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SATIRES

The Satires retain nearly the order of their original publication. They appeared between 1733 and 1738. It is said that Bolingbroke suggested the translation of the First Satire of the Second Book of Horace, and that the translation of the others was done somewhat at random, as Pope saw his opportunity of adapting them to his own day.

EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT[ ]

BEING THE PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES

This paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some Persons of Rank and Fortune (the authors of ‘Verses to the Imitator of Horace,’ and of an ‘Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton Court’) to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my Writings (of which, being public, the Public is judge), but my Person, Morals, and Family; whereof, to those who know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so awkward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to this epistle. If it have any thing pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the Truth and the Sentiment; and if any thing offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious or the ungenerous.

Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and they may escape being laughed at if they please.

I would have some of them know it was owing to the request of the learned and candid Friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage and honour on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a nameless character can never be found out but by its truth and likeness.

- P. ‘Shut, shut the door, good John!’ fatigued, I said;
- ‘Tie up the knocker, say I ’m sick, I ’m dead.’
- The Dog-star rages! nay, ’t is past a doubt
- All Bedlam or Parnassus is let out:
- Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
- They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
- What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
- They pierce my thickets, thro’ my grot they glide,
- By land, by water, they renew the charge,
- They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.10
- No place is sacred, not the church is free,
- Ev’n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me:
- Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,
- Happy to catch me just at dinner time.
- Is there a Parson much bemused in beer,
- A maudlin Poetess, a rhyming Peer,
- A clerk foredoom’d his father’s soul to cross,
- Who pens a stanza when he should engross?
- Is there who, lock’d from ink and paper, scrawls
- With desp’rate charcoal round his darken’d walls?20
- All fly to Twit’nam, and in humble strain
- Apply to me to keep them mad or vain,
- Arthur , whose giddy son neglects the laws,
- Imputes to me and my damn’d works the cause:
- Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,
- And curses Wit and Poetry, and Pope.
- Friend to my life (which did not you prolong,
- The world had wanted many an idle song)!
- What Drop or Nostrum can this plague remove?
- Or which must end me, a fool’s wrath or love?30
- A dire dilemma! either way I ’m sped;
- If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead.
- Seiz’d and tied down to judge, how wretched I!
- Who can’t be silent, and who will not lie.
- To laugh were want to goodness and of grace,
- And to be grave exceeds all power of face.
- I sit with sad civility, I read
- With honest anguish and an aching head,
- And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,
- This saving counsel, ‘Keep your piece nine years .’40
- ‘Nine years!’ cries he, who, high in Drury lane,
- Lull’d by soft zephyrs thro’ the broken pane,
- Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before Term ends,
- Obliged by hunger and request of friends:
- ‘The piece, you think, is incorrect? why, take it!
- I ’m all submission: what you ’d have it—make it.’
- Three things another’s modest wishes bound,
- ‘My friendship, and a Prologue, and ten pound.’
- Pitholeon sends to me: “You know his Grace,
- I want a patron; ask him for a place.’50
- Pitholeon libell’d me—‘But here ’s a letter
- Informs you, Sir, ’twas when he knew no better.
- Dare you refuse him? Curll invites to dine,
- He ’ll write a Journal, or he ’ll turn Divine.’
- Bless me! a packet.—’T is a stranger sues,
- A Virgin Tragedy, an Orphan Muse.
- If I dislike it, ‘Furies, death, and rage!’
- If I approve, ‘Commend it to the stage.’
- There (thank my stars) my whole commission ends,59
- The players and I are, luckily, no friends.
- Fired that the house rejects him, ‘’Sdeath, I ’ll print it,
- And shame the fools—your int’rest, Sir, with Lintot .’
- Lintot, dull rogue, will think your price too much:
- ‘Not, Sir, if you revise it, and retouch.’
- All my demurs but double his attacks;
- At last he whispers, ‘Do, and we go snacks.’
- Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door;
- ‘Sir, let me see your works and you no more.’
- ’T is sung, when Midas’ ears began to spring
- (Midas, a sacred person and a king),70
- His very Minister who spied them first
- (Some say his Queen) was forc’d to speak or burst.
- And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case,
- When ev’ry coxcomb perks them in my face?
- A. Good friend, forbear! you deal in dangerous things;
- I ’d never name Queens, Ministers, or Kings;
- Keep close to ears, and those let asses prick,
- ’T is nothing— P. Nothing! if they bite and kick?
- Out with it, Dunciad! let the secret pass,
- That secret to each fool, that he ’s an ass:
- The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?)81
- The Queen of Midas slept, and so may I.
- You think this cruel? take it for a rule,
- No creature smarts so little as a fool.
- Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break,
- Thou unconcern’d canst hear the mighty crack:
- Pit, Box, and Gall’ry in convulsions hurl’d,
- Thou stand’st unshook amidst a bursting world.
- Who shames a Scribbler? break one cobweb thro’,
- He spins the slight self-pleasing thread anew:90
- Destroy his fib, or sophistry—in vain!
- The creature ’s at his dirty work again,
- Throned in the centre of his thin designs,
- Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines.
- Whom have I hurt? has Poet yet or Peer
- Lost the arch’d eyebrow or Parnassian sneer?
- And has not Colley still his lord and whore?
- His butchers Henley? his freemasons Moore?
- Does not one table Bavius still admit?
- Still to one Bishop Philips seem a wit?100
- Still Sappho — A. Hold! for God’s sake—you ’ll offend.
- No names—be calm—learn prudence of a friend.
- I too could write, and I am twice as tall;
- But foes like these— P. One flatt’rer ’s worse than all.
- Of all mad creatures, if the learn’d are right,
- It is the slaver kills, and not the bite.
- A fool quite angry is quite innocent:
- Alas! ’t is ten times worse when they repent.
- One dedicates in high heroic prose,
- And ridicules beyond a hundred foes;110
- One from all Grub-street will my fame defend,
- And, more abusive, calls himself my friend:
- This prints my Letters, that expects a bribe,
- And others roar aloud, ‘Subscribe, subscribe!’
- There are who to my person pay their court:
- I cough like Horace; and tho’ lean, am short;
- Ammon’s great son one shoulder had too high,
- Such Ovid’s nose, and ‘Sir! you have an eye —’
- Go on, obliging creatures! make me see
- All that disgraced my betters met in me.
- Say, for my comfort, languishing in bed,121
- ‘Just so immortal Maro held his head:’
- And when I die, be sure you let me know
- Great Homer died three thousand years ago.
- Why did I write? what sin to me unknown
- Dipp’d me in ink, my parents’, or my own?
- As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
- I lisp’d in numbers , for the numbers came:
- I left no calling for this idle trade,
- No duty broke, no father disobey’d:130
- The Muse but serv’d to ease some friend, not wife,
- To help me thro’ this long disease my life,
- To second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care,
- And teach the being you preserv’d, to bear.
- A. But why then publish? P.Granville the polite,
- And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
- Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise,
- And Congreve lov’d, and Swift endured my lays;
- The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield , read;
- Ev’n mitred Rochester would nod the head,140
- And St. John’s self (great Dryden’s friends before)
- With open arms receiv’d one poet more.
- Happy my studies, when by these approv’d!
- Happier their author, when by these belov’d!
- From these the world will judge of men and books,
- Not from the Burnets , Oldmixons, and Cookes.
- Soft were my numbers; who could take offence
- While pure description held the place of sense?
- Like gentle Fanny’s was my flowery theme,
- ‘A painted mistress, or a purling stream.’
- Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;151
- I wish’d the man a dinner, and sat still:
- Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret;
- I never answer’d; I was not in debt.
- If want provoked, or madness made them print,
- I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint.
- Did some more sober critic come abroad;
- If wrong, I smiled, if right, I kiss’d the rod.
- Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence,
- And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense.160
- Commas and points they set exactly right,
- And ’t were a sin to rob them of their mite.
- Yet ne’er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds,
- From slashing Bentleys down to piddling Tibbalds.
- Each wight who reads not, and but scans and spells,
- Each word-catcher that lives on syllables,
- Ev’n such small critics some regard may claim,
- Preserv’d in Milton’s or in Shakespeare’s name.
- Pretty! in amber to observe the forms
- Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!170
- The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,
- But wonder how the devil they got there.
- Were others angry: I excused them too;
- Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.
- A man’s true merit ’t is not hard to find;
- But each man’s secret standard in his mind,
- That casting-weight Pride adds to emptiness,
- This, who can gratify? for who can guess?
- The bard whom pilfer’d pastorals renown ,
- Who turns a Persian tale for half-a-crown,180
- Just writes to make his barrenness appear,
- And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a year;
- He who still wanting, tho’ he lives on theft,
- Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left;
- And he who now to sense, now nonsense, leaning,
- Means not, but blunders round about a meaning:
- And he whose fustian’s so sublimely bad,
- It is not poetry, but prose run mad:
- All these my modest satire bade translate,
- And own’d that nine such poets made a Tate .190
- How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe!
- And swear not Addison himself was safe.
- Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires
- True Genius kindles, and fair Fame inspires,
- Bless’d with each talent and each art to please,
- And born to write, converse, and live with ease;
- Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
- Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne;
- View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
- And hate for arts that caus’d himself to rise;200
- Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
- And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;
- Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
- Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
- Alike reserv’d to blame or to commend,
- A tim’rous foe, and a suspicious friend;
- Dreading ev’n fools; by flatterers besieged,
- And so obliging that he ne’er obliged;
- Like Cato, give his little Senate laws,
- And sit attentive to his own applause:210
- While Wits and Templars ev’ry sentence raise,
- And wonder with a foolish face of praise—
- Who but must laugh if such a man there be?
- Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?
- What tho’ my name stood rubric on the walls,
- Or plaster’d posts, with claps, in capitals?
- Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers load,
- On wings of winds came flying all abroad?
- I sought no homage from the race that write;
- I kept, like Asian Monarchs, from their sight:220
- Poems I heeded (now berhymed so long)
- No more than thou, great George! a birthday song.
- I ne’er with Wits or Witlings pass’d my days
- To spread about the itch of verse and praise;
- Nor like a puppy daggled thro’ the town
- To fetch and carry sing-song up and down;
- Nor at rehearsals sweat, and mouth’d, and cried,
- With handkerchief and orange at my side;
- But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate,
- To Bufo left the whole Castalian state.230
- Proud as Apollo on his forked hill
- Sat full-blown Bufo , puff’d by ev’ry quill:
- Fed with soft dedication all day long,
- Horace and he went hand in hand in song.
- His library (where busts of poets dead,
- And a true Pindar stood without a head )
- Receiv’d of Wits an undistinguish’d race,
- Who first his judgment ask’d, and then a place:
- Much they extoll’d his pictures, much his seat,
- And flatter’d ev’ry day, and some days eat:240
- Till grown more frugal in his riper days,
- He paid some bards with port, and some with praise;
- To some a dry rehearsal was assign’d,
- And others (harder still) he paid in kind.
- Dryden alone (what wonder?) came not nigh;
- Dryden alone escaped this judging eye:
- But still the great have kindness in reserve;
- He help’d to bury whom he help’d to starve.
- May some choice patron bless each gray goose quill!
- May every Bavius have his Bufo still!250
- So when a statesman wants a day’s defence,
- Or Envy holds a whole week’s war with Sense,
- Or simple Pride for flatt’ry makes demands,
- May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands!
- Bless’d be the great! for those they take away,
- And those they left me—for they left me Gay ;
- Left me to see neglected Genius bloom,
- Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb:
- Of all thy blameless life the sole return
- My Verse, and Queensb’ry weeping o’er thy urn!260
- Oh let me live my own, and die so too
- (To live and die is all I have to do)!
- Maintain a poet’s dignity and ease,
- And see what friends, and read what books I please;
- Above a Patron, tho’ I condescend
- Sometimes to call a minister my Friend.
- I was not born for courts or great affairs;
- I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers;
- Can sleep without a poem in my head,
- Nor know if Dennis be alive or dead.270
- Why am I ask’d what next shall see the light?
- Heav’ns! was I born for nothing but to write?
- Has life no joys for me? or (to be grave)
- Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save?
- ‘I found him close with Swift’—‘Indeed? no doubt
- (Cries prating Balbus) something will come out.’
- ’T is all in vain, deny it as I will;
- ‘No, such a genius never can lie still:’
- And then for mine obligingly mistakes279
- The first lampoon Sir Will or Bubo makes.
- Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but smile,
- When ev’ry coxcomb knows me by my style?
- Curst be the verse, how well soe’er it flow,
- That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
- Give Virtue scandal, Innocence a fear,
- Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear!
- But he who hurts a harmless neighbour’s peace,
- Insults fall’n Worth, or Beauty in distress,
- Who loves a lie, lame Slander helps about,
- Who writes a libel, or who copies out;290
- That fop whose pride affects a patron’s name,
- Yet absent, wounds an author’s honest fame;
- Who can your merit selfishly approve,
- And show the sense of it without the love;
- Who has the vanity to call you friend,
- Yet wants the honour, injured, to defend;
- Who tells whate’er you think, whate’er you say,
- And, if he lie not, must at least betray;
- Who to the Dean and Silver Bell can swear,299
- And sees at Canons what was never there;
- Who reads but with a lust to misapply,
- Make satire a lampoon, and fiction lie:
- A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
- But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.
- Let Sporus tremble—A. What? that thing of silk,
- Sporus, that mere white curd of Ass’s milk?
- Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
- Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
- P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
- This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;310
- Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
- Yet Wit ne’er tastes, and Beauty ne’er enjoys;
- So well-bred spaniels civilly delight
- In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
- Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,
- As shallow streams run dimpling all the way,
- Whether in florid impotence he speaks,
- And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks,
- Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,
- Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,320
- In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,
- Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies;
- His wit all see-saw between that and this, }
- Now high, now low, now master up, now miss, }
- And he himself one vile Antithesis. }
- Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
- The trifling head, or the corrupted heart;
- Fop at the toilet, flatt’rer at the board,
- Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
- Eve’s tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest,330
- A cherub’s face, a reptile all the rest;
- Beauty that shocks you, Parts that none will trust,
- Wit that can creep, and Pride that licks the dust.
- Not Fortune’s worshipper, nor Fashion’s fool,
- Not Lucre’s madman, nor Ambition’s tool,
- Not proud nor servile;—be one poet’s praise,
- That if he pleas’d, he pleas’d by manly ways:
- That flatt’ry ev’n to Kings, he held a shame,
- And thought a lie in verse or prose the same;339
- That not in fancy’s maze he wander’d long,
- But stoop’d to truth, and moralized his song;
- That not for Fame, but Virtue’s better end,
- He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
- The damning critic, half approving wit,
- The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
- Laugh’d at the loss of friends he never had,
- The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
- The distant threats of vengeance on his head,
- The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;349
- The tale revived , the lie so oft o’erthrown,
- Th’ imputed trash and dulness not his own;
- The morals blacken’d when the writings ’scape,
- The libell’d person, and the pictured shape;
- Abuse on all he lov’d, or lov’d him, spread,
- A friend in exile, or a father dead;
- The whisper, that, to greatness still too near,
- Perhaps yet vibrates on his Sov’reign’s ear—
- Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past:
- For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev’n the last!
- A. But why insult the poor? affront the great?360
- P. A knave ’s a knave to me in ev’ry state;
- Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail,
- Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail;
- A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer,
- Knight of the post corrupt , or of the shire;
- If on a Pillory, or near a Throne,
- He gain his prince’s ear, or lose his own.
- Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit,
- Sappho can tell you how this man was bit:
- This dreaded Satirist Dennis will confess
- Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress :371
- So humble, he has knock’d at Tibbald’s door,
- Has drunk with Cibber, nay, has rhymed for Moore.
- Full ten years slander’d, did he once reply?
- Three thousand suns went down on Welsted’s lie .
- To please a mistress one aspers’d his life;
- He lash’d him not, but let her be his wife:
- Let Budgell charge low Grub-street on his quill,
- And write whate’er he pleased, except his will;379
- Let the two Curlls of town and court abuse
- His father, mother, body, soul, and muse:
- Yet why? that father held it for a rule,
- It was a sin to call our neighbour fool;
- That harmless mother thought no wife a whore:
- Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore!
- Unspotted names, and memorable long,
- If there be force in Virtue, or in Song.
- Of gentle blood (part shed in honour’s cause,
- While yet in Britain honour had applause)
- Each parent sprung—A. What fortune, pray?—
- P. Their own;390
- And better got than Bestia’s from the throne.
- Born to no pride, inheriting no strife,
- Nor marrying discord in a noble wife ,
- Stranger to civil and religious rage,
- The good man walk’d innoxious thro’ his age.
- No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
- Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie.
- Unlearn’d, he knew no schoolman’s subtle art,
- No language but the language of the heart.
- By Nature honest, by Experience wise,400
- Healthy by Temp’rance and by Exercise;
- His life, tho’ long, to sickness pass’d unknown,
- His death was instant and without a groan.
- O grant me thus to live, and thus to die!
- Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.
- O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!
- Be no unpleasing melancholy mine:
- Me, let the tender office long engage
- To rock the cradle of reposing Age,409
- With lenient arts extend a Mother’s breath,
- Make Languor smile, and smooth the bed of Death;
- Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
- And keep a while one parent from the sky!
- On cares like these if length of days attend,
- May Heav’n, to bless those days, preserve my friend!
- Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,
- And just as rich as when he serv’d a Queen .
- A. Whether that blessing be denied or giv’n,
- Thus far was right;—the rest belongs to Heav’n.

