TO MR CONGREVE.

WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER 1693.

[As the following verses are of a consolatory turn, they would seem to have been written after the representation of Congreve's second play, the Double Dealer, which was acted in 1693-4, and appears, from some passages in the dedication, to have been less favourably treated by the critics than the Old Bachelor. Swift's attachment to Congreve continued sincerely ardent, even after politics had severed them. His intercession with the LordTreasurer was the means of Congreve's retaining his offices under the Tory administration. See Vol. II. p. 283.J

THRICE, with a prophet's voice, and prophet's pow'r,

The Muse was called in a poetic hour,

And insolently thrice, the slighted maid
Dared to suspend her unregarded aid;

Then with that grief we form in spirits divine,
Pleads for her own neglect, and thus reproaches

mine :

Once highly honour'd! false is the pretence You make to truth, retreat, and innocence ! Who, to pollute my shades, bring'st with thee down The most ungen'rous vices of the town; Ne'er sprung a youth from out this isle before I once esteem'd, and lov'd, and favour'd more,

Nor ever maid endured such courtlike scorn,
So much in mode, so very city-born;
'Tis with a foul design the muse you send,
Like a cast mistress to your wicked friend;
But find some new address, some fresh deceit
Nor practise such an antiquated cheat;
These are the beaten methods of the stews,
Stale forms of course, all mean deceivers use,
Who barbarously think to 'scape reproach,
By prostituting her they first debauch

Thus did the muse severe unkindly blame
This off'ring long design'd to Congreve's fame;
First chid the zeal as unpoetic fire,

Which soon his merit forced her to inspire;
Then call this verse, that speaks her largest aid,
The greatest compliment she ever made,
And wisely judge, no pow'r beneath divine
Could leap the bounds which part your world and
mine;

For, youth, believe, to you unseen, is fix'd
A mighty gulf, unpassable betwixt.

Nor tax the goddess of a mean design
To praise your parts by publishing of mine;
That be my thought when some large bulky writ
Shows in the front the ambition of my wit;
There to surmount what bears me up, and sing
Like the victorious wren perch'd on the eagle's
wing ;*

This could I do, and proudly o'er him tower,
Were my desires but heighten'd to my power.

* This absurd simile was transferred by Colley Cibber to the

linnet, in the notable lines,

Perch'd on the eagle's towering wing,
The lowly linnet loves to sing.

Godlike the force of my young Congreve's bays,
Soft'ning the Muse's thunder into praise;
Sent to assist an old unvanquish'd pride.

That looks with scorn on half mankind beside;
A pride that well suspends poor mortals' fate,
Gets between them and my resentment's weight,
Stands in the gap 'twixt me and wretched men,
T'avert th' impending judgments of my pen.

Thus I look down with mercy on the age,
By hopes my Congreve will reform the stage:
For never did poetic mind before

Produce a richer vein, or cleaner ore;
The bullion stamp'd in your refining mind
Serves by retail to furnish half mankind.
With indignation I behold your wit

Forced on me, crack'd, and clipp'd, and counterfeit,
By vile pretenders, who a stock maintain
From broken scraps and filings of your brain.
Through native dross your share is hardly known,
And by short views mistook for all their own;
So small the gain those from your wit do reap,
Who blend it into folly's larger heap,
Like the sun's scatter'd beams which loosely pass,
When some rough hand breaks the assembling glass.
Yet want your critics no just cause to rail,
Since knaves are ne'er obliged for what they steal.
These pad on wit's high road, and suits maintain
With those they rob, by what their trade does gain.
Thus censure seems that fiery froth which breeds
O'er the sun's face, and from his heat proceeds,
Crusts o'er the day, shadowing its partent beam,
As ancient nature's modern masters dream;
This bids some curious praters here below

Call Titan sick, because their sight is so;
And well, methinks, does this allusion fit
To scribblers, and the god of light and wit;

Those who by wild delusions entertain
A lust of rhyming for a poet's vein,

Raise envy's clouds to leave themselves in night,
But can no more obscure my Congreve's light
Than swarms of gnats, that wanton in a ray
Which gave them birth, can rob the world of day.
What northern hive pour'd out these foes to wit?
Whence came these Goths to overrun the pit? *

In the original dedication to the Double Dealer, as published in 1694, there are some very wrathful and contemptuous passages respecting the critics, which Congreve's better judgment omitted, or softened, in subsequent editions. Swift appears to have caught the tone of his friend from such tirade as the following

:

And give me leave, without any flattery to you or vanity inmyself, to tell my illiterate critics, as an answer to their impotent objections, that they have found fault with that which has been pleasing to you. This play, in relation to my concern for its reputation, succeeded before it was acted; for, through your early patronage, it had an audience of several persons of the first rank both in wit and quality; and their allowance of it was a consequence of your approbation. Therefore, if I really wish it might have had a more popular reception, it is not at all in consideration of myself, but because I wish well, and would gladly contribute to the benefit of the stage, and diversion of the town. They were (not long since) so kind to a very imperfect comedy of mine, that I thought myself justly indebted to them all my endeavours for an entertainment that might merit some little of that applause which they were so lavish of when I thought I had no title to it. But I find they are to be treated cheaply, and I have been at an unnecessary expence.

"I have, since the acting of this play, hearkened after the objections which have been made to it: for I was conscious where a true critic might have put me upon my defence. I was prepared for their attack, and am pretty confident I could have vindicated some parts, and excused others; and where there were any plain miscarriages, I would most ingenuously have confessed them. But I have not heard any thing said sufficient to provoke an answer, Some little snarling and backbiting there has been, but I don't

40

How would you blush the shameful birth to hear
Of those you so ignobly stoop to fear;
For, ill to them, long have I travell'd since,
Round all the circles of impertinence,
Search'd in the nest where every worm did lie
Before it grew a city butterfly;

I'm sure I found them other kind of things
Than those with backs of silk and golden wings;
A search, no doubt, as curious and as wise
As virtuosoes in dissecting flies:

For, could you think? the fiercest foes you dread,
And court in prologues, all are country bred;
Bred in my scene, and for the poet's sins.
Adjourn'd from tops and grammar to the inns;
Those beds of dung, where schoolboys sprout up
beaux

Far sooner than the nobler mushroom grows:
These are the lords of the poetic schools,
Who preach the saucy pedantry of rules;
Those pow'rs the critics, who may boast the odds
O'er Nile, with all its wilderness of gods;
Nor could the nations kneel to viler shapes,
Which worshipp'd cats, and sacrificed to apes;
And can you think the wise forbear to laugh
At the warm zeal that breeds this golden calf?
Haply you judge these lines severely writ
Against the proud usurpers of the pit;
Stay while I tell my story, short, and true;
To draw conclusions shall be left to you;
Nor need I ramble far to force a rule,
But lay the scene just here at Farnham school.

know one well-mouth'd cur that has opened at all."-Congreve's Dedication to the Right Honourable Charles Montague, prefixed to his Double Dealer. London, 1694.j