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POEMS WRITTEN BETWEEN 1713 AND 1717 - Alexander Pope, The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope [1903]

Edition used:

The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. Cambridge Edition, ed. Henry W. Boynton (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1903).

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POEMS WRITTEN BETWEEN 1713 AND 1717

PROLOGUE TO MR. ADDISON’S CATO

This prologue was written in 1713, after Addison had given Pope two of the main causes which led to their estrangement; and itself led the way for the third. Addison’s faint praise of the Pastorals, and disagreement with Pope as to the advisability of revising The Rape of the Lock, had not as yet led to their estrangement. But when not long after the presentation of Cato, Pope ventured to become its champion against the attacks of John Dennis, Addison’s quiet disclaimer of responsibility for his anonymous defender cut Pope to the quick.

    • To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
    • To raise the genius, and to mend the heart;
    • To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold,
    • Live o’er each scene, and be what they behold:
    • For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage,
    • Commanding tears to stream thro’ ev’ry age:
    • Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
    • And foes to virtue wonder’d how they wept.
    • Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move
    • The Hero’s glory, or the Virgin’s love;10
    • In pitying Love, we but our weakness show,
    • And wild Ambition well deserves its woe.
    • Here tears shall flow from a more gen’rous cause,
    • Such tears as patriots shed for dying laws.
    • He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise,
    • And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes:
    • Virtue confess’d in human shape he draws,
    • What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was:
    • No common object to your sight displays,
    • But what with pleasure Heav’n itself surveys,20
    • A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
    • And greatly falling with a falling state.
    • While Cato gives his little senate laws,
    • What bosom beats not in his country’s cause?
    • Who sees him act, but envies ev’ry deed?
    • Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
    • Ev’n when proud Cæsar, midst triumphal cars,
    • The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
    • Ignobly vain, and impotently great,
    • Show’d Rome her Cato’s figure drawn in state;30
    • As her dead father’s rev’rend image past,
    • The pomp was darken’d, and the day o’ercast;
    • The triumph ceas’d, tears gush’d from ev’ry eye,
    • The world’s great Victor pass’d unheeded by;
    • Her last good man dejected Rome ador’d,
    • And honour’d Cæsar’s less than Cato’s sword.
    • Britons, attend: be worth like this approv’d,
    • And show you have the virtue to be mov’d.
    • With honest scorn the first famed Cato view’d
    • Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdued;40
    • Your scene precariously subsists too long
    • On French translation and Italian song.
    • Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage;
    • Be justly warm’d with your own native rage:
    • Such plays alone should win a British ear
    • As Cato’s self had not disdain’d to hear.

EPILOGUE TO MR. ROWE’S JANE SHORE

DESIGNED FOR MRS. OLDFIELD

Nicholas Rowe’s play was acted at Drury Lane in February, 1714. Mrs. Oldfield played the leading part, but Pope’s Epilogue was not used.

