Of all these ways, if each pursues his own,

Satire, be kind, and let the wretch alone:

But show me one who has it in his power

To act consistent with himself an hour.

Sir Job sail'd forth, the evening bright and still,

'No place on earth' (he cried) 'like Greenwich hill!'

Up starts a palace, lo, the obedient base 140

Slopes at its foot, the woods its sides embrace,

The silver Thames reflects its marble face.

Now let some whimsy, or that devil within,

Which guides all those who know not what they mean,

But give the knight (or give his lady) spleen;

'Away, away! take all your scaffolds down,

For, snug's the word: my dear! we'll live in town.'

At amorous Flavio is the stocking thrown?

That very night he longs to lie alone.

The fool, whose wife elopes some thrice a quarter, 150

For matrimonial solace dies a martyr.

Did ever Proteus, Merlin, any witch,

Transform themselves so strangely as the rich?

Well, but the poor--the poor have the same itch;

They change their weekly barber, weekly news,

Prefer a new japanner to their shoes,

Discharge their garrets, move their beds, and run

(They know not whither) in a chaise and one;

They hire their sculler, and when once aboard,

Grow sick, and damn the climate--like a lord. 160

You laugh, half-beau, half-sloven if I stand;

My wig all powder, and all snuff my band;

You laugh, if coat and breeches strangely vary,

White gloves, and linen worthy Lady Mary![134]

But, when no prelate's lawn with hair-shirt lined

Is half so incoherent as my mind,

When (each opinion with the next at strife,

One ebb and flow of follies all my life)

I plant, root up; I build, and then confound;

Turn round to square, and square again to round; 170

You never change one muscle of your face,

You think this madness but a common case,

Nor once to Chancery, nor to Hale apply;

Yet hang your lip, to see a seam awry!

Careless how ill I with myself agree,

Kind to my dress, my figure, not to me.

Is this my guide, philosopher, and friend?

This, he who loves me, and who ought to mend?

Who ought to make me (what he can, or none),

That man divine whom Wisdom calls her own; 180

Great without title, without fortune bless'd;

Rich even when plunder'd, honour'd while oppress'd;

Loved without youth, and follow'd without power;

At home, though exiled; free, though in the Tower;

In short, that reasoning, high, immortal thing,

Just less than Jove, and much above a king,

Nay, half in heaven--except (what's mighty odd)

A fit of vapours clouds this demi-god.

* * * * *

THE SIXTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.

TO MR MURRAY.[135]

'Not to admire, is all the art I know,

To make men happy, and to keep them so.'

(Plain truth, dear Murray, needs no flowers of speech,

So take it in the very words of Creech.)[136]

This vault of air, this congregated ball,

Self-centred sun, and stars that rise and fall,

There are, my friend! whose philosophic eyes

Look through and trust the Ruler with his skies,

To Him commit the hour, the day, the year,

And view this dreadful All without a fear. 10

Admire we then what earth's low entrails hold,

Arabian shores, or Indian seas infold;

All the mad trade of fools and slaves for gold?

Or popularity? or stars and strings?

The mob's applauses, or the gifts of kings?

Say with what eyes we ought at courts to gaze,

And pay the great our homage of amaze?

If weak the pleasure that from these can spring,

The fear to want them is as weak a thing:

Whether we dread, or whether we desire, 20

In either case, believe me, we admire;

Whether we joy or grieve, the same the curse,

Surprised at better, or surprised at worse.

Thus good or bad, to one extreme betray

The unbalanced mind, and snatch the man away:

For virtue's self may too much zeal be had;

The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.

Go then, and, if you can, admire the state

Of beaming diamonds, and reflected plate;

Procure a taste to double the surprise, 30

And gaze on Parian charms with learnèd eyes:

Be struck with bright brocade, or Tyrian dye,

Our birthday nobles' splendid livery.

If not so pleased, at council-board rejoice,

To see their judgments hang upon thy voice;

From morn to night, at Senate, Rolls, and Hall,

Plead much, read more, dine late, or not at all.

But wherefore all this labour, all this strife?

For fame, for riches, for a noble wife?

Shall one whom nature, learning, birth, conspired 40

To form, not to admire, but be admired,

Sigh, while his Chloe, blind to wit and worth,

Weds the rich dulness of some son of earth?

Yet time ennobles, or degrades each line;

It brighten'd Craggs's,[137] and may darken thine:

And what is fame? the meanest have their day,

The greatest can but blaze, and pass away.

Graced as thou art, with all the power of words,

So known, so honour'd, at the House of Lords:

Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh 50

(More silent far) where kings and poets lie;

Where Murray (long enough his country's pride)

Shall be no more than Tully, or than Hyde!

Rack'd with sciatics, martyr'd with the stone,

Will any mortal let himself alone?

See Ward by batter'd beaux invited over,

And desperate misery lays hold on Dover.

The case is easier in the mind's disease;

There all men may be cured, whene'er they please.

Would ye be blest? despise low joys, low gains; 60

Disdain whatever Cornbury[138] disdains;

Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.

But art thou one, whom new opinions sway,

One who believes as Tindal[139] leads the way,

Who virtue and a church alike disowns,

Thinks that but words, and this but brick and stones?

Fly then, on all the wings of wild desire,

Admire whate'er the maddest can admire:

Is wealth thy passion? Hence! from pole to pole,

Where winds can carry, or where waves can roll, 70

For Indian spices, for Peruvian gold,

Prevent the greedy, and outbid the bold:

Advance thy golden mountain to the skies;

On the broad base of fifty thousand rise,

Add one round hundred, and (if that's not fair)

Add fifty more, and bring it to a square.

For, mark the advantage; just so many score

Will gain a wife with half as many more,

Procure her beauty, make that beauty chaste,

And then such friends--as cannot fail to last. 80

A man of wealth is dubb'd a man of worth,

Venus shall give him form, and Anstis[140] birth.

(Believe me, many a German prince is worse,

Who, proud of pedigree, is poor of purse).

His wealth brave Timon gloriously confounds;

Ask'd for a groat, he gives a hundred pounds;

Or if three ladies like a luckless play,[141]

Takes the whole house upon the poet's day.

Now, in such exigencies not to need,

Upon my word, you must be rich indeed; 90

A noble superfluity it craves,

Not for yourself, but for your fools and knaves;

Something, which for your honour they may cheat,

And which it much becomes you to forget.

If wealth alone then make and keep us bless'd,

Still, still be getting, never, never rest.

But if to power and place your passion lie,

If in the pomp of life consist the joy;

Then hire a slave, or (if you will) a lord 100

To do the honours, and to give the word;

Tell at your levée, as the crowds approach,

To whom to nod, whom take into your coach,

Whom honour with your hand: to make remarks,

Who rules in Cornwall, or who rules in Berks:

'This may be troublesome, is near the chair:

That makes three members, this can choose a mayor.'

Instructed thus, you bow, embrace, protest,

Adopt him son, or cousin at the least,

Then turn about, and laugh at your own jest. 110

Or if your life be one continued treat,

If to live well means nothing but to eat;

Up, up! cries Gluttony, 'tis break of day,

Go drive the deer, and drag the finny prey;

With hounds and horns go hunt an appetite--

So Russel did, but could not eat at night,

Call'd, happy dog! the beggar at his door,

And envied thirst and hunger to the poor.

Or shall we every decency confound,

Through taverns, stews, and bagnios take our round, 120

Go dine with Chartres, in each vice outdo

K--l's lewd cargo, or Ty--y's crew;

From Latian syrens, French Circaean feasts,

Return well travell'd, and transform'd to beasts,

Or for a titled punk, or foreign flame,

Renounce our country, and degrade our name?

If, after all, we must with Wilmot own,

The cordial drop of life is love alone,

And Swift cry wisely, '_Vive la bagatelle!_'

The man that loves and laughs, must sure do well. 130

Adieu--if this advice appear the worst,

E'en take the counsel which I gave you first:

Or better precepts if you can impart,

Why do, I'll follow them with all my heart.

* * * * *

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The reflections of Horace, and the judgments past in his Epistle to

Augustus, seemed so seasonable to the present times, that I could not

help applying them to the use of my own country. The author thought them

considerable enough to address them to his prince; whom he paints with

all the great and good qualities of a monarch, upon whom the Romans

depended for the increase of an absolute empire. But to make the poem

entirely English, I was willing to add one or two of those which

contribute to the happiness of a free people, and are more consistent

with the welfare of our neighbours.

This epistle will show the learned world to have fallen into two

mistakes: One, that Augustus was a patron of poets in general; whereas

he not only prohibited all but the best writers to name him, but

recommended that care even to the civil magistrate: _Admonebat

praetores, ne paterentur nomen suum obsolefieri_, &c. The other, that

this piece was only a general discourse of poetry; whereas it was an

apology for the poets, in order to render Augustus more their patron.

Horace here pleads the cause of his contemporaries, first against the

taste of the town, whose humour it was to magnify the authors of the

preceding age; secondly against the court and nobility, who encouraged

only the writers for the theatre; and lastly against the emperor

himself, who had conceived them of little use to the government. He

shows (by a view of the progress of learning, and the change of taste

among the Romans) that the introduction of the polite arts of Greece had

given the writers of his time great advantages over their predecessors;

that their morals were much improved, and the license of those ancient

poets restrained; that satire and comedy were become more just and

useful; that whatever extravagances were left on the stage, were owing

to the ill taste of the nobility; that poets, under due regulations,

were in many respects useful to the state; and concludes, that it was

upon them the emperor himself must depend for his fame with posterity.

We may further learn from this epistle, that Horace made his court to

this great prince by writing with a decent freedom toward him, with a

just contempt of his low flatterers, and with a manly regard to his own

character.

TO AUGUSTUS.[142]

While you, great patron of mankind! sustain

The balanced world, and open all the main;

Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend,

At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend;

How shall the Muse, from such a monarch, steal

An hour, and not defraud the public weal?

Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame,

And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name,

After a life of generous toils endured,

The Gaul subdued, or property secured, 10

Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm'd,

Or laws establish'd, and the world reform'd;

Closed their long glories with a sigh, to find

The unwilling gratitude of base mankind!

All human virtue, to its latest breath,

Finds envy never conquer'd, but by death.

The great Alcides, every labour past,

Had still this monster to subdue at last.

Sure fate of all, beneath whose rising ray

Each star of meaner merit fades away! 20

Oppress'd we feel the beam directly beat,

Those suns of glory please not till they set.

To thee, the world its present homage pays,

The harvest early, but mature the praise:

Great friend of liberty! in kings a name

Above all Greek, above all Roman fame:

Whose word is truth, as sacred and revered,

As Heaven's own oracles from altars heard.

Wonder of kings! like whom, to mortal eyes

None e'er has risen, and none e'er shall rise. 30

Just in one instance, be it yet confess'd,

Your people, sir, are partial in the rest:

Foes to all living worth except your own,

And advocates for folly dead and gone.

Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old;

It is the rust we value, not the gold.

Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote,

And beastly Skelton[143] heads of houses quote:

One likes no language but the 'Faery Queen';

A Scot will fight for 'Christ's Kirk o' the Green';[144] 40

And each true Briton is to Ben so civil,

He swears the Muses met him at The Devil.[145]

Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires,

Why should not we be wiser than our sires?

In every public virtue we excel;

We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well,

And learnèd Athens to our art must stoop,

Could she behold us tumbling through a hoop.

If time improve our wit as well as wine,

Say at what age a poet grows divine? 50

Shall we, or shall we not, account him so,

Who died, perhaps, an hundred years ago?

End all dispute; and fix the year precise

When British bards begin t' immortalise?

'Who lasts a century can have no flaw,

I hold that wit a classic, good in law.'

Suppose he wants a year, will you compound?

And shall we deem him ancient, right and sound,

Or damn to all eternity at once,

At ninety-nine, a modern and a dunce? 60

'We shall not quarrel for a year or two;

By courtesy of England, he may do.'

Then, by the rule that made the horse-tail bare,[146]

I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair,

And melt down ancients like a heap of snow:

While you, to measure merits, look in Stowe,

And estimating authors by the year,

Bestow a garland only on a bier.

Shakspeare (whom you and every play-house bill

Style the divine, the matchless, what you will), 70

For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight,

And grew immortal in his own despite.

Ben, old and poor, as little seem'd to heed

The life to come, in every poet's creed.

Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,

His moral pleases, not his pointed wit;

Forgot his epic, nay, Pindaric art,

But still I love the language of his heart.

'Yet surely, surely, these were famous men!

What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben? 80

In all debates where critics bear a part,

Not one but nods and talks of Johnson's art,

Of Shakspeare's nature, and of Cowley's wit;

How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher writ;

How Shadwell hasty, Wycherley was slow;

But, for the passions, Southern sure and Rowe.

These, only these, support the crowded stage,

From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age.'

All this may be; the people's voice is odd,

It is, and it is not, the voice of God. 90

To Gammer Gurton[147] if it give the bays,

And yet deny the 'Careless Husband' praise,

Or say our fathers never broke a rule;

Why then, I say, the public is a fool.

But let them own, that greater faults than we

They had, and greater virtues, I'll agree.

Spenser himself affects the obsolete,

And Sydney's verse halts ill on Roman feet:

Milton's strong pinion now not Heaven can bound,

Now serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground, 100

In quibbles, angel and archangel join,

And God the Father turns a school-divine.

Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book,

Like slashing Bentley with his desperate hook,

Or damn all Shakspeare, like the affected fool

At court, who hates whate'er he read at school.

But for the wits of either Charles's days,

The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease;

Sprat, Carew, Sedley, and a hundred more,

(Like twinkling stars the Miscellanies o'er) 110

One simile, that solitary shines

In the dry desert of a thousand lines,

Or lengthen'd thought that gleams through many a page,

Has sanctified whole poems for an age.

I lose my patience, and I own it too,

When works are censured, not as bad, but new;

While if our elders break all reason's laws,

These fools demand not pardon, but applause.

On Avon's bank, where flowers eternal blow,

If I but ask, if any weed can grow? 120

One tragic sentence if I dare deride

Which Betterton's grave action dignified,

Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims,

(Though but, perhaps, a muster-roll of names)

How will our fathers rise up in a rage,

And swear, all shame is lost in George's age!

