from Canto I

201

All these things will be specified in time,
     With strict regard to Aristotle’s rules,
The vade mecum of the true sublime,
     Which makes so many poets, and some fools;
Prose poets like blank-verse, I’m fond of rhyme,
     Good workmen never quarrel with their tools;
I’ve got new mythological machinery,
And very handsome supernatural scenery.

202

There’s only one slight difference between
     Me and my epic brethren gone before,
And here the advantage is my own, I ween;
     (Not that I have not several merits more,
But this will more peculiarly be seen)
     They so embellish, that ‘tis quite a bore
Their labyrinth of fables to thread through,
Whereas this story’s actually true.

203

If any person doubt it, I appeal
     To history, tradition, and to facts,
To newspapers, whose truth all know and feel,
     To plays in five, and operas in three acts;
All these confirm my statement a good deal,
     But that which more completely faith exacts
Is, that myself, and several now in Seville,
Saw Juan’s last elopement with the devil.

204

If ever I should condescend to prose,
    I’ll write poetical commandments, which
Shall supersede beyond all doubt all those
     That went before; in these I shall enrich
My text with many things that no one knows,
     And carry precept to the highest pitch:
I’ll call the work “Longinus o’er a Bottle,
Or, Every Poet his own Aristotle.”

205

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope;
     Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey;
Because the first is crazed beyond all hope,
    The second drunk, the third so quaint and mouthey:
With Crabbe it may be difficult to cope,
    And Campbell’s Hippocrene is somewhat drouthy:
Thou shalt not steal from Samuel Rogers, nor
Commit—flirtation with the muse of Moore.

206

Thou shalt not covet Mr. Sotheby’s Muse,
     His Pegasus, nor any thing that’s his;
Thou shalt not bear false witness like “the Blues,”
     (There’s one, at least, is very fond of this);
Thou shalt not write, in short, but what I choose:
     This is true criticism, and you may kiss—
Exactly as you please, or not, the rod,
But if you don’t, I’ll lay it on, by G—d!

207

If any person should presume to assert
     This story is not moral, first, I pray,
That they will not cry out before they’re hurt,
     Then that they’ll read it o’er again, and say,
(But, doubtless, nobody will be so pert)
     That this is not a moral tale, though gay;
Besides, in canto twelfth, I mean to show
The very place where wicked people go.

208

If, after all, there should be some so blind
     To their own good this warning to despise,
Led by some tortuosity of mind,
     Not to believe my verse and their own eyes,
And cry that they “the moral cannot find,”
     I tell him, if a clergyman, he lies;
Should captains the remark or critics make,
They also lie too—under a mistake.

209

The public approbation I expect,
     And beg they’ll take my word about the moral,
Which I with their amusement will connect,
     (So children cutting teeth receive a coral);
Meantime, they’ll doubtless please to recollect
    My epical pretensions to the laurel:
For fear some prudish readers should grow skittish,
I’ve bribed my grandmother’s review—the British.

210

I sent it in a letter to the editor,
     Who thank’d me duly by return of post—
I’m for a handsome article his creditor;
     Yet if my gentle Muse he please to roast,
And break a promise after having made it her,
     Denying the receipt of what it cost,
And smear his page with gall instead of honey,
All I can say is—that he had the money.