    • Prodigious this! the Frail-one of our play
    • From her own sex should mercy find today!
    • You might have held the pretty head aside,
    • Peep’d in your fans, been serious, thus, and cried,—
    • ‘The play may pass—but that strange creature, Shore,
    • I can’t—indeed now—I so hate a whore!’
    • Just as a blockhead rubs his thoughtless skull,
    • And thanks his stars he was not born a fool;
    • So from a sister sinner you shall hear,
    • ‘How strangely you expose yourself, my dear!10
    • But let me die, all raillery apart,
    • Our sex are still forgiving at their heart;
    • And, did not wicked custom so contrive,
    • We’d be the best good-natured things alive.’
    • There are, ’t is true, who tell another tale,
    • That virtuous ladies envy while they rail;
    • Such rage without betrays the fire within;
    • In some close corner of the soul they sin;
    • Still hoarding up, most scandalously nice,
    • Amidst their virtues a reserve of vice.20
    • The godly dame, who fleshly failings damns,
    • Scolds with her maid, or with her chaplain crams.
    • Would you enjoy soft nights and solid dinners?
    • Faith, gallants, board with saints, and bed with sinners.
    • Well, if our author in the Wife offends,
    • He has a Husband that will make amends:
    • He draws him gentle, tender, and forgiving;
    • And sure such kind good creatures may be living.
    • In days of old, they pardon’d breach of vows;29
    • Stern Cato’s self was no relentless spouse.
    • Plu—Plutarch, what ’s his name that writes his life,
    • Tells us, that Cato dearly lov’d his wife:
    • Yet if a friend, a night or so, should need her,
    • He ’d recommend her as a special breeder.
    • To lend a wife, few here would scruple make;
    • But, pray, which of you all would take her back?
    • Tho’ with the Stoic Chief our stage may ring,
    • The Stoic Husband was the glorious thing.
    • The man had courage, was a sage, ’t is true,
    • And lov’d his country—but what ’s that to you?40
    • Those strange examples ne’er were made to fit ye,
    • But the kind cuckold might instruct the city:
    • There, many an honest man may copy Cato
    • Who ne’er saw naked sword, or look’d in Plato.
    • If, after all, you think it a disgrace,
    • That Edward’s Miss thus perks it in your face,
    • To see a piece of failing flesh and blood,
    • In all the rest so impudently good:
    • Faith, let the modest matrons of the town
    • Come here in crowds, and stare the strumpet down.50

TO A LADY, WITH THE TEMPLE OF FAME

  • What ’s Fame with men, by custom of the nation,
  • Is call’d, in women, only Reputation:
  • About them both why keep we such a pother?
  • Part you with one, and I ’ll renounce the other.

UPON THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH’S HOUSE AT WOODSTOCK

  • Atria longa patent; sed nec coenantibus usquam,
  • Nec somno, locus est: quam bene non habitas.

  • Martial.

These verses were first published in 1714. There is no actual proof that they are Pope’s, but as his editors have always retained them, they are here given.

    • See, Sir, here ’s the grand approach,
    • This way is for his Grace’s coach;
    • There lies the bridge, and here ’s the clock;
    • Observe the lion and the cock,
    • The spacious court, the colonnade,
    • And mark how wide the hall is made!
    • The chimneys are so well design’d,
    • They never smoke in any wind.
    • This gallery ’s contrived for walking,
    • The windows to retire and talk in;
    • The council-chamber for debate,
    • And all the rest are rooms of state.
    • Thanks, Sir, cried I, ’t is very fine,
    • But where d’ye sleep, or where d’ ye dine?
    • I find by all you have been telling
    • That ’t is a house, but not a dwelling.

LINES TO LORD BATHURST

In illustration Mitford refers to Pope’s letter to Lord Bathurst of September 13, 1732, where ‘Mr. L.’ is spoken of as ‘more inclined to admire God in his greater works, the tall timber.’ (Ward.) Proof is lacking that these lines belong to Pope. They were printed by E. Curll in 1714.

  • ‘A Wood!’ quoth Lewis, and with that
  • He laugh’d, and shook his sides of fat.
  • His tongue, with eye that mark’d his cunning,
  • Thus fell a-reas’ning, not a-running:
  • ‘Woods are—not to be too prolix—
  • Collective bodies of straight sticks.
  • It is, my lord, a mere conundrum
  • To call things woods for what grows under ’em.
  • For shrubs, when nothing else at top is,
  • Can only constitute a coppice.
  • But if you will not take my word,
  • See anno quint. of Richard Third;
  • And that’s a coppice call’d, when dock’d,
  • Witness an. prim. of Harry Oct.
  • If this a wood you will maintain,
  • Merely because it is no plain,
  • Holland, for all that I can see,
  • May e’en as well be term’d the sea,
  • Or C[onings]by be fair harangued
  • An honest man, because not hang’d.’

MACER[ ]

A CHARACTER

This was first printed in 1727 in the Miscellanies of Pope and Swift, but was probably written in 1715. Macer is supposed to be Ambrose Philips. The ‘borrow’d Play’ of the eighth line would then have been The Distrest Mother, adapted by Philips from Racine.

