And Beauty pleases more when ’tis well drest. [Sidenote:  Method.] Forget not METHOD if the Prize you’d gain, 350 ’Twill cost you Thought, but richly pays the Pain; What first, what second, or what last to place, What here will shine, and there the Work disgrace.  Before you build, your MODEL justly lay, And ev’ry Part in Miniature survey; Where airy Terraces shall threat the Skies, Where Columns tow’r, or neat Pilasters rise; Where cool Cascades come roaring down the Hill, Or where the Crystal Nymph a mossie Bason fill:  What Statues are to grace the Front design’d, 360 And how to throw the meaner Rooms behind.  Draw the Main Strokes at first, ’twill shew your Skill, Life-Touches you may add whene’er you will.  Ev’n Chance will sometimes all our Art excel, The angry Foam we ne’er can hit so well.  A sudden Thought, all beautiful and bright, Shoots in and stunns us with amazing Light; Secure the happy Moment e’er ’tis past, Not Time more swift, or Lightning flies so fast.  All must be free and easie, or in vain 370 You whip and spur, and the wing’d Courser strain:  When foggy Clouds hang bellying in the Skies, Or fleety Boreas through th’ Horizon flies; He then, whose Muse produces ought that’s fine, His Head must have a stronger Turn than mine:  Like Sybils Leaves the Train of Thoughts are rang’d, Which by rude Winds disturb’d, are nothing if they’re chang’d.  Or are there too in Writing softer Hours?  Or is’t that Matter nobler Mind o’erpow’rs, Which boasts her native Liberty in vain, 380 In Mortal Fetters and a Slavish Chain? Death only can the Gordian Knot divide, } Tho by what secret wondrous Bands ’tis ty’d, } Ev’n Reason’s self must own she can’t decide:  } For as the rapid Tides of Matter turn } We’re fann’d with Pleasure or with Anger burn, } We Love and Hate again, we Joy and Mourn. } Now the swift Torrent high and headstrong grows, Shoots through the Dykes, and all the Banks o’erflows; Strait the capricious Waters backward fly, The Pebbles rake and leave the Bottom dry; 390 Watch the kind Hour and seize the rising Flood, Else will your dreggy Poem taste of Mud.  Hence old and batter’d Hackneys of the Stage, By long Experience render’d Wise and Sage, With pow’rful Juices restive Nature urge, Or else with Bays of old, they bleed and purge;