Excursions are inexpiably bad; And 'tis much safer to leave out than add. Abstruse and mystic thought you must express With painful care, but seeming easiness; For truth shines brightest through the plainest dress. The Aenean Muse, when she appears in state, Makes all Jove's thunder on her verses wait; Yet writes sometimes as soft and moving things As Venus speaks, or Philomela sings. Your author always will the best advise, Fall when he falls, and when he rises, rise. Affected noise is the most wretched thing, That to contempt can empty scribblers bring. Vowels and accents, regularly placed, On even syllables (and still the last) Though gross innumerable faults abound, In spite of nonsense, never fail of sound, But this is meant of even verse alone, As being most harmonious and most known: For if you will unequal numbers try, There accents on odd syllables must lie. Whatever sister of the learned Nine Does to your suit a willing ear incline, Urge your success, deserve a lasting name, She'll crown a grateful and a constant flame. But if a wild uncertainty prevail, And turn your veering heart with every gale, You lose the fruit of all your former care, For the sad prospect of a just despair. A quack, too scandalously mean to name, Had, by man-midwifery, got wealth and fame; As if Lucina had forgot her trade, The labouring wife invokes his surer aid. Well-seasoned bowls the gossip's spirits raise, Who, while she guzzles, chats the doctor's praise; And largely, what she wants in words, supplies, With maudlin eloquence of trickling eyes. But what a thoughtless animal is man! How very active in his own trepan! For, greedy of physicians' frequent fees, From female mellow praise he takes degrees; Struts in a new unlicensed gown, and then From saving women falls to killing men. Another such had left the nation thin, In spite of all the children he brought in. His pills as thick as hand grenadoes flew; And where they fell, as certainly they slew: His name struck everywhere as great a damp, As Archimedes' through the Roman camp. With this, the doctor's pride began to cool; For smarting soundly may convince a fool. But now repentance came too late for grace; And meagre famine stared him in the face: Fain would he to the wives be reconciled, But found no husband left to own a child. The friends, that got the brats, were poisoned too: In this sad case, what could our vermin do? Worried with debts, and past all hope of bail, The unpitied wretch lies rotting in a jail: And there, with basket-alms scarce kept alive, Shows how mistaken talents ought to thrive.