    • When simple Macer, now of high renown,
    • First sought a poet’s fortune in the town,
    • ’T was all th’ ambition his high soul could feel
    • To wear red stockings, and to dine with Steele.
    • Some ends of verse his betters might afford,
    • And gave the harmless fellow a good word:
    • Set up with these he ventured on the town,
    • And with a borrow’d play outdid poor Crowne .
    • There he stopp’d short, nor since has writ a tittle,
    • But has the wit to make the most of little;
    • Like stunted hide-bound trees, that just have got11
    • Sufficient sap at once to bear and rot.
    • Now he begs verse, and what he gets commends,
    • Not of the Wits his foes, but Fools his friends.
    • So some coarse country wench, almost decay’d,
    • Trudges to town and first turns chamber-maid;
    • Awkward and supple each devoir to pay,
    • She flatters her good lady twice a day;
    • Thought wondrous honest, tho’ of mean degree,
    • And strangely liked for her simplicity:20
    • In a translated suit then tries the town,
    • With borrow’d pins and patches not her own:
    • But just endured the winter she began,
    • And in four months a batter’d harridan:
    • Now nothing left, but wither’d, pale, and shrunk,
    • To bawd for others, and go shares with punk.

EPISTLE TO MRS. TERESA BLOUNT

ON HER LEAVING THE TOWN AFTER THE CORONATION

This was written shortly after the coronation of George I. ‘Zephalinda’ was a fanciful name employed by Teresa Blount in correspondence.

    • As some fond virgin, whom her mother’s care
    • Drags from the town to wholesome country air,
    • Just when she learns to roll a melting eye,
    • And hear a spark, yet think no danger nigh—
    • From the dear man unwilling she must sever,
    • Yet takes one kiss before she parts for ever—
    • Thus from the world fair Zephalinda flew,
    • Saw others happy, and with sighs withdrew;
    • Not that their pleasures caus’d her discontent;
    • She sigh’d not that they stay’d, but that she went.10
    • She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks,
    • Old-fashion’d halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks:
    • She went from Op’ra, Park, Assembly, Play,
    • To morning walks, and prayers three hours a day;
    • To part her time ’twixt reading and Bohea,
    • To muse, and spill her solitary tea;
    • Or o’er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,
    • Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon;
    • Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
    • Hum half a tune, tell stories to the squire;
    • Up to her godly garret after sev’n,21
    • There starve and pray, for that’s the way to Heav’n.
    • Some Squire, perhaps, you take delight to rack,
    • Whose game is Whist, whose treat a toast in sack;
    • Who visits with a gun, presents you birds,
    • Then gives a smacking buss, and cries—‘No words!’
    • Or with his hounds comes hollowing from the stable,
    • Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table;
    • Whose laughs are hearty, tho’ his jests are coarse,
    • And loves you best of all things—but his horse.30
    • In some fair ev’ning, on your elbow laid,
    • You dream of triumphs in the rural shade;
    • In pensive thought recall the fancied scene,
    • See coronations rise on ev’ry green:
    • Before you pass th’ imaginary sights
    • Of Lords and Earls and Dukes and garter’d Knights,
    • While the spread fan o’ershades your closing eyes;
    • Then gives one flirt, and all the vision flies.
    • Thus vanish sceptres, coronets, and balls,
    • And leave you in lone woods, or empty walls!40
    • So when your Slave, at some dear idle time
    • (Not plagued with headaches or the want of rhyme)
    • Stands in the streets, abstracted from the crew,
    • And while he seems to study, thinks of you;
    • Just when his fancy paints your sprightly eyes,
    • Or sees the blush of soft Parthenia rise,
    • Gay pats my shoulder, and you vanish quite,
    • Streets, Chairs, and Coxcombs rush upon my sight;
    • Vext to be still in town, I knit my brow,
    • Look sour, and hum a tune, as you may now.50

LINES OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM

  • Muse, ’t is enough, at length thy labour ends,
  • And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends.
  • Let crowds of critics now my verse assail,
  • Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail:
  • This more than pays whole years of thankless pain;
  • Time, health, and fortune, are not lost in vain.
  • Sheffield approves, consenting Phœbus bends,
  • And I and malice from this hour are friends.

