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Th’ exalted merits of the Wise and Good
Are seen, far off, and rarely understood.
The world’s a father to a Dunce unknown,
And much he thrives, for Dulness! he’s thy own.
No hackney brethren e’er condemn him twice ;
He fears no enemies, but dust and mice.

If Pope but writes, the Devil Legion raves,
And meagre Critics mutter in their caves:
(Such Critics of necessity consume
All Wit, as Hangmen ravish’d Maids at Rome.)
Names he a Scribler? all the world’s in arms,
Augusta, Granta, Rhedecyna swarms:
The guilty reader fancies what he fears,
And every Midas trembles for his ears.

See all such malice, obloquy, and spite
Expire e’re morn, the mushroom of a night!
Transient as vapours glimm’ring thro’ the glades,
Half-form’d and idle, as the dreams of maids,
Vain as the sick man’s vow, or young man’s sigh,
Third-nights of Bards, or H —-‘s sophistry.

These ever hate the Poet’s sacred line:
These hate whate’er is glorious, or divine.
From one Eternal Fountain Beauty springs,
The Energy of Wit, and Truth of Things,
That Source is GOD: From him they downwards tend,
Flow round–yet in their native center end.
Hence Rules, and Truth, and Order, Dunces strike;
Of Arts, and Virtues, enemies alike.

Some urge, that Poets of supreme renown
Judge ill to scourge the Refuse of the Town.
How’ere their Casuists hope to turn the scale,
These men must smart, or scandal will prevail.
By these, the weaker Sex still suffer most:
And such are prais’d who rose at Honour’s cost:
The Learn’d they wound, the Virtuous, and the Fair,
No fault they cancel, no reproach they spare:
The random Shaft, impetuous in the dark,
Sings on unseen, and quivers in the mark.
‘Tis Justice, and not Anger, makes us write,
Such sons of darkness must be drag’d to light:
Long-suff’ring nature must not always hold;
In virtue’s cause ’tis gen’rous to be bold.
To scourge the bad, th’ unwary to reclaim,
And make light flash upon the face of shame.

Others have urg’d (but weigh it, and you’ll find
‘Tis light as feathers blown before the wind)
That Poverty, the Curse of Providence,
Attones for a dull Writer’s want of Sense:
Alas! his Dulness ’twas that made him poor;
Not vice versa : We infer no more.
Of Vice and Folly Poverty’s the curse,
Heav’n may be rigid, but the Man was worse,
By good made bad, by favours more disgrac’d,
So dire th’ effects of ignorance misplac’d!
Of idle Youth, unwatch’d by Parents eyes!
Of Zeal for pence, and Dedication Lies!
Of conscience model’d by a Great man’s looks!
And arguings in religion–from No books!

No light the darkness of that mind invades,
Where Chaos rules, enshrin’d in genuine Shades;
Where, in the Dungeon of the Soul inclos’d,
True Dulness nods, reclining and repos’d.
Sense, Grace, or Harmony, ne’er enter there,
Nor human Faith, nor Piety sincere;
A mid-night of the Spirits, Soul, and Head,
(Suspended all) as Thought it self lay dead.
Yet oft a mimic gleam of transient light
Breaks thro’ this gloom, and then they think they write;
From Streets to Streets th’ unnumber’d Pamphlets fly,
Then tremble Warner, Brown, and Billingsly.[39]