You'd think no fools disgraced the former reign,

Did not some grave examples yet remain,

Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill,

And, having once been wrong, will be so still. 130

He who, to seem more deep than you or I,

Extols old bards, or Merlin's prophecy,

Mistake him not; he envies, not admires,

And to debase the sons, exalts the sires.

Had ancient times conspired to disallow

What then was new, what had been ancient now?

Or what remain'd so worthy to be read

By learned critics of the mighty dead?

In days of ease, when now the weary sword

Was sheathed, and luxury with Charles restored; 140

In every taste of foreign courts improved,

'All, by the king's example,[148] lived and loved.'

Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t' excel,

Newmarket's glory rose, as Britain's fell;

The soldier breathed the gallantries of France,

And every flowery courtier writ romance.

Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm,

And yielding metal flow'd to human form:

Lely[149] on animated canvas stole

The sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul. 150

No wonder then, when all was love and sport,

The willing Muses were debauch'd at court:

On each enervate string they taught the note

To pant, or tremble through an eunuch's throat.

But Britain, changeful as a child at play,

Now calls in princes, and now turns away.

Now Whig, now Tory, what we loved we hate;

Now all for pleasure, now for Church and State;

Now for prerogative, and now for laws;

Effects unhappy! from a noble cause. 160

Time was, a sober Englishman would knock

His servants up, and rise by five o'clock,

Instruct his family in every rule,

And send his wife to church, his son to school.

To worship like his fathers, was his care;

To teach their frugal virtues to his heir;

To prove, that luxury could never hold;

And place, on good security, his gold.

Now times are changed, and one poetic itch

Has seized the court and city, poor and rich: 170

Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will wear the bays,

Our wives read Milton, and our daughters plays,

To theatres, and to rehearsals throng,

And all our grace at table is a song.

I, who so oft renounce the Muses, lie,

Not ----'s self e'er tells more fibs than I;

When sick of muse, our follies we deplore,

And promise our best friends to rhyme no more;

We wake next morning in a raging fit,

And call for pen and ink to show our wit. 180

He served a 'prenticeship, who sets up shop;

Ward tried on puppies, and the poor, his drop;

E'en Radcliffe's doctors travel first to France,

Nor dare to practise till they've learn'd to dance.

Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile?

(Should Ripley[150] venture, all the world would smile)

But those who cannot write, and those who can,

All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.

Yet, sir, reflect, the mischief is not great;

These madmen never hurt the Church or State: 190

Sometimes the folly benefits mankind;

And rarely avarice taints the tuneful mind.

Allow him but his plaything of a pen,

He ne'er rebels, or plots, like other men:

Flight of cashiers, or mobs, he'll never mind;

And knows no losses while the Muse is kind.

To cheat a friend, or ward, he leaves to Peter;

The good man heaps up nothing but mere metre,

Enjoys his garden and his book in quiet;

And then--a perfect hermit in his diet. 200

Of little use the man you may suppose,

Who says in verse what others say in prose;

Yet let me show, a poet's of some weight,

And (though no soldier) useful to the State.

What will a child learn sooner than a song?

What better teach a foreigner the tongue?

What's long or short, each accent where to place,

And speak in public with some sort of grace?

I scarce can think him such a worthless thing,

Unless he praise some monster of a king; 210

Or virtue or religion turn to sport,

To please a lewd or unbelieving court

Unhappy Dryden!--in all Charles's days,

Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays;

And in our own (excuse some courtly stains)

No whiter page than Addison remains.

He from the taste obscene reclaims our youth,

And sets the passions on the side of truth,

Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art,

And pours each human virtue in the heart, 220

Let Ireland tell, how wit upheld her cause,

Her trade supported, and supplied her laws;

And leave on Swift this grateful verse engraved,

'The rights a court attack'd, a poet saved.'

Behold the hand that wrought a nation's cure,

Stretch'd to relieve the idiot and the poor,

Proud vice to brand, or injured worth adorn,

And stretch the ray to ages yet unborn.

Not but there are, who merit other palms;

Hopkins and Sternhold glad the heart with psalms: 230

The boys and girls whom charity maintains,

Implore your help in these pathetic strains:

How could devotion touch the country pews,

Unless the gods bestow'd a proper muse?

Verse cheers their leisure, verse assists their work,

Verse prays for peace, or sings down Pope and Turk.

The silenced preacher yields to potent strain,

And feels that grace his prayer besought in vain;

The blessing thrills through all the labouring throng,

And Heaven is won by violence of song. 240

Our rural ancestors, with little blest,

Patient of labour when the end was rest,

Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,

With feasts, and offerings, and a thankful strain:

The joy their wives, their sons, and servants share,

Ease of their toil, and partners of their care:

The laugh, the jest, attendants on the bowl,

Smooth'd every brow, and open'd every soul:

With growing years the pleasing license grew,

And taunts alternate innocently flew. 250

But times corrupt, and nature, ill-inclined,

Produced the point that left a sting behind;

Till friend with friend, and families at strife,

Triumphant malice raged through private life.

Who felt the wrong, or fear'd it, took the alarm,

Appeal'd to law, and justice lent her arm.

At length, by wholesome dread of statutes bound,

The poets learn'd to please, and not to wound:

Most warp'd to flattery's side; but some, more nice,

Preserved the freedom, and forbore the vice. 260

Hence satire rose, that just the medium hit,

And heals with morals what it hurts with wit.

We conquer'd France, but felt our captive's charms;

Her arts victorious triumph'd o'er our arms;

Britain to soft refinements less a foe,

Wit grew polite, and numbers learn'd to flow.

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join

The varying verse, the full-resounding line,

The long majestic march, and energy divine:

Though still some traces of our rustic vein 270

And splayfoot verse remain'd, and will remain.

Late, very late, correctness grew our care,

When the tired nation breathed from civil war.

Exact Racine, and Corneille's noble fire,

Show'd us that France had something to admire.

Not but the tragic spirit was our own,

And full in Shakspeare, fair in Otway shone:

But Otway fail'd to polish or refine,

And fluent Shakspeare scarce effaced a line.

Even copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, 280

The last and greatest art, the art to blot.

Some doubt, if equal pains, or equal fire

The humbler muse of Comedy require.

But in known images of life, I guess

The labour greater, as the indulgence less.

Observe how seldom even the best succeed:

Tell me if Congreve's fools are fools indeed?

What pert, low dialogue has Farquhar writ!

How Van[151] wants grace, who never wanted wit!

The stage how loosely does Astraea[152] tread, 290

Who fairly puts all characters to bed:

And idle Cibber, how he breaks the laws,

To make poor Pinky eat with vast applause!

But fill their purse, our poets' work is done,

Alike to them, by pathos or by pun.

O you! whom Vanity's light bark conveys

On Fame's mad voyage by the wind of praise,

With what a shifting gale your course you ply,

For ever sunk too low, or borne too high!

Who pants for glory finds but short repose, 300

A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows.

Farewell the stage! if just as thrives the play,

The silly bard grows fat, or falls away.

There still remains, to mortify a wit,

The many-headed monster of the pit:

A senseless, worthless, and unhonour'd crowd;

Who, to disturb their betters mighty proud,

Clattering their sticks before ten lines are spoke.

Call for the farce, the bear, or the black-joke.

What dear delight to Britons farce affords! 310

Ever the taste of mobs, but now of lords;

(Taste, that eternal wanderer, which flies

From heads to ears, and now from ears to eyes).

The play stands still; damn action and discourse,

Back fly the scenes, and enter foot and horse;

Pageants on pageants, in long order drawn,

Peers, heralds, bishops, ermine, gold, and lawn;

The champion too; and, to complete the jest,

Old Edward's armour beams on Cibber's breast[153]

With laughter, sure, Democritus had died, 320

Had he beheld an audience gape so wide.

Let bear or elephant be e'er so white,

The people, sure, the people are the sight!

Ah, luckless poet! stretch thy lungs and roar,

That bear or elephant shall heed thee more;

While all its throats the gallery extends,

And all the thunder of the pit ascends!

Loud as the wolves, on Orcas' stormy steep,

Howl to the roarings of the Northern deep.

Such is the shout, the long-applauding note, 330

At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat;

Or when from court a birthday suit bestow'd,

Sinks the lost actor in the tawdry load.

Booth enters--hark! the universal peal!

'But has he spoken?' Not a syllable.

What shook the stage, and made the people stare?

Cato's long wig, flower'd gown, and lacquer'd chair.

Yet lest you think I rally more than teach,

Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach,

Let me for once presume to instruct the times, 340

To know the poet from the man of rhymes:

'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains,

Can make me feel each passion that he feigns;

Enrage, compose, with more than magic art,

With pity, and with terror, tear my heart:

And snatch me, o'er the earth, or through the air,

To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where.

But not this part of the poetic state

Alone, deserves the favour of the great:

Think of those authors, sir, who would rely 350

More on a reader's sense, than gazer's eye.

Or who shall wander where the Muses sing?

Who climb their mountain, or who taste their spring?

How shall we fill a library with wit,

When Merlin's cave is half unfurnish'd yet?

My liege! why writers little claim your thought,

I guess; and, with their leave, will tell the fault:

We poets are (upon a poet's word)

Of all mankind, the creatures most absurd:

The season, when to come, and when to go, 360

To sing, or cease to sing, we never know;

And if we will recite nine hours in ten,

You lose your patience, just like other men.

Then, too, we hurt ourselves, when to defend

A single verse, we quarrel with a friend;

Repeat unask'd; lament, the wit's too fine

For vulgar eyes, and point out every line.

But most, when straining with too weak a wing,

We needs will write epistles to the king;

And from the moment we oblige the town, 370

Expect a place, or pension from the crown;

Or dubb'd historians by express command,

To enrol your triumphs o'er the seas and land,

Be call'd to court to plan some work divine,

As once for Louis, Boileau and Racine.

Yet think, great sir! (so many virtues shown)

Ah think, what poet best may make them known?

Or choose, at least, some minister of grace,

Fit to bestow the Laureate's weighty place.

Charles, to late times to be transmitted fair, 380

Assign'd his figure to Bernini's[154] care;

And great Nassau to Kneller's hand decreed

To fix him graceful on the bounding steed;

So well in paint and stone they judged of merit:

But kings in wit may want discerning spirit.

The hero William, and the martyr Charles,

One knighted Blackmore, and one pension'd Quarles;

Which made old Ben and surly Dennis swear,

'No Lord's anointed, but a Russian bear.'

Not with such majesty, such bold relief, 390

The forms august of king, or conquering chief.

E'er swell'd on marble, as in verse have shined

(In polish'd verse) the manners and the mind.

Oh! could I mount on the Maeonian wing,

Your arms, your actions, your repose to sing!

What seas you traversed, and what fields you fought!

Your country's peace, how oft, how dearly bought!

How barbarous rage subsided at your word,

And nations wonder'd while they dropp'd the sword!

How, when you nodded, o'er the land and deep, 400

Peace stole her wing, and wrapp'd the world in sleep;

Till earth's extremes your mediation own,

And Asia's tyrants tremble at your throne--

But verse, alas! your Majesty disdains;

And I'm not used to panegyric strains:

The zeal of fools offends at any time,

But most of all, the zeal of fools in rhyme.

Besides, a fate attends on all I write,

That when I aim at praise, they say I bite.

A vile encomium doubly ridicules: 410

There's nothing blackens like the ink of fools.

If true, a woful likeness; and if lies,

'Praise undeserved is scandal in disguise:'

Well may he blush who gives it, or receives;

And when I flatter, let my dirty leaves

(Like journals, odes, and such forgotten things

As Eusden, Philips, Settle, writ of kings)

Clothe spice, line trunks, or fluttering in a row,

Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Soho.

* * * * *

THE SECOND EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.

'Ludentis speciem dabit, et torquebitur.'

--HOR.

Dear Colonel,[155] Cobham's and your country's friend!

You love a verse, take such as I can send.

A Frenchman comes, presents you with his boy,

Bows and begins--'The lad, sir, is of Blois:[156]

Observe his shape how clean! his locks how curl'd!

My only son;--I'd have him see the world:

His French is pure: his voice, too, you shall hear.

Sir, he's your slave, for twenty pound a-year.

Mere wax as yet, you fashion him with ease,

Your barber, cook, upholsterer, what you please: 10

A perfect genius at an opera song--

To say too much, might do my honour wrong.

Take him with all his virtues, on my word;

His whole ambition was to serve a lord;

But, sir, to you, with what would I not part?

Though, faith! I fear, 'twill break his mother's heart.

Once (and but once) I caught him in a lie,

And then, unwhipp'd, he had the grace to cry;

The fault he has I fairly shall reveal,

(Could you o'erlook but that) it is to steal.' 20

If, after this, you took the graceless lad,

Could you complain, my friend, he proved so bad?

Faith, in such case, if you should prosecute,

I think Sir Godfrey[157] should decide the suit;

Who sent the thief that stole the cash away,

And punish'd him that put it in his way.

Consider then, and judge me in this light;

I told you when I went, I could not write;

You said the same; and are you discontent

With laws, to which you gave your own assent? 30

Nay worse, to ask for verse at such a time!

D' ye think me good for nothing but to rhyme?

In Anna's wars, a soldier, poor and old,

Had dearly earn'd a little purse of gold:

Tired with a tedious march, one luckless night,

He slept, poor dog! and lost it to a doit.

This put the man in such a desperate mind,

Between revenge, and grief, and hunger join'd,

Against the foe, himself, and all mankind,

He leap'd the trenches, scaled a castle-wall, 40

Tore down a standard, took the fort and all.

'Prodigious well!' his great commander cried,

Gave him much praise, and some reward beside.

Next, pleased his excellence a town to batter;

(Its name I know not, and it's no great matter)

'Go on, my friend,' (he cried) 'see yonder walls!

Advance and conquer! go where glory calls!

More honours, more rewards attend the brave.'

Don't you remember what reply he gave?

'D' ye think me, noble general, such a sot? 50

Let him take castles who has ne'er a groat.'

Bred up at home, full early I begun

To read in Greek the wrath of Peleus' son.