A FAREWELL TO LONDON[ ]

IN THE YEAR 1715

    • Dear, damn’d, distracting town, farewell!
    • Thy fools no more I’ll tease:
    • This year in peace, ye Critics, dwell,
    • Ye Harlots, sleep at ease!
    • Soft B—s and rough C[ragg]s, adieu!
    • Earl Warwick, make your moan;
    • The lively II[inchenbroo]k and you
    • May knock up whores alone.
    • To drink and droll be Rowe allow’d
    • Till the third watchman’s toll;
    • Let Jervas gratis paint, and Froude
    • Save threepence and his soul.
    • Farewell Arbuthnot’s raillery
    • On every learned sot;
    • And Garth, the best good Christian he,
    • Although he knows it not.
    • Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go;
    • Farewell, unhappy Tonson!
    • Heav’n gives thee for thy loss of Rowe,
    • Lean Philips and fat Johnson.
    • Why should I stay? Both parties rage;
    • My vixen mistress squalls;
    • The Wits in envious feuds engage;
    • And Homer (damn him!) calls.
    • The love of arts lies cold and dead
    • In Halifax’s urn;
    • And not one Muse of all he fed
    • Has yet the grace to mourn.
    • My friends, by turns, my friends confound,
    • Betray, and are betray’d:
    • Poor Y[ounge]r’s sold for fifty pounds,
    • And B[ickne]ll is a jade.
    • Why make I friendships with the great,
    • When I no favour seek?
    • Or follow girls seven hours in eight?—
    • I need but once a week.
    • Still idle, with a busy air,
    • Deep whimseys to contrive;
    • The gayest valetudinaire,
    • Most thinking rake alive.
    • Solicitous for others’ ends,
    • Tho’ fond of dear repose;
    • Careless or drowsy with my friends,
    • And frolic with my foes.
    • Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,
    • For sober, studious days!
    • And Burlington’s delicious meal,
    • For salads, tarts, and pease!
    • Adieu to all but Gay alone,
    • Whose soul sincere and free,
    • Loves all mankind but flatters none,
    • And so may starve with me.

IMITATION OF MARTIAL

Referred to in a letter from Trumbull to Pope dated January, 1716. The epigram imitated is the twenty-third of the tenth book.

  • At length, my Friend (while Time, with still career,
  • Wafts on his gentle wing his eightieth year),
  • Sees his past days safe out of Fortune’s power,
  • Nor dreads approaching Fate’s uncertain hour;
  • Reviews his life, and in the strict survey, }
  • Finds not one moment he could wish away, }
  • Pleased with the series of each happy day. }
  • Such, such a man extends his life’s short space,
  • And from the goal again renews the race;
  • For he lives twice, who can at once employ
  • The present well, and ev’n the past enjoy.

IMITATION OF TIBULLUS

See the fourth elegy of Tibullus, lines 55, 56. In the course of his high-flown correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, after her departure for the East, Pope often suggests the possibility of his travelling to meet her. ‘But if my fate be such,’ he says on the occasion which brought forth this couplet, ‘that this body of mine (which is as ill matched to my mind as any wife to her husband) be left behind in the journey, let the epitaph of Tibullus be set over it!’

  • Here, stopt by hasty Death, Alexis lies,
  • Who cross’d half Europe, led by Wortley’s eyes.

THE BASSET-TABLE[ ]

AN ECLOGUE

This mock pastoral was one of three which made up the original volume of Town Eclogues, published anonymously in 1716. Three more appeared in a later edition. It is now known that only the Basset-Table is Pope’s, the rest being the work of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

cardelia, smilinda, lovet

Card.

  • The Basset-Table spread, the Tallier come,
  • Why stays Smilinda in the dressing-room?
  • Rise, pensive nymph! the Tallier waits for you. }

Smil.

  • Ah, madam! since my Sharper is untrue, }
  • I joyless make my once adored Alpeu. }
  • I saw him stand behind Ombrelia’s chair, }
  • And whisper with that soft deluding air, }
  • And those feign’d sighs which cheat the list’ning Fair. }

Card.

