Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/460

418 Whom Nature guides, so writes, that every dunce,

Enraptured, thinks to do the same at once;

But after inky thumbs and bitten nails,

And twenty scattered quires, the coxcomb fails.

Let Pastoral be dumb; for who can hope

To match the youthful eclogues of our Pope?

Yet his and Philips' faults, of different kind,

For Art too rude, for Nature too refined,

Instruct how hard the medium 'tis to hit

'Twixt too much polish and too coarse a wit.

A vulgar scribbler, certes, stands disgraced

In this nice age, when all aspire to taste;

The dirty language, and the noisome jest,

Which pleased in Swift of yore, we now detest;