Besides, my father taught me from a lad,

The better art to know the good from bad:

(And little sure imported to remove,

To hunt for truth in Maudlin's learnèd grove.)

But knottier points we knew not half so well,

Deprived us soon of our paternal cell;

And certain laws, by sufferers thought unjust. 60

Denied all posts of profit or of trust:

Hopes after hopes of pious Papists fail'd,

While mighty William's thundering arm prevail'd.

For right hereditary tax'd and fined,

He stuck to poverty with peace of mind;

And me, the Muses help'd to undergo it:

Convict a Papist he, and I a poet.

But (thanks to Homer) since I live and thrive.

Indebted to no prince or peer alive,

Sure I should want the care of ten Monroes,[158] 70

If I would scribble, rather than repose.

Years following years, steal something every day,

At last they steal us from ourselves away;

In one our frolics, one amusements end,

In one a mistress drops, in one a friend:

This subtle thief of life, this paltry time,

What will it leave me, if it snatch my rhyme?

If every wheel of that unwearied mill

That turn'd ten thousand verses, now stands still?

But, after all, what would you have me do? 80

When out of twenty I can please not two;

When this heroics only deigns to praise,

Sharp satire that, and that Pindaric lays?

One likes the pheasant's wing, and one the leg;

The vulgar boil, the learnèd roast an egg;

Hard task! to hit the palate of such guests,

When Oldfield loves, what Dartineuf[159] detests.

But grant I may relapse, for want of grace,

Again to rhyme; can London be the place?

Who there his Muse, or self, or soul attends, 90

In crowds, and courts, law, business, feasts, and friends?

My counsel sends to execute a deed:

A poet begs me I will hear him read:

In Palace-yard at nine you'll find me there--

At ten for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury Square--

Before the Lords at twelve my cause comes on--

There's a rehearsal, sir, exact at one.--

'Oh, but a wit can study in the streets,

And raise his mind above the mob he meets.'

Not quite so well, however, as one ought; 100

A hackney-coach may chance to spoil a thought:

And then a nodding beam, or pig of lead,

God knows, may hurt the very ablest head.

Have you not seen, at Guildhall's narrow pass,

Two aldermen dispute it with an ass?

And peers give way, exalted as they are,

Even to their own s-r-v--nce in a car?

Go, lofty poet! and in such a crowd,

Sing thy sonorous verse--but not aloud.

Alas! to grottos and to groves we run, 110

To ease and silence, every Muse's son:

Blackmore himself, for any grand effort,

Would drink and doze at Tooting or Earl's Court.[160]

How shall I rhyme in this eternal roar?

How match the bards whom none e'er match'd before?

The man, who, stretch'd in Isis' calm retreat,

To books and study gives seven years complete,

See! strew'd with learned dust, his nightcap on,

He walks, an object new beneath the sun!

The boys flock round him, and the people stare: 120

So stiff, so mute! some statue, you would swear,

Stepp'd from its pedestal to take the air!

And here, while town, and court, and city roars,

With mobs, and duns, and soldiers, at their doors:

Shall I, in London, act this idle part?

Composing songs,[161] for fools to get by heart?

The Temple late two brother sergeants saw,

Who deem'd each other oracles of law;

With equal talents, these congenial souls,

One lull'd th' Exchequer, and one stunn'd the Rolls; 130

Each had a gravity would make you split,

And shook his head at Murray, as a wit.

''Twas, sir, your law'--and 'Sir, your eloquence,'

'Yours, Cowper's manner--and yours, Talbot's sense.'

Thus we dispose of all poetic merit,

Yours Milton's genius, and mine Homer's spirit.

Call Tibbald Shakspeare, and he'll swear the Nine,

Dear Cibber! never match'd one ode of thine.

Lord! how we strut through Merlin's cave, to see

No poets there, but, Stephen,[162] you, and me. 140

Walk with respect behind, while we at ease

Weave laurel crowns, and take what names we please.

'My dear Tibullus!' if that will not do,

'Let me be Horace, and be Ovid you:'

Or 'I'm content, allow me Dryden's strains,

And you shall rise up Otway for your pains.'

Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace

This jealous, waspish, wrong-head, rhyming race;

And much must flatter, if the whim should bite

To court applause by printing what I write: 150

But let the fit pass o'er, I'm wise enough

To stop my ears to their confounded stuff.

In vain bad rhymers all mankind reject,

They treat themselves with most profound respect;

'Tis to small purpose that you hold your tongue,

Each, praised within, is happy all day long,

But how severely with themselves proceed

The men, who write such verse as we can read?

Their own strict judges, not a word they spare

That wants, or force, or light, or weight, or care, 160

Howe'er unwillingly it quits its place,

Nay though at court (perhaps) it may find grace:

Such they'll degrade; and sometimes, in its stead,

In downright charity revive the dead;

Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears,

Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years;

Command old words, that long have slept, to wake,

Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spake;

Or bid the new be English, ages hence,

(For use will father what's begot by sense) 170

Pour the full tide of eloquence along,

Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong,

Rich with the treasures of each foreign tongue;

Prune the luxuriant, the uncouth refine,

But show no mercy to an empty line:

Then polish all, with so much life and ease,

You think 'tis nature, and a knack to please:

But ease in writing flows from art, not chance;

As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

If such the plague and pains to write by rule, 180

Better (say I) be pleased, and play the fool;

Call, if you will, bad rhyming a disease,

It gives men happiness, or leaves them ease.

There lived _in primo Georgii_ (they record)

A worthy member, no small fool, a lord;

Who, though the House was up, delighted sat,

Heard, noted, answer'd, as in full debate:

In all but this, a man of sober life,

Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife;

Not quite a madman, though a pasty fell, 190

And much too wise to walk into a well.

Him, the damn'd doctors and his friends immured,

They bled, they cupp'd, they purged; in short, they cured:

Whereat the gentleman began to stare--

'My friends!' he cried, 'pox take you for your care!

That from a patriot of distinguish'd note,

Have bled and purged me to a simple vote.'

Well, on the whole, plain prose must be my fate:

Wisdom (curse on it!) will come soon or late.

There is a time when poets will grow dull: 200

I'll e'en leave verses to the boys at school:

To rules of poetry no more confined,

I learn to smooth and harmonise my mind,

Teach every thought within its bounds to roll,

And keep the equal measure of the soul.

Soon as I enter at my country door,

My mind resumes the thread it dropped before;

Thoughts, which at Hyde-park-corner I forgot,

Meet, and rejoin me, in the pensive grot,

There all alone, and compliments apart, 210

I ask these sober questions of my heart:

If, when the more you drink, the more you crave,

You tell the doctor; when the more you have,

The more you want, why not with equal ease

Confess as well your folly, as disease?

The heart resolves this matter in a trice,

'Men only feel the smart, but not the vice.'

When golden angels cease to cure the evil,

You give all royal witchcraft to the devil:

When servile chaplains[163] cry, that birth and place 220

Indue a peer with honour, truth, and grace,

Look in that breast, most dirty D----! be fair,

Say, can you find out one such lodger there?

Yet still, not heeding what your heart can teach,

You go to church to hear these flatterers preach.

Indeed, could wealth bestow or wit or merit,

A grain of courage, or a spark of spirit,

The wisest man might blush, I must agree,

If D---- loved sixpence more than he.

If there be truth in law, and use can give 230

A property, that's yours on which you live.

Delightful Abbs Court,[164] if its fields afford

Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord:

All Worldly's hens, nay, partridge, sold to town,

His ven'son, too, a guinea makes your own:

He bought at thousands, what with better wit

You purchase as you want, and bit by bit;

Now, or long since, what difference will be found?

You pay a penny, and he paid a pound.

Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men, 240

Lords of fat Ev'sham, or of Lincoln fen,

Buy every stick of wood that lends them heat,

Buy every pullet they afford to eat.

Yet these are wights who fondly call their own

Half that the devil o'erlooks from Lincoln town.

The laws of God, as well as of the land,

Abhor a perpetuity should stand:

Estates have wings, and hang in fortune's power

Loose on the point of every wavering hour,

Ready, by force, or of your own accord, 250

By sale, at least by death, to change their lord.

Man? and for ever? wretch! what wouldst thou have?

Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave.

All vast possessions (just the same the case

Whether you call them villa, park, or chase)

Alas, my Bathurst! what will they avail!

Join Cotswood hills to Saperton's fair dale,

Let rising granaries and temples here,

There mingled farms and pyramids appear,

Link towns to towns with avenues of oak, 260

Enclose whole downs in walls,--'tis all a joke!

Inexorable death shall level all,

And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmer fall.

Gold, silver, ivory, vases sculptured high,

Paint, marble, gems, and robes of Persian dye,

There are who have not--and, thank Heaven, there are,

Who, if they have not, think not worth their care.

Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find,

Two of a face, as soon as of a mind.

Why, of two brothers, rich and restless one 270

Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun;

The other slights, for women, sports, and wines,

All Townshend's turnips,[165] and all Grosvenor's mines:

Why one like Bu----,[166] with pay and scorn content,

Bows and votes on, in court and parliament;

One, driven by strong benevolence of soul,

Shall fly, like Oglethorpe,[167] from pole to pole:

Is known alone to that Directing Power,

Who forms the genius in the natal hour;

That God of Nature, who, within us still, 280

Inclines our action, not constrains our will;

Various of temper, as of face or frame,

Each individual: His great end the same.

Yes, sir, how small soever be my heap,

A part I will enjoy, as well as keep.

My heir may sigh, and think it want of grace

A man so poor would live without a place:

But sure no statute in his favour says,

How free, or frugal, I shall pass my days:

I, who at some times spend, at others spare, 290

Divided between carelessness and care.

'Tis one thing madly to disperse my store:

Another, not to heed to treasure more;

Glad, like a boy, to snatch the first good day,

And pleased, if sordid want be far away.

What is't to me (a passenger, God wot!)

Whether my vessel be first-rate or not?

The ship itself may make a better figure,

But I that sail am neither less nor bigger.

I neither strut with every favouring breath, 300

Nor strive with all the tempest in my teeth.

In power, wit, figure, virtue, fortune, placed

Behind the foremost, and before the last.

'But why all this of avarice? I have none.'

I wish you joy, sir, of a tyrant gone;

But does no other lord it at this hour,

As wild and mad--the avarice of power?

Does neither rage inflame, nor fear appal?

Not the black fear of death, that saddens all?

With terrors round, can reason hold her throne, 310

Despise the known, nor tremble at the unknown?

Survey both worlds, intrepid and entire,

In spite of witches, devils, dreams, and fire?

Pleased to look forward, pleased to look behind,

And count each birthday with a grateful mind?

Has life no sourness, drawn so near its end?

Canst thou endure a foe, forgive a friend?

Has age but melted the rough parts away,

As winter-fruits grow mild ere they decay?

Or will you think, my friend, your business done, 320

When, of a hundred thorns, you pull out one?

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;

You've play'd, and loved, and eat, and drank your fill:

Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age

Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage:

Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,

Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please.

* * * * *

BOOK I. EPISTLE VII.

IMITATED IN THE MANNER OF DR SWIFT.

'Tis true, my lord, I gave my word,

I would be with you, June the third;

Changed it to August, and (in short)

Have kept it--as you do at court.

You humour me when I am sick,

Why not when I am splenetic?

In town, what objects could I meet?

The shops shut up in every street,

And funerals blackening all the doors,

And yet more melancholy whores: 10

And what a dust in every place!

And a thin court that wants your face,

And fevers raging up and down,

And W---- and H---- both in town!

'The dog-days are no more the case.'

'Tis true, but winter comes apace:

Then southward let your bard retire,

Hold out some months 'twixt sun and fire,

And you shall see, the first warm weather,

Me and the butterflies together. 20

My lord, your favours well I know;

'Tis with distinction you bestow;

And not to every one that comes,

Just as a Scotchman does his plums.

'Pray, take them, sir,--enough's a feast:

Eat some, and pocket up the rest.'

What! rob your boys? those pretty rogues

'No, sir, you'll leave them to the hogs.'

Thus fools with compliments besiege ye,

Contriving never to oblige ye. 30

Scatter your favours on a fop,

Ingratitude's the certain crop;

And 'tis but just, I'll tell ye wherefore,

You give the things you never care for.

A wise man always is, or should,

Be mighty ready to do good;

But makes a difference in his thought

Betwixt a guinea and a groat.

Now this I'll say, you'll find in me

A safe companion, and a free; 40

But if you'd have me always near--

A word, pray, in your honour's ear.

I hope it is your resolution

To give me back my constitution!

The sprightly wit, the lively eye,

Th' engaging smile, the gaiety,

That laugh'd down many a summer sun,

And kept you up so oft till one:

And all that voluntary vein,

As when Belinda[168] raised my strain. 50

A weasel once made shift to slink

In at a corn-loft through a chink;

But having amply stuff'd his skin,

Could not get out as he got in:

Which one belonging to the house

('Twas not a man, it was a mouse)

Observing, cried, 'You 'scape not so;

Lean as you came, sir, you must go.'

Sir, you may spare your application,

I'm no such beast, nor his relation; 60

Nor one that temperance advance,

Cramm'd to the throat with ortolans:

Extremely ready to resign

All that may make me none of mine.

South-Sea subscriptions take who please,

Leave me but liberty and ease.

'Twas what I said to Craggs and Child,

Who praised my modesty, and smiled.

Give me, I cried, (enough for me)

My bread, and independency! 70

So bought an annual rent or two,

And lived--just as you see I do;

Near fifty, and without a wife,

I trust that sinking fund, my life.

Can I retrench? Yes, mighty well,

Shrink back to my paternal cell,

A little house, with trees a-row,

And, like its master, very low.

There died my father, no man's debtor,

And there I'll die, nor worse, nor better. 80

To set this matter full before ye,

Our old friend Swift will tell his story.

'Harley, the nation's great support'--

But you may read it,--I stop short.

* * * * *

BOOK II. SATIRE VI. THE FIRST PART IMITATED IN THE YEAR 1714, BY DR

SWIFT; THE LATTER PART ADDED AFTERWARDS.

I've often wish'd that I had clear,

For life, six hundred pounds a-year,

A handsome house to lodge a friend,

A river at my garden's end,

A terrace-walk, and half a rood

Of land, set out to plant a wood.

