Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit, VARIATIONS. VER. 368. in the MS. 37 Once, and but once, his heedless youth was bit, NOTES. VER. 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. P. VER. 375. Welsted's Lye.] This man had the impudence to tell in print, that Mr. P. had occafioned a Lady's death, and to name a person he never heard of. He also publish'd that he libell'd the Duke of Chandos; with whom (it was added) that he had lived in familiarity, and received from him a present of five hundred pounds: the falsehood of both which is known to his Grace. Mr. P. never received any present, farther than the subscription for Homer, from him, or from Any great Man whatso ever. P. To please a Mistress one afpers'd his life; NOTES. 376 380 VER. 378. Let Budgel] Budgel, in a weekly pamphlet called the Bee, bestowed much abuse on him, in the imagination that he writ some things about the Last Will of Dr. Tindal, in the Grubstreet Journal; a Paper wherein he never had the leaft hand, direction, or supervisal, nor the least knowledge of its Author. P. VER. 379. except his Will] Alluding to Tindal's Will: by which, and other indirect practices, Budgell, to the exclufion of the next heir, a nephew, got to himself almost the whole fortune of a man entirely unrelated to him. VER. 381. His father, mother, &c.] In some of Curl's and other pamphlets, Mr. Pope's father was faid to be a Mechanic, a Hatter, a Farmer, nay a Bankrupt. But, what is stranger, a Nobleman (if such a Reflection could be thought to come from a Nobleman) had dropt an allufion to that pitiful untruth, in a paper called an Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity: And the following line, Hard as thy Heart, and as thy Birth obfcure, had fallen from a like Courtly pen, in certain Verses to the Imitation of Horace. Mr. Pope's Father was of a Gentleman's Family in Oxfordshire, the head of which was the Earl of Downe, whose sole Heiress married the Earl of Lindsey-His mother was the daughter of William Turnor, Efq. of York: She had three brothers, one of whom was killed, another died in