  • Is this the cause of your romantic strains?
  • A mightier grief my heavy heart sustains:
  • As you by love, so I by Fortune crost;11
  • One, one bad Deal, three Septlevas have lost.

Smil.

  • Is that the grief which you compare with mine?
  • With ease the smiles of fortune I resign:
  • Would all my gold in one bad Deal were gone,
  • Were lovely Sharper mine, and mine alone.

Card.

  • A lover lost is but a common care,
  • And prudent nymphs against that change prepare:
  • The Knave of Clubs thrice lost: Oh! who could guess19
  • This fatal stroke, this unforeseen distress?

Smil.

  • See Betty Lovet! very àpropos;
  • She all the cares of love and play does know.
  • Dear Betty shall th’ important point decide;
  • Betty! who oft the pain of each has tried;
  • Impartial she shall say who suffers most,
  • By cards’ ill usage, or by lovers lost.

Lov.

  • Tell, tell your griefs; attentive will I stay,
  • Though time is precious, and I want some tea.

Card.

  • Behold this equipage, by Mathers wrought,
  • With fifty guineas (a great pen’worth) bought.30
  • See on the toothpick Mars and Cupid strive,
  • And both the struggling figures seem alive.
  • Upon the bottom shines the Queen’s bright face;
  • A myrtle foliage round the thimble case.
  • Jove, Jove himself does on the scissors shine:
  • The metal, and the workmanship, divine.

Smil.

  • This snuff-box—once the pledge of Sharper’s love,
  • When rival beauties for the present strove;
  • At Corticelli’s he the raffle won;39
  • Then first his passion was in public shown:
  • Hazardia blush’d, and turn’d her head aside,
  • A rival’s envy (all in vain) to hide.
  • This snuffbox—on the hinge see brilliants shine—
  • This snuffbox will I stake, the Prize is mine.

Card.

  • Alas! far lesser losses than I bear
  • Have made a soldier sigh, a lover swear.
  • And oh! what makes the disappointment hard,
  • ’T was my own Lord that drew the fatal card.
  • In complaisance I took the Queen he gave,
  • Tho’ my own secret wish was for the Knave.50
  • The Knave won Sonica, which I had chose,
  • And the next pull my Septleva I lose.

Smil.

    • But ah! what aggravates the killing smart,
    • The cruel thought that stabs me to the heart,
    • This curs’d Ombrelia, this undoing Fair,
    • By whose vile arts this heavy grief I bear,
    • She, at whose name I shed these spiteful tears,
    • She owes to me the very charms she wears.
    • An awkward thing when first she came to town,
    • Her shape unfashion’d, and her face unknown:60
    • She was my friend; I taught her first to spread
    • Upon her sallow cheeks enlivening red;
    • I introduced her to the park and plays,
    • And by my int’rest Cozens made her Stays.
    • Ungrateful wretch! with mimic airs grown pert,
    • She dares to steal my favourite lover’s heart.

Card.

  • Wretch that I was, how often have I swore,
  • When Winnall tallied, I would punt no more!
  • I know the bite, yet to my ruin run,
  • And see the folly which I cannot shun.70

Smil.

  • How many maids have Sharper’s vows deceiv’d?
  • How many curs’d the moment they believ’d?
  • Yet his known falsehoods could no warning prove:
  • Ah! what is warning to a maid in love?

Card.

  • But of what marble must that breast be form’d,
  • To gaze on Basset, and remain unwarm’d?
  • When Kings, Queens, Knaves, are set in decent rank,
  • Exposed in glorious heaps the tempting Bank,
  • Guineas, half-guineas, all the shining train,
  • The winner’s pleasure, and the loser’s pain.80
  • In bright confusion open Rouleaux lie,
  • They strike the soul, and glitter in the eye:
  • Fired by the sight, all reason I disdain,
  • My passions rise, and will not bear the rein.
  • Look upon Basset, you who reason boast,
  • And see if reason must not there be lost.

Smil.

