
Nor dare to practise till they've learn'd to dance	B
Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile	G
Should Ripley venture all the world would smile	G
But those who cannot write and those who can	U
All rhyme and scrawl and scribble to a man	U
	-
Yet sir reflect the mischief is not great	S2
These madmen never hurt the Church or State	S2
Sometimes the folly benefits mankind	K
And rarely avarice taints the tuneful mind	K
Allow him but his plaything of a pen	U
He ne'er rebels or plots like other men	U
Flight of cashiers or mobs he'll never mind	K
And knows no losses while the Muse is kind	K
To cheat a friend or ward he leaves to Peter	D
The good man heaps up nothing but mere metre	D
Enjoys his garden and his book in quiet	X2
And then a perfect hermit in his diet	X2
	-
Of little use the man you may suppose	B
Who says in verse what others say in prose	B
Yet let me show a poet's of some weight	S2
And though no soldier useful to the State	S2
What will a child learn sooner than a song	V2
What better teach a foreigner the tongue	Y2
What's long or short each accent where to place	B
And speak in public with some sort of grace	B
I scarce can think him such a worthless thing	Z2
Unless he praise some monster of a king	Z2
Or virtue or religion turn to sport	R2
To please a lewd or unbelieving court	R2
Unhappy Dryden in all Charles's days	B
Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays	B
And in our own excuse some courtly stains	B
No whiter page than Addison remains	B
He from the taste obscene reclaims our youth	A3
And sets the passions on the side of truth	A3
Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art	G2
And pours each human virtue in the heart	G2
Let Ireland tell how wit upheld her cause	B
Her trade supported and supplied her laws	B
And leave on Swift this grateful verse engraved	B3
'The rights a court attack'd a poet saved '	-
Behold the hand that wrought a nation's cure	C3
Stretch'd to relieve the idiot and the poor	D3
Proud vice to brand or injured worth adorn	U
And stretch the ray to ages yet unborn	U
Not but there are who merit other palms	B
Hopkins and Sternhold glad the heart with psalms	B
The boys and girls whom charity maintains	B
Implore your help in these pathetic strains	B
How could devotion touch the country pews	B
Unless the gods bestow'd a proper muse	B
Verse cheers their leisure verse assists their work	E3
Verse prays for peace or sings down Pope and Turk	E3
The silenced preacher yields to potent strain	U
And feels that grace his prayer besought in vain	U
The blessing thrills through all the labouring throng	V2
And Heaven is won by violence of song	V2
	-
Our rural ancestors with little blest	S
Patient of labour when the end was rest	S
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain	U
With feasts and offerings and a thankful strain	U
The joy their wives their sons and servants share	A2
Ease of their toil and partners of their care	A2
The laugh the jest attendants on the bowl	G
Smooth'd every brow and open'd every soul	G
With growing years the pleasing license grew	Z
And taunts alternate innocently flew	Z
But times corrupt and nature ill inclined	K
Produced the point that left a sting behind	K
Till friend with friend and families at strife	F3
Triumphant malice raged through private life	F3
Who felt the wrong or fear'd it took the alarm	G3
Appeal'd to law and justice lent her arm	G3
At length by wholesome dread of statutes bound	Y
The poets learn'd to please and not to wound	Y
Most warp'd to flattery's side but some more nice	B
Preserved the freedom and forbore the vice	B
Hence satire rose that just the medium hit	F2
And heals with morals what it hurts with wit	F2
	-
We conquer'd France but felt our captive's charms	B
Her arts victorious triumph'd o'er our arms	B
Britain to soft refinements less a foe	B
Wit grew polite and numbers learn'd to flow	B
Waller was smooth but Dryden taught to join	U
The varying verse the full resounding line	U
The long majestic march and energy divine	U
Though still some traces of our rustic vein	U
And splayfoot verse remain'd and will remain	U
Late very late correctness grew our care	A2
When the tired nation breathed from civil war	K2
Exact Racine and Corneille's noble fire	D
Show'd us that France had something to admire	H3
Not but the tragic spirit was our own	U
And full in Shakspeare fair in Otway shone	U
But Otway fail'd to polish or refine	U
And fluent Shakspeare scarce effaced a line	U
Even copious Dryden wanted or forgot	I3
The last and greatest art the art to blot	I3
Some doubt if equal pains or equal fire	D
The humbler muse of Comedy require	D
But in known images of life I guess	B
The labour greater as the indulgence less	B
Observe how seldom even the best succeed	E2
Tell me if Congreve's fools are fools indeed	E2
What pert low dialogue has Farquhar writ	F2
How Van wants grace who never wanted wit	F2
The stage how loosely does Astraea tread	N2
Who fairly puts all characters to bed	N2
And idle Cibber how he breaks the laws	B
To make poor Pinky eat with vast applause	B
But fill their purse our poets' work is done	U
Alike to them by pathos or by pun	U
	-
O you whom Vanity's light bark conveys	B
On Fame's mad voyage by the wind of praise	B
With what a shifting gale your course you ply	M2
For ever sunk too low or borne too high	M2
Who pants for glory finds but short repose	B
A breath revives him or a breath o'erthrows	B