Well, now I have all this and more,

I ask not to increase my store;

But here a grievance seems to lie,

All this is mine but till I die; 10

I can't but think 'twould sound more clever,

To me and to my heirs for ever.

If I ne'er got or lost a groat,

By any trick, or any fault;

And if I pray by reason's rules,

And not like forty other fools:

As thus, 'Vouchsafe, O gracious Maker!

To grant me this and t' other acre:

Or, if it be thy will and pleasure,

Direct my plough to find a treasure:' 20

But only what my station fits,

And to be kept in my right wits.

Preserve, Almighty Providence!

Just what you gave me, competence:

And let me in these shades compose

Something in verse as true as prose;

Removed from all the ambitious scene,

Nor puff'd by pride, nor sunk by spleen.

In short, I'm perfectly content,

Let me but live on this side Trent; 30

Nor cross the Channel twice a-year,

To spend six months with statesmen here.

I must by all means come to town,

'Tis for the service of the crown.

'Lewis, the Dean will be of use,

Send for him up, take no excuse.'

The toil, the danger of the seas;

Great ministers ne'er think of these;

Or let it cost five hundred pound,

No matter where the money's found, 40

It is but so much more in debt,

And that they ne'er consider'd yet.

'Good Mr Dean, go change your gown,

Let my lord know you're come to town.'

I hurry me in haste away,

Not thinking it is levee-day;

And find his honour in a pound,

Hemm'd by a triple circle round,

Checquer'd with ribbons blue and green:

How should I thrust myself between? 50

Same wag observes me thus perplex'd,

And smiling, whispers to the next,

'I thought the Dean had been too proud,

To jostle here among a crowd.'

Another in a surly fit,

Tells me I have more zeal than wit,

'So eager to express your love,

You ne'er consider whom you shove,

But rudely press before a duke.'

I own, I'm pleased with this rebuke, 60

And take it kindly meant to show

What I desire the world should know.

I get a whisper, and withdraw;

When twenty fools I never saw

Come with petitions fairly penn'd,

Desiring I would stand their friend.

This, humbly offers me his case--

That, begs my interest for a place--

A hundred other men's affairs,

Like bees, are humming in my ears. 70

'To-morrow my appeal comes on,

Without your help the cause is gone'--

The duke expects my lord and you,

About some great affair, at two--

'Put my Lord Bolingbroke in mind,

To get my warrant quickly sign'd:

Consider, 'tis my first request.'--

Be satisfied, I'll do my best:

Then presently he falls to tease,

'You may for certain, if you please; 80

I doubt not, if his lordship knew--

And, Mr Dean, one word from you'--

'Tis (let me see) three years and more,

(October next it will be four)

Since Harley bid me first attend,

And chose me for an humble friend;

Would take me in his coach to chat,

And question me of this and that;

As, 'What's o'clock?' and, 'How's the wind?'

'Who's chariot's that we left behind?' 90

Or gravely try to read the lines

Writ underneath the country signs;

Or, 'Have you nothing new to-day

From Pope, from Parnell, or from Gay?'

Such tattle often entertains

My lord and me as far as Staines,

As once a week we travel down

To Windsor, and again to town,

Where all that passes, _inter nos_,

Might be proclaim'd at Charing Cross. 100

Yet some I know with envy swell,

Because they see me used so well:

'How think you of our friend the dean?

I wonder what some people mean;

My lord and he are grown so great,

Always together, tête-à-tête:

What, they admire him for his jokes--

See but the fortune of some folks!'

There flies about a strange report

Of some express arrived at court; 110

I'm stopp'd by all the fools I meet,

And catechised in every street.

'You, Mr Dean, frequent the great;

Inform us, will the Emperor treat?

Or do the prints and papers lie?'

Faith, sir, you know as much as I.

'Ah, Doctor, how you love to jest!

Tis now no secret'--I protest

'Tis one to me--'Then tell us, pray,

When are the troops to have their pay?' 120

And, though I solemnly declare

I know no more than my Lord Mayor,

They stand amazed, and think me grown

The closest mortal ever known.

Thus in a sea of folly toss'd,

My choicest hours of life are lost;

Yet always wishing to retreat,

Oh, could I see my country-seat!

There, leaning near a gentle brook,

Sleep, or peruse some ancient book, 130

And there in sweet oblivion drown

Those cares that haunt the court and town.

O charming noons! and nights divine!

Or when I sup, or when I dine,

My friends above, my folks below,

Chatting and laughing all a-row;

The beans and bacon set before 'em,

The grace-cup served with all decorum:

Each willing to be pleased, and please,

And even the very dogs at ease! 140

Here no man prates of idle things,

How this or that Italian sings,

A neighbour's madness, or his spouse's,

Or what's in either of the Houses:

But something much more our concern,

And quite a scandal not to learn:

Which is the happier or the wiser,

A man of merit, or a miser?

Whether we ought to choose our friends,

For their own worth, or our own ends? 150

What good, or better, we may call,

And what, the very best of all?

Our friend Dan Prior told (you know)

A tale extremely _á propos_:

Name a town life, and in a trice,

He had a story of two mice.

Once on a time (so runs the fable)

A country mouse, right hospitable,

Received a town mouse at his board,

Just as a farmer might a lord. 160

A frugal mouse upon the whole.

Yet loved his friend, and had a soul,

Knew what was handsome, and would do 't,

On just occasion, coúte qui coúte,

He brought him bacon (nothing lean);

Pudding, that might have pleased a dean;

Cheese, such as men in Suffolk make,

But wish'd it Stilton, for his sake;

Yet, to his guest though no way sparing,

He eat himself the rind and paring, 170

Our courtier scarce could touch a bit,

But show'd his breeding and his wit;

He did his best to seem to eat,

And cried, 'I vow you're mighty neat.

But, lord! my friend, this savage scene!

For God's sake, come, and live with men:

Consider, mice, like men, must die,

Both small and great, both you and I:

Then spend your life in joy and sport,

(This doctrine, friend, I learn'd at court).' 180

The veriest hermit in the nation

May yield, God knows, to strong temptation.

Away they come, through thick and thin,

To a tall house near Lincoln's Inn;

('Twas on the night of a debate,

When all their lordships had sat late.)

Behold the place where, if a poet

Shined in description, he might show it;

Tell how the moonbeam trembling falls,

And tips with silver[169] all the walls; 190

Palladian walls, Venetian doors,

Grotesco roofs, and stucco floors:

But let it (in a word) be said,

The moon was up, and men a-bed,

The napkins white, the carpet red:

The guests withdrawn had left the treat,

And down the mice sat, _tête-à-tête_.

Our courtier walks from dish to dish,

Tastes for his friend of fowl and fish;

Tells all their names, lays down the law, 200

'_Que ça est bon! Ah goutez ça!_

That jelly's rich, this malmsey healing,

Pray, dip your whiskers and your tail in.'

Was ever such a happy swain?

He stuffs and swills, and stuffs again.

'I'm quite ashamed--'tis mighty rude

To eat so much--but all's so good.

I have a thousand thanks to give--

My lord alone knows how to live.'

No sooner said, but from the hall 210

Rush chaplain, butler, dogs, and all:

'A rat! a rat! clap to the door'--

The cat comes bouncing on the floor.

O for the heart of Homer's mice,

Or gods to save them in a trice!

(It was by Providence they think,

For your damn'd stucco has no chink.)

'An't please your honour, quoth the peasant,

This same dessert is not so pleasant:

Give me again my hollow tree, 220

A crust of bread, and liberty!'

* * * * *

BOOK IV. ODE I. TO VENUS.

Again? new tumults in my breast?

Ah, spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest!

I am not now, alas! the man

As in the gentle reign of my Queen Anne.

Ah, sound no more thy soft alarms,

Nor circle sober fifty with thy charms.

Mother too fierce of dear desires!

Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires,

To Number Five direct your doves,

There spread round Murray all your blooming loves 10

Noble and young, who strikes the heart

With every sprightly, every decent part;

Equal, the injured to defend,

To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend.

He, with a hundred arts refined,

Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind;

To him each rival shall submit,

Make but his riches equal to his wit.

Then shall thy form the marble grace,

(Thy Grecian form) and Chloe lend the face: 20

His house, embosom'd in the grove,

Sacred to social life and social love,

Shall glitter o'er the pendant green,

Where Thames reflects the visionary scene:

Thither, the silver-sounding lyres

Shall call the smiling Loves, and young Desires;

There, every Grace and Muse shall throng,

Exalt the dance, or animate the song;

There, youths and nymphs, in consort gay,

Shall hail the rising, close the parting day. 30

With me, alas! those joys are o'er;

For me, the vernal garlands bloom no more.

Adieu![170] fond hope of mutual fire,

The still believing, still-renew'd desire;

Adieu! the heart-expanding bowl,

And all the kind deceivers of the soul!

But why? ah, tell me, ah, too dear!

Steals down my cheek th' involuntary tear?

Why words so flowing, thoughts so free,

Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee? 40

Thee, dress'd in fancy's airy beam,

Absent I follow through th' extended dream;

Now, now I seize, I clasp thy charms,

And now you burst (ah, cruel!) from my arms;

And swiftly shoot along the Mall,

Or softly glide by the canal,

Now shown by Cynthia's silver ray,

And now on rolling waters snatch'd away.

* * * * *

PART OF THE NINTH ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

1 Lest you should think that verse shall die,

Which sounds the silver Thames along,

Taught, on the wings of truth to fly

Above the reach of vulgar song;

2 Though daring Milton sits sublime,

In Spenser, native Muses play;

Nor yet shall Waller yield to time,

Nor pensive Cowley's moral lay.

3 Sages and chiefs long since had birth

Ere Caesar was, or Newton named;

These raised new empires o'er the earth,

And those, new heavens and systems framed.

4 Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride!

They had no poet, and they died.

In vain they schemed, in vain they bled!

They had no poet, and are dead.

THE SATIRES OF DR JOHN DONNE, DEAN OF ST PAUL'S,[171] VERSIFIED.

'Quid vetat et nosmet Lucilî scripta legentes Quaerere, num illius, num

rerum dura negârit Versiculos natura magis factos, et euntes Mollius?'

HOR.

SATIRE II.

Yes; thank my stars! as early as I knew

This town, I had the sense to hate it too:

Yet here, as ev'n in Hell, there must be still

One giant-vice, so excellently ill,

That all beside, one pities, not abhors;

As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.

I grant that poetry's a crying sin;

It brought (no doubt) the Excise and Army in:

Catch'd like the plague, or love, the Lord knows how,

But that the cure is starving, all allow. 10

Yet like the papist's is the poet's state,

Poor and disarm'd, and hardly worth your hate!

Here a lean bard, whose wit could never give

Himself a dinner, makes an actor live;

The thief condemn'd, in law already dead,

So prompts, and saves a rogue who cannot read.

Thus as the pipes of some carved organ move,

The gilded puppets dance and mount above.

Heaved by the breath the inspiring bellows blow:

The inspiring bellows lie and pant below. 20

One sings the fair; but songs no longer move;

No rat is rhymed to death, nor maid to love:

In love's, in nature's spite, the siege they hold,

And scorn the flesh, the devil, and all--but gold.

These write to lords, some mean reward to get,

As needy beggars sing at doors for meat.

Those write because all write, and so have still

Excuse for writing, and for writing ill.

Wretched indeed! but far more wretched yet

Is he who makes his meal on others' wit: 30

'Tis changed, no doubt, from what it was before,

His rank digestion makes it wit no more:

Sense, pass'd through him, no longer is the same;

For food digested takes another name.

I pass o'er all those confessors and martyrs,

Who live like Sutton, or who die like Chartres,

Out-cant old Esdras, or out-drink his heir,

Out-usure Jews, or Irishmen out-swear;

Wicked as pages, who in early years

Act sins which Prisca's confessor scarce hears. 40

Ev'n those I pardon, for whose sinful sake

Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make;

Of whose strange crimes no canonist can tell

In what commandment's large contents they dwell.

One, one man only breeds my just offence;

Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave impudence:

Time, that at last matures a clap to pox,

Whose gentle progress makes a calf an ox,

And brings all natural events to pass,

Hath made him an attorney of an ass. 50

No young divine, new-beneficed, can be

More pert, more proud, more positive than he.

What further could I wish the fop to do,

But turn a wit, and scribble verses too;

Pierce the soft labyrinth of a lady's ear

With rhymes of this per cent, and that per year?

Or court a wife, spread out his wily parts,

Like nets or lime-twigs, for rich widows' hearts:

Call himself barrister to every wench,

And woo in language of the Pleas and Bench? 60

Language, which Boreas might to Auster hold

More rough than forty Germans when they scold.

Cursed be the wretch, so venal and so vain:

Paltry and proud, as drabs in Drury-lane.

'Tis such a bounty as was never known,

If Peter deigns to help you to your own:

What thanks, what praise, if Peter but supplies,

And what a solemn face, if he denies!

Grave, as when prisoners shake the head and swear

'Twas only suretiship that brought 'em there. 70

His office keeps your parchment fates entire,

He starves with cold to save them from the fire;

For you he walks the streets through rain or dust,

For not in chariots Peter puts his trust;

For you he sweats and labours at the laws,

Takes God to witness he affects your cause,

And lies to every lord in every thing,

Like a king's favourite, or like a king.

These are the talents that adorn them all,

From wicked Waters ev'n to godly Paul.[172]

Not more of simony beneath black gowns, 80

Not more of bastardy in heirs to crowns.

In shillings and in pence at first they deal;

And steal so little, few perceive they steal;

Till, like the sea, they compass all the land,

From Scots to Wight, from Mount to Dover strand:

And when rank widows purchase luscious nights,

Or when a duke to Jansen punts at White's,

Or city-heir in mortgage melts away;

Satan himself feels far less joy than they.

Piecemeal they win this acre first, then that, 90

Glean on, and gather up the whole estate.

Then strongly fencing ill-got wealth by law,

Indentures, covenants, articles they draw,

Large as the fields themselves, and larger far

Than civil codes, with all their glosses, are;

So vast, our new divines, we must confess,

Are fathers of the Church for writing less.

