Who would not laugh, if Lawrence [1], hired to grace [ii] His costly canvas with each flattered face, Abused his art, till Nature, with a blush, Saw cits grow Centaurs underneath his brush? Or, should some limner join, for show or sale, A Maid of Honour to a Mermaid's tail? [iii] Or low Dubost [2]--as once the world has seen-- Degrade God's creatures in his graphic spleen? Not all that forced politeness, which defends Fools in their faults, could gag his grinning friends. 10 Believe me, Moschus, like that picture seems [iv] The book which, sillier than a sick man's dreams, Displays a crowd of figures incomplete, Poetic Nightmares, without head or feet. Poets and painters, as all artists know, [v] May shoot a little with a lengthened bow; We claim this mutual mercy for our task, And grant in turn the pardon which we ask; But make not monsters spring from gentle dams-- Birds breed not vipers, tigers nurse not lambs. 20 A laboured, long Exordium, sometimes tends (Like patriot speeches) but to paltry ends; [vi] And nonsense in a lofty note goes down, As Pertness passes with a legal gown: [vii] Thus many a Bard describes in pompous strain [viii] The clear brook babbling through the goodly plain: The groves of Granta, and her Gothic halls, King's Coll-Cam's stream-stained windows, and old walls: Or, in adventurous numbers, neatly aims To paint a rainbow, or the river Thames. [3] 30 You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may shine [ix]-- But daub a shipwreck like an alehouse sign; You plan a _vase_--it dwindles to a _pot_; Then glide down Grub-street--fasting and forgot: Laughed into Lethe by some quaint Review, Whose wit is never troublesome till--true. In fine, to whatsoever you aspire, Let it at least be simple and entire. The greater portion of the rhyming tribe [x] (Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe) 40 Are led astray by some peculiar lure. [xi] I labour to be brief--become obscure; One falls while following Elegance too fast; Another soars, inflated with Bombast; Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly, He spins his subject to Satiety; Absurdly varying, he at last engraves Fish in the woods, and boars beneath the waves! [xii] Unless your care's exact, your judgment nice, The flight from Folly leads but into Vice; 50 None are complete, all wanting in some part, Like certain tailors, limited in art. For galligaskins Slowshears is your man [xiii] But coats must claim another artisan. [4] Now this to me, I own, seems much the same As Vulcan's feet to bear Apollo's frame; Or, with a fair complexion, to expose Black eyes, black ringlets, but--a bottle nose!