SATIRES, EPISTLES, AND ODES OF HORACE IMITATED[ ]

Ludentis speciem dabit, et torquebitur.—Hor.

The occasion of publishing these Imitations was the clamour raised on some of my Epistles. An answer from Horace was both more full and of more dignity than any I could have made in my own person; and the example of much greater freedom in so eminent a divine as Dr. Donne, seemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat Vice or Folly, in ever so low or ever so high a station. Both these authors were acceptable to the Princes and Ministers under whom they lived. The satires of Dr. Donne I versified at the desire of the Earl of Oxford, while he was Lord Treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury, who had been Secretary of State; neither of whom looked upon a satire on vicious courts as any reflection on those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error than that which fools are so apt to fall into, and knaves with good reason to encourage,—the mistaking a Satirist for a Libeller; whereas to a true Satirist nothing is so odious as a Libeller, for the same reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a hypocrite.

Uni sequus virtuti atque ejus amicis.

THE FIRST SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE

This satire was first published in 1733, under the title A Dialogue between Alexander Pope of Twickenham, on the one part, and the Learned Counsel on the other.

TO MR. FORTESCUE

- P.There are (I scarce can think it, but am told),
- There are to whom my satire seems too bold;
- Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough,
- And something said of Chartres much too rough.
- The lines are weak, another ’s pleas’d to say;
- Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
- Tim’rous by nature, of the rich in awe,
- I come to counsel learned in the law:
- You ’ll give me, like a friend both sage and free,
- Advice; and (as you use) without a fee.10
- F. I’d write no more.
- P. Not write? but then I think,
- And for my soul I cannot sleep a wink.
- I nod in company, I wake at night;
- Fools rush into my head, and so I write.
- F. You could not do a worse thing for your life.
- Why, if the night seem tedious—take a wife:
- Or rather, truly, if your point be rest,
- Lettuce and cowslip wine: probatum est.
- But talk with Celsus, Celsus will advise
- Hartshorn, or something that shall close your eyes.20
- Or if you needs must write, write Cæsar’s praise;
- You ’ll gain at least a Knighthood or the Bays.
- P. What? like Sir Richard , rumbling, rough, and fierce,
- With Arms, and George, and Brunswick, crowd the verse;
- Rend with tremendous sound your ears asunder,
- With gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder?
- Or nobly wild, with Budgell’s fire and force,
- Paint angels trembling round his falling horse?
- F. Then all your Muse’s softer art display,
- Let Carolina smooth the tuneful lay;30
- Lull with Amelia’s liquid name the Nine,
- And sweetly flow thro’ all the royal line.
- P. Alas! few verses touch their nicer ear;
- They scarce can bear their Laureate twice a year;
- And justly Cæsar scorns the poet’s lays;
- It is to history he trusts for praise.
- F. Better be Cibber, I ’ll maintain it still,
- Than ridicule all Taste, blaspheme Quadrille,
- Abuse the city’s best good men in metre,
- And laugh at peers that put their trust in Peter .40
- Ev’n those you touch not, hate you.
- P. What should ail ’em?
- F. A hundred smart in Timon and in Balaam.
- The fewer still you name, you wound the more;
- Bond is but one, but Harpax is a score.
- P. Each mortal has his pleasure: none deny
- Scarsdale his bottle , Darty his ham-pie:
- Ridotta sips and dances till she see
- The doubling lustres dance as fast as she:
- F[ox] loves the Senate, Hockley-hole his brother,
- Like in all else, as one egg to another.50
- I love to pour out all myself as plain
- As downright Shippen , or as old Montaigne:
- In them, as certain to be lov’d as seen,
- The soul stood forth, nor kept a thought within;
- In me what spots (for spots I have) appear,
- Will prove at least the medium must be clear.
- In this impartial glass my Muse intends
- Fair to expose myself, my foes, my friends;
- Publish the present age; but where my text
- Is vice too high, reserve it for the next;60
- My foes shall wish my life a longer date,
- And ev’ry friend the less lament my fate.
- My head and heart thus flowing thro’ my quill,
- Verse-man or prose-man, term me which you will,
- Papist or Protestant, or both between,
- Like good Erasmus, in an honest mean,
- In moderation placing all my glory,
- While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.
- Satire ’s my weapon, but I ’m too discreet
- To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet;70
- I only wear it in a land of Hectors,
- Thieves, supercargoes, sharpers, and directors.
- Save but our Army! and let Jove incrust
- Swords, pikes, and guns, with everlasting rust!
- Peace is my dear delight—not Fleury’s more:
- But touch me, and no minister so sore.
- Whoe’er offends, at some unlucky time
- Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme,
- Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,79
- And the sad burden of some merry song.
- Slander or poison dread from Delia’s rage;
- Hard words or hanging, if your judge be Page ;
- From furious Sappho scarce a milder fate,
- Pox’d by her love, or libell’d by her hate.
- Its proper power to hurt each creature feels;
- Bulls aim their horns, and asses lift their heels;
- ’T is a bear’s talent not to kick, but hug;
- And no man wonders he ’s not stung by Pug.
- So drink with Walters, or with Chartres eat,
- They ’ll never poison you, they ’ll only cheat.90
- Then, learned Sir! (to cut the matter short)
- Whate’er my fate,—or well or ill at court,
- Whether old age, with faint but cheerful ray,
- Attends to gild the ev’ning of my day,
- Or death’s black wing already be display’d,
- To wrap me in the universal shade;
- Whether the darken’d room to muse invite,
- Or whiten’d wall provoke the skewer to write;
- In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint,—
- Like Lee or Budgell I will rhyme and print.100
- F. Alas, young man, your days can ne’er be long:
- In flower of age you perish for a song!
- Plums and directors, Shylock and his wife,
- Will club their testers now to take your life.
- P. What? arm’d for Virtue when I point the pen,
- Brand the bold front of shameless guilty men,
- Dash the proud Gamester in his gilded car,
- Bare the mean heart that lurks beneath a Star;
- Can there be wanting, to defend her cause,
- Lights of the Church, or guardians of the Laws?110
- Could pension’d Boileau lash in honest strain
- Flatt’rers and bigots ev’n in Louis’ reign?
- Could Laureate Dryden pimp and friar engage,
- Yet neither Charles nor James be in a rage?
- And I not strip the gilding off a knave,
- Unplaced, unpension’d, no man’s heir or slave?
- I will, or perish in the gen’rous cause;
- Hear this, and tremble! you who ’scape the laws.
- Yes, while I live, no rich or noble knave
- Shall walk the world in credit to his grave:120
- To Virtue only and her Friends a friend,
- The world beside may murmur or commend.
- Know, all the distant din that world can keep,
- Rolls o’er my grotto and but soothes my sleep.
- There my retreat the best companions grace,
- Chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place:
- There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl
- The feast of reason and the flow of soul:
- And he, whose lightning pierced th’ Iberian lines,
- Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines;130
- Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain,
- Almost as quickly as he conquer’d Spain.
- Envy must own I live among the great,
- No pimp of Pleasure, and no spy of State,
- With eyes that pry not, tongue that ne’er repeats,
- Fond to spread friendships, but to cover heats;
- To help who want, to forward who excel;
- This all who know me, know; who love me, tell;
- And who unknown defame me, let them be
- Scribblers or peers, alike are Mob to me.140
- This is my plea, on this I rest my cause—
- What saith my counsel, learned in the laws?
- F. Your plea is good; but still I say, beware!
- Laws are explain’d by men—so have a care.
- It stands on record, that in Richard’s times
- A man was hang’d for very honest rhymes.
- Consult the statute; quart. I think it is,
- Edwardi sext. or prim. et quint. Eliz.
- See Libels, Satires—here you have it—read.
- P. Libels and Satires! lawless things indeed!150
- But grave epistles, bringing Vice to light,
- Such as a King might read, a Bishop write,
- Such as Sir Robert would approve—F. Indeed!
- The case is alter’d—you may then proceed:
- In such a cause the Plaintiff will be hiss’d,
- My Lords the Judges laugh, and you ’re dismiss’d.