  • What more than marble must that heart compose
  • Can harken coldly to my Sharper’s vows?
  • Then when he trembles! when his blushes rise!
  • When awful love seems melting in his eyes!90
  • With eager beats his Mechlin cravat moves:
  • ‘He loves’—I whisper to myself, ‘He loves!’
  • Such unfeign’d passion in his looks appears,
  • I lose all mem’ry of my former fears;
  • My panting heart confesses all his charms,
  • I yield at once, and sink into his arms.
  • Think of that moment, you who Prudence boast;
  • For such a moment Prudence well were lost.

Card.

Smil.

  • Soft Simplicetta dotes upon a beau;
  • Prudina likes a man, and laughs at show:
  • Their several graces in my Sharper meet,
  • Strong as the footman, as the master sweet.

Lov.

  • Cease your contention, which has been too long;
  • I grow impatient, and the tea ’s too strong.
  • Attend, and yield to what I now decide;
  • The equipage shall grace Smilinda’s side;110
  • The snuffbox to Cardelia I decree;
  • Now leave complaining, and begin your tea.

EPIGRAM ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB[ ]

ANNO 1716

    • Whence deathless ‘Kit-cat’ took its name,
    • Few critics can unriddle:
    • Some say from ‘Pastrycook’ it came,
    • And some, from ‘cat’ and ‘fiddle.’
    • From no trim Beaux its name it boasts,
    • Gray Statesmen, or green wits;
    • But from this pellmell pack of Toasts
    • Of old ‘cats’ and young ‘kits.’

THE CHALLENGE

A COURT BALLAD

TO THE TUNE OF ‘TO ALL YOU LADIES NOW AT LAND,’ ETC.

This lively ballad, written in 1717, belongs to the period of Pope’s intimacy with court society. The three ladies here addressed were attached to the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

    • I

    • To one fair lady out of Court,
    • And two fair ladies in,
    • Who think the Turk and Pope a sport,
    • And wit and love no sin;
    • Come these soft lines, with nothing stiff in,
    • To Bellenden, Lepell, and Griffin.
    • With a fa, la, la.

    • II

    • What passes in the dark third row,
    • And what behind the scene,
    • Couches and crippled chairs I know,
    • And garrets hung with green;
    • I know the swing of sinful hack,
    • Where many damsels cry alack.
    • With a fa, la, la.

    • III

    • Then why to Courts should I repair,
    • Where’s such ado with Townshend?
    • To hear each mortal stamp and swear,
    • And every speech with Zounds end;
    • To hear ’em rail at honest Sunderland,
    • And rashly blame the realm of Blunderland.
    • With a fa, la, la.

    • IV

    • Alas! like Schutz, I cannot pun,
    • Like Grafton court the Germans;
    • Tell Pickenbourg how slim she ’s grown,
    • Like Meadows run to sermons;
    • To Court ambitious men may roam,
    • But I and Marlbro’ stay at home.
    • With a fa, la, la.

    • V

    • In truth, by what I can discern,
    • Of courtiers ’twixt you three,
    • Some wit you have, and more may learn
    • From Court, than Gay or me;
    • Perhaps, in time, you ’ll leave high diet,
    • To sup with us on milk and quiet.
    • With a fa, la, la.

    • VI

    • At Leicester-Fields, a house full high,
    • With door all painted green,
    • Where ribbons wave upon the tie
    • (A milliner I mean),
    • There may you meet us three to three,
    • For Gay can well make two of me.
    • With a fa, la, la.

    • VII

    • But should you catch the prudish itch
    • And each become a coward,
    • Bring sometimes with you lady Rich,
    • And sometimes mistress Howard;
    • For virgins to keep chaste must go
    • Abroad with such as are not so.
    • With a fa, la, la.

    • VIII

    • And thus, fair maids, my ballad ends:
    • God send the King safe landing;
    • And make all honest ladies friends
    • To armies that are standing;
    • Preserve the limits of those nations,
    • And take off ladies’ limitations.
    • With a fa, la, la.

THE LOOKING-GLASS

ON MRS. PULTENEY

Mrs. Pulteney was a daughter of one John Gumley, who had made a fortune by a glass manufactory.