But let them write for you, each rogue impairs

The deeds, and dext'rously omits, _ses heires_:

No commentator can more slily pass 100

O'er a learn'd, unintelligible place;

Or, in quotation, shrewd divines leave out

Those words, that would against them clear the doubt.

So Luther thought the Pater-noster long,

When doom'd to say his beads and even-song;

But having cast his cowl, and left those laws,

Adds to Christ's prayer, the Power and Glory clause.

The lands are bought; but where are to be found

Those ancient woods, that shaded all the ground?

We see no new-built palaces aspire, 110

No kitchens emulate the vestal fire.

Where are those troops of poor, that throng'd of yore

The good old landlord's hospitable door?

Well, I could wish, that still in lordly domes

Some beasts were kill'd, though not whole hecatombs;

That both extremes were banish'd from their walls,

Carthusian fasts, and fulsome Bacchanals;

And all mankind might that just mean observe,

In which none e'er could surfeit, none could starve.

These as good works, 'tis true, we all allow; 120

But oh! these works are not in fashion now:

Like rich old wardrobes, things extremely rare,

Extremely fine, but what no man will wear.

Thus much I've said, I trust, without offence;

Let no court sycophant pervert my sense,

Nor sly informer watch these words to draw

Within the reach of treason, or the law.

* * * * *

SATIRE IV.

Well, if it be my time to quit the stage,

Adieu to all the follies of the age!

I die in charity with fool and knave,

Secure of peace at least beyond the grave.

I've had my purgatory here betimes,

And paid for all my satires, all my rhymes.

The poet's hell, its tortures, fiends, and flames.

To this were trifles, toys, and empty names.

With foolish pride my heart was never fired,

Nor the vain itch t' admire, or be admired; 10

I hoped for no commission from his Grace;

I bought no benefice, I begg'd no place;

Had no new verses, nor new suit to show;

Yet went to court!--the devil would have it so.

But, as the fool that, in reforming days,

Would go to mass in jest (as story says)

Could not but think, to pay his fine was odd,

Since 'twas no form'd design of serving God;

So was I punish'd, as if full as proud,

As prone to ill, as negligent of good. 20

As deep in debt, without a thought to pay,

As vain, as idle, and as false as they

Who live at court, for going once that way!

Scarce was I enter'd, when, behold! there came

A thing which Adam had been posed to name;

Noah had refused it lodging in his ark,

Where all the race of reptiles might embark:

A verier monster than on Afric's shore

The sun e'er got, or slimy Nilus bore,

Or Sloane or Woodward's wondrous shelves contain, 30

Nay, all that lying travellers can feign.

The watch would hardly let him pass at noon,

At night, would swear him dropp'd out of the moon.

One whom the mob, when next we find or make

A Popish plot, shall for a Jesuit take,

And the wise justice, starting from his chair,

Cry, By your priesthood, tell me what you are?

Such was the wight; the apparel on his back,

Though coarse, was reverend, and though bare, was black:

The suit, if by the fashion one might guess, 40

Was velvet in the youth of good Queen Bess,

But mere tuff-taffety what now remain'd;

So time, that changes all things, had ordain'd!

Our sons shall see it leisurely decay,

First turn plain rash, then vanish quite away.

This thing has travell'd, speaks each language too,

And knows what's fit for every State to do;

Of whose best phrase and courtly accent join'd,

He forms one tongue, exotic and refined

Talkers I've learn'd to bear; Motteux I knew, 50

Henley himself I've heard, and Budgell too.

The Doctor's wormwood style, the hash of tongues

A pedant makes, the storm of Gonson's lungs,

The whole artillery of the terms of war,

And (all those plagues in one) the bawling Bar:

These I could bear; but not a rogue so civil,

Whose tongue will compliment you to the devil;

A tongue, that can cheat widows, cancel scores,

Make Scots speak treason, cozen subtlest whores,

With royal favourites in flattery vie, 60

And Oldmixon and Burnet both outlie.

He spies me out; I whisper, Gracious God!

What sin of mine could merit such a rod?

That all the shot of dulness now must be

From this thy blunderbuss discharged on me!

Permit (he cries) no stranger to your fame

To crave your sentiment, if ----'s your name.

What speech esteem you most? 'The King's,' said I.

But the best words?--'Oh, sir, the Dictionary.'

You miss my aim; I mean the most acute 70

And perfect speaker?--'Onslow, past dispute.'

But, sir, of writers? 'Swift, for closer style;

But Hoadley,[173] for a period of a mile.'

Why, yes, 'tis granted, these indeed may pass:

Good common linguists, and so Panurge was;

Nay, troth, the Apostles (though perhaps too rough)

Had once a pretty gift of tongues enough:

Yet these were all poor gentlemen! I dare

Affirm, 'twas travel made them what they were.

Thus others' talents having nicely shown, 80

He came by sure transition to his own:

Till I cried out, You prove yourself so able,

Pity you was not druggerman at Babel;

For had they found a linguist half so good,

I make no question but the tower had stood.

'Obliging sir! for courts you sure were made:

Why then for ever buried in the shade?

Spirits like you should see, and should be seen,

The king would smile on you--at least the queen.'

Ah, gentle sir! you courtiers so cajole us-- 90

But Tully has it, _Nunquam minus solus_:

And as for courts, forgive me, if I say

No lessons now are taught the Spartan way:

Though in his pictures lust be full display'd,

Few are the converts Aretine has made;

And though the court show vice exceeding clear,

None should, by my advice, learn virtue there.

At this, entranced, he lifts his hands and eyes,

Squeaks like a high-stretch'd lutestring, and replies:

'Oh, 'tis the sweetest of all earthly things 100

To gaze on princes, and to talk of kings!'

Then, happy man who shows the tombs! said I,

He dwells amidst the royal family;

He every day, from king to king can walk,

Of all our Harries, all our Edwards talk,

And get by speaking truth of monarchs dead,

What few can of the living-ease and bread.

'Lord, sir, a mere mechanic! strangely low,

And coarse of phrase,--your English all are so.

How elegant your Frenchmen!' Mine, d'ye mean? 110

I have but one, I hope the fellow's clean.

'Oh! sir, politely so! nay, let me die:

Your only wearing is your paduasoy.'

Not, sir, my only, I have better still,

And this, you see, is but my dishabille.

Wild to get loose, his patience I provoke,

Mistake, confound, object at all he spoke.

But as coarse iron, sharpen'd, mangles more,

And itch most hurts when anger'd to a sore;

So when you plague a fool, 'tis still the curse, 120

You only make the matter worse and worse.

He pass'd it o'er; affects an easy smile

At all my peevishness, and turns his style.

He asks, 'What news?' I tell him of new plays,

New eunuchs, harlequins, and operas.

He hears, and as a still with simples in it

Between each drop it gives, stays half a minute,

Loth to enrich me with too quick replies,

By little, and by little, drops his lies.

Mere household trash! of birthnights, balls, and shows, 130

More than ten Hollinsheds, or Halls, or Stowes.

When the queen frown'd, or smiled, he knows; and what

A subtle minister may make of that:

Who sins with whom: who got his pension rug,

Or quicken'd a reversion by a drug:

Whose place is quarter'd out, three parts in four,

And whether to a bishop, or a whore:

Who, having lost his credit, pawn'd his rent,

Is therefore fit to have a government:

Who, in the secret, deals in stocks secure, 140

And cheats the unknowing widow and the poor:

Who makes a trust or charity a job,

And gets an act of parliament to rob:

Why turnpikes rise, and now no cit nor clown

Can gratis see the country, or the town:

Shortly no lad shall chuck, or lady vole,

But some excising courtier will have toll.

He tells what strumpet places sells for life,

What 'squire his lands, what citizen his wife:

And last (which proves him wiser still than all) 150

What lady's face is not a whited wall.

As one of Woodward's patients, sick, and sore,

I puke, I nauseate,--yet he thrusts in more:

Trim's Europe's balance, tops the statesman's part.

And talks Gazettes and Postboys o'er by heart.

Like a big wife at sight of loathsome meat

Ready to cast, I yawn, I sigh, and sweat.

Then as a licensed spy, whom nothing can

Silence or hurt, he libels the great man;

Swears every place entail'd for years to come, 160

In sure succession to the day of doom:

He names the price for every office paid,

And says our wars thrive ill, because delay'd:

Nay, hints 'tis by connivance of the court

That Spain robs on, and Dunkirk's still a port.

Not more amazement seized on Circe's guests,

To see themselves fall endlong into beasts,

Than mine, to find a subject, staid and wise,

Already half turn'd traitor by surprise.

I felt the infection slide from him to me, 170

As in the pox, some give it to get free;

And quick to swallow me, methought I saw

One of our giant statues ope its jaw.

In that nice moment, as another lie

Stood just a-tilt, the minister came by.

To him he flies, and bows, and bows again,

Then, close as Umbra, joins the dirty train.

Not Fannius' self more impudently near,

When half his nose is in his prince's ear.

I quaked at heart; and still afraid, to see 180

All the court fill'd with stranger things than he,

Ran out as fast, as one that pays his bail,

And dreads more actions, hurries from a jail.

Bear me, some god! oh quickly bear me hence

To wholesome solitude, the nurse of sense,

Where Contemplation prunes her ruffled wings,

And the free soul looks down to pity kings!

There sober thought pursued the amusing theme,

Till fancy colour'd it, and form'd a dream.

A vision hermits can to Hell transport, 190

And forced ev'n me to see the damn'd at court.

Not Dante, dreaming all the infernal state,

Beheld such scenes of envy, sin, and hate.

Base fear becomes the guilty, not the free;

Suits tyrants, plunderers, but suits not me:

Shall I, the terror of this sinful town,

Care if a liveried lord or smile or frown?

Who cannot flatter, and detest who can,

Tremble before a noble serving-man?

O my fair mistress, Truth! shall I quit thee 200

For huffing, braggart, puff'd nobility?

Thou, who since yesterday hast roll'd o'er all

The busy, idle blockheads of the ball,

Hast thou, O Sun! beheld an emptier sort,

Than such as swell this bladder of a court?

Now pox on those who show a court in wax!

It ought to bring all courtiers on their backs:

Such painted puppets! such a varnish'd race

Of hollow gewgaws, only dress and face!

Such waxen noses, stately staring things-- 210

No wonder some folks bow, and think them kings.

See! where the British youth, engaged no more

At Fig's,[174] at White's, with felons, or a whore,

Pay their last duty to the court, and come

All fresh and fragrant, to the drawing-room;

In hues as gay, and odours as divine,

As the fair fields they sold to look so fine.

'That's velvet for a king!' the flatterer swears;

'Tis true, for ten days hence 'twill be King Lear's.

Our court may justly to our stage give rules, 220

That helps it both to fools' coats and to fools.

And why not players strut in courtiers' clothes?

For these are actors too, as well as those:

Wants reach all states; they beg, but better dress'd,

And all is splendid poverty at best.

Painted for sight, and essenced for the smell,

Like frigates fraught with spice and cochineal,

Sail in the ladies: how each pirate eyes

So weak a vessel, and so rich a prize!

Top-gallant he, and she in all her trim, 230

He boarding her, she striking sail to him:

'Dear Countess! you have charms all hearts to hit!'

And, 'Sweet Sir Fopling! you have so much wit!'

Such wits and beauties are not praised for nought,

For both the beauty and the wit are bought.

'Twould burst ev'n Heraclitus with the spleen,

To see those antics, Fopling and Courtin:

The Presence seems, with things so richly odd,

The mosque of Mahound, or some queer pagod.

See them survey their limbs by Durer's rules, 240

Of all beau-kind the best proportion'd fools!

Adjust their clothes, and to confession draw

Those venial sins, an atom, or a straw;

But oh! what terrors must distract the soul

Convicted of that mortal crime, a hole;

Or should one pound of powder less bespread

Those monkey tails that wag behind their head.

Thus finish'd, and corrected to a hair,

They march, to prate their hour before the fair.

So first to preach a white-gloved chaplain goes, 250

With band of lily, and with cheek of rose,

Sweeter than Sharon, in immaculate trim,

Neatness itself impertinent in him,

Let but the ladies smile, and they are blest:

Prodigious! how the things protest, protest:

Peace, fools! or Gonson will for Papists seize you,

If once he catch you at your Jesu! Jesu!

Nature made every fop to plague his brother,

Just as one beauty mortifies another.

But here's the captain that will plague them both, 260

Whose air cries, Arm! whose very look's an oath:

The captain's honest, sirs, and that's enough,

Though his soul's bullet, and his body buff.

He spits fore-right; his haughty chest before,

Like battering rams, beats open every door:

And with a face as red, and as awry,

As Herod's hangdogs in old tapestry,

Scarecrow to boys, the breeding woman's curse,

Has yet a strange ambition to look worse;

Confounds the civil, keeps the rude in awe,

Jests like a licensed fool, commands like law. 270

Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so

As men from jails to execution go;

For hung with deadly sins[175] I see the wall,

And lined with giants deadlier than 'em all:

Each man an Ascapart,[176] of strength to toss

For quoits, both Temple-bar and Charing-cross.

Scared at the grisly forms, I sweat, I fly,

And shake all o'er, like a discover'd spy.

Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine:

Charge them with Heaven's artillery, bold divine! 280

From such alone the great rebukes endure,

Whose satire's sacred, and whose rage secure:

'Tis mine to wash a few light stains, but theirs

To deluge sin, and drown a court in tears.

Howe'er, what's now Apocrypha, my wit,

In time to come, may pass for holy writ.

* * * * *

EPILOGUE[177] TO THE SATIRES.

IN TWO DIALOGUES.

(WRITTEN IN MDCCXXXVIII.)

DIALOGUE I.

_Fr_. Not twice a twelvemonth you appear in print,

And when it comes, the court see nothing in 't.

You grow correct, that once with rapture writ,

And are, besides, too moral for a wit.

Decay of parts, alas! we all must feel--

Why now, this moment, don't I see you steal?

'Tis all from Horace; Horace long before ye

Said, 'Tories call'd him Whig, and Whigs a Tory;'

And taught his Romans, in much better metre,

'To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter.' 10

But, Horace, sir, was delicate, was nice;

Bubo[178] observes, he lash'd no sort of vice:

Horace would say, Sir Billy[179] served the crown,

Blunt could do business, Huggins[180] knew the town;

In Sappho touch the failings of the sex,

In reverend bishops note some small neglects,

And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing,

Who cropp'd our ears,[181] and sent them to the king.