THE SECOND SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

TO MR. BETHEL

- What, and how great, the Virtue and the Art
- To live on little with a cheerful heart!
- (A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine)
- Let ’s talk, my friends, but talk before we dine;
- Not when a gilt buffet’s reflected pride
- Turns you from sound Philosophy aside;
- Not when from plate to plate your eyeballs roll,
- And the brain dances to the mantling bowl.
- Hear Bethel’s sermon, one not vers’d in schools
- But strong in sense, and wise without the rules.10
- ‘Go work, hunt, exercise! (he thus began)
- Then scorn a homely dinner if you can.
- Your wine lock’d up, your butler stroll’d abroad,
- Or fish denied (the river yet unthaw’d);
- If then plain bread and milk will do the feat,
- The pleasure lies in you, and not the meat.’
- Preach as I please, I doubt our curious men
- Will choose a pheasant still before a hen;
- Yet hens of Guinea full as good I hold,
- Except you eat the feathers green and gold.20
- Of carps and mullets why prefer the great,
- (Tho’ cut in pieces ere my Lord can eat)
- Yet for small turbots such esteem profess?
- Because God made these large, the other less.
- Oldfield , with more than harpy throat endued,
- Cries, ‘Send me, Gods! a whole Hog barbecued!’
- O blast it, South-winds! till a stench exhale
- Rank as the ripeness of a rabbit’s tail.
- By what criterion do you eat, d’ ye think,
- If this is prized for sweetness, that for stink?30
- When the tired glutton labours thro’ a treat,
- He finds no relish in the sweetest meat;
- He calls for something bitter, something sour,
- And the rich feast concludes extremely poor:
- Cheap eggs, and herbs, and olives, still we see;
- Thus much is left of old Simplicity!
- The robin-redbreast till of late had rest,
- And children sacred held a martin’s nest,
- Till becaficos sold so devilish dear
- To one that was, or would have been, a Peer.40
- Let me extol a cat on oysters fed;
- I ’ll have a party at the Bedford-head :
- Or ev’n to crack live crawfish recommend;
- I ’d never doubt at court to make a friend!
- ’T is yet in vain, I own, to keep a pother
- About one vice, and fall into the other:
- Between Excess and Famine lies a mean;
- Plain, but not sordid; tho’ not splendid, clean.
- Avidien or his wife (no matter which,49
- For him you ’ll call a dog, and her a bitch)
- Sell their presented partridges and fruits,
- And humbly live on rabbits and on roots:
- One half-pint bottle serves them both to dine,
- And is at once their vinegar and wine:
- But on some lucky day (as when they found
- A lost bank-bill, or heard their son was drown’d)
- At such a feast, old vinegar to spare,
- Is what two souls so gen’rous cannot bear:
- Oil, tho’ it stink, they drop by drop impart,
- But souse the cabbage with a bounteous heart.60
- He knows to live who keeps the middle state,
- And neither leans on this side nor on that;
- Nor stops for one bad cork his butler’s pay,
- Swears, like Albutius, a good cook away;
- Nor lets, like Nævius, ev’ry error pass,
- The musty wine, foul cloth, or greasy glass.
- Now hear what blessings Temperance can bring
- (Thus said our friend, and what he said I sing):
- First Health: the stomach (cramm’d from ev’ry dish,
- A tomb of boil’d and roast, and flesh and fish,70
- Where bile, and wind, and phlegm, and acid, jar,
- And all the man is one intestine war)
- Remembers oft the schoolboy’s simple fare,
- The temp’rate sleeps, and spirits light as air.
- How pale each worshipful and rev’rend guest
- Rise from a clergy or a city feast!
- What life in all that ample body, say?
- What heav’nly particle inspires the clay?
- The Soul subsides, and wickedly inclines
- To seem but mortal ev’n in sound Divines.
- On morning wings how active springs the mind81
- That leaves the load of yesterday behind!
- How easy every labour it pursues!
- How coming to the Poet ev’ry Muse!
- Not but we may exceed, some holy-time,
- Or tired in search of Truth or search of Rhyme:
- Ill health some just indulgence may engage,
- And more the sickness of long life, old age:
- For fainting age what cordial drop remains,
- If our intemp’rate youth the vessel drains?
- Our fathers prais’d rank venison. You suppose,91
- Perhaps, young men! our fathers had no nose.
- Not so: a buck was then a week’s repast,
- And ’t was their point, I ween, to make it last;
- More pleas’d to keep it till their friends could come,
- Than eat the sweetest by themselves at home.
- Why had not I in those good times my birth,
- Ere coxcomb-pies or coxcombs were on earth?
- Unworthy he the voice of Fame to hear,
- That sweetest music to an honest ear100
- (For ’faith, Lord Fanny! you are in the wrong,
- The world’s good word is better than a song),
- Who has not learn’d fresh sturgeon and ham-pie
- Are no rewards for want and infamy!
- When Luxury has lick’d up all thy pelf,
- Curs’d by thy neighbours, thy trustees, thyself;
- To friends, to fortune, to mankind a shame,
- Think how posterity will treat thy name;
- And buy a rope, that future times may tell
- Thou hast at least bestow’d one penny well.
- ‘Right,’ cries his lordship, ‘for a rogue in need111
- To have a taste is insolence indeed:
- In me ’t is noble, suits my birth and state,
- My wealth unwieldy, and my heap too great.’
- Then, like the sun, let Bounty spread her ray,
- And shine that superfluity away.
- Oh impudence of wealth! with all thy store
- How darest thou let one worthy man be poor?
- Shall half the new-built churches round thee fall?
- Make quays, build bridges, or repair Whitehall;120
- Or to thy country let that heap be lent,
- As M[arlbor]o’s was, but not at five per cent.
- ‘Who thinks that Fortune cannot change her mind,
- Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind.
- And who stands safest? tell me, is it he
- That spreads and swells in puff’d prosperity,
- Or bless’d with little, whose preventing care
- In peace provides fit arms against a war?’
- Thus Bethel spoke, who always speaks his thought,
- And always thinks the very thing he ought:
- His equal mind I copy what I can,131
- And as I love, would imitate the man.
- In South-Sea days, not happier, when surmised
- The lord of thousands, than if now excised;
- In forest planted by a father’s hand,
- Than in five acres now of rented land.
- Content with little, I can piddle here
- On brocoli and mutton round the year;
- But ancient friends (tho’ poor, or out of play)
- That touch my bell, I cannot turn away.140
- ’T is true, no turbots dignify my boards,
- But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords:
- To Hounslow Heath I point, and Banstead Down,
- Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own:
- From you old walnut tree a shower shall fall,
- And grapes long ling’ring on my only wall;
- And figs from standard and espalier join;
- The devil is in you if you cannot dine:
- Then cheerful healths (your Mistress shall have place),
- And, what’s more rare, a Poet shall say grace.150
- Fortune not much of humbling me can boast;
- Tho’ double tax’d, how little have I lost!
- My life’s amusements have been just the same,
- Before and after standing armies came.
- My lands are sold, my father’s house is gone;
- I ’ll hire another’s; is not that my own—
- And yours, my friends—thro’ whose free opening gate
- None comes too early, none departs too late?
- (For I, who hold sage Homer’s rule the best,
- Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.)160
- ‘Pray Heav’n it last! (cries Swift) as you go on:
- I wish to God this house had been your own!
- Pity! to build without a son or wife:
- Why, you ’ll enjoy it only all your life.’
- Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one
- Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon?
- What ’s property? dear Swift! you see it alter
- From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
- Or in a mortgage prove a lawyer’s share,
- Or in a jointure vanish from the heir;170
- Or in pure equity (the case not clear)
- The Chancery takes your rents for twenty year:
- At best it falls to some ungracious son,
- Who cries, ‘My father ’s damn’d, and all ’s my own.’
- Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford,
- Become the portion of a booby lord;
- And Hemsley, once proud Buckingham’s delight,
- Slides to a scriv’ner or a city knight.
- Let lands and houses have what lords they will,179
- Let us be fix’d, and our own masters still.

