THOUGH nature weigh our talents, and dispenses
To ev’ry man his modicum of sense,
And Conversation in its better part,
May be esteemed a gift and not an art,
Yet much depends, as in the tiller’s toil,
On culture, and the sowing of the soil.
Words learn’d by rote, a parrot may rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse,
Not more distinct from harmony divine
The constant creaking of a country sign.
As alphabets in ivory employ
Hour after hour the yet unletter’d boy,
Sorting and puzzling with a deal of glee
Those seeds of science called his ABC,
So language in the mouths of the adult,
Witness its insignificant result,
Too often proves an implement of play,
A toy to sport with, and pass time away.
Collect at evening what the day brought forth,
Compress the sum into its solid worth,
And if it weigh th’ importance of a fly,
The scales are false or Algebra a lie.
Sacred interpreter of human thought,
How few respect or use thee as they ought!
But all shall give account of ev’ry wrong
Who dare dishonour or defile the tongue,
Who prostitute it in the cause of vice,
Or sell their glory at a market-price,
Who vote for hire, or point it with lampoon,
The dear-bought placeman, and the cheap buffoon.
There is a prurience in the speech of some,
Wrath stays him, or else God would strike them dumb;
His wise forbearance has their end in view,
They fill their measure and receive their due.
The heathen law-givers of antient days,
Names almost worthy of a Christian praise,
Would drive them forth from the resort of men,
And shut up ev’ry satyr in his den.
Oh come not ye near innocence and truth,
Ye worms that eat into the bud of youth!
Infectious as impure, your blighting pow’r
Taints in its rudiments the promised flow’r,
Its odour perish’d and its charming hue,
Thenceforth ’tis hateful for it smells of you.
Not ev’n the vigorous and headlong rage
Of adolescence or a firmer age,
Affords a plea allowable or just,
For making speech the pamperer of lust;
But when the breath of age commits the fault,
’Tis nauseous as the vapor of a vault.
So wither’d stumps disgrace the sylvan scene,
No longer fruitful and no longer green,
The sapless wood divested of the bark,
Grows fungous and takes fire at ev’ry spark.
Oaths terminate, as Paul observes, all strife —
Some men have surely then a peaceful life,
Whatever subject occupy discourse,
The feats of Vestris or the naval force,
Asseveration blust’ring in your face
Makes contradiction such an hopeless case;
In ev’ry tale they tell, or false or true,
Well known, or such as no man ever knew,
They fix attention, heedless of your pain,
With oaths like rivets forced into the brain,
And ev’n when sober truth prevails throughout,
They swear it, ‘till affirmance breeds a doubt.
A Persian, humble servant of the sun,
Who though devout yet bigotry had none,
Hearing a lawyer, grave in his address,
With adjurations ev’ry word impress,
Supposed the man a bishop, or at least,
God’s name so much upon his lips, a priest,
Bowed at the close with all his graceful airs,
And begg’d an int’rest in his frequent pray’rs.
Go quit the rank to which ye stood preferred,
Henceforth associate in one common herd,
Religion, virtue, reason, common sense
Pronounce your human form a false pretence,
A mere disguise in which a devil lurks,
Who yet betrays his secret by his works.
Ye pow’rs who rule the tongue, if such there are,
And make colloquial happiness your care,
Preserve me from the thing I dread and hate,
A duel in the form of a debate:
The clash of arguments and jar of words
Worse than the mortal brunt of rival swords,
Decide no question with their tedious length,
For opposition gives opinion strength,
Divert the champions prodigal of breath,
And put the peaceably-disposed to death.
Oh thwart me not, Sir Soph. at ev’ry turn,
Nor carp at ev’ry flaw you may discern,
Though syllogisms hang not on my tongue,
I am not surely always in the wrong;
’Tis hard if all is false that I advance,
A fool must now and then be right, by chance.
Not that all freedom of dissent I blame,
No — there I grant the privilege I claim.
A disputable point is no man’s ground,
Rove where you please, ’tis common all around,
Discourse may want an animated — No —
To brush the surface and to make it flow,
But still remember if you mean to please,
To press your point with modesty and ease.
The mark at which my juster aim I take,
Is contradiction for its own dear sake;
Set your opinion at whatever pitch,
Knots and impediments make something hitch,
Adopt his own, ’tis equally in vain,
Your thread of argument is snapt again;
The wrangler, rather than accord with you,
Will judge himself deceiv’d, and prove it too.
