This is out of Time magazine in 1948. I'm stoked on it. I think I want our band to be called CIVIL LEER if not MOLERAT.
Alexander Pope, a brilliant, vindictive little hunchback who became the greatest satirical poet of his century (the 18th), usually had the last word, and usually it lasted. Vain and touchy, a brilliant, malicious destroyer of reputations, he was a critical menace to the dull and mediocre in life and literature. Also one of the ablest craftsmen of verse who ever lived, he packed more in a couplet than others could in a stanza. Unlike many modern poets, he wrote both lucidly and sharply; he intended to be understood by every intelligent reader. He died of dropsy at 56. These characteristic lines (reprinted from the Selected Works of Alexander Pope, a new volume edited by Louis Kronenberger: Modern Library; $1.25) are one of the neatest jobs of literary assassination ever done. The victim: Joseph Addison.
Alexander Pope, a brilliant, vindictive little hunchback who became the greatest satirical poet of his century (the 18th), usually had the last word, and usually it lasted. Vain and touchy, a brilliant, malicious destroyer of reputations, he was a critical menace to the dull and mediocre in life and literature. Also one of the ablest craftsmen of verse who ever lived, he packed more in a couplet than others could in a stanza. Unlike many modern poets, he wrote both lucidly and sharply; he intended to be understood by every intelligent reader. He died of dropsy at 56. These characteristic lines (reprinted from the Selected Works of Alexander Pope, a new volume edited by Louis Kronenberger: Modern Library; $1.25) are one of the neatest jobs of literary assassination ever done. The victim: Joseph Addison.
Peace to all such! but were there One whose fires True Genius kindles,and fair Fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to,rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserv'd to blame, or to commend, A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading ev'n fools, by Flatterers besieg'd, And so obliging, that he ne'er oblig'd; Like Cato, give his little Senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While Wits and Templars ev'ry sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise:— Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if ATTICUS were he?
DRIVE SLOW HOMIE
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