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

TO LORD BOLINGBROKE

- St. John, whose love indulged my labours past,
- Matures my present, and shall bound my last,
- Why will you break the Sabbath of my days?
- Now sick alike of envy and of praise.
- Public too long, ah! let me hide my Age:
- See modest Cibber now has left the Stage:
- Our gen’rals now, retired to their estates,
- Hang their old trophies o’er the garden gates;
- In life’s cool ev’ning satiate of applause,
- Nor fond of bleeding ev’n in Brunswick’s cause.10
- A voice there is, that whispers in my ear
- (’T is Reason’s voice, which sometimes one can hear),
- ‘Friend Pope! be prudent, let your Muse take breath,
- And never gallop Pegasus to death;
- Lest stiff and stately, void of fire or force,
- You limp, like Blackmore, on a lord mayor’s horse.’
- Farewell then Verse, and Love, and ev’ry toy,
- The rhymes and rattles of the Man or Boy;
- What right, what true, what fit, we justly call,
- Let this be all my care—for this is all;20
- To lay this harvest up, and hoard with haste
- What ev’ry day will want, and most the last.
- But ask not to what Doctors I apply;
- Sworn to no master, of no sect am I:
- As drives the storm, at any door I knock,
- And house with Montaigne now, or now with Locke.
- Sometimes a patriot, active in debate,
- Mix with the world, and battle for the state;
- Free as young Lyttleton, her cause pursue,
- Still true to Virtue, and as warm as true:30
- Sometimes with Aristippus or St. Paul,
- Indulge my candour, and grow all to all;
- Back to my native Moderation slide,
- And win my way by yielding to the tide.
- Long as to him who works for debt the day,
- Long as the night to her whose love ’s away,
- Long as the year’s dull circle seems to run
- When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one;
- So slow th’ unprofitable moments roll
- That lock up all the functions of my soul,40
- That keep me from myself, and still delay
- Life’s instant business to a future day;
- That task which as we follow or despise,
- The eldest is a fool, the youngest wise;
- Which done, the poorest can no wants endure;
- And which not done, the richest must be poor.
- Late as it is, I put myself to school,
- And feel some comfort not to be a fool.
- Weak tho’ I am of limb, and short of sight,
- Far from a lynx, and not a giant quite,50
- I ’ll do what Mead and Cheselden advise,
- To keep these limbs, and to preserve these eyes.
- Not to go back is somewhat to advance,
- And men must walk, at least, before they dance.
- Say, does thy blood rebel, thy bosom move
- With wretched Av’rice, or as wretched Love?
- Know there are words and spells which can control,
- Between the fits, this fever of the soul;
- Know there are rhymes which, fresh and fresh applied,59
- Will cure the arrant’st puppy of his pride.
- Be furious, envious, slothful, mad, or drunk,
- Slave to a wife, or vassal to a punk,
- A Switz, a High-Dutch or a Low-Dutch bear;
- All that we ask is but a patient ear.
- ’T is the first virtue vices to abhor,
- And the first wisdom to be fool no more:
- But to the world no bugbear is so great
- As want of figure and a small Estate.
- To either India see the merchant fly,
- Scared at the spectre of pale Poverty!70
- See him with pains of body, pangs of soul,
- Burn thro’ the Tropics, freeze beneath the Pole!
- Wilt thou do nothing for a nobler end,
- Nothing to make Philosophy thy friend?
- To stop thy foolish views, thy long desires,
- And ease thy heart of all that it admires?
- Here Wisdom calls, ‘Seek Virtue first, be bold!
- As gold to silver, Virtue is to gold.’
- There London’s voice, ‘Get money, money still!
- And then let Virtue follow if she will.’80
- This, this the saving doctrine preach’d to all,
- From low St. James’s up to high St. Paul;
- From him whose quills stand quiver’d at his ear,
- To him who notches sticks at Westminster.
- Barnard in spirit, sense, and truth abounds;
- ‘Pray then what wants he?’ Fourscore thousand pounds;
- A pension, or such harness for a slave
- As Bug now has, and Dorimant would have.
- Barnard, thou art a cit, with all thy worth;
- But Bug and D*ltheir Honours! and so forth.90
- Yet ev’ry child another song will sing,
- ‘Virtue, brave boys! ’t is Virtue makes a King.’
- True, conscious Honour is to feel no sin;
- He’s arm’d without that’s innocent within:
- Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of brass;
- Compared to this a Minister’s an Ass.
- And say, to which shall our applause belong,
- This new Court jargon, or the good old song?
- The modern language of corrupted peers,
- Or what was spoke at Cressy and Poictiers?100
- Who counsels best? who whispers, ‘Be but great,
- With praise or infamy—leave that to Fate;
- Get Place and Wealth, if possible with grace;
- If not, by any means get Wealth and Place:’
- (For what? to have a Box where eunuchs sing,
- And foremost in the circle eye a King?)
- Or he who bids thee face with steady view }
- Proud Fortune, and look shallow Greatness thro’, }
- And, while he bids thee, sets th’ example too? }
- If such a doctrine, in St. James’s air,110
- Should chance to make the well-drest rabble stare;
- If honest S[chut]z take scandal at a spark
- That less admires the Palace than the Park;
- Faith, I shall give the answer Reynard gave:
- ‘I cannot like, dread Sir! your royal cave;
- Because I see, by all the tracks about,
- Full many a beast goes in, but none come out.’
- Adieu to Virtue, if you’re once a slave:
- Send her to Court, you send her to her grave.
- Well, if a King’s a lion, at the least120
- The people are a many-headed beast;
- Can they direct what measures to pursue,
- Who know themselves so little what to do?
- Alike in nothing but one lust of gold,
- Just half the land would buy, and half be sold:
- Their country’s wealth our mightier misers drain,
- Or cross, to plunder provinces, the main;
- The rest, some farm the Poor-box, some the Pews;
- Some keep Assemblies, and would keep the Stews;
- Some with fat bucks on childless dotards fawn;130
- Some win rich widows by their chine and brawn;
- While with the silent growth of ten per cent.,
- In dirt and darkness, hundreds stink content.
- 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 ev’ning bright and still,
- ‘No place on earth (he cried) like Greenwich hill!’139
- Up starts a palace: lo, th’ obedient base }
- 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 am’rous 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!
- But when no prelate’s lawn, with hair-shirt lin’d,
- 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 ev’n when plunder’d, honour’d while oppress’d;
- Lov’d without youth, and follow’d without power;
- At home tho’ exiled, free tho’ in the Tower;
- In short, that reas’ning, high, immortal thing,
- Just less than Jove, and much above a King;
- Nay, half in Heav’n—except (what’s mighty odd)
- A fit of Vapours clouds this Demigod.

THE SIXTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

TO MR. MURRAY

- ‘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.)
- This vault of air, this congregated ball,
- Self-centred sun, and stars that rise and fall,
- There are, my Friend! whose philosophic eyes
- Look thro’, 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 sbores, 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
- Th’ unbalanc’d 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 learned eyes;
- Be struck with bright brocade or Tyrian dye,
- Our birthday nobles’ splendid livery.
- If not so pleas’d, 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, conspired40
- To form, not to admire, but be admired,
- Sigh while his Chloë, 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 , 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 nigh50
- (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 desp’rate 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 bless’d? despise low joys, low gains;60 }
- Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains; }
- Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains. }
- But art thou one whom new opinions sway,
- One who believes as Tindal 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 th’ 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 Antis 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 ,
- 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 blest,
- 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,
- To do the honours, and to give the word;
- Tell at your Levee, as the crowds approach,101
- 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. }
- Or if your life be one continued treat,110
- If to live well means nothing but to eat;
- Up, up! cries Gluttony, ’t is break of day,
- Go drive the deer, and drag the finny prey:
- With hounds and horns go hunt an appetite—
- So Russell 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,
- Thro’ Taverns, Stews, and Bagnios, take our round?119
- Go dine with Chartres, in each vice outdo
- K[innou]l’s lewd cargo , or Ty[rawle]y’s crew,
- From Latian Syrens, French Circean 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.
- Adieu—if this advice appear the worst,130
- Ev’n 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[ ]

The identification of Augustus with George II. makes it necessary to take much of this poem ironically. George II., since his accession ten years before this was written (1737), had shown absolute indifference to the literature of England. The critical portions of the satire undoubtedly present Pope’s real judgment of contemporary literature.

The reflections of Horace, and the judgments passed 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 prœtores, 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 extravagancies 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