His sly, polite, insinuating style

Could please at court, and make Augustus smile: 20

An artful manager, that crept between

His friend and shame, and was a kind of screen.

But, faith, your very friends will soon be sore;

Patriots there are, who wish you'd jest no more--

And where's the glory? 'twill be only thought

The great man[182] never offer'd you a groat.

Go see Sir Robert--

_P_. See Sir Robert!--hum--

And never laugh--for all my life to come?

Seen him I have,[183] but in his happier hour

Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power; 30

Seen him, uncumber'd with the venal tribe,

Smile without art, and win without a bribe.

Would he oblige me? let me only find,

He does not think me what he thinks mankind.

Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt;

The only difference is, I dare laugh out.

_F_. Why, yes: with Scripture still you may be free;

A horse-laugh, if you please, at honesty;

A joke on Jekyl,[184] or some odd old Whig

Who never changed his principle, or wig: 40

A patriot is a fool in every age,

Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the stage:

These nothing hurts; they keep their fashion still,

And wear their strange old virtue, as they will.

If any ask you, 'Who's the man, so near

His prince, that writes in verse, and has his ear?'

Why, answer, Lyttleton,[185] and I'll engage

The worthy youth shall ne'er be in a rage:

But were his verses vile, his whisper base,

You'd quickly find him in Lord Fanny's case. 50

Sejanus, Wolsey,[186] hurt not honest Fleury,[187]

But well may put some statesmen in a fury.

Laugh then at any, but at fools or foes;

These you but anger, and you mend not those.

Laugh at your friends, and, if your friends are sore,

So much the better, you may laugh the more.

To vice and folly to confine the jest,

Sets half the world, God knows, against the rest;

Did not the sneer of more impartial men

At sense and virtue, balance all again. 60

Judicious wits spread wide the ridicule,

And charitably comfort knave and fool.

_P_. Dear sir, forgive the prejudice of youth:

Adieu distinction, satire, warmth, and truth!

Come, harmless characters that no one hit;

Come, Henley's oratory, Osborn's[188] wit!

The honey dropping from Favonio's tongue,

The flowers of Bubo, and the flow of Yonge!

The gracious dew of pulpit eloquence,

And all the well-whipt cream of courtly sense, 70

That first was Hervy's, Fox's next, and then

The senate's, and then Hervy's once again.

Oh come, that easy, Ciceronian style,

So Latin, yet so English all the while,

As, though the pride of Middleton and Bland,

All boys may read, and girls may understand!

Then might I sing, without the least offence,

And all I sung should be the nation's sense;[189]

Or teach the melancholy Muse to mourn,

Hang the sad verse on Carolina's[190] urn, 80

And hail her passage to the realms of rest,

All parts perform'd, and all her children bless'd!

So--satire is no more--I feel it die--

No gazetteer[191] more innocent than I--

And let, a-God's-name! every fool and knave

Be graced through life, and flatter'd in his grave.

_F_. Why so? if satire knows its time and place,

You still may lash the greatest--in disgrace:

For merit will by turns forsake them all;

Would you know when exactly when they fall. 90

But let all satire in all changes spare

Immortal Selkirk,[192] and grave Delaware.[193]

Silent and soft, as saints remove to heaven,

All ties dissolved, and every sin forgiven,

These may some gentle ministerial wing

Receive, and place for ever near a king!

There, where no passion, pride, or shame transport,

Lull'd with the sweet nepenthe of a court;

There, where no father's, brother's, friend's disgrace

Once break their rest, or stir them from their place: 100

But past the sense of human miseries,

All tears are wiped for ever from all eyes;

No cheek is known to blush, no heart to throb,

Save when they lose a question, or a job.

_P_. Good Heaven forbid that I should blast their glory,

Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory,

And when three sovereigns died, could scarce be vex'd,

Considering what a gracious prince was next.

Have I, in silent wonder, seen such things

As pride in slaves, and avarice in kings; 110

And at a peer, or peeress, shall I fret,

Who starves a sister,[194] or forswears a debt?

Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast;

But shall the dignity of vice be lost?

Ye gods! shall Cibber's son,[195] without rebuke,

Swear like a lord, or Rich[195] out-whore a duke?

A favourite's porter with his master vie,

Be bribed as often, and as often lie?

Shall Ward draw contracts with a statesman's skill?

Or Japhet pocket, like his Grace, a will? 120

Is it for Bond, or Peter, (paltry things)

To pay their debts, or keep their faith, like kings?

If Blount[196] dispatch'd himself, he play'd the man,

And so may'st thou, illustrious Passeran![197]

But shall a printer,[198] weary of his life,

Learn from their books to hang himself and wife?

This, this, my friend, I cannot, must not bear:

Vice thus abused, demands a nation's care:

This calls the Church to deprecate our sin,

And hurls the thunder of the laws on gin,[199] 130

Let modest Foster, if he will, excel

Ten metropolitans in preaching well;

A simple Quaker, or a Quaker's wife,[200]

Outdo Landaff[201] in doctrine,--yea, in life:

Let humble Allen,[202] with an awkward shame,

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.

Virtue may choose the high or low degree,

'Tis just alike to virtue, and to me;

Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king,

She's still the same beloved, contented thing. 140

Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth,

And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth:

But 'tis the fall degrades her to a whore;

Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more:

Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess,

Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless:

In golden chains the willing world she draws,

And hers the gospel is, and hers the laws,

Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,

And sees pale virtue carted in her stead. 150

Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car,

Old England's genius, rough with many a scar,

Dragg'd in the dust! his arms hang idly round,

His flag inverted trails along the ground!

Our youth, all liveried o'er with foreign gold,

Before her dance: behind her, crawl the old!

See thronging millions to the pagod run,

And offer country, parent, wife, or son!

Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim,

That NOT TO BE CORRUPTED IS THE SHAME! 160

In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power,

'Tis avarice all, ambition is no more!

See, all our nobles begging to be slaves!

See, all our fools aspiring to be knaves!

The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore,

Are what ten thousand envy and adore!

All, all look up with reverential awe,

At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law:

While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry--

'Nothing is sacred now but villany.' 170

Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)

Show, there was one who held it in disdain.

* * * * *

VARIATIONS.

After VER. 2 in the MS.--

You don't, I hope, pretend to quit the trade,

Because you think your reputation made:

Like good Sir Paul, of whom so much was said,

That when his name was up, he lay a-bed.

Come, come, refresh us with a livelier song,

Or, like Sir Paul, you'll lie a-bed too long.

_P_. Sir, what I write, should be correctly writ.

_F_. Correct! 'tis what no genius can admit.

Besides, you grow too moral for a wit.

VER. 112 in some editions--'Who starves a mother.'

DIALOGUE II.

_Fr_. 'Tis all a libel--Paxton[203] (sir) will say.

_P_. Not yet, my friend! to-morrow, faith, it may;

And for that very cause I print to-day.

How should I fret to mangle every line,

In reverence to the sins of thirty-nine!

Vice with such giant strides comes on amain,

Invention strives to be before in vain;

Feign what I will, and paint it e'er so strong,

Some rising genius sins up to my song.

_F_. Yet none but you by name the guilty lash; 10

Ev'n Guthrie[204] saves half Newgate by a dash.

Spare then the person, and expose the vice.

_P_. How, sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice?

Come on then, Satire! general, unconfined,

Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind.

Ye statesmen, priests, of one religion all!

Ye tradesmen, vile, in army, court, or hall!

Ye reverend atheists----

_F_. Scandal! name them, who?

_P_. Why that's the thing you bid me not to do.

Who starved a sister, who forswore a debt, 20

I never named; the town's inquiring yet.

The poisoning dame----

_F_. You mean----

_P_. I don't.

_F_. You do.

_P_. See, now I keep the secret, and not you!

The bribing statesman----

_F_. Hold, too high you go.

_P_. The bribed elector----

_F_. There you stoop too low.

_P_. I fain would please you, if I knew with what;

Tell me, which knave is lawful game, which not?

Must great offenders, once escaped the crown,

Like royal harts, be never more run down?

Admit, your law to spare the knight requires, 30

As beasts of nature may we hunt the 'squires?

Suppose I censure--you know what I mean--

To save a bishop, may I name a dean?

_F_. A dean, sir? no: his fortune is not made,

You hurt a man that's rising in the trade.

_P_. If not the tradesman who set up to-day,

Much less the 'prentice who to-morrow may.

Down, down, proud Satire! though a realm be spoil'd,

Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild;[205]

Or, if a court or country's made a job, 40

Go drench a pickpocket, and join the mob.

But, sir, I beg you (for the love of vice!)

The matter's weighty, pray consider twice;

Have you less pity for the needy cheat,

The poor and friendless villain, than the great?

Alas! the small discredit of a bribe

Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.

Then better, sure, it charity becomes

To tax directors, who (thank God) have plums;

Still better, ministers; or, if the thing 50

May pinch ev'n there--why lay it on a king.

_F._ Stop! stop!

_P._ Must Satire, then, nor rise nor fall?

Speak out, and bid me blame no rogues at all.

_F._ Yes, strike that Wild, I'll justify the blow.

_P._ Strike! why the man was hanged ten years ago:

Who now that obsolete example fears?

Ev'n Peter trembles only for his ears.

_F._ What, always Peter! Peter thinks you mad,

You make men desperate if they once are bad:

Else might he take to virtue some years hence 60

_P._ As Selkirk, if he lives, will love the Prince.

_F._ Strange spleen to Selkirk!

_P._ Do I wrong the man?

God knows, I praise a courtier where I can.

When I confess, there is who feels for fame,

And melts to goodness,[206] need I Scarb'rough[207] name?

Pleased, let me own, in Esher's peaceful grove[208]

(Where Kent and nature vie for Pelham's love)

The scene, the master, opening to my view,

I sit and dream I see my Craggs anew!

Ev'n in a bishop I can spy desert; 70

Secker is decent--Rundel has a heart--

Manners with candour are to Benson given--

To Berkeley, every virtue under heaven.

But does the court a worthy man remove?

That instant, I declare, he has my love:

I shun his zenith, court his mild decline;

Thus Somers once, and Halifax, were mine.

Oft, in the clear, still mirror of retreat,

I studied Shrewsbury, the wise and great:

Carleton's[209] calm sense, and Stanhope's noble flame, 80

Compared, and knew their generous end the same:

How pleasing Atterbury's softer hour!

How shined the soul, unconquer'd in the Tower!

How can I Pulteney, Chesterfield, forget,

While Roman spirit charms, and Attic wit:

Argyll,[210] the state's whole thunder born to wield,

And shake alike the senate and the field:

Or Wyndham,[211] just to freedom and the throne,

The master of our passions, and his own.

Names, which I long have loved, nor loved in vain, 90

Rank'd with their friends, not number'd with their train:

And if yet higher[212] the proud list should end,

Still let me say,--No follower, but a friend.[213]

Yet think not Friendship only prompts my lays;

I follow Virtue; where she shines, I praise:

Point she to priest or elder, Whig or Tory,

Or round a Quaker's beaver cast a glory.

I never (to my sorrow I declare)

Dined with the Man of Ross, or my Lord Mayor.[214]

Some, in their choice of friends, (nay, look not grave) 100

Have still a secret bias to a knave:

To find an honest man I beat about.

And love him, court him, praise him, in or out.

_F_. Then why so few commended?

_P_. Not so fierce;

Find you the virtue, and I'll find the verse.

But random praise--the task can ne'er be done;

Each mother asks it for her booby son,

Each widow asks it for 'the best of men,'

For him she weeps, and him she weds again.

Praise cannot stoop, like satire, to the ground; 110

The number may be hang'd, but not be crown'd.

Enough for half the greatest of these days,

To 'scape my censure, not expect my praise.

Are they not rich? what more can they pretend?

Dare they to hope a poet for their friend?

What Richelieu wanted, Louis scarce could gain,

And what young Ammon wish'd, but wish'd in vain.

No power the Muse's friendship can command;

No power, when Virtue claims it, can withstand:

To Cato, Virgil paid one honest line; 120

Oh let my country's friends illumine mine!

--What are you thinking?

_F_. Faith, the thought's no sin--

I think your friends are out, and would be in.

_P_. If merely to come in, sir, they go out,

The way they take is strangely round about.

_F_. They too may be corrupted, you'll allow?

_P_. I only call those knaves who are so now.

Is that too little? Come then, I'll comply--

Spirit of Arnall![215] aid me while I lie.

Cobham's a coward, Polwarth[216] is a slave, 130

And Lyttleton a dark, designing knave,

St John has ever been a wealthy fool--

But let me add, Sir Robert's mighty dull,

Has never made a friend in private life,

And was, besides, a tyrant to his wife.

But pray, when others praise him, do I blame?

Call Verres, Wolsey, any odious name?

Why rail they then, if but a wreath of mine,

O all-accomplish'd St John! deck thy shrine?

What! shall each spur-gall'd hackney of the day, 140

When Paxton gives him double pots and pay,

Or each new-pension'd sycophant, pretend

To break my windows if I treat a friend?

Then wisely plead, to me they meant no hurt,

But 'twas my guest at whom they threw the dirt?

Sure, if I spare the minister, no rules

Of honour bind me, not to maul his tools;

Sure, if they cannot cut, it may be said

His saws are toothless, and his hatchet's lead.

It anger'd Turenne, once upon a day, 150

To see a footman kick'd that took his pay:

But when he heard the affront the fellow gave,

Knew one a man of honour, one a knave,

The prudent general turn'd it to a jest,

And begg'd he'd take the pains to kick the rest:

Which not at present having time to do----

_F_. Hold sir! for God's-sake where 'a the affront to you?

Against your worship when had Selkirk writ?

Or Page pour'd forth the torrent of his wit?

Or grant the bard[217] whose distich all commend 160

'In power a servant, out of power a friend,'

To Walpole guilty of some venial sin;

What's that to you who ne'er was out nor in?

The priest whose flattery bedropp'd the crown,

How hurt he you? he only stain'd the gown.