Vociferated logic kills me quite,
A noisy man is always in the right,
I twirl my thumbs, fall back into my chair,
Fix on the wainscot a distressful stare,
And when I hope his blunders are all out,
Reply discreetly — to be sure — no doubt.
DUBIUS is such a scrupulous good man —
Yes — you may catch him tripping if you can.
He would not with a peremptory tone
Assert the nose upon his face his own;
With hesitation admirably slow,
He humbly hopes, presumes it may be so.
His evidence, if he were called by law,
To swear to some enormity he saw,
For want of prominence and just relief,
Would hang an honest man and save a thief.
Through constant dread of giving truth offence,
He ties up all his hearers in suspense,
Knows what he knows as if he knew it not,
What he remembers seems to have forgot,
His sole opinion, whatsoe’er befall,
Cent’ring at last in having none at all.
Yet though he teaze and baulk your list’ning ear,
He makes one useful point exceeding clear;
Howe’er ingenious on his darling theme,
A sceptic in philosophy may seem,
Reduced to practice, his beloved rule,
Would only prove him a consummate fool,
Useless in him alike both brain and speech,
Fate having placed all truth above his reach;
His ambiguities his total sum,
He might as well be blind and deaf and dumb.
Where men of judgment creep and feel their way,
The Positive pronounce without dismay,
Their want of light and intellect supplied
By sparks absurdity strikes o
ut of pride:
Without the means of knowing right from wrong,
They always are decisive, clear and strong;
Where others toil with philosophic force,
Their nimble nonsense takes a shorter course,
Flings at your head conviction in the lump,
And gains remote conclusions at a jump:
Their own defect invisible to them,
Seen in another they at once condemn,
And though self-idolized in ev’ry case,
Hate their own likeness in a brother’s face.
The cause is plain and not to be denied,
The proud are always most provok’d by pride,
Few competitions but engender spite,
And those the most, where neither has a right.
The point of honour has been deemed of use,
To teach good manners and to curb abuse;
Admit it true, the consequence is clear,
Our polished manners are a mask we wear,
And at the bottom, barb’rous still and rude,
We are restrained indeed, but not subdued;
The very remedy, however sure,
Springs from the mischief it intends to cure,
And savage in its principle appears,
Tried, as it should be, by the fruit it bears.
’Tis hard indeed if nothing will defend
Mankind from quarrels but their fatal end,
That now and then an hero must decease,
That the surviving world may live in peace.
Perhaps at last, close scrutiny may show
The practice dastardly and mean and low,
That men engage in it compelled by force,
And fear not courage is its proper source,
The fear of tyrant custom, and the fear
Lest fops should censure us, and fools should sneer;
At least to trample on our Maker’s laws,
And hazard life, for any or no cause,
To rush into a fixt eternal state,
Out of the very flames of rage and hate,
Or send another shiv’ring to the bar
With all the guilt of such unnat’ral war,
Whatever use may urge or honour plead,
On reason’s verdict is a madman’s deed.
Am I to set my life upon a throw
Because a bear is rude and surly? No —
A moral, sensible and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can.
Were I empow’rd to regulate the lists,
They should encounter with well-loaded fists,
A Trojan combat would be something new,
Let DARES beat ENTELLUS black and blue,
Then each might show to his admiring friends
In honourable bumps his rich amends,
And carry in contusions of his scull,
A satisfactory receipt in full.
A story in which native humour reigns
Is often useful, always entertains,
A graver fact enlisted on your side,
May furnish illustration, well applied;
But sedentary weavers of long tales,
Give me the fidgets and my patience fails.
’Tis the most asinine employ on earth,
To hear them tell of parentage and birth,
And echo conversations dull and dry,
Embellished with, he said, and so said I.
At ev’ry interview their route the same,
The repetition makes attention lame,
We bustle up with unsuccessful speed,
And in the saddest part cry — droll indeed!
The path of narrative with care pursue,
Still making probability your clue,
On all the vestiges of truth attend,
And let them guide you to a decent end.
Of all ambitions man may entertain,
The worst that can invade a sickly brain,
Is that which angles hourly for surprize,
And baits its hook with prodigies and lies.
Credulous infancy or age as weak
Are fittest auditors for such to seek,
Who to please others will themselves disgrace,
Yet please not, but affront you to your face.
A great retailer of this curious ware,
Having unloaded and made many stare,
Can this be true? an arch observer cries —
Yes, rather moved, I saw it with these eyes.
Sir! I believe it on that ground alone,
I could not, had I seen it with my own.