- 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 gen’rous 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
- Th’ unwilling gratitude of base Mankind!
- All human Virtue, to its latest breath,
- Finds Envy never conquer’d but by Death.
- The great Alcides, ev’ry 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 Heav’n’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 confest
- 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 heads of houses quote;
- One likes no language but the Faery Queen;
- A Scot will flight for Christ’s Kirk o’ the Green ;40
- And each true Briton is to Ben so civil,
- He swears the Muses met him at the Devil .
- Tho’ 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 learned Athens to our art must stoop,
- Could she behold us tumbling thro’ 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, a hundred years ago?
- End all dispute; and fix the year precise
- When British bards begin t’ immortalize?
- ‘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 horsetail bare,
- 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.
- Shakespeare (whom you and every playhouse 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?
- In all debates where Critics bear a part,81
- Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson’s Art,
- Of Shakespeare’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 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 Sidney’s verse halts ill on Roman feet;
- Milton’s strong pinion now not Heav’n 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 desp’rate hook;
- Or damn all Shakespeare, like th’ 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 thro’ 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,
- (Tho’ 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 sheath’d, and luxury with Charles restor’d,140
- In every taste of foreign courts improv’d,
- ‘All by the King’s example liv’d and lov’d,’
- Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t’ excel;
- Newmarket’s glory rose, as Britain’s fell;
- The soldier breathed the gallantries of France,
- And ev’ry flowery Courtier writ Romance.
- Then marble, soften’d into life, grew warm,
- And yielding metal flow’d to human form;
- Lely 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 thro’ a 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 Prerogatives, 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 ev’ry 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.
- He served a ’prenticeship who sets up shop;181
- Ward tried on puppies and the poor his drop;
- Ev’n Radcliff’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 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 av’rice 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 (tho’ 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,209
- Unless he praise some monster of a King;
- 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,219
- And pours each human virtue in the heart.
- 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 thro’ all the lab’ring throng,
- And Heav’n 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 off’rings, 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 ev’ry brow, and open’d ev’ry soul:
- With growing years the pleasing license grew,
- And taunts alternate innocently flew.250
- But Times corrupt, and Nature, ill inclin’d,
- Produced the point that left a sting behind;
- Till friend with friend, and families at strife,
- Triumphant malice raged thro’ private life.
- Who felt the wrong, or fear’d it, took th’ 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 Flatt’ry’s side; but some, more nice,
- Preserv’d 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: }
- Tho’ still some traces of our rustic vein
- And splay-foot verse remain’d, and will remain.271
- 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 Shakespeare, fair in Otway, shone;
- But Otway fail’d to polish or refine,
- And fluent Shakespeare scarce effaced a line.
- Ev’n 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 th’ indulgence less.
- Observe how seldom ev’n the best succeed:
- Tell me if Congreve’s fools are fools indeed?
- What pert low dialogue has Farquhar writ!
- How Van wants grace, who never wanted wit:
- The stage how loosely does Astrea tread,
- Who fairly puts all characters to bed!291
- And idle Cibber, how he breaks the laws,
- To make poor Pinkey eat with vast applause!
- But fill their purse, our poet’s 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;
- A breath revives him, or a breath o’erthrows.301
- 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,
- Clatt’ring their sticks before ten lines are spoke,
- Call for the Farce, the Bear, or the Blackjoke.309
- What dear delight to Britons farce affords!
- 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.319
- With laughter sure Democritus had died,
- 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
- How! 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 lacker’d chair.
- Yes, lest you think I rally more than teach,
- Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach,
- Let me for once presume t’ instruct the times,340
- To know the Poet from the man of rhymes:
- ’T is 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 thro’ 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 rely350
- 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,
- To sing, or cease to sing, we never know;
- And if we will recite nine hours in ten,362
- 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,
- Expect a Place or Pension from the Crown;
- Or dubb’d historians by express command,
- T’ enrol your triumphs o’er the seas and land,373
- 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 care;
- And great Nassau to Kneller’s hand decreed
- To fix him graceful on the bounding steed:
- So well in paint and stone they judg’d 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,
- The forms august of King, or conquering Chief,391
- E’er swell’d on marble, as in verse have shined
- (In polish’d verse) the manners and the mind.
- O! could I mount on the Mæonian wing,
- Your arms, your actions, your repose, to sing!
- What seas you travers’d, and what fields you fought!
- Your country’s peace how oft, how dearly bought!
- How barb’rous 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 wrapt 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 undeserv’d 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 trunk, or, flutt’ring 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 , 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—‘This lad, sir, is of Blois :
- 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, upholst’rer; 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?
- Tho’, faith, I fear, ’t will 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 prov’d so bad?
- Faith, in such case, if you should prosecute,
- I think Sir Godfrey 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 in a tedious march, one luckless night
- He slept, (poor dog!) and lost it to a doit.
- This put the man in such a desp’rate 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 pleas’d His Excellence a town to batter
- (Its name I know not, and ’t is 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 Gen’ral, 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 learned grove ).
- But knottier points we knew not half so well,
- Deprived us soon of our paternal cell;
- And certain laws, by suff’rers thought unjust,60
- Denied all posts of profit or of trust.
- Hopes after hopes of pious papists fail’d,
- While mighty William’s thund’ring arm prevail’d;
- For right hereditary tax’d and fin’d
- 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 ,70
- If I would scribble rather than repose.
- Years foll’wing years steal something ev’ry 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 ev’ry wheel of that unwearied mill
- That turn’d ten thousand verses, now stands still?
- But, after all, what would ye 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 learned roast an egg:
- Hard task to hit the palate of such guests,
- When Oldfield loves what Dartineuf 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, Bus’ness, 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,
- Ev’n 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, ev’ry Muse’s son:
- Blackmore himself, for any grand effort
- Would drink and doze at Tooting or Earl’s-court .
- 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 sev’n 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 }
- Stept 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 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;
- ’T was, ‘Sir, your law’—and ‘Sir, your eloquence,’
- ‘Yours, manner’—and ‘Yours, sense.’
- Thus we dispose of all poetic merit,
- Yours Milton’s genius, and mine Homer’s spirit.
- Call Tibbald Shakespeare, and he ’ll swear the Nine,
- Dear Cibber! never match’d one ode of thine.
- Lord! how we strut thro’ Merlin’s Cave , to see139
- No poets there but Stephen , you, and me.
- 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, wronghead, rhyming race;
- And much must flatter, if the whim should bite149
- To court applause by printing what I write:
- 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;
- ’T is to small purpose that you hold your tongue,
- Each, prais’d 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, tho’ 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 thro’ 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 ’t is 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 pleas’d, 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, tho’ the House was up, delighted sate,
- 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 tho’ 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 ev’n leave verses to the boys at school.
- To rules of poetry no more confin’d,
- I’ll learn to smooth and harmonize my mind,
- Teach ev’ry 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 dropt 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 cry , that birth and place220
- Endue a Peer with Honour, Truth, and Grace,
- Look in that breast, most dirty D[uke]! 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 flatt’rers 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[evonshire] lov’d sixpence more than he.
- If there be truth in law, and use can give230
- A property, that’s yours on which you live.
- Delightful Abs-court, if its fields afford
- Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord:
- All Worldly’s hens, nay, partridge, sold to town,
- His venison 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 diff’rence will be found?
- You pay a penny, and he paid a pound.
- Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men,240
- Lords of fat E’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 ev’ry wav’ring 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 towns in walls; ’t is 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 Heav’n, 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 one270
- Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun,
- The other slights, for women, sports, and wines,
- All Townshend’s turnips, and all Grosvenor’s mines:
- Why one, like Bubb , with pay and scorn content,
- Bows and votes on in Court and Parliament;
- One, driv’n by strong benevolence of soul,
- Shall fly, like Oglethorpe , from pole to pole;
- Is known alone to that directing Power278
- Who forms the genius in the natal hour;
- That God of Nature, who, within us still,
- 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,
- Divided between carelessness and care.291
- ’T is 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 pleas’d, 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 ev’ry fav’ring 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 Av’rice? 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 Pow’r?
- Does neither Rage inflame nor Fear appall?
- Not the black fear of Death, that saddens all?
- With terrors round, can Reason hold her throne,310
- Despise the known, nor tremble at th’unknown?
- Survey both worlds, intrepid and entire,
- In spite of witches, devils, dreams, and fire?
- Pleas’d to look forward, pleas’d 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 bus’ness 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 lov’d, and ate and drank, your fill.
- Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
- Comes titt’ring on, and shoves you from the stage;
- Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,
- Whom Folly pleases, and whose follies please.

SATIRES OF DR. JOHN DONNE, DEAN OF ST. PAUL’S, VERSIFIED[ ]

Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili scripta legentes
Quærere, num illius, num rerum dura negarit
Versiculos natura magis factos, et euntes
Mollius?
Horace.

The paraphrases of Donne were, by Pope’s statement, done several years before their publication in 1735.

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) th’ 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 carv’d organ move,
- The gilded puppets dance and mount above,
- Heav’d by the breath th’ inspiring bellows blow:
- Th’ 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
- ’T is changed, no doubt, from what it was before;
- His rank digestion makes it wit no more:
- Sense pass’d thro’ him no longer is the same;
- For food digested takes another name.
- I pass o’er all those confessors and martyrs,
- Who live like S[u]tt[o]n , 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 ev’ry 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.
- Curs’d be the wretch, so venal and so vain,
- Paltry and proud as drabs in Drury Lane.
- ’T is 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 pris’ners shake the head, and swear
- ’T was only suretyship that brought them 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 thro’ 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 ev’ry Lord in ev’rything,
- 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] .
- Not more of simony beneath black gowns,
- Nor more of bastardy in heirs to crowns.82
- 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.90
- Piecemeal they win this acre first, then that,
- Glean on, and gather up the whole estate;
- Then strongly fencing ill-got wealth by law,
- Indentures, cov’nants, 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 impairs99
- The deeds, and dext’rously omits ses heires:
- No commentator can more slily pass
- 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 Paternoster 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?110
- We see no new-built palaces aspire,
- 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, tho’ 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.120
- These are good works, ’t is true, we all allow,
- 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,9
- Nor the vain itch t’ admire or be admired:
- 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 ’t was 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: th’ apparel on his back,
- Tho’ coarse, was rev’rend, and tho’ 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 ev’ry state to do;
- Of whose best phrase and courtly accent join’d
- He forms one tongue, exotic and refin’d.
- 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 artill’ry 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 flatt’ry 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?—‘O, sir, the Diction’ry.’69
- You miss my aim; I mean the most acute,
- And perfect speaker?—‘Onslow, past dispute.’
- But, Sir, of writers?—‘Swift, for closer style,
- But Hoadley for a period of a mile.’
- Why, yes, ’t is granted, these indeed may pass;
- Good common linguists, and so Panurge was;
- Nay, troth, th’ Apostles (tho’ perhaps too rough)
- Had once a pretty gift of tongues enough:
- Yet these were all poor gentlemen! I dare
- Affirm ’t was 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.
- Tho’ in his pictures lust be full display’d,
- Few are the converts Aretine has made;
- And tho’ the court show Vice exceeding clear,
- None should, by my advice, learn Virtue there.’
- At this entranc’d, he lifts his hands and eyes,
- Squeaks like a high-stretch’d lutestring, and replies,
- ‘Oh! ’t is the sweetest of all earthly things100
- 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 ev’ry 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.’
- ‘O 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, ’t is 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,
- Loath 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 Holinsheds, 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 but 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,
- And cheats th’ unknowing widow and the poor:141
- Who makes a trust or charity a job,
- And gets an act of Parliament to rob:
- Why turnpikes rise, and how 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;
- Trims 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 licens’d spy, whom nothing can
- Silence or hurt, he libels the great man;
- Swears ev’ry 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 ’t is by connivance of the Court
- That Spain robs on, and Dunkirk’s still a port.
- Not more amazement seiz’d 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 th’ 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
- All the court fill’d with stranger things than he,181
- 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 th’ 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 th’ 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 liv’ried 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 thee200
- For huffing, braggart, puff 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 things210
- No wonder some folks bow, and think them Kings.
- See! where the British youth, engaged no more
- At Fig’s , 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 flatt’rer swears;
- ’T is true, for ten days hence ’t will 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 drest,
- 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 prais’d for nought,
- For both the beauty and the wit are bought.
- ’T would 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-glov’d 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 ev’ry 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,
- Tho’ his soul’s bullet, and his body buff.
- He spits foreright; his haughty chest before,
- Like batt’ring rams, beats open ev’ry door;
- And with a face as red, and as awry,
- As Herod’s hang-dogs 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 licens’d Fool, commands like law.271
- Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so
- As men from jails to execution go;
- For hung with deadly sins I see the wall,
- And lin’d with giants deadlier than them all.
- Each man an Ask apart, 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;280
- Charge them with Heav’n’s Artill’ry, bold Divine!
- From such alone the Great rebukes endure,
- Whose satire’s sacred, and whose rage secure:
- ’T is 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 TO THE SATIRES[ ]

IN TWO DIALOGUES. WRITTEN IN 1738

The first dialogue was originally entitled One Thousand Seven Hundred and thirty-eight, a Dialogue something like Horace. Johnson’s London is said by Boswell to have been published on the same morning of May, 1738, and in spite of its anonymity to have made more stir than Pope’s satire.

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?
- ’T is 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 observes, he lash’d no sort of vice:
- Horace would say, Sir Billy served the crown,
- Blunt could do business, Higgins knew the town;
- In Sappho touch the failings of the sex,
- In rev’rend bishops note some small neglects,
- And own the Spaniards did a waggish thing,
- Who cropt our ears, 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? ’t will be only thought
- The great man 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; but in his happier hour
- Of social Pleasure, ill exchanged for Power;
- Seen him, uncumber’d with a venal tribe,
- Smile without art, and win without a bribe.
- Would he oblige me? let me only find33
- He does not think me what he thinks mankind.
- Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt;
- The only diff’rence 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 Jeky! , or some odd Old Whig,
- Who never changed his principle or wig.40
- A patriot is a fool in ev’ry 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, Lyttelton! 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 , hurt not honest Fleury,
- 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, Osborne’s 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 Sense70
- That first was H[er]vey’s, F[ox]’s next, and then
- The S[ena]te’s, and then H[er]vey’s once again,
- O come! that easy Ciceronian style,
- So Latin, yet so English all the while,
- As, tho’ 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;’
- Or teach the melancholy Muse to mourn,
- Hang the sad verse on Carolina’s urn,80
- And hail her passage to the realms of rest,
- All parts perform’d, and all her children blest!
- So—Satire is no more—I feel it die—
- No Gazetteer more innocent than I—
- And let, a’ God’s name! ev’ry Fool and Knave
- Be graced thro’ 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 S[elkir]k, and grave De[lawa]re .
- Silent and soft, as saints remove to Heav’n,
- All ties dissolv’d, and ev’ry sin forgiv’n,
- 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 Heav’n forbid that I should blast their glory,
- Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory,
- And when three Sov’reigns died could scarce be vext,
- Consid’ring what a gracious Prince was next.
- Have I, in silent wonder, seen such things
- As pride in slaves, and avarice in Kings?
- And at a peer or peeress shall I fret,111
- Who starves a sister 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, without rebuke,
- Swear like a Lord; or Rich outwhore a Duke?
- A fav’rite’s porter with his master vie,
- Be bribed as often, and as often lie?
- Shall Ward draw contracts with a statesman’s skill?119
- Or Japhet pocket, like His Grace, a will?
- Is it for Bond or Peter (paltry things)
- To pay their debts, or keep their faith, like Kings?
- If Blount dispatch’d himself, he play’d the man,
- And so mayst thou, illustrious Passeran!
- But shall a printer , 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.130
- Let modest Foster, if he will, excel
- Ten Metropolitans in preaching well;
- A simple quaker, or a quaker’s wife,
- Outdo Landaff in doctrine—yea, in life;
- Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,
- Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
- Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
- ’T is just alike to Virtue and to me;
- Dwell in a monk, or light upon a King,
- She ’s still the same belov’d, contented thing.140
- Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth,
- And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth;
- But ’t is 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.
- Lo! at the wheels of her triumphal car,151
- 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 liv’ried 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 thro’ the land proclaim,
- That not to be corrupted is the shame.160
- In Soldier, Churchman, Patriot, Man in Power,
- ’T is Av’rice 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.