And how did, pray, the florid youth offend,

Whose speech you took, and gave it to a friend?

_P_. Faith, it imports not much from whom it came;

Whoever borrow'd, could not be to blame,

Since the whole house did afterwards the same. 170

Let courtly wits to wits afford supply,

As hog to hog in huts of Westphaly;

If one, through Nature's bounty, or his lord's,

Has what the frugal, dirty soil affords,

From him the next receives it, thick or thin,

As pure a mess almost as it came in;

The blessed benefit, not there confined,

Drops to the third, who nuzzles close behind;

From tail to mouth, they feed and they carouse:

The last full fairly gives it to the House. 180

_F_. This filthy simile, this beastly line

Quite turns my stomach----

_P_. So does flattery mine;

And all your courtly civet-cats can vent,

Perfume to you, to me is excrement.

But hear me further--Japhet,[218] 'tis agreed,

Writ not, and Chartres scarce could write or read,

In all the courts of Pindus guiltless quite;

But pens can forge, my friend, that cannot write;

And must no egg in Japhet's face be thrown,

Because the deed he forged was not my own? 190

Must never patriot then declaim at gin,

Unless, good man! he has been fairly in?

No zealous pastor blame a failing spouse,

Without a staring reason on his brows?

And each blasphemer quite escape the rod,

Because the insult's not on man, but God?

Ask you what provocation I have had?

The strong antipathy of good to bad.

When truth or virtue an affront endures,

The affront is mine, my friend, and should be yours. 200

Mine, as a foe profess'd to false pretence,

Who think a coxcomb's honour like his sense;

Mine, as a friend to every worthy mind;

And mine, as man, who feel for all mankind.

_F_. You're strangely proud.

_P_. So proud, I am no slave:

So impudent, I own myself no knave:

So odd, my country's ruin makes me grave.

Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see

Men not afraid of God, afraid of me:

Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, 210

Yet touch'd and shamed by ridicule alone.

O sacred weapon! left for truth's defence,

Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence!

To all but heaven-directed hands denied,

The Muse may give thee, but the gods must guide:

Rev'rent I touch thee! but with honest zeal;

To rouse the watchmen of the public weal,

To virtue's work provoke the tardy Hall,

And goad the prelate slumbering in his stall.

Ye tinsel insects! whom a court maintains, 220

That counts your beauties only by your stains,

Spin all your cobwebs o'er the eye of day!

The Muse's wing shall brush you all away:

All his grace preaches, all his lordship sings,

All that makes saints of queens, and gods of kings,--

All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the press,

Like the last gazette, or the last address.

When black ambition[219] stains a public cause,

A monarch's sword when mad vain-glory draws,

Not Waller's wreath can hide the nation's scar, 230

Nor Boileau[220] turn the feather to a star.

Not so, when, diadem'd with rays divine,

Touch'd with the flame that breaks from Virtue's shrine,

Her priestess Muse forbids the good to die,

And opes the temple[221] of Eternity.

There, other trophies deck the truly brave,

Than such as Anstis[222] casts into the grave;

Far other stars than ---- and ---- wear,[223]

And may descend to Mordington from Stair:[224]

(Such as on Hough's unsullied mitre shine, 240

Or beam, good Digby,[225] from a heart like thine)

Let Envy howl, while Heaven's whole chorus sings,

And bark at honour not conferr'd by kings;

Let Flattery sickening see the incense rise,

Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies:

Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line,

And makes immortal verse as mean as mine.

Yes, the last pen for freedom let me draw,

When truth stands trembling on the edge of law;

Here, last of Britons! let your names be read; 250

Are none, none living? let me praise the dead,

And for that cause which made your fathers shine,

Fall by the votes of their degenerate line.

_F_. Alas! alas! pray end what you began,

And write next winter more 'Essays on Man.'

* * * * *

VARIATIONS.

VER. 185 in the MS.--

I grant it, sir; and further, 'tis agreed,

Japhet writ not, and Chartres scarce could read.

After VER. 227 in the MS.--

Where's now the star that lighted Charles to rise?

--With that which follow'd Julius to the skies

Angels that watch'd the Royal Oak so well,

How chanced ye nod, when luckless Sorel fell?

Hence, lying miracles! reduced so low

As to the regal-touch, and papal-toe;

Hence haughty Edgar's title to the main,

Britain's to France, and thine to India, Spain!

VER. 255 in the MS.--

Quit, quit these themes, and write 'Essays on Man.'

FOOTNOTES:

[1] We may mention that Roscoe and Dr Croly (in his admirable

Life of Pope, prefixed to an excellent edition of his works) take a

different view, and defend the poet.

[2] 'Preface:' to the miscellaneous works of Pope, 1716.

[3] Written at sixteen years of age.

[4] 'Trumbull:' see Life. He was born in Windsor Forest.

[5] 'Phosphor:' the planet Venus.

[6] 'Wondrous tree:' an allusion to the royal oak.

[7] 'Thistle:' of Scotland.

[8] 'Lily:' of France.

[9] 'Garth:' Dr Samuel Garth, author of the 'Dispensary.'

[10] 'The woods,' &c., from Spenser.

[11] 'Wycherley:' the dramatist. See Life.

[12] This pastoral, Pope's own favourite, was produced on

occasion of the death of a Mrs Tempest, a favourite of Mr Walsh, the

poet's friend, who died on the night of the great storm in 1703, to

which there are allusions. The scene lies in a grove--time, midnight.

[13] 'Stagyrite: Aristotle.

[14] 'La Mancha's knight:' taken from the spurious second part

of 'Don Quixote.'

[15] 'Unlucky as Fungoso:' see Ben Johnson's 'Every Man in his

Humour.'

[16] 'Timotheus:' see 'Alexander's Feast.'

[17] 'Scotists and Thomists:' two parties amongst the schoolmen,

headed by Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas.

[18] 'Duck-lane:' a place near Smithfield, where old books were

sold.

[19] 'Milbourns:' the Rev. Mr Luke Milbourn, an opponent of

Dryden.

[20] Hall has imitated and excelled this passage. See his

pamphlet, 'Christianity consistent with a Love of Freedom.'

[21] In this passage he alludes to Cromwell, Charles II., and

the Revolution of 1688, and to their various effects on manners,

opinions, &c.

[22] 'Appius:' Dennis.

[23] 'Garth did not write:' a common slander at that time in

prejudice of that author.

[24] 'Maeonian star:' Homer.

[25] 'Dionysius:' of Halicarnassus.

[26] 'Mantua:' Virgil's birth-place.

[27] 'Such was the Muse:' Essay on poetry by the Duke of

Buckingham.

[28] 'Caryll:' Mr Caryll (a gentleman who was secretary to Queen

Mary, wife of James II., whose fortunes he followed into France, author

of the comedy of 'Sir Solomon Single,' and of several translations in

Dryden's Miscellanies) originally proposed the subject to Pope, with the

view of putting an end, by this piece of ridicule, to a quarrel that had

arisen between two noble families, those of Lord Petre and of Mrs

Fermor, on the trifling occasion of his having cut off a lock of her

hair. The author sent it to the lady, with whom he was acquainted; and

she took it so well as to give about copies of it. That first sketch (we

learn from one of his letters) was written in less than a fortnight, in

1711, in two cantos only, and it was so printed; first, in a miscellany

of Ben. Lintot's, without the name of the author. But it was received so

well that he enlarged it the next year by the addition of the machinery

of the Sylphs, and extended it to five cantos.

[29] 'Sylph:' the Rosicrucian philosophy was a strange offshoot

from Alchemy, and made up in equal proportions of Pagan Platonism,

Christian Quietism, and Jewish Mysticism. See Bulwer's 'Zanoni.' Pope

has blended some of its elements with old legendary stories about

guardian angels, fairies, &c.

[30] 'Baron:' Lord Petre.

[31] Burns had this evidently in his eye when he wrote the lines

'Some hint the lover's harmless wile,' &c., in his 'Vision.'

[32] 'Atalantis:' a famous book written about that time by a

woman: full of court and party-scandal, and in a loose effeminacy of

style and sentiment which well suited the debauched taste of the better

vulgar.

[33] 'Winds:' see Odyssey.

[34] 'Thalestris:' Mrs Morley.

[35] 'Sir Plume:' Sir George Brown.

[36] 'Maeander:' see Ovid.

[37] 'Partridge:' see Pope's and Swift's Miscellanies.

[38] This poem was written at two different times: the first

part of it, which relates to the country, in the year 1704, at the same

time with the Pastorals; the latter part was not added till the year

1713, in which it was published.

[39] 'Stuart:' Queen Anne.

[40] 'Savage laws:' the forest-laws.

[41] 'The fields are ravish'd:' alluding to the destruction made

in the New Forest, and the tyrannies exercised there by William I.

[42] 'Himself denied a grave:' the place of his interment at

Caen in Normandy was claimed by a gentleman as his inheritance, the

moment his servants were going to put him in his tomb: so that they were

obliged to compound with the owner before they could perform the king's

obsequies.

[43] 'Second hope:' Richard, second son of William the

Conqueror.

[44] 'Queen:' Anne.

[45] 'Still bears the name:' the river Loddon.

[46] 'Trumbull:' see Pastorals.

[47] 'Cooper's Hill:' celebrated by Denham.

[48] 'Flowed from Cowley's tongue:' Mr Cowley died at Chertsey,

on the borders of the forest, and was from thence conveyed to

Westminster.

[49] 'Noble Surrey:' Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, one of the

first refiners of English poetry; who flourished in the time of Henry

VIII.

[50] 'Edward's acts:' Edward III., born here.

[51] 'Henry mourn:' Henry VI.

[52] 'Once-fear'd Edward sleeps:' Edward IV.

[53] 'Augusta:' old name for London.

[54] 'And temples rise:' the fifty new churches.

[55] The author of 'Successio,' Elkanah Settle, appears to have

been as much hated by Pope as he had been by Dryden. He figures

prominently in 'The Dunciad.'

[56] This was written at twelve years old.

[57] This ode was written in imitation of the famous sonnet of

Adrian to his departing soul. Flaxman also supplied hints for it. See

'The Adventurer.'

[58] See Memoir.

[59] 'But what with pleasure:' this alludes to a famous passage

of Seneca, which Mr Addison afterwards used as a motto to his play, when

it was printed.

[60] Done by the author in his youth.

[61] Dr Johnson in the _Literary Review_ highly commends this

piece.

[62] This, it is said, was intended for Queen Caroline.

[63] 'Zamolxia:' a disciple of Pythagoras.

[64] 'The youth:' Alexander the Great: the tiara was the crown

peculiar to the Asian princes: his desire to be thought the son of

Jupiter Ammon, caused him to wear the horns of that god, and to

represent the same upon his coins; which was continued by several of his

successors.

[65] 'Timoleon:' had saved the life of his brother Timophanes in

the battle between the Argives and Corinthians; but afterwards killed

him when he affected the tyranny.

[66] 'He whom ungrateful Athens:' Aristides.

[67] 'May one kind grave:' Abelard and Eloisa were interred in

the same grave, or in monuments adjoining, in the monastery of the

Paraclete: he died in the year 1142; she in 1163.

[68] 'Robert, Earl of Oxford:' this epistle was sent to the Earl

of Oxford with Dr Parnell's poems, published by our author, after the

said earl's imprisonment in the Tower, and retreat into the country, in

the year 1721.

[69] 'Secretary of State:' in the year 1720.

[70] 'Work of years:' Fresnoy employed above twenty years in

finishing his poem.

[71] 'Worsley:' Lady Frances, wife of Sir Robert Worsley.

[72] 'Voitnre:' a French wit, born in Amiens 1598, died in 1648;

a favourite of the Duke of Orleans, and member of the French Academy.

[73] 'Monthansier:' Mademoiselle Paulet.

[74] 'Coronation:' of King George the First, 1715.

[75] 'M.B.:' Martha Blount.

[76] 'Southern:' author of 'Oronooko,' &c. He lived to the age

of eighty-six.

[77] 'A table:' he was invited to dine on his birthday with this

nobleman, who had prepared for him the entertainment of which the bill

of fare is here set down.

[78] 'Harp:' the Irish harp was woven on table-cloths, &c.

[79] 'Prologues:' Dryden used to sell his prologues at four

guineas each, till, when Southern applied for one, he demanded six,

saying, 'Young man, the players have got my goods too cheap.'

[80] 'Mr C.:' Mr Cleland, whose residence was in St James's

Place, where he died in 1741. See preface to 'The Dunciad.'

[81] 'Trumbull:' one of the principal Secretaries of State to

King William III., who, having resigned his place, died in his

retirement at Easthamstead, in Berkshire, 1746.

[82] 'Heaven's eternal year is thine:' borrowed from Dryden's

poem on Mrs Killigrew.

[83] 'Fenton:' Pope's joint-translator of Homer's Odyssey. See

Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets.'

[84] His only daughter expired in his arms, immediately after

she arrived in France to see him.

[85] Lady Mary Montague wrote a rejoinder to this poem, in a

caustic, sneering vein.

[86] 'Vindicate the ways,' &c.: borrowed from Milton.

[87] 'Egypt's God:' Apis.

[88] 'Thin partitions' from Dryden.

[89] 'Glory, jest, and riddle of the world:' Pascal in his

'Pensées' has a thought almost identical with this.

[90] 'Good bishop:' De Belsance, who distinguished himself by

attention to the sick of the plague, in his diocese of Marseilles in

1720.

[91] 'Bethel:' a benevolent gentleman in Yorkshire, a great

friend of Pope's.

[92] 'Chartres:' Colonel, infamous for every vice--a fraudulent

gambler, &c. &c.

[93] 'Cromwell:' it is not necessary now to answer this insult

to the greatest of Britain's kings. It is a clever ape chattering at a

dead lion.

[94] 'Good John:' John Serle, his old and faithful servant.

[95] 'Mint:' a place to which insolvent debtors retired, to

enjoy an illegal protection, which they were there suffered to afford

one another, from the persecution of their creditors.--P.

[96] 'Pitholeon:' The name taken from a foolish poet of Rhodes,

who pretended much to Greek.--P.

[97] 'Butchers, Henley:' Orator Henley used to declaim to the

butchers in Newport market.

