T' Exalt the Soul, or make the Heart sincere, To arm our Lives with honesty severe, To shake the wretch beyond the reach of Law, Deter the young, and touch the bold with awe, To raise the fal'n, to hear the sufferer's cries, And sanctify the virtues of the wise, Old Satire rose from Probity of mind, The noblest Ethicks to reform mankind. As _Cynthia's_ Orb excels the gems of night: So _Epic Satire_ shines distinctly bright. Here Genius lives, and strength in every part, And lights and shades, and fancy fix'd by art. A second beauty in its nature lies, It gives not _Things_, but _Beings_ to our eyes, _Life_, _Substance_, _Spirit_ animate the whole; _Fiction_ and _Fable_ are the Sense and Soul. The _common Dulness_ of mankind, array'd In pomp, here lives and breathes, a _wond'rous Maid_: The Poet decks her with each unknown Grace, Clears her dull brain, and brightens her dark face: See! Father _Chaos_ o'er his First-born nods, And Mother _Night_, in Majesty of Gods! See _Querno's Throne_, by hands Pontific rise, And a _Fool's Pandæmonium_ strike our Eyes! Ev'n what on C----l the Publick bounteous pours, Is sublimated here to _Golden show'rs_. A _Dunciad_ or a _Lutrin_ is compleat, And _one_ in action; ludicrously great. Each wheel rolls round in due degrees of force; E'en _Episodes_ are _needful_, or _of course_: _Of course_, when things are virtually begun E'er the first ends, the Father and the Son: Or else so _needful_, and exactly grac'd, That nothing is _ill-suited_, or _ill-plac'd_. True Epic's a vast World, and this a small; One has its _proper_ beauties, and one _all_. Like _Cynthia_, one in _thirty days_ appears, Like _Saturn_ one, rolls round in _thirty years_. _There_ opens a wide Tract, a length of Floods, A height of Mountains, and a waste of Woods: _Here_ but one Spot; nor Leaf, nor Green depart From Rules, e'en Nature seems the Child of Art. As _Unities_ in Epick works appear, So must they shine in full distinction here. Ev'n the warm _Iliad_ moves with slower pow'rs: That forty days demands, This forty hours. Each other Satire humbler arts has known, Content with meaner Beauties, tho' its own: Enough for that, if rugged in its course The Verse but rolls with Vehemence and Force; Or nicely pointed in th' _Horatian_ way Wounds keen, like _Syrens_ mischievously gay. Here, All has _Wit_, yet must that Wit be _strong_, Beyond the Turns of _Epigram_, or _Song_. The _Thought_ must rise exactly from the vice, _Sudden_, yet _finish'd_, _clear_, and yet _concise_. _One Harmony_ must _first_ with _last_ unite; As all true Paintings have their _Place_ and _Light_. _Transitions_ must be _quick_, and yet _design'd_, Not made to fill, but just retain the mind: And _Similies_, like meteors of the night, Just give one flash of momentary Light.