DIALOGUE II[ ]

- Fr. ’T is all a libel—Paxton, 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 ev’ry line
- In rev’rence 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 Guthry 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 them, Satire! gen’ral, unconfin’d,
- 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 rev’rend atheists! F. Scandal! name them, who?
- P. Why that’s the thing you bid me not to do.
- Who starv’d a sister, who forswore a debt,
- I never named; the town’s inquiring yet.21
- The pois’ning 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 today,
- Much less the ’prentice who to-morrow may.
- Down, down, proud Satire! tho’ a realm be spoil’d,
- Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild ;
- 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 thing50
- 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 hang’d 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 desp’rate, if they once are bad;
- Else might he take to Virtue some years hence—60
- P. As S[elkir]k, if he lives, will love the Prince.
- F. Strange spleen to S[elkir]k!
- 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, need I Scarb’row name?
- Pleased let me own, in Esher’s peaceful grove
- (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 giv’n;
- To Berkley ev’ry virtue under Heav’n.
- 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 calm sense and Stanhope’s noble flame80
- Compared, and knew their gen’rous 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?
- Argyle, the state’s whole thunder born to wield,
- And shake alike the senate and the field?
- Or Wyndham , just to freedom and the throne,
- The Master of our Passions and his own?
- Names which I long have lov’d, nor lov’d in vain,90
- Rank’d with their friends, not number’d with their train;
- And if yet higher the proud list should end,
- Still let me say,—no foll’wer, but a Friend.
- 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.
- 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, for 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
- O 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, aid me while I lie!129
- Cobham’s a coward! Polworth is a slave!
- And Lyttelton 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 ’t was 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 th’ affront the fellow gave,
- Knew one a Man of Honour, one a Knave,
- The prudent Gen’ral 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’s th’ affront to you?
- Against your worship when had S[herloc]k writ,
- Or P[a]ge pour’d forth the torrent of his wit?
- Or grant the bard whose distich all commend160
- (‘In power a servant, out of power a friend’)
- To W[alpo]le 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, thro’ 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 confin’d,
- 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 flatt’ry mine;
- And all your courtly civet-cats can vent,
- Perfume to you, to me is excrement.
- But hear me further—Japhet , ’t is 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,
- Th’ 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 ev’ry 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 Heav’n-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, slumb’ring in his stall.
- Ye tinsel insects! whom a Court maintains,
- That counts your beauties only by your stains,221
- 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 stains a public cause,
- A Monarch’s sword when mad Vainglory draws,
- Not Waller’s wreath can hide the nation’s scar,230
- Nor Boileau 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 of Eternity.
- There other trophies deck the truly brave
- Than such as Anstis casts into the grave;
- Far other stars than [Kent] and [Grafton] wear,
- And may descend to Mordington from Stair;—
- Such as on Hough’s unsullied mitre shine,
- Or beam, good Digby! from a heart like thine.241
- Let envy howl, while heav’n’s whole chorus sings,
- And bark at honour not conferr’d by Kings;
- Let Flatt’ry sick’ning 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 degen’rate line.
- F. Alas! alas! pray end what you began,
- And write next winter more Essays on Man.

THE SIXTH SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

THE FIRST PART IMITATED IN THE YEAR 1714 BY DR. SWIFT; THE LATTER PART ADDED AFTERWARDS

Of the following Imitations of Horace the first two are rather imitations of Swift, Horace merely supplying the text for the travesty. For (as previous editors have not failed to point out) no styles could be found less like one another than the bland and polite style of Horace and the downright, and often cynically plain, manner of Swift. With Pope the attempt to write in Swift’s style was a mere tour de force, which he could indeed carry out with success through a few lines, but not further, without relapsing into his own more elaborate manner. Swift’s marvellous precision and netteté of expression are something very different from Pope’s pointed and rhetorical elegance. The Ode to Venus, which was first published in 1737, more nearly approaches the character of a translation. (Ward.)

- 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 ’t would 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,
- Remov’d from all th’ 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,
- ’T is 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,
- Chequer’d with ribbons blue and green:
- How should I thrust myself between?50
- Some 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 pleas’d 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 int’rest 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, ’t is my first request.’—
- ‘Be satisfied, I’ll do my best:’—
- Then presently he falls to tease,
- ‘You may be certain, if you please;80
- I doubt not, if his Lordship knew—
- And, Mr. Dean, one word from you.’—
- ’T is (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?’
- ‘Whose 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 Emp’ror treat?
- Or do the prints and papers lie?’
- ‘Faith, Sir, you know as much as I.’
- ‘Ah, Doctor, how you love to jest!
- ’T is now no secret.’—‘I protest
- ’T is one to me.’—‘Then tell us, pray,
- When are the troops to have their pay?’120
- And tho’ 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 tost,
- My choicest hours of life are lost;
- Yet always wishing to retreat:
- O, 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 pleas’d, and please,
- And ev’n 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 à-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 lov’d his friend, and had a soul;
- Knew what was handsome, and would do ’t,
- On just occasion, coûte qui coûte.
- He brought him bacon (nothing lean),
- Pudding that might have pleas’d a Dean;
- Cheese, such as men in Suffolk make,
- But wish’d it Stilton for his sake;
- Yet, to his guest tho’ no way sparing,
- He ate 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).’
- The veriest hermit in the nation181
- May yield, God knows, to strong temptation.
- Away they came, thro’ thick and thin,
- To a tall house near Lincoln’s-Inn
- (’T was 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 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—’t is 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 hall210
- Rush chaplain, butler, dogs, and all:
- ‘A rat, a rat! clap to the door’—
- The cat comes bouncing on the floor.
- O for the art 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!’

THE SEVENTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

IN THE MANNER OF DR. SWIFT

- ’T is 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 black’ning 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[ard] and H[enley] both in town!
- ‘The dogdays are no more the case.’
- ’T is 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;
- ’T is 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 ’t is 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 be good,
- But makes a diff’rence 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 gayety
- That laugh’d down many a summer sun,
- And kept you up so oft till one;
- And all that voluntary vein,
- As when Belinda rais’d my strain.50
- A Weasel once made shift to slink
- In at a corn-loft thro’ a chink,
- But having amply stuff’d his skin,
- Could not get out as he got in;
- Which one belonging to the house
- (’T was 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:
- ’T was what I said to Craggs and Child ,
- Who praised my modesty, and smil’d.
- ‘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.

THE FIRST ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

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 ev’ry sprightly, ev’ry decent part;
Equal the injured to defend,
To charm the Mistress, or to fix the Friend.
He, with a hundred arts refin’d,
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, ev’ry Grace and Muse shall throng,
Exalt the dance, or animate the song;
There Youths and Nymphs, in concert gay,
Shall hail the rising, close the parting day.
With me, alas! those joys are o’er;31
For me, the vernal garlands bloom no more.
Adieu, 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, drest in Fancy’s airy beam,
Absent I follow thro’ 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.

THE NINTH ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK OF HORACE

A FRAGMENT

- 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;
- Tho’ daring Milton sits sublime,
- In Spenser native muses play;
- Nor yet shall Waller yield to time,
- Nor pensive Cowley’s moral lay—
- Sages and Chiefs long since had birth
- Ere Cæsar was or Newton named;
- These rais’d new empires o’er the earth,
- And those new heav’ns and systems framed.
- 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.

[Page 176.]Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. For John Arbuthnot see Glossary.

Advertisement. Lines 6, 7. Of these papers the former was said to be a joint production of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Lord Hervey; the latter was written by Hervey alone. See Carruthers’ Life of Pope, ch. viii.

[Line 1.] John Searl, Pope’s body-servant for many years.

[Line 13.]The 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. (Warburton.)

[Line 23.]Arthur. Arthur Moore, a prominent politician, father of the James Moore-Smythe whom Pope so often ridiculed.

[Line 40.] ‘Keep your piece nine years.’

‘Novemque prematur in annum.’
Horace, De Arte Poetica, 388.

[Line 43.]Term. The London ‘season.’

[Line 51.]Pitholeon, the name taken from a foolish poet of Rhodes, who pretended much to Greek. (Pope.)

[Line 53.] Edmund Curll was a piratical bookseller who did Pope several ill turns, as in publishing some of his private letters (see 113 below), and printing in his name various sorts of rubbish (see 351 below, and Pope’s note).

[Line 54.] The London Journal favored the Whigs. Pope was very little of a politician, but his leaning was toward the Tories.

[Line 62.] Bernard Lintot, after 1712, published much of Pope’s work.

[Line 72.]Some say his Queen. The story is told by some of his Barber, but by Chaucer of his Queen. See Wife of Bath’s Tale. (Pope.)

[Line 100.]Philips. Ambrose Philips, of whom Bishop Bolter became patron.

[Line 101.]Sappho. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

[Line 118.]You have an eye. It is remarkable that, amongst these complaints on his infirmities and deformities, he mentions his eye, which was fine and piercing. (Warburton.)

[Line 128.]I lisped in numbers.

‘Sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos,
Et, quod tentabam dicere, versus erat.’
Ovid, Tristia, 4, x. 25, 26.

[Line 135.]Granville. George Granville, afterwards Lord Lansdown, known for his poems, most of which he composed very young. (Pope.)

Granville, Mr. Walsh, and Dr. Garth are mentioned in Pope’s first note to the Pastorals as among those who encouraged him in his earliest efforts.

[Line 139.]Talbot, Somers, Sheffield. These are the persons to whose account the author charges the publication of his first pieces, persons with whom he was conversant (and he adds beloved) at sixteen or seventeen years of age, an early period for such acquaintance. The catalogue might have been made yet more illustrious had he not confined it to that time when he writ the Pastorals and Windsor Forest, on which he passes a sort of censure in the lines following [147-150]. (Pope.)

[Line 146.]Burnets, etc. Authors of secret and scandalous history. (Pope.)

[Line 149.]Fanny. Lord Hervey, the Sporus of lines 305-333 below.

[Line 151.]Gildon. Charles Gildon, a critic who had abused Pope.

[Line 153.]Dennis. John Dennis, a free-lance in letters, and one of the favorite butts of Pope’s satire. It was he who indirectly caused the difference between Pope and Addison. See Glossary.

[Line 164.]Slashing Bentleys, etc. Bentley’s edition of Paradise Lost, which appeared in 1732, was at once the last and the least worthy effort of his critical prowess; as to Theobald’s Shakspere, it was an honest and not wholly unsuccessful piece of work, and a better edition than Pope’s own. Bentley’s Milton is better characterized in Imitations of Horace, i. Ep. of ii. Bk. vv. 103-4. (Ward.)