A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct,
The language plain, and incidents well-link’d,
Tell not as new what ev’ry body knows,
And new or old, still hasten to a close,
There centring in a focus, round and neat,
Let all your rays of information meet:
What neither yields us profit or delight,
Is like a nurse’s lullaby at night,
Guy Earl of Warwick and fair Eleanore,
Or giant-killing Jack would please me more.
The pipe with solemn interposing puff,
Makes half a sentence at a time enough;
The dozing sages drop the drowsy strain,
Then pause, and puff — and speak, and pause again.
Such often like the tube they so admire,
Important trifles! have more smoke than fire.
Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys
Unfriendly to society’s chief joys,
Thy worst effect is banishing for hours
The sex whose presence civilizes ours:
Thou art indeed the drug a gard’ner wants,
To poison vermin that infest his plants,
But are we so to wit and beauty blind,
As to despise the glory of our kind,
And show the softest minds and fairest forms
As little mercy, as he, grubs and worms?
They dare not wait the riotous abuse,
Thy thirst-creating steams at length produce,
When wine has giv’n indecent language birth,
And forced the flood-gates of licentious mirth;
For sea-born Venus her attachment shows
Still to that element from which she rose,
And with a quiet which no fumes disturb,
Sips meek infusions of a milder herb.
Th’ emphatic speaker dearly loves t’ oppose
In contact inconvenient, nose to nose,
As if the gnomon on his neighbour’s phiz,
Touched with a magnet had attracted his.
His whisper’d theme, dilated and at large,
Proves after all a wind-gun’s airy charge,
An extract of his diary — no more,
A tasteless journal of the day before.
He walked abroad, o’ertaken in the rain
Called on a friend, drank tea, stept home again,
Resumed his purpose, had a world of talk
With one he stumbled on, and lost his walk.
I interrupt him with a sudden bow,
Adieu dear Sir! lest you should lose it now.
I cannot talk with civet in the room,
A fine puss-gentleman that’s all perfume;
The sight’s enough — no need to smell a beau —
Who thrusts his nose into a raree-show?
His odoriferous attempts to please,
Perhaps might prosper with a swarm of bees,
But we that make no honey though we sting,
Poets, are sometimes apt to mawl the thing.
’Tis wrong to bring into a mixt resort,
What makes some sick, and others a-la-mort,
An argument of cogence, we may say,
Why such an one should keep himself away.
A graver coxcomb we may sometimes see,
Quite as absurd though not so light as he:
A shallow brain behin
d a serious mask,
An oracle within an empty cask,
The solemn fop; significant and budge;
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.
He says but little, and that little said
Owes all its weight, like loaded dice, to lead.
His wit invites you by his looks to come,
But when you knock it never is at home:
’Tis like a parcel sent you by the stage,
Some handsome present, as your hopes presage,
’Tis heavy, bulky, and bids fair to prove
An absent friend’s fidelity and love,
But when unpack’d your disappointment groans
To find it stuff’d with brickbats, earth and stones.
Some men employ their health, an ugly trick,
In making known how oft they have been sick,
And give us in recitals of disease
A doctor’s trouble, but without the fees:
Relate how many weeks they kept their bed,
How an emetic or cathartic sped,
Nothing is slightly touched, much less forgot,
Nose, ears, and eyes seem present on the spot.
Now the distemper spite of draught or pill
Victorious seem’d, and now the doctor’s skill;
And now — alas for unforeseen mishaps!
They put on a damp night-cap and relapse;
They thought they must have died they were so bad,
Their peevish hearers almost wish they had.
Some fretful tempers wince at ev’ry touch,
You always do too little or too much:
You speak with life in hopes to entertain,
Your elevated voice goes through the brain;
You fall at once into a lower key,
That’s worse — the drone-pipe of an humble bee.
The southern sash admits too strong a light,
You rise and drop the curtain — now its night.
He shakes with cold — you stir the fire and strive
To make a blaze — that’s roasting him alive.
Serve him with ven’son and he chuses fish,
With soal — that’s just the sort he would not wish,
He takes what he at first profess’d to loath,
And in due time feeds heartily on both;
Yet still o’erclouded with a constant frown,
He does not swallow but he gulps it down.
Your hope to please him, vain on ev’ry plan,
Himself should work that wonder if he can —
Alas! his efforts double his disttess,
He likes yours little and his own still less,
Thus always teazing others, always teazed,
His only pleasure is — to be displeas’d.
I pity bashful men, who feel the pain
Of fancied scorn and undeserv’d disdain,
And bear the marks upon a blushing face
Of needless shame and self-imposed disgrace.
Our sensibilities are so acute,
William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works Page 14
