Dear Authors! suit your topics to your strength, And ponder well your subject, and its length; 60 Nor lift your load, before you're quite aware What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear. But lucid Order, and Wit's siren voice, [xiv] Await the Poet, skilful in his choice; With native Eloquence he soars along, Grace in his thoughts, and Music in his song. Let Judgment teach him wisely to combine With future parts the now omitted line: This shall the Author choose, or that reject, Precise in style, and cautious to select; 70 Nor slight applause will candid pens afford To him who furnishes a wanting word. [xv] Then fear not, if 'tis needful, to produce Some term unknown, or obsolete in use, (As Pitt has furnished us a word or two, [5] Which Lexicographers declined to do;) So you indeed, with care,--(but be content To take this license rarely)--may invent. New words find credit in these latter days, If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase; [xvi] 80 What Chaucer, Spenser did, we scarce refuse To Dryden's or to Pope's maturer Muse. If you can add a little, say why not, As well as William Pitt, and Walter Scott? Since they, by force of rhyme and force of lungs, [xvii] Enriched our Island's ill-united tongues; 'Tis then--and shall be--lawful to present Reform in writing, as in Parliament. As forests shed their foliage by degrees, So fade expressions which in season please; 90 And we and ours, alas! are due to Fate, And works and words but dwindle to a date. Though as a Monarch nods, and Commerce calls, [xviii] Impetuous rivers stagnate in canals; Though swamps subdued, and marshes drained, sustain [xix] The heavy ploughshare and the yellow grain, And rising ports along the busy shore Protect the vessel from old Ocean's roar, All, all, must perish; but, surviving last, The love of Letters half preserves the past. 100 True, some decay, yet not a few revive; [xx] [6] Though those shall sink, which now appear to thrive, As Custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway [xxi] Our life and language must alike obey. The immortal wars which Gods and Angels wage, Are they not shown in Milton's sacred page? His strain will teach what numbers best belong To themes celestial told in Epic song. [xxii] The slow, sad stanza will correctly paint The Lover's anguish, or the Friend's complaint. 110 But which deserves the Laurel--Rhyme or Blank? [xxiii] Which holds on Helicon the higher rank? Let squabbling critics by themselves dispute This point, as puzzling as a Chancery suit.