  • With scornful mien, and various toss of air,
  • Fantastic, vain, and insolently fair,
  • Grandeur intoxicates her giddy brain,
  • She looks ambition, and she moves disdain.
  • Far other carriage graced her virgin life,
  • But charming Gumley’s lost in Pulteney’s wife.
  • Not greater arrogance in him we find,
  • And this conjunction swells at least her mind.
  • O could the sire, renown’d in glass, produce
  • One faithful mirror for his daughter’s use!
  • Wherein she might her haughty errors trace,
  • And by reflection learn to mend her face:
  • The wonted sweetness to her form restore,
  • Be what she was, and charm mankind once more.

PROLOGUE, DESIGNED FOR MR. D’URFEY’S LAST PLAY

‘Tom’ D’Urfey was a writer of popular farces under the Restoration. Through Addison’s influence his play The Plotting Sisters was revived for his benefit; and the present prologue was possibly written for that occasion. It was first published in 1727.

    • Grown old in rhyme, ’t were barb’rous to discard
    • Your persevering, unexhausted Bard:
    • Damnation follows death in other men,
    • But your damn’d poet lives and writes again.
    • The adventurous lover is successful still,
    • Who strives to please the Fair against her will.
    • Be kind, and make him in his wishes easy,
    • Who in your own despite has strove to please ye.
    • He scorn’d to borrow from the Wits of yore,
    • But ever writ, as none e’er writ before.10
    • You modern Wits, should each man bring his claim,
    • Have desperate debentures on your fame;
    • And little would be left you, I’m afraid,
    • If all your debts to Greece and Rome were paid.
    • From this deep fund our author largely draws,
    • Nor sinks his credit lower than it was.
    • Tho’ plays for honour in old time he made,
    • ’T is now for better reasons—to be paid.
    • Believe him, he has known the world too long,
    • And seen the death of much immortal song.20
    • He says, poor poets lost, while players won,
    • As pimps grow rich while gallants are undone.
    • Though Tom the poet writ with ease and pleasure,
    • The comic Tom abounds in other treasure.
    • Fame is at best an unperforming cheat;
    • But ’t is substantial happiness to eat.
    • Let ease, his last request, be of your giving,
    • Nor force him to be damn’d to get his living.

PROLOGUE TO THE ‘THREE HOURS AFTER MARRIAGE’

Three Hours after Marriage was a dull and unsuccessful farce produced in January, 1717, at the Drury Lane Theatre. Though it was attributed to the joint authorship of Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, direct proof is lacking not only of Pope’s share in the play, but of his authorship of the Prologue. Of the latter fact, at least, we have, however, indirect evidence in Pope’s resentment of the ridicule cast by Cibber, in a topical impromptu, upon the play; the incident which first roused Pope’s enmity for Cibber, which resulted in his eventually displacing Theobald as the central figure in The Dunciad.

    • Authors are judged by strange capricious rules,
    • The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools:
    • Yet sure the best are most severely fated;
    • For Fools are only laugh’d at, Wits are hated.
    • Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor;
    • But fool ’gainst fool, is barb’rous civil war.
    • Why on all Authors then should Critics fall?
    • Since some have writ, and shown no wit at all.
    • Condemn a play of theirs, and they evade it;
    • Cry, ‘Damn not us, but damn the French, who made it.’10
    • By running goods these graceless Owlers gain;
    • Theirs are the rules of France, the plots of Spain:
    • But wit, like wine, from happier climates brought,
    • Dash’d by these rogues, turns English common draught.
    • They pall Molière’s and Lopez’ sprightly strain,
    • And teach dull Harlequins to grin in vain.
    • How shall our Author hope a gentler fate,
    • Who dares most impudently not translate?
    • It had been civil, in these ticklish times,
    • To fetch his fools and knaves from foreign climes.20
    • Spaniards and French abuse to the world’s end,
    • But spare old England, lest you hurt a friend.
    • If any fool is by our satire bit,
    • Let him hiss loud, to show you all he ’s hit.
    • Poets make characters, as salesmen clothes;
    • We take no measure of your Fops and Beaux;
    • But here all sizes and all shapes you meet,
    • And fit yourselves like chaps in Monmouth Street.
    • Gallants, look here! this Foolscap has an air29
    • Goodly and smart, with ears of Issachar.
    • Let no one fool engross it, or confine
    • A common blessing! now ’t is yours, now mine.
    • But poets in all ages had the care
    • To keep this cap for such as will, to wear.
    • Our Author has it now (for every Wit
    • Of course resign’d it to the next that writ)
    • And thus upon the stage ’t is fairly thrown;
    • Let him that takes it wear it as his own.

