"A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find, / But each man's secret standard in his mind, / That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, / This, who can gratify? For who can guess?"
— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Author
Work Title
Date
1735, 1736
Metaphor
"A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find, / But each man's secret standard in his mind, / That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness, / This, who can gratify? For who can guess?"
Metaphor in Context
Were others angry? I excus'd them too;
Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.
A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find,
But each man's secret standard in his mind,
That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness,
This, who can gratify? For who can guess ?
The Bard whom pilf'red Pastorels renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown,
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,
And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year:
He, who still wanting, tho' he lives on theft,
Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left:
And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning:
And he, whose sustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad:
All these, my modest satire bad translate,
And own'd, that nine such poets made a Tate .
How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe?
And swear, not Addison himself was safe.
(ll. 173-92)
Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.
A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find,
But each man's secret standard in his mind,
That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness,
This, who can gratify? For who can guess ?
The Bard whom pilf'red Pastorels renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown,
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,
And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year:
He, who still wanting, tho' he lives on theft,
Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left:
And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning:
And he, whose sustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad:
All these, my modest satire bad translate,
And own'd, that nine such poets made a Tate .
How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe?
And swear, not Addison himself was safe.
(ll. 173-92)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS (Poetry)
Citation
At least 5 entries in ESTC (1734, 1735).
See An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot. (London: Printed by J. Wright for Lawton Gilliver at Homer’s Head in Fleetstreet, 1734 [1735]). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO-TCP>
Reading in Alexander Pope, The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1963).
Text from The Works of Alexander Pope (London: Printed for B. Lintot, Lawton Gilliver, H. Lintot, L. Gilliver, and J. Clarke, 1736). <Link to LION>
See An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot. (London: Printed by J. Wright for Lawton Gilliver at Homer’s Head in Fleetstreet, 1734 [1735]). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO-TCP>
Reading in Alexander Pope, The Poems of Alexander Pope, ed. John Butt. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1963).
Text from The Works of Alexander Pope (London: Printed for B. Lintot, Lawton Gilliver, H. Lintot, L. Gilliver, and J. Clarke, 1736). <Link to LION>
Date of Entry
11/04/2003
