Alexander Pope
An Epistle to Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington
Of the Use of Riches
Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ | ||
To gain those riches he can neer enjoy. | ||
Is it less strange, the prodigal should waste | ||
His wealth, to purchase what he neer can taste? | ||
5 | Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats; | |
Artists must choose his pictures, music, meats: | ||
He buys for Topham, drawings and designs, | ||
For Pembroke statues, dirty gods, and coins; | ||
Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone, | ||
10 | And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane. | |
Think we all these are for himself? no more | ||
Than his fine wife, alas! or finer whore. | ||
For what has Virro painted, built, and planted? | ||
Only to show, how many tastes he wanted. | ||
15 | What brought Sir Vistos ill got wealth to waste? | |
Some demon whispered, Visto! have a taste. | ||
Heaven visits with a taste the wealthy fool, | ||
And needs no rod but Ripley with a rule. | ||
See! sportive fate, to punish awkward pride, | ||
20 | Bids Bubo build, and sends him such a Guide: | |
A standing sermon, at each years expense, | ||
That never coxcomb reached magnificence! | ||
You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse, | ||
And pompous buildings once were things of use. | ||
25 | Yet shall (my Lord) your just, your noble rules | |
Fill half the land with imitating fools; | ||
Who random drawings from your sheets shall take, | ||
And of one beauty many blunders make; | ||
Load some vain church with old theatric state, | ||
30 | Turn arcs of triumph to a garden-gate; | |
Reverse your ornaments, and hang them all | ||
On some patched dog-hole eked with ends of wall, | ||
Then clap four slices of pilaster ont, | ||
That, laced with bits of rustic, makes a front: | ||
35 | Or call the winds through long arcades to roar, | |
Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door; | ||
Conscious they act a true Palladian part, | ||
And if they starve, they starve by rules of art. | ||
Oft have you hinted to your brother peer, | ||
40 | A certain truth, which many buy too dear: | |
Something there is, more needful than expense, | ||
And something previous evn to taste tis sense: | ||
Good sense, which only is the gift of heaven, | ||
And though no science, fairly worth the seven: | ||
45 | A light, which in yourself you must perceive; | |
Jones and Le Nôtre have it not to give. | ||
To build, to plant, whatever you intend, | ||
To rear the column, or the arch to bend, | ||
To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot; | ||
50 | In all, let nature never be forgot. | |
But treat the goddess like a modest fair, | ||
Nor over-dress, nor leave her wholly bare; | ||
Let not each beauty everywhere be spied, | ||
Where half the skill is decently to hide. | ||
55 | He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds, | |
Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds. | ||
Consult the genius of the place in all; | ||
That tells the waters or to rise, or fall, | ||
Or helps thambitious hill the heavens to scale, | ||
60 | Or scoops in circling theatres the vale; | |
Calls in the country, catches opening glades, | ||
Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades; | ||
Now breaks, or now directs, th intending lines, | ||
Paints as you plant, and as you work, designs. | ||
65 | Still follow sense, of every art the soul, | |
Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole, | ||
Spontaneous beauties all around advance, | ||
Start evn from difficulty, strike from chance; | ||
Nature shall join you; time shall make it grow | ||
70 | A work to wonder at perhaps a Stowe. | |
Without it, proud Versailles! thy glory falls, | ||
And Neros terraces desert their walls: | ||
The vast parterres a thousand hands shall make, | ||
Lo! Cobham comes, and floats them with a lake: | ||
75 | Or cut wide views through mountains to the plain, | |
Youll wish your hill or sheltered seat again. | ||
Evn in an ornament its place remark, | ||
Nor in an hermitage set Dr Clarke. | ||
Behold Villarios ten-years toil complete; | ||
80 | His arbours darken, his espaliers meet; | |
The wood supports the plain, the parts unite, | ||
And strength of shade contends with strength of light: | ||
A waving glow the bloomy beds display, | ||
Blushing in bright diversities of day, | ||
85 | With silver-quivering rills meand oer | |
Enjoy them, you! Villario can no more; | ||
Tired of the scene parterres and fountains yield, | ||
He finds at last he better likes a field. | ||
Through his young woods how pleased Sabinus strayed | ||
90 | Or sat delighted in the thickening shade, | |
With annual joy the reddening shoots to greet, | ||
Or see the stretching branches long to meet. | ||
His sons fine taste an opener vista loves, | ||
Foe to the dryads of his fathers groves, | ||
95 | One boundless green, or flourished carpet views, | |
With all the mournful family of yews; | ||
The thriving plants ignoble broomsticks made, | ||
Now sweep those alleys they were born to shade. | ||
At Timons villa let us pass a day, | ||
100 | Where all cry out, What sums are thrown away! | |
So proud, so grand, of that stupendous air, | ||
