Their Humble Servant

  S. WESLEY.

AN
EPISTLE
TO A
FRIEND
CONCERNING
POETRY.

As Brother Pryme of old from Mount Orgueil,
So I to you from Epworth and the Isle: 
Harsh Northern Fruits from our cold Heav’ns I send,
Yet, since the best they yield, they’ll please a Friend. 
You ask me, What’s the readiest way to Fame,
And how to gain a Poet’s sacred Name? 
For Saffold send, your Choice were full as just,
When burning Fevers fry your Limbs to Dust! 
Yet, lest you angry grow at your Defeat,      }
And me as ill as that fierce Spark should treat }                 10
Who did the Farrier into Doctor beat;           }
You to my little Quantum, Sir, are free,
Which I from HORACE glean or NORMANDY;
These with some grains of Common Sense unite,
Then freely think, and as I think I write. 
First poize your Genius, nor presume to write
If Phoebus smile not, or some Muse invite: 
Nature refuses Force, you strive in vain,
She will not drag, but struggling breaks the Chain. 
How bright a Spark of Heav’nly Fire must warm!                    20
What Blessings meet a Poet’s Mind to form! 
How oft must he for those Life-Touches sit,
Genius, Invention, Memory, Judgment, Wit? 
There’s here no Middle-State, you must excel;
Wit has no Half-way-House ’twixt Heav’n and Hell
All cannot All things, lest you mourn too late,
Remember Phaeton’s unhappy Fate! 
Eager to guide the Coursers of the Day,       }
Beneath their Brazen Hoofs he trampled lay,     }
And his bright Ruines mark’d their flaming Way. }                 30
[Sidenote:  Genius.]
You’ll ask, What GENIUS is, and Where to find? 
’Tis the full Power and Energy of Mind: 
A Reach of Thought that skims all Nature o’er,
Exhausts this narrow World, and asks for more: 
Through every Rank of Beings when’t has flown,
Can frame a New Creation of its own: 
By Possible and Future unconfin’d: 
Can stubborn Contradictions yoke, and bind
Through Fancy’s Realms, with Number, Time and Place,
Chimera-Forms, a thin, an airy Race;                              40
Then with a secret conscious Pride surveys
The Enchanted Castles which’t had Power to raise.
[Sidenote:  Wit.]
As Genius is the Strength, be WIT defin’d
The Beauty and the Harmony of Mind: 
Beauty’s Proportion, Air, each lively Grace
The Soul diffuses round the Heav’nly Face: 
’Tis various, yet ’tis equal, still the same
In Alpine Snows, or Ethiopian Flame;
While glaring Colours short-liv’d Grace supply,
Nor Frost nor Sun they bear, but scorch and die.            50