Epilogue to "Aureng-Zebe"

A pretty task! and so I told the fool,
Who needs would undertake to please by rule:
He thought that, if his characters were good,
The scenes entire, and freed from noise and blood.
The action great, yet circumscrib'd by time,
The words not forc'd, but sliding into rhyme,
The passions rais'd and calm'd by just degrees,
As tides are swell'd, and then retire to seas;
He thought, in hitting these, his business done,
Tho' he, perhaps, has fail'd in ev'ry one:
But, after all, a poet must confess,
His art 's like physic, but a happy guess.
Your pleasure on your fancy must depend:
The lady 's pleas'd, just as she likes her friend.
No song! no dance! no show! he fears you 'll say,
You love all naked beauties but a play.
He much mistakes your methods to delight,
And, like the French, abhors our target fight,
But those damn'd dogs can never be i' th' right.
True English hate your Monsieurs' paltry arts,
For you are all silk-weavers in your hearts.
Bold Britons, at a brave Bear Garden fray,
Are rous'd; and, clatt'ring sticks, cry: "Play, play, play!"
Meantime, your filthy foreigner will stare
And mutter to himself: "Ha gens barbare!"
And, gad, 't is well he mutters; well for him;
Our butchers else would tear him limb from limb.
'T is true, the time may come, your sons may be
Infected with this French civility;
But this in after-ages will be done:
Our poet writes a hundred years too soon.
This age comes on too slow, or he too fast;
And early springs are subject to a blast!
Who would excel, when few can make a test
Betwixt indiff'rent writing and the best?
For favors cheap and common who would strive,
Which, like abandoned prostitutes, you give?
Yet scatter'd here and there, I some behold
Who can discern the tinsel from the gold:
To these he writes; and, if by them allow'd,
'T is their prerogative to rule the crowd.
For he more fears, like a presuming man,
Their votes who cannot judge, than theirs who can.