Soft and agreeable come never there. | ||
Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a draught | ||
As brings all Brobdignag before your thought. | ||
105 | To compass this, his building is a town, | |
His pond an ocean, his parterre a down: | ||
Who but must laugh, the master when he sees? | ||
A puny insect, shivering at a breeze. | ||
Lo! what huge heaps of littleness around! | ||
110 | The whole, a laboured quarry above ground. | |
Two cupids squirt before: a lake behind | ||
Improves the keenness of the northern wind. | ||
His gardens next your admiration call, | ||
On every side you look, behold the wall! | ||
115 | No pleasing intricacies intervene, | |
No artful wildness to perplex the scene; | ||
Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, | ||
And half the platform just reflects the other. | ||
The suffering eye inverted nature sees, | ||
120 | Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees, | |
With here a fountain, never to be played, | ||
And there a summer-house, that knows no shade. | ||
Here Amphitrite sails through myrtle bowers; | ||
There gladiators fight, or die, in flowers; | ||
125 | Un-watered see the drooping sea-horse mourn, | |
And swallows roost in Nilus dusty urn. | ||
My Lord advances with majestic mien, | ||
Smit with the mighty pleasure, to be seen: | ||
But soft by regular approach not yet | ||
130 | First through the length of yon hot terrace sweat, | |
And when up ten steep slopes youve dragged your thighs, | ||
Just at his study-door hell bless your eyes. | ||
His study! with what authors is it stored? | ||
In books, not authors, curious is my lord; | ||
135 | To all their dated backs he turns you round: | |
These Aldus printed, those Du Suëil has bound. | ||
Lo some are vellum, and the rest as good | ||
For all his Lordship knows, but they are wood. | ||
For Locke or Milton tis in vain to look, | ||
140 | These shelves admit not any modern book. | |
And now the chapels silver bell you hear, | ||
That summons you to all the pride of prayer: | ||
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven, | ||
Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven. | ||
145 | On painted ceilings you devoutly stare, | |
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre, | ||
On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie, | ||
And bring all paradise before your eye. | ||
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite, | ||
150 | Who never mentions hell to ears polite. | |
But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call; | ||
A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall: | ||
The rich buffet well-coloured serpents grace, | ||
And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face. | ||
155 | Is this a dinner? this a genial room? | |
No, tis a temple, and a hecatomb, | ||
A solemn sacrifice, performed in state, | ||
You drink by measure, and to minutes eat. | ||
So quick retires each flying course, youd swear | ||
160 | Sanchos dread doctor and his wand were there. | |
Between each act the trembling salvers ring, | ||
From soup to sweet-wine, and God bless the King. | ||
In plenty starving, tantalized in state, | ||
And complaisantly helped to all I hate, | ||
165 | Treated, caressed, and tired, I take my leave, | |
Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve; | ||
I curse such lavish cost, and little skill, | ||
And swear no day was ever passed so ill. | ||
Yet hence the poor are clothed, the hungry fed; | ||
170 | Health to himself, and to his infants bread | |
The labourer bears: what his hard heart denies, | ||
His charitable vanity supplies. | ||
Another age shall see the golden ear | ||
Imbrown the slope, and nod on the parterre, | ||
175 | Deep harvests bury all his pride has planned, | |
And laughing Ceres reassume the land. | ||
Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil? | ||
Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like Boyle. | ||
Tis use alone that sanctifies expense, | ||
180 | And splendour borrows all her rays from sense. | |
His fathers acres who enjoys in peace, | ||
Or makes his neighbours glad, if he increase; | ||
Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toll, | ||
Yet to their Lord owe more than to the soil; | ||
185 | Whose ample lawns are not ashamed to feed | |
The milky heifer and deserving steed; | ||
Whose rising forests, not for pride or show, | ||
But future buildings, future navies grow: | ||
Let his plantations stretch from down to down, | ||
190 | First shade a country, and then raise a town. | |
You too proceed! make falling arts your care, | ||
Erect new wonders, and the old repair; | ||
Jones and Palladio to themselves restore, | ||
And be whateer Vitruvius was before: | ||
195 | Till Kings call forth th ideas of your mind, | |
Proud to accomplish what such hands designd, | ||
Bid harbors open, public ways extend, | ||
Bid temples, worthier of the God, ascend; | ||
Bid the broad arch the dangrous flood contain, | ||
200 | The mole projected break the roaring main; | |
Back to his bounds their subject sea command, | ||
And roll the obedient rivers thro the land; | ||
These honours, peace to happy Britain brings, | ||
These are imperial works, and worthy kings. | ||
First published 1731
Robert Clark