_On a Passage in Pope_.--"P.C.S.S.," who is old-fashioned enough to
admire and to study Pope, would feel greatly obliged if any of your
correspondents could help him to the interpretation of the following
lines, in the "Imitation" of Horace's _Epistle to Augustus_:--
"The Hero William, and the Martyr Charles,
One knighted Blackmore, and one pensioned Quarles,
Which made old Ben, and sturdy Dennis swear,
_No Lord's Annointed, but a Russian bear!_"
The passage in Horace, of which this purports to be an "Imitation," is
the well-known
"Boeotum in crasso jurares äere natum,"
and it is clear enough that Pope meant to represent kings Charles and
William as so devoid of the taste which should guide royal patronage,
that, in selecting such objects of their favour as Blackmore and
Quarles, they showed themselves to be as uncouth and unpolished as the
animal to which he likens them. But the principal motive of this inquiry
is to ascertain whether there exist in their writings any record
of the indignation supposed to have been expressed by Jonson and Dennis
at the favour shown by majesty to their less worthy rivals.