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Such say so, who can make none, he presumes:
Else there's no scene more properly assumes
The sock. For whence can sport in kind arise,
But from the rural routs and families?
Safe on this ground then, we not fear to-day,
To tempt your laughter by our rustic play;
Wherein if we distaste, or be cried down,
We think we therefore shall not leave the town;
Nor that the fore-wits that would draw the rest
Unto their liking, always like the best.
The wise and knowing critic will not say,
This worst, or better is, before he weigh
Whêr every piece be perfect in the kind:
And then, though in themselves he difference find,
Yet if the place require it where they stood,
The equal fitting makes them equal good.
You shall have love and hate, and jealousy,
As well as mirth, and rage, and melancholy:
Or whatsoever else may either move,
Or stir affections, and your likings prove.
But that no style for pastoral should go
Current, but what is stamped with Ah! and O!
Who judgeth so, may singularly err;
As if all poesie had one character
In which what were not written, were not right;
Or that the man who made such one poor flight,
In his whole life, had with his winged skill
Advanced him upmost on the muses' hill.
When he like poet yet remains, as those
Are painters who can only make a rose.
From such your wits redeem you, or your chance,
Lest to a greater height you do advance
Of folly, to contemn those that are known
Artificers, and trust such as are none!
Else there's no scene more properly assumes
The sock. For whence can sport in kind arise,
But from the rural routs and families?
Safe on this ground then, we not fear to-day,
To tempt your laughter by our rustic play;
Wherein if we distaste, or be cried down,
We think we therefore shall not leave the town;
Nor that the fore-wits that would draw the rest
Unto their liking, always like the best.
The wise and knowing critic will not say,
This worst, or better is, before he weigh
Whêr every piece be perfect in the kind:
And then, though in themselves he difference find,
Yet if the place require it where they stood,
The equal fitting makes them equal good.
You shall have love and hate, and jealousy,
As well as mirth, and rage, and melancholy:
Or whatsoever else may either move,
Or stir affections, and your likings prove.
But that no style for pastoral should go
Current, but what is stamped with Ah! and O!
Who judgeth so, may singularly err;
As if all poesie had one character
In which what were not written, were not right;
Or that the man who made such one poor flight,
In his whole life, had with his winged skill
Advanced him upmost on the muses' hill.
When he like poet yet remains, as those
Are painters who can only make a rose.
From such your wits redeem you, or your chance,
Lest to a greater height you do advance
Of folly, to contemn those that are known
Artificers, and trust such as are none!