PRAYER OF BRUTUS

FROM GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH

The Rev. Aaron Thompson, of Queen’s College, Oxon., translated the Chronicle of Geoffrey of Monmouth. He submitted the translation to Pope, 1717, who gave him the following lines, being a translation of a Prayer of Brutus. (Carruthers.)

  • Goddess of woods, tremendous in the chase
  • To mountain wolves and all the savage race,
  • Wide o’er th’ aerial vault extend thy sway,
  • And o’er th’ infernal regions void of day.
  • On thy Third Reign look down; disclose our fate;
  • In what new station shall we fix our seat?
  • When shall we next thy hallow’d altars raise,
  • And choirs of virgins celebrate thy praise?

TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU

While there is no absolute date to be given for this or the following poem, both evidently belong to the period of Pope’s somewhat fanciful attachment for Lady Mary.

    • I

    • In beauty, or wit,
    • No mortal as yet
    • To question your empire has dar’d;
    • But men of discerning
    • Have thought that in learning,
    • To yield to a lady was hard.

    • II

    • Impertinent schools,
    • With musty dull rules,
    • Have reading to females denied:
    • So Papists refuse
    • The Bible to use,
    • Lest flocks should be wise as their guide.

    • III

    • ’T was a woman at first,
    • (Indeed she was curst)
    • In Knowledge that tasted delight,
    • And sages agree
    • The laws should decree
    • To the first possessor the right.

    • IV

    • Then bravely, fair Dame,
    • Resume the old claim,
    • Which to your whole sex does belong;
    • And let men receive,
    • From a second bright Eve,
    • The knowledge of right and of wrong.

    • V

    • But if the first Eve
    • Hard doom did receive,
    • When only one apple had she,
    • What a punishment new
    • Shall be found out for you,
    • Who tasting have robb’d the whole tree?

EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES

ON A PORTRAIT OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU, PAINTED BY KNELLER

  • The playful smiles around the dimpled mouth,
  • That happy air of majesty and truth,
  • So would I draw (but oh! ’t is vain to try;
  • My narrow Genius does the power deny;)
  • The equal lustre of the heav’nly mind,
  • Where ev’ry grace with ev’ry virtue ’s join’d;
  • Learning not vain, and Wisdom not severe,
  • With Greatness easy, and with Wit sincere;
  • With just description show the work divine,
  • And the whole Princess in my work should shine.

[Page 102.]Macer.

[Line 8.]Crowne, John, a dramatist and adapter of plays, died 1698.

[Page 103.] A Farewell to London.

Stanza ii. C—s is evidently Craggs; and H—k, as Carruthers interprets the hiatus, Lord Hinchinbrook, a young nobleman of spirit and fashion. (Ward.)

Stanza viii., lines 3 and 4. Most likely Miss Younger and Mrs. Bicknell, sisters, both actresses. (Carruthers.)

[Page 104.]The Basset-Table.

[Line 99.] The Groom-Porter was an officer in the King’s household, who, under a provision exempting royalty from the laws against gambling, was enabled to provide a resort for London gamesters.

[Line 100.]Some dukes at Mary-bone. The reference is supposed to have been to the Duke of Buckinghamshire, who frequented a bowling-alley in Marylebone parish.

[Page 106.]Epigram on the Toasts of the Kit-cat Club.

The Kit-cat Club, named for Christopher Katt, a pastry-cook, numbered among its members most of the town wits, including Steele and Addison.