Farewell the stage if just as thrives the play	N
The silly bard grows fat or falls away	N
	-
There still remains to mortify a wit	F2
The many headed monster of the pit	F2
A senseless worthless and unhonour'd crowd	J3
Who to disturb their betters mighty proud	J3
Clattering their sticks before ten lines are spoke	K3
Call for the farce the bear or the black joke	K3
What dear delight to Britons farce affords	B
Ever the taste of mobs but now of lords	B
Taste that eternal wanderer which flies	B
From heads to ears and now from ears to eyes	B
The play stands still damn action and discourse	B
Back fly the scenes and enter foot and horse	B
Pageants on pageants in long order drawn	U
Peers heralds bishops ermine gold and lawn	U
The champion too and to complete the jest	S
Old Edward's armour beams on Cibber's breast	S
With laughter sure Democritus had died	L2
Had he beheld an audience gape so wide	L2
Let bear or elephant be e'er so white	D2
The people sure the people are the sight	D2
Ah luckless poet stretch thy lungs and roar	K2
That bear or elephant shall heed thee more	K2
While all its throats the gallery extends	B
And all the thunder of the pit ascends	B
Loud as the wolves on Orcas' stormy steep	L3
Howl to the roarings of the Northern deep	L3
Such is the shout the long applauding note	W
At Quin's high plume or Oldfield's petticoat	W
Or when from court a birthday suit bestow'd	M3
Sinks the lost actor in the tawdry load	M3
Booth enters hark the universal peal	G
'But has he spoken ' Not a syllable	G
What shook the stage and made the people stare	A2
Cato's long wig flower'd gown and lacquer'd chair	A2
	-
Yet lest you think I rally more than teach	N3
Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach	N3
Let me for once presume to instruct the times	B
To know the poet from the man of rhymes	B
'Tis he who gives my breast a thousand pains	B
Can make me feel each passion that he feigns	B
Enrage compose with more than magic art	G2
With pity and with terror tear my heart	G2
And snatch me o'er the earth or through the air	A2
To Thebes to Athens when he will and where	A2
	-
But not this part of the poetic state	S2
Alone deserves the favour of the great	S2
Think of those authors sir who would rely	M2
More on a reader's sense than gazer's eye	M2
Or who shall wander where the Muses sing	Z2
Who climb their mountain or who taste their spring	Z2
How shall we fill a library with wit	F2
When Merlin's cave is half unfurnish'd yet	P
	-
My liege why writers little claim your thought	O3
I guess and with their leave will tell the fault	P3
We poets are upon a poet's word	R
Of all mankind the creatures most absurd	R
The season when to come and when to go	B
To sing or cease to sing we never know	B
And if we will recite nine hours in ten	U
You lose your patience just like other men	U
Then too we hurt ourselves when to defend	F
A single verse we quarrel with a friend	F
Repeat unask'd lament the wit's too fine	U
For vulgar eyes and point out every line	U
But most when straining with too weak a wing	Z2
We needs will write epistles to the king	Z2
And from the moment we oblige the town	U
Expect a place or pension from the crown	U
Or dubb'd historians by express command	Q3
To enrol your triumphs o'er the seas and land	Q3
Be call'd to court to plan some work divine	U
As once for Louis Boileau and Racine	U
	-
Yet think great sir so many virtues shown	U
Ah think what poet best may make them known	U
Or choose at least some minister of grace	B
Fit to bestow the Laureate's weighty place	B
	-
Charles to late times to be transmitted fair	A2
Assign'd his figure to Bernini's care	A2
And great Nassau to Kneller's hand decreed	E2
To fix him graceful on the bounding steed	E2
So well in paint and stone they judged of merit	X2
But kings in wit may want discerning spirit	X2
The hero William and the martyr Charles	B
One knighted Blackmore and one pension'd Quarles	B
Which made old Ben and surly Dennis swear	A2
'No Lord's anointed but a Russian bear '	-
	-
Not with such majesty such bold relief	R3
The forms august of king or conquering chief	R3
E'er swell'd on marble as in verse have shined	K
In polish'd verse the manners and the mind	K
Oh could I mount on the Maeonian wing	Z2
Your arms your actions your repose to sing	Z2
What seas you traversed and what fields you fought	O3
Your country's peace how oft how dearly bought	I3
How barbarous rage subsided at your word	R
And nations wonder'd while they dropp'd the sword	O2
How when you nodded o'er the land and deep	L3
Peace stole her wing and wrapp'd the world in sleep	L3
Till earth's extremes your mediation own	U
And Asia's tyrants tremble at your throne	U
But verse alas your Majesty disdains	B
And I'm not used to panegyric strains	B
The zeal of fools offends at any time	S3
But most of all the zeal of fools in rhyme	S3
Besides a fate attends on all I write	D2
That when I aim at praise they say I bite	D2
A vile encomium doubly ridicules	B
There's nothing blackens like the ink of fools	B
If true a woful likeness and if lies	B
'Praise undeserved is scandal in disguise '	-
Well may he blush who gives it or receives	B
And when I flatter let my dirty leaves	B
Like journals odes and such forgotten things	B
As Eusden Philips Settle writ of kings	B
Clothe spice line trunks or fluttering in a row	B
Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Soho	B

Alexander Pope

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