[Line 179.]The bard whom pilfer’d pastorals renown. Ambrose Philips. Charles Gildon ranked him with Theocritus and Virgil.

[Line 190.]Tate. Nahum Tate was then poet laureate, ‘the author of the worst alterations of Shakespeare,’ says Professor Craik, ‘the worst version of the Psalms of David, and the worst continuation of a great poem [Dryden’s Absalom and Achitophel] extant.’

[Line 218.]On wings of winds, etc. Pope credits this line to Hopkins’s paraphrase of Psalm civ.

[Line 232.]Bufo probably stands for Lord Halifax.

[Line 236.]And a true Pindar stood without a head. Ridicules the affectation of Antiquaries, who frequently exhibit the headless trunks and terms of statues, for Plato, Homer, Pindar, etc. (Pope.)

[Line 248.]He help’d to bury, etc. Mr. Dryden, after having lived in exigencies, had a magnificent funeral bestowed upon him by the contribution of several persons of quality. (Pope.)

[Line 256.]Gay. John Gay (1688-1732), author of the famous Beggar’s Opera, and one of Pope’s best friends. In his last years he was taken excellent care of by the Duke of Queensbury (260, below), and died by no means a pauper.

[Line 280.]Sir Will or Bubo. See Essay on Man, IV. 278 and note.

[Line 299.]The Dean and Silver Bell. Pope had been accused of ridiculing, in the Essay on Taste, the furniture and appointments of Canons, the seat of the Duke of Chandos, where Pope had been received. Pope’s denial of the charge was accepted by the Duke.

[Line 305.]Sporus is John Lord Hervey, a well-known court favorite. He seems to have been at least harmless. Pope, for some unknown reason, conceived one of his violent antipathies for him; and the following lines, hardly less celebrated than those on Addison, are the result.

[Line 350.]The tale revived, etc. As that he received subscriptions to Shakespeare, that he set his name to Mr. Broome’s verses, etc., which, though publicly disproved, were nevertheless repeated in the libels. (Pope.)

[Line 351.]Th’ imputed trash. This imputed trash, such as profane psalms, court poems, and other scandalous things, printed in his name by Curll and others. (Pope.)

[Line 365.]Knight of the post corrupt. The so-called Knights of the Post stood about the sheriff’s pillars near the courts, in readiness to swear anything for pay. (Ward.)

[Line 371.]Friend to his distress. In 1733 Pope wrote a prologue to a play given for the benefit of Dennis, who was then old, blind, and not far from death.

[Line 374.]Ten years. It was so long after many libels before the author of the Dunciad published that poem, till when he never writ a word in answer to the many scurrilities and falsehoods concerning him. (Pope.)

[Line 375.]Welsted’s lie. This man had the impudence to tell in print that Mr. P. had occasioned a lady’s death, and to name a person he never heard of. (Pope.)

[Line 379.]Budgell was charged with forging a will, with profit to himself.

[Line 391.]Bestia. L. Calpurnius Bestia, who here seems to signify the Duke of Marlborough, was a Roman proconsul, bribed by Jugurtha into a dishonorable peace. (Ward.)

[Line 393.]Discord in a noble wife. Dryden had married Lady Howard, and Addison the Countess of Warwick.

[Line 417.] Dr. Arbuthnot had been the favorite physician of Queen Anne.

[Page 182.]Satires, Epistles and Odes of Horace Imitated.First Satire, Second Book.

[Line 6.]Lord Fanny. Lord Hervey.

[Line 23.]Sir Richard. Sir Richard Blackmore.

[Lines 30, 31.]Carolina. Queen Caroline. Amelia. Princess Amelia, second daughter of George II.

[Line 34.]Their Laureate. Colley Cibber.

[Line 40.]Peter. Peter Walter.

[Line 46.]Scarsdale his bottle, Darty his hampie. Lord Scarsdale and Charles Dartineuf, famous epicures.

[Line 49.]Fox. Probably Henry Fox, First Lord Holland. Hockley-hole. There was a noted bear-garden at Hockley-in-the-Hole. See the Spectaor, No 436.

[Line 52.]Shippen. William Shippen, an outspoken politician and a Jacobite, who was sent to the Tower in 1718. According to Coxe, he used to say of himself and Sir Robert Walpole, ‘Robin and I are two honest men; though he is for King George and I for King James.’ (Ward.)

[Line 81.]Slander or poison dread. Alluding to a notorious rumor that a Miss Mackenzie had been poisoned by the Countess of Deloraine.

[Line 82.]Page. Judge Page. See Epilogue to Satires, II. 36.

[Line 100.]Lee. Nathaniel Lee (1657-1692), a tragic poet, author of The Rival Queens.

[Line 129.]He whose lightning, etc. Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, who in the year 1705 took Barcelona, and in the winter following, with only 280 horse and 900 foot, enterprised and accomplished the conquest of Valencia. (Pope.)

[Line 153.]Sir Robert. Walpole.

[Page 184.]Second Satire, Second Book.

Mr. Bethel. Hugh Bethel.

[Line 25.]Oldfield. This eminent glutton ran through a fortune of fifteen hundred pounds a year in the simple luxury of good eating. (Warburton.)

[Line 42.]Bedford-head. A famous eating-house in Covent Garden.

[Line 49.]Avidien. Edward Wortley Montagu, the husband of Lady Mary. (Carruthers.)

[Line 175.]Shades that to Bacon, etc. Gorhambury, near St. Albans, the seat of Lord Bacon, was at the time of his disgrace conveyed by him to his quondam secretary, Sir J. Meantys, whose heir sold it to Sir Harbottle Grimston, whose grandson left it to his nephew (Wm. Lucklyn, who took the name of Grimston), whose second son was in 1719 created Viscount Grimston. This is the ‘booby lord’ to whom Pope refers. (Ward.)

[Line 177.]Proud Buckingham’s, etc. Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. (Pope.) The estate of Helmsley was purchased by Sir Charles Duncombe, Lord Mayor in 1709, who changed its name to Duncombe Park. (Carruthers.)

[Page 187.]First Epistle, First Book.

[Line 6.]Modest Cibber, etc. Colley Cibber retired from the stage after a histrionic career of more than forty years in 1733; but returned in 1734 and did not make his ‘positively last appearance’ till 1745. (Ward.)

[Line 16.]You limp, like Blackmore on a Lord Mayor’s horse. The fame of this heavy Poet, however problematical elsewhere, was universally received in the City of London. His versification is here exactly described: stiff and not strong; stately and yet dull, like the sober and slow-paced Animal generally employed to mount the Lord Mayor: and therefore here humorously opposed to Pegasus. (Pope.)

[Line 51.]Cheselden. In answer to Swift’s inquiry who ‘this Cheselden’ was, Pope informed him that C. was ‘the most noted and most deserving man in the whole profession of chirurgery, and had saved the lives of thousands’ by his skill. There is an amusing letter from Pope to Cheselden in Roscoe’s Life ad ann. 1737; speaking of the cataract to which v. 52 appears to allude. (Ward.)

[Line 85.] Sir John Barnard.

[Line 89.]Bug and D*l, etc. The meaning of this line has not been determined.

[Line 112.] Augustus Schutz. See Glossary.

[Line 173.]Hale. Dr. Hale of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a physician employed in cases of insanity. (Carruthers.)

[Line 177.]Guide, Philosopher, and Friend. Lord Bolingbroke. See Essay on Man, IV. 390.

[Page 189.]Sixth Epistle, First Book.

[Line 1.]Not to admire, etc.

[Line 45.]Craggs’s. James Craggs’s father had been in a low situation; but by industry and ability, got to be Postmaster-General and agent to the Duke of Marlborough. For James Craggs’s own career, see Glossary.

[Line 53.]Hyde. Lord Clarendon, great-grandfather of the Lord Cornbury mentioned in line 61 below.

[Line 64.]Tindal. See Pope’s note on The Dunciad, II. 399.

[Line 82.]Anstis, whom Pope often mentions, was Garter King of Arms. (Bowles.)

[Line 87.]Or if three ladies like a luckless play. The common reader, I am sensible, will be always more solicitous about the names of these three Ladies, the unlucky Play, and every other trifling circumstance that attended this piece of gallantry, than for the explanation of our Author’s sense, or the illustration of his poetry; even where he is most moral and sublime. But had it been in Mr. Pope’s purpose to indulge so impertinent a curiosity, he had sought elsewhere for a commentator on his writings. (Warburton.) Notwithstanding this remark of Dr. Warburton, I have taken some pains, though indeed in vain, to ascertain who these ladies were, and what the play they patronized. It was once said to be Young’s Busiris. (Warton.)

[Line 121.]Kinnoul’s lewd cargo, etc. Lords Kinnoul and Tyrawley, two ambassadors noted for wild immorality. (Carruthers.)

[Line 126.]Wilmot. John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. See Glossary.

[Page 191.]First Epistle, Second Book.

[Line 38.]Beastly Skelton. Skelton, Poet Laureate to Henry VIII., a volume of whose verses has been lately reprinted, consisting almost wholly of ribaldry, obscenity, and scurrilous language. (Pope.) This judgment of Skelton is of course unfair.

[Line 40.]Christ’s Kirk o’ the Green. A ballad by James I. of Scotland.

[Line 42.]The Devil. The Devil Tavern, where Ben Jonson held his Poetical Club. (Pope.)

[Line 66.]Look in Stowe. Stowe’s Annals of England appear to have been first published in 1580. (Ward.)

[Line 91.]Gammer Gurton. Gammer Gurton’s Needle, according to Pope ‘a piece of very low humour, one of the first printed plays in English, and therefore much valued by some antiquaries.’ The earliest extant edition bears the date 1575, but it was probably first printed at least thirteen years before this.

[Line 92.]The Careless Husband. By Colley Cibber.

[Line 109.]Sprat, Carew, Sedley. Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, Thomas Carew, and Sir Charles Sedley; all poets of the Restoration.

[Lines 143-146.]In horsemanship—writ romance. The Duke of Newcastle’s book of Horsemanship; the romance of Parthenissa, by the Earl of Orrery; and most of the French romances translated by persons of quality. (Pope.)

[Line 153.]On each enervate string, etc. The Siege of Rhodes by Sir William Davenant, the first opera sung in England. (Pope.)

[Line 182.]Ward. A famous Empiric, whose Pill and Drop had several surprising effects, and were one of the principal subjects of writing and conversation at this time. (Pope.)

[Line 197.]Peter. Peter Walter.

[Line 224.]The rights a Court attacked, a poet saved. A reference to Swift’s services as a pamphleteer, particularly as author of the Drapier’s Letters.

[Line 289.]Van. John Vanbrugh. See Glossary.

[Line 290.]Astræa. Mrs. Aphra Behn.

[Line 293.]Poor Pinky. William Pinkethman, a low comedian.

[Line 313.]From heads to ears, and now from ears to eyes. From plays to operas, and from operas to pantomimes. (Warburton.)

[Line 319.]Old Edward’s armour, etc. A spectacle presenting the Coronation of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn was produced in 1727 to celebrate the coronation of George II. and had a run of forty nights. ‘The playhouses,’ says Pope, ‘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.’

[Line 331.]Quin—Oldfield. James Quin and Mrs. Oldfield, the most popular comedians of their age.

[Line 355.]Merlin’s Cave. A building in the Royal Gardens of Richmond, where is a small but choice collection of books. (Pope.)

[Line 372.]Dubb’d historians. ‘The office of Historiographer Royal,’ says Ward, ‘was frequently united to that of Poet Laureate.’

