![]() ![]() ![]() Now this to me, I own, seems much the same As Vulcan's feet to bear Apollo's frame Or, with a fair complexion, to expose Black eyes, black ringlets, but-a bottle nose! Dear Authors! suit your topics to your strength, And ponder well your subject, and its length Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear. For galligaskins Slowshears is your man But coats must claim another artisan. ![]() I labour to be brief-become obscure One falls while following Elegance too fast Another soars, inflated with Bombast Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly, He spins his subject to Satiety Absurdly varying, he at last engraves Fish in the woods, and boars beneath the waves! Unless your care's exact, your judgment nice, The flight from Folly leads but into Vice None are complete, all wanting in some part, Like certain tailors, limited in art. The greater portion of the rhyming tribe (Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe)Īre led astray by some peculiar lure. In fine, to whatsoever you aspire, Let it at least be simple and entire. ![]() You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may shine - But daub a shipwreck like an alehouse sign You plan a vase-it dwindles to a pot Then glide down Grub-street-fasting and forgot: Laughed into Lethe by some quaint Review, Whose wit is never troublesome till-true. A laboured, long Exordium, sometimes tends (Like patriot speeches) but to paltry ends And nonsense in a lofty note goes down, As Pertness passes with a legal gown: Thus many a Bard describes in pompous strain The clear brook babbling through the goodly plain: The groves of Granta, and her Gothic halls, King's Coll-Cam's stream-stained windows, and old walls: Or, in adventurous numbers, neatly aims To paint a rainbow, or the river Thames. Poets and painters, as all artists know, May shoot a little with a lengthened bow We claim this mutual mercy for our task, And grant in turn the pardon which we ask But make not monsters spring from gentle dams- Birds breed not vipers, tigers nurse not lambs. Believe me, Moschus, like that picture seems The book which, sillier than a sick man's dreams, Displays a crowd of figures incomplete, Poetic Nightmares, without head or feet. ![]()
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