A MAN must serve his time to ev’ry trade
Save censure; critics all are ready-made.
Take hackney’d jokes from Miller, got by rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote;
A mind well skill’d to find or forge a fault,
A turn for punning, call it Attic salt;
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet;
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet.
Fear not to lie--’twill seem a sharper hit;
Shrink not from blasphemy--’twill pass for wit;
Care not for feeling; pass your proper jest,
And stand a critic, hated yet caress’d.
And shall we own such judgment? No! as soon
Seek roses in December, ice in June,
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff,
Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that’s false, before
You trust in critics, who themselves are sore;
Or yield one single thought to be misled
By Jeffrey’s heart or Lambe’s Bœotian head.
To these young tyrants, by themselves misplaced,
Combined usurpers on the throne of taste;
To these, when authors bend in humble awe,
And hail their voice as truth, their word as law--
While these are censors, ’twould be sin to spare;
While such are critics, why should I forbear?
But yet, so near all modern worthies run,
’Tis doubtful whom to seek or whom to shun;
Nor know we when to spare or where to strike,
Our bards and censors are so much alike.
Then should you ask me why I venture o’er
The path which Pope and Gifford trod before;
If not yet sicken’d, you can still proceed;
Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read.
“But hold!” exclaims a friend--“here’s some neglect:
This, that, and t’other line seems incorrect.”
What then? the self-same blunder Pope has got,
And careless Dryden--“Ay, but Pye has not.”
Indeed! ’tis granted, faith! but what care I?
Better to err with Pope than shine with Pye.
_Lord Byron._