FRIEND. What, POPE, the _Twitnam_ Bard,
Whom _Dennis_, _Cibber_, _Tibbald_ push'd so hard!
POPE of the _Dunciad_! POPE who dar'd to woo,
And then to libel, _Wortley-Montagu_!
POPE of the _Ham-walks_ story--
P. Scandals all!
Scandals that now I care not to recall.
Surely a little, in two hundred Years,
One may neglect Contemporary Sneers:--
Surely Allowance for the Man may make
That had all _Grub-street_ yelping in his Wake!
And who (I ask you) has been never Mean,
When urged by Envy, Anger or the Spleen?
No: I prefer to look on POPE as one
Not rightly happy till his Life was done;
Whose whole Career, romance it as you please,
Was (what he call'd it) but a "long Disease:"
Think of his Lot,--his Pilgrimage of Pain,
His "crazy Carcass" and his restless Brain;
Think of his Night-Hours with their Feet of Lead,
His dreary Vigil and his aching Head;
Think of all this, and marvel then to find
The "crooked Body with a crooked Mind!"
Nay rather, marvel that, in Fate's Despite,
You find so much to solace and delight,--
So much of Courage, and of Purpose high
In that unequal Struggle _not_ to die.
I grant you freely that POPE played his Part
Sometimes ignobly--but he lov'd his Art;
I grant you freely that he sought his Ends
Not always wisely--but he lov'd his Friends;
And who of Friends a nobler Roll could show--
_Swift_, _St. John_, _Bathurst_, _Marchmont_, _Peterb'ro'_,
_Arbuthnot_--