[Line 382.]Great Nassau. William II.

[Line 387.]Quarles. Francis Quarles, author of the Emblems.

[Line 417.]Eusden, Philips, Settle. Laurence Eusden, Ambrose Philips, and Elkanah Settle.

[Page 197.]Second Epistle, Second Book.

[Line 1.]Colonel. Colonel Cotterell of Rousham, near Oxford. (Warton.)

[Line 4.]This lad, sir, is of Blois. A town in Beauce, where the French tongue is spoken in great purity. (Warburton.) It will be recalled that it was to Blois that Addison went to learn French.

[Line 24.]Sir Godfrey. Sir Godfrey Kneller. (Warburton.)

[Line 57.]Maudlin’s learned grove. Magdalen College, Oxford University.

[Line 70.]Ten Monroes. Dr. Monroe, physician to Bedlam Hospital. (Pope.)

[Line 87.]Oldfield—Dartineuf. Two noted gluttons. See Book II. Satire i. 46.

[Line 113.]Tooting—Earl’s-court. Two villages within a few miles of London. (Pope.)

[Lines 132-135.]Murray—Cowper—Talbot. William Murray, afterward Lord Mansfield; William, first Earl Cowper; Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury.

[Line 139.]Merlin’s Cave. See note on Book II. Epistle 1, 355.

[Line 140.]Stephen. Stephen Duck.

[Line 218.]Golden angels. A golden coin given as a fee by those who came to be touched by the royal hand for the Evil. (Warton.)

[Line 220.]When servile Chaplains cry, etc. The whole of this passage alludes to a dedication of Mr., afterwards Bishop, Kennet to the Duke of Devonshire, to whom he was chaplain. (Burnet.)

[Line 240.]Heathcote. Sir Gilbert Heathcote.

[Line 273.]Townshend—Grosvenor. Lord Townshend, Sir Thomas Grosvenor. Lord Townshend is said to have introduced the turnip into England from Germany.

[Line 274.]Bubb. Bubb Dodington.

[Line 277.]Oglethorpe. James Edward Oglethorpe.

[Page 202.]Satires of Donne Versified.

[Satire II. Line 6.]Sappho. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

[Line 36.]Sutton. Sir Robert Sutton, expelled from the House of Commons on account of his share in the frauds of the company called the Charitable Corporation. (Carruthers.)

[Line 80.] Paul Benfield, a parliamentary financier, is suggested by Carruthers as the person here meant.

[Page 204.]Satire IV.

[Line 30.]Sloane—Woodward. Sir Hans Sloane, a natural historian; and John Woodward, founder of a chair of Geology in Cambridge University.

[Line 73.]Hoadley. Bishop Hoadley, here sarcastically referred to on account of his loyalty to the House of Hanover. (Ward.)

[Line 95.]Aretine. The Florentine poet who composed certain ill-favored sonnets to illustrate some designs of Giulio Romano.

[Line 135.]Holinsheds, or Halls, or Stowes. Tudor chroniclers.

[Line 177.]Umbra. Bubb Dodington.

[Line 178.]Fannius. Lord Hervey, whom Pope elsewhere calls ‘Lord Fanny.’

[Line 206.]Court in Wax. A famous show of the Court of France, in wax-work. (Pope.)

[Line 213.]At Fig’s, at White’s. White’s was a noted gaming-house; Fig’s, a prize-fighter’s Academy, where the young nobility received instruction in those days. It was also customary for the nobility and gentry to visit the condemned criminals in Newgate. (Pope).

[Line 274.]Hung with deadly sins. The room hung with old tapestry, representing the seven deadly sms. (Pope.)

[Page 208.]Epilogue to the Satires.Dialogue I.

[Line 13.]Sir Billy. Sir William Yonge.

[Line 14.]Huggins. Formerly jailer of the Fleet prison; enriched himself by many exactions, for which he was tried and expelled. (Pope.)

[Line 24.]Patriots. This appellation was generally given to those in opposition to the court. Though some of them (which our author hints at) had views too mean and interested to deserve that name. (Pope.)

[Line 26.]The great man. A phrase by common use appropriated to the First Minister. (Pope.)

[Line 39.]A Joke on Jekyl. Sir Joseph Jekyl, Master of the Rolls, a true Whig in his principles, and a man of the utmost probity. He sometimes voted against the Court, which drew upon him the laugh here described of One who bestowed it equally upon Religion and Honesty. He died a few months after the publication of this poem. (Pope.)

[Line 51.]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. See Dial. II. v. 137. (Pope.)

Fleury. Cardinal: and Minister to Louis XV. It was a Patriot-fashion, at that time, to cry up his wisdom and honesty. (Pope.)

[Line 66.]Henley—Osborne. See them in their places in The Dunciad. (Pope.)

[Line 68.] Sir William Yonge, not, as Bowles conjectures to be possible, Dr. Edward Young, author of The Night Thoughts, although to the latter Dodington (Bubo) was a constant friend. (Ward.)

[Line 69.]The gracious Dew. Alludes to some court sermons, and florid panegyrical speeches; particularly one very full of puerilities and flatteries; which afterwards got into an address in the same pretty style; and was lastly served up in an Epitaph, between Latin and English, published by its author. (Pope.) An ‘Epitaph’ on Queen Caroline was written by Lord Hervey, and an address moved in the House ofCommons (the Senate) on the occasion by H. Fox. (Carruthers.)

[Line 75.]Middleton and Bland. Dr. Conyers Middleton, author of a Life of Cicero. Dr. Bland, of Eton, according to Burnet a very bad writer.

[Line 78.]The ‘Nation’s Sense.’ Warburton says this was a cant phrase of the time.

[Line 80.]Carolina. Queen Caroline, died in 1737.

[Line 92.]Selkirk—Delaware. Pope’s note would seem to apply to the names here suggested: ‘A title [was] given that lord by King James II. He was of the Bedchamber to King William; he was so to George I.; he was so to George II. This lord was very skilful in all the forms of the House, in which he discharged himself with great gravity.’

[Line 120.]Japhet. Japhet Crook.

[Line 121.]Peter. Peter Walter.

[Line 123.]If 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. (Pope.)

[Line 124.]Passeran! 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, banished from his country for his impieties, and lived in the utmost misery, yet feared to practise his own precepts; and at last died a penitent. (Warburton.)

[Line 125.]But shall a Printer, etc. 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. (Pope.)

[Line 129.]This calls the Church to deprecate our Sin. Alluding to the forms of prayer, composed in the times of public calamity; where the fault is generally laid upon the People. (Warburton.)

[Page 210.]Dialogue II.

[Line 11.]Ev’n Guthry. 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. (Pope.)

[Line 39.]Wretched Wild. Jonathan Wild, a famous thief, and thief-impeacher, who was at last caught in his own train, and hanged. (Pope.)

[Line 57.]Ev’n Peter trembles only for his ears. Peter [Walter] had, the year before this, narrowly escaped the Pillory for forgery: and got off with a severe rebuke only from the bench. (Pope.)

[Line 66.]Scarb’row. Earl of, and Knight of the Garter, whose personal attachment 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. (Pope.) He committed suicide in a fit of melancholy in 1740; and was mourned by Lord Chesterfield as ‘the best man he ever knew, and the dearest friend he ever had.’ (Ward.)

[Line 67.]Esher’s peaceful Grove. The house and gardens of Esher in Surrey, belonging to the Honourable Mr. Pelham, Brother of the Duke of Newcastle. The author could not have given a more amiable idea of his Character than in comparing him to Mr. Craggs. (Pope.)

[Line 88.]Wyndham. Sir William Wyndham.

[Line 99.]The Man of Ross. See Moral Essays, Epistle III. lines 240-290. My Lord Mayor. Sir John Barnard.

[Line 132.]St. John. Lord Bolingbroke.

[Line 133.]Sir Roberts. Sir Robert Walpole.

[Line 158.]Sherlock, Dr. William, Dean of St. Paul’s, and the bête noire of the non-jurors in the reign of William III. (Ward.)

[Line 160.]The bard. Bubb Dodington, who wrote a poem to Sir Robert Walpole from which the following line is quoted.

[Line 164.]The Priest, etc. Pope disclaims any allusion to a particular priest, but the passage is understood to refer to Dr. Alured Clarke, who wrote a fulsome panegyric to Queen Caroline.

[Line 166.]The florid youth. Lord Hervey. Alluding to his painting himself. (Bowles.)

[Lines 185-186.]Japhet—Chartres. See the epistle to Lord Bathurst. (Pope.)

[Line 222.]Cobwebs. Weak and light sophistry against virtue and honour. Thin colours over vice, as unable to hide the light of truth, as cobwebs to shade the sun. (Pope.)

[Line 228.]When black Ambition, etc. The course of Cromwell in the civil war of England; (line 229), of Louis XIV. in his conquest of the Low Countries. (Pope.)

[Line 231.]Nor Boileau turn the feather to a star. See his Ode on Namur; where (to use his own words) ‘il a fait un Astre de la Plume blanche que le Roy porte ordinairement à son chapeau, et qui est en effet une espèce de Comète, fatale à nos ennemis.’ (Pope.)

[Line 236.]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. (Pope.)

[Line 238.]Stair. John Dalrymple, Earl of Stair, Knight of the Thistle; served in all the wars under the Duke of Marlborough; and afterwards as Ambassador in France. (Pope.) Bennet, who supplies the blanks in v. 239 by the names of Kent and Grafton, has ‘some notion that Lord Mordington kept a gaming-house.’ (Ward.)

[Lines 240, 241.]Hough—Digby. Dr. John Hough, Bishop of Worcester, and the Lord Digby. The one an assertor of the Church of England in opposition to the false measures of King James II. The other as firmly attached to the cause of that King. Both acting out of principle, and equally men of honour and virtue. (Pope.)

[Page 214.]Book Second, Sixth Satire. Imitated after Swift.

[Line 84.]October next it will be four. Swift is recalling the length of his service of the Tory Party.

[Line 85.]Harley. Earl of Oxford.

[Page 216.]The Seventh Epistle of the First Book of Horace.

[Line 67.]Child. Sir Francis Child, the banker. (Bowles.)

[Page 217.]The First Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace.

[Line 8.]Number five. The number of Murray’s lodgings in King’s Bench Walk.

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SATIRES

EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT[ ]BEING THE PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES

ADVERTISEMENT

SATIRES, EPISTLES, AND ODES OF HORACE IMITATED[ ]

ADVERTISEMENT

THE FIRST SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE

TO MR. FORTESCUE

THE SECOND SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

TO MR. BETHEL

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

TO LORD BOLINGBROKE

THE SIXTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

TO MR. MURRAY

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

ADVERTISEMENT

TO AUGUSTUS

THE SECOND EPISTLE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

SATIRES OF DR. JOHN DONNE, DEAN OF ST. PAUL’S, VERSIFIED[ ]

SATIRE II

SATIRE IV[ ]

EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES[ ]IN TWO DIALOGUES. WRITTEN IN 1738

DIALOGUE I

DIALOGUE II[ ]

THE SIXTH SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

THE FIRST PART IMITATED IN THE YEAR 1714 BY DR. SWIFT; THE LATTER PART ADDED AFTERWARDS

THE SEVENTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

IN THE MANNER OF DR. SWIFT

THE FIRST ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK OF HORACE[ ]

TO VENUS

THE NINTH ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK OF HORACE

A FRAGMENT

EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT[ ]

BEING THE PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES

EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES[ ]

IN TWO DIALOGUES. WRITTEN IN 1738