WRITTEN IN 1715; OCCASIONED BY HIS DIALOGUES ON
SEE the wild waste of all-devouring years!
How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears,
With nodding arches, broken temples spread!
The very tombs now vanish'd like their dead!
Imperial wonders raised on nations spoil'd,
Where, mix'd with slaves, the groaning martyr
toil'd:
Huge theatres, that now unpeopled woods,
Now drain d a distant country of her floods :
Fanes, which admiring gods with pride survey:
Statues of men, scarce less alive than they!
Some felt the silent stroke of mouldering age,
Some hostile fury, some religious rage:
Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire,
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.
Perhaps, by its own ruins saved from flame,
Some buried marble half preserves a name :
That name the learn'd with fierce disputes pursue,
And give to Titus old Vespasian's due.
Ambition sigh'd: she found it vain to trust The faithless column, and the crumbling bust: 20 Huge moles, whose shadow stretch'd from shore to shore,
Their ruins perish'd, and their place no more!
Convinced, she now contracts her vast design,
And all her triumphs shrink into a coin.
A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps ;
Beneath her palm, here sad Judea weeps.
Now scantier limits the proud arch confine,
And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine;
A small Euphrates through the piece is roll'd,
And little eagles wave their wings in gold.
The medal, faithful to its charge of fame, Through climes and ages bears each form and
In one short view subjected to our eye
Gods, emperors, heroes, sages, beauties, lie.
With sharpen'd sight pale antiquaries pore,
The inscription value, but the rust adore.
This* the blue varnish, that+ the green endears,
The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years!
To gain Pescennius one employs his schemes;
One grasps a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams.
Poor Vadius, long with learned spleen devour'd,
Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scour'd;
And Curio, restless by the fair one's side,
Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride.
Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine :
Touch'd by thy hand, again Rome's glories shine;
Her gods and godlike heroes rise to view,
And all her faded garlands bloom anew.
Nor blush, these studies thy regard engage:
These pleased the fathers of poetic rage;
The verse and sculpture bore an equal part,
And art reflected images to art.
O, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim, Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame; In living medals see her walls enroll'd, And vanquish'd realms supply recording gold? Here, rising bold, the patriot's honest face; There warriors frowning in historic brass : Then future ages with delight shall see
How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's looks agree;
Collectors of silver coins. + Collectors of brass coins.
Or in fair series laurell'd bards be shown,
A Virgil there, and here an Addison.
Then shall thy Craggs (and let me call him mine)
On the cast ore, another Pollio, shine;
With aspect open, shall erect his head,
And round the orb in lasting notes be read :-
'Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend;
Ennobled by himself, by all approved;
And praised, unenvied, by the Muse he loved.'*
ROBERT EARL OF OXFORD, AND EARL
MORTIMER,+
SUCH were the notes thy once-loved poet sung,
Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
O, just beheld, and lost! admired and mourn'd!
With softest manners, gentlest arts adorn'd!
Bless'd in each science, bless'd in every strain !
Dear to the Muse!-to Harley dear-in vain!
For him, thou oft hast bid the world attend,
Fond to forget the statesman in the friend;
For Swift and him, despised the farce of state,
The sober follies of the wise and great;
Dexterous, the craving, fawning crowd to quit;
And pleased to 'scape from flattery to wit.
*Lines 67-72 form James Craggs's epitaph in Westminster Abbey.
↑ "This Epistle was sent to the Earl of Oxford, with Dr. Parnell's Poems published by our author, after the said earl's imprisonment in the Tower, and retreat into the country, in the year 1721."
Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear; (A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear ;) Recall those nights that closed thy toilsome days; Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays, Who, careless now of interest, fame, or fate, Perhaps forgets that Oxford e'er was great; Or deeming meanest what we greatest call, Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.
And, sure, if aught below the seats divine Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine: A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried, Above all pain, all passion, and all pride, The rage of power, the blast of public breath, The lust of lucre, and the dread of death. In vain to deserts thy retreat is made; The Muse attends thee to thy silent shade : "Tis hers, the brave man's latest steps to trace, Rejudge his acts, and dignify disgrace. When interest calls off all her sneaking train, And all the obliged desert, and all the vain; She waits, or to the scaffold, or the cell, When the last lingering friend has bid farewell. E'en now, she shades thy evening walk with bays (No hireling she, no prostitute to praise); E'en now, observant of the parting ray, Eyes the calm sunset of thy various day;
Through fortune's cloud one truly great can see, Nor fears to tell, that Mortimer is he.
EPISTLE TO JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ.
A SOUL as full of worth, as void of pride;
Which nothing seeks to show, or needs to hide;
Which nor to guilt nor fear its caution owes,
And boasts a warmth that from no passion flows:
A face untaught to feign; a judging eye,
That darts severe upon a rising lie,
And strikes a blush through frontless flattery.
All this thou wert; and being this before,
Know, kings and fortune cannot make thee more.
Then scorn to gain a friend by servile ways;
Nor wish to lose a foe these virtues raise;
But candid, free, sincere, as you began,
Proceed-a minister, but still a man.
Be not (exalted to whate'er degree)
Ashamed of any friend, not e'en of me:
The patriot's plain, but untrod path pursue;
If not, 'tis I must be ashamed of you.
WITH MR. DRYDEN'S TRANSLATION OF FRESNOY'S ART OF PAINTING.
THIS verse be thine, my friend; nor thou refuse
This from no venal or ungrateful Muse.
Whether thy hand strike out some free design,
Where life awakes, and dawns at every line;
Or blend in beauteous tints the colour'd mass,
And from the canvas call the mimic face;
Read these instructive leaves, in which conspire
Fresnoy's close art, and Dryden's native fire;
And reading wish, like theirs our fate and fame,
So mix'd our studies, and so join'd our name; 10
Like them to shine through long succeeding age;
So just thy skill, so regular my rage.
Smit with the love of sister-arts we came, And met congenial, mingling flame with flame;
* This Epistle was originally printed in 1717. Charles Jervas was an artist. Pope had at one time been placed under his teaching with the view of following that profession.
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