[98] 'Freemasons, Moore:' he was of this society, and frequently

headed their processions.

[99] 'Bishop Boulter:' friend of Ambrose Philips.

[100] 'Burnets, &c.:' authors of secret and scandalous history.

[101] 'Gildon:' a forgotten critic and dramatist--a bitter

libeller of Pope.

[102] 'A Persian tale:' Ambrose Philips translated a book called

the 'Persian Tales.'

[103] 'Bufo:' most commentators refer this to Lord Halifax.

[104] 'Sir Will:' Sir William Young.

[105] 'Bubo:' Babb Dodington.

[106] 'Who to the dean, and silver bell:' meaning the man who

would have persuaded the Duke of Chandos that Mr P. meant him in those

circumstances ridiculed in the 'Epistle on Taste.'--_P_.

[107] 'Sporus:' Lord Hervey.

[108] 'The lie so oft o'erthrown:' as, that he received

subscriptions for Shakspeare; that he set his name to Mr Broome's

verses, &c., which, though publicly disproved, were nevertheless

shamelessly repeated.--_P_.

[109] 'The imputed trash:' such as profane psalms, court-poems,

and other scandalous things, printed in his name by Curll and

others.--_P_.

[110] 'Abuse:' namely, on the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of

Burlington, Lord Bathurst, Lord Bolingbroke, Bishop Atterbury, Dr Swift,

Dr Arbuthnot, Mr Gay, his friends, his parents, and his very nurse,

aspersed in printed papers, by James Moore, G. Ducket, L. Wolsted, Tho.

Bentley, and other obscure persons.--_P_.

[111] 'Sappho:' Lady M.W. Montague.

[112] 'Welsted:' accused Pope of killing a lady by a satire.

[113] 'Budgell:' Budgell, in a weekly pamphlet called _The Bee_,

bestowed much abuse on him.

[114] 'Except his will:' alluding to Tindal's will, by which,

and other indirect practices, Budgell, to the exclusion of the next

heir, a nephew, got to himself almost the whole fortune of a man

entirely unrelated to him.--_P_.

[115] 'Curlls of town and court:' Lord Hervey.

[116] 'Noble wife:' alluding to the fate of Dryden and Addison.

[117] 'An oath:' Pope's father was a nonjuror.

[118] Curll set up his head for a sign.

[119] His father was crooked.

[120] His mother was much afflicted with headaches.

[121] 'Fortescue:' Baron of Exchequer, and afterwards Master of

the Mint.

[122] 'Fanny:' Hervey.

[123] 'Falling horse:' the horse on which George II. charged at

the battle of Oudenarde.

[124] 'Shippen:' the only member of parliament Sir R. Walpole

found incorruptible.

[125] 'Lee:' Nathaniel, a wild, mad, but true poet of Dryden's

day.

[126] 'Budgell:' Addison's relation, who drowned himself in the

Thames.

[127] 'And he whose lightning:' Charles Mordaunt, Earl of

Peterborough, a man distinguished by the rapidity of his military

movements--a petty Napoleon.

[128] 'Oldfield:' this eminent glutton ran through a fortune of

fifteen hundred pounds a-year in the simple luxury of good

eating.--_P_.

[129] 'Bedford-head:' a famous eating-house.

[130] 'Proud Buckingham:' Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

[131] 'Aristippus:' the licentious parasite of Dionysius.

[132] 'Sticks:' Exchequer tallies--an old mode of reckoning.

[133] 'Barnard:' Sir John Barnard, an eminent citizen of the

day.

[134] 'Lady Mary:' Montague, who was as great a sloven as a

beauty.

[135] 'Murray:' afterwards Lord Mansfield.

[136] 'Creech:' the translator of Horace.

[137] 'Craggs:' his father was originally a humble man.

[138] 'Cornbury:' an excellent and high-minded nobleman,

great-grandson of Lord Clarendon, the historian.

[139] 'Tindal:' the infidel, author of 'Christianity as Old as

the Creation.'

[140] 'Anstis:' Garter King-at-Arms.

[141] 'Luckless play:' Young's 'Buseris;' the name of the

spendthrift is not known.

[142] 'Augustus:' referring ironically to George II., then

excessively unpopular for refusing to enter into a war with Spain, which

was supposed to have insulted our commerce.

[143] 'Skelton:' poet laureate to Henry VIII.

[144] 'Christ's Kirk o' the Green:' a ballad made by James I. of

Scotland.

[145] 'The Devil:' the Devil Tavern, where Ben Johnson held his

poetical club.

[146] 'Horse-tail bare:' referring to Sertorius, who told one of

his soldiers to pluck off a horse's tail at one effort. He failed, of

course. Sertorius then told another to pluck it away, hair by hair. He

succeeded; and thus Sertorius taught the lesson of hard-working, patient

perseverance.

[147] 'Gammer Gurton:' one of the first printed plays in English,

and therefore much valued by some antiquaries.

[148] 'All, by the king's example:' a line from Lord Lansdown.

[149] 'Lely:' Sir Peter, who painted Cromwell and all the

celebrities of his day.

[150] 'Ripley:' the government architect who built the Admiralty;

no favourite except with his employers.

[151] 'Van:' Vanbrugh.

[152] 'Astraea:' Miss Bolin, author of obscene, but once popular

novels.

[153] 'Old Edward's armour beams on Cibber's breast:' the

coronation of Henry VIII. and Queen Anne Boleyn, in which the

play-houses vied with each other to represent all the pomp of a

coronation. In this noble contention, the armour of one of the kings of

England was borrowed from the Tower, to dress the champion.--_P_.

[154] 'Bernini:' a great sculptor. He is said to have predicted

Charles the First's melancholy fate from a sight of his bust.

[155] 'Colonel:' Cotterel of Rousham, near Oxford.

[156] 'Blois:' a town where French is spoken with great purity.

[157] 'Sir Godfrey:' Sir Godfrey Kneller.

[158] 'Monroes:' Dr Monroe, physician to Bedlam Hospital.

[159] 'Oldfield, Daitineuf:' two celebrated gluttons mentioned

formerly.

[160] 'Tooting, Earl's Court:' two villages within a few miles of

London.

[161] 'Composing songs:' Burns imitates this in the 'Vision'--

'Stringin' blethers up in rhyme,

For fules to sing.'

[162] 'Stephen:' Mr Stephen Duck.

[163] 'Servile chaplains:' Dr Kenett, who wrote a servile

dedication to the Duke of Devonshire, to whom he was chaplain.

[164] 'Abbs Court:' a farm over against Hampton Court.

[165] 'Townshend's turnips:' Lord Townshend, Secretary of State

to Georges the First and Second. When this great statesman retired from

business, he amused himself in husbandry, and was particularly fond of

the cultivation of turnips; it was the favourite subject of his

conversation.

[166] 'Bu----:' Bubb Doddington.

[167] 'Oglethorpe:' employed in settling the colony of Georgia.

See Boswell's 'Johnson.'

[168] 'Belinda:' in 'The Rape of the Lock.'

[169] 'Tips with silver:' occurs also in the famous moonlight

scene in the 'Iliad'--

'Tips with silver every mountain's head.'

[170] 'Adieu!' how like Burns's lines, beginning--

"But when life's day draws near the gloaming,

Farewell to vacant, careless roaming!" &c.

[171] 'Donne:' Pope, it is said, imitated Donne's 'Satires' to

show that celebrated men before him had been as severe as he. Donne was

an extraordinary man--first a Roman Catholic, then a barrister, then a

clergyman in the Church of England, and Dean of St Paul's,--a vigorous

although rude satirist, a fine Latin versifier, the author of many

powerful sermons, and of a strange book defending suicide; altogether a

strong, eccentric, extravagant genius.

[172] 'Paul:' supposed to be Paul Benfield, Esq., M.P., who was

engaged in the jobbing transactions of that period; others fill up the

blank in the original copy with Hall--as, for instance, Croly in his

excellent edition.

[173] 'Hoadley:' Bishop, whose sentences were wire-drawn.

[174] 'Figs:' a prize-fighting academy; 'White's:' a

gaming-house, both much frequented by the young nobility.

[175] 'Deadly sins:' the room hung with old tapestry,

representing the seven deadly sins.

[176] 'Ascapart:' a giant of romance.

[177] 'Epilogue:' the first part of which was originally

published as 'One thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight.' It appeared

the same day with Johnson's 'London.'

[178] 'Bubo:' Bubb Duddington.

[179] 'Sir Billy:' Tonge.

[180] 'Huggins:' formerly jailor of the Fleet prison, enriched

himself by many exactions, for which he was tried and expelled.--P.

[181] 'Cropp'd our ears:' said to be executed by the captain of a

Spanish ship on one Jenkins, the captain of an English one. He cut off

his ears, and bid him carry them to the king his master.--P.

[182] 'The great man:' the first minister.

[183] 'Seen him I have:' alluding to Pope's service to Abbe

Southcot, see 'Life.'

[184] 'Jekyl:' Sir Joseph Jekyl, master of the rolls, a true Whig

in his principles, and a man of the utmost probity.--P.

[185] 'Lyttleton:' George Lyttleton, secretary to the Prince of

Wales, distinguished both for his writings and speeches in the spirit of

liberty.--P.

[186] 'Sejanus, Wolsey:' the one the wicked minister of

Tiberius; the other, of Henry VIII. The writers against the court

usually bestowed these and other odious names on the minister, without

distinction, and in the most injurious manner.--P.

[187] 'Fleury:' Cardinal; and minister to Louis XV. It was a

patriot-fashion, at that time, to cry up his wisdom and honesty.--P.

[188] 'Henley, Osborn:' see them in their places in 'The

Dunciad.'

[189] 'Nation's sense:' the cant of politics at that time.

[190] 'Carolina:' Queen-consort to King George II. She died in

1737. See, for her character, 'Heart of Midlothian.'

[191] 'Gazetteer:' then Government newspaper.

[192] 'Immortal Selkirk:' Charles, third son of Duke of

Hamilton, created Earl of Selkirk in 1887.

[193] 'Grave Delaware:' a title given that lord by King James

II. He was of the bed-chamber to King William; he was so to King George

I.; he was so to King George II. This Lord was very skilful in all the

forms of the House, in which he discharged himself with great gravity.--

P.

[194] 'Sister:' alluding to Lady M.W. Montague, who is said to

have neglected her sister, the Countess of Mar, who died destitute in

Paris.

[195] 'Cibber's son, Rich:' two players; look for them in 'The

Dunciad.'--P.

[196] 'Blount:' author of an impious and foolish book, called

'The Oracles of Reason,' who, being in love with a near kinswoman of

his, and rejected, gave himself a stab in the arm, as pretending to kill

himself, of the consequence of which he really died.--P.

[197] 'Passerau:' author of another book of the same stamp,

called 'A Philosophical Discourse on Death,' being a defence of suicide.

He was a nobleman of Piedmont.

[198] 'A printer:' a fact that happened in London a few years

past. The unhappy man left behind him a paper justifying his action by

the reasonings of some of these authors.--P.

[199] 'Gin:' a spirituous liquor, the exhorbitant use of which

had almost destroyed the lowest rank of the people, till it was

restrained by an Act of Parliament in 1736.--P.

[200] 'Quaker's wife:' Mrs Drummond, a preacher.

[201] 'Landaff:' Harris by name, a worthy man, who had somehow

offended the poet.

[202] 'Allen:' of Bath, Warburton's father-in-law, the prototype

of All-worthy in 'Tom Jones.'

[203] 'Paxton:' late solicitor to the Treasury.

[204] 'Guthrie:' the ordinary of Newgate, who publishes the

memoirs of the malefactors, and is often prevailed upon to be so tender

of their reputation, as to set down no more than the initials of their

name.--P.

[205] 'Wild:' Jonathan, a famous thief, and thief-impeacher, who

was at last caught in his own train and hanged.--P. See Fielding, and

'Jack Shepherd.'

[206] 'Feels for fame, and melts to goodness:' this is a fine

compliment; the expression showing, that fame was but his second

passion.

[207] 'Scarb'rough:' Earl of, and Knight of the Garter, whose

personal attachments to the king appeared from his steady adherence to

the royal interest, after his resignation of his great employment of

Master of the Horse; and whose known honour and virtue made him esteemed

by all parties.--_P._

[208] 'Esher's peaceful grove:' the house and gardens of Esher,

in Surrey, belonging to the Hon. Mr Pelham, brother of the Duke of

Newcastle.

[209] 'Carleton:' Lord, nephew of Robert Boyle.

[210] 'Argyll:' see 'Heart of Midlothian.'

[211] 'Wyndham:' Chancellor of Exchequer; for the rest, see

history.

[212] 'Yet higher:' he was at this time honoured with the esteem

and favour of his Royal Highness the Prince.

[213] 'A friend:' unrelated to their parties, and attached only

to their persons.

[214] 'Lord Mayor:' Sir John Barnard, Lord Mayor in the year of

the poem, 1738.

[215] 'Spirit of Arnall:' look for him in his place, Dunciad, b.

ii., ver. 315.

[216] 'Polwarth:' the Hon. Hugh Hume, son of Alexander Earl of

Marchmont, grandson of Patrick Earl of Marchmont, and distinguished,

like them, in the cause of liberty.--P.

[217] 'The bard:' a verse taken out of a poem to Sir R.W.--P.

[218] 'Japhet, Chartres:' see the epistle to Lord Bathurst.

[219] 'Black ambition:' the case of Cromwell in the civil war of

England; and of Louis XIV. in his conquest of the Low Countries.--P.

[220] 'Boileau:' see his 'Ode on Namur.'

[221] 'Opes the temple:' from Milton--'Opes the palace of

Eternity.'

[222] 'Anstis:' the chief herald-at-arms. It is the custom, at

the funeral of great peers, to cast into the grave the broken staves and

ensigns of honour.--P.

[223] 'Ver. 238:' some fill up the blanks with George II., and

Frederick, Prince of Wales--others, with Kent and Grafton.

[224] 'Stair:' John Dalrymple, Earl of Stair, Knight of the

Thistle.--P.

[225] 'Hough and Digby:' Dr John Hough, Bishop of Worcester, and

the Lord Digby.

END OF VOL. I.