And praise their heaven, though pinion'd down to earth! Had I the power, I could not have the time, Whilst spirits flow, and life is in her prime, Without a sin 'gainst Pleasure, to design A plan, to methodise each thought, each line Highly to finish, and make every grace, In itself charming, take new charms from place. 170 Nothing of books, and little known of men, When the mad fit comes on, I seize the pen, Rough as they run, the rapid thoughts set down. Rough as they run, discharge them on the town. Hence rude, unfinish'd brats, before their time, Are born into this idle world of Rhyme, And the poor slattern Muse is brought to bed 'With all her imperfections on her head.' Some, as no life appears, no pulses play Through the dull dubious mass, no breath makes way, 180 Doubt, greatly doubt, till for a glass they call, Whether the child can be baptized at all; Others, on other grounds, objections frame, And, granting that the child may have a name, Doubt, as the sex might well a midwife pose, Whether they should baptize it Verse or Prose. E'en what my masters please; bards, mild, meek men, In love to critics, stumble now and then. Something I do myself, and something too, If they can do it, leave for them to do. 190 In the small compass of my careless page Critics may find employment for an age: Without my blunders, they were all undone; I twenty feed, where Mason can feed one. When Satire stoops, unmindful of her state, To praise the man I love, curse him I hate; When Sense, in tides of passion borne along, Sinking to prose, degrades the name of song, The censor smiles, and, whilst my credit bleeds, With as high relish on the carrion feeds 200 As the proud earl fed at a turtle feast, Who, turn'd by gluttony to worse than beast, Ate till his bowels gush'd upon the floor, Yet still ate on, and dying call'd for more. When loose Digression, like a colt unbroke, Spurning Connexion and her formal yoke, Bounds through the forest, wanders far astray From the known path, and loves to lose her way, 'Tis a full feast to all the mongrel pack To run the rambler down, and bring her back. 210 When gay Description, Fancy's fairy child, Wild without art, and yet with pleasure wild, Waking with Nature at the morning hour To the lark's call, walks o'er the opening flower Which largely drank all night of heaven's fresh dew, And, like a mountain nymph of Dian's crew, So lightly walks, she not one mark imprints, Nor brushes off the dews, nor soils the tints; When thus Description sports, even at the time That drums should beat, and cannons roar in rhyme, 220 Critics can live on such a fault as that From one month to the other, and grow fat. Ye mighty Monthly Judges! in a dearth Of letter'd blockheads, conscious of the worth Of my materials, which against your will Oft you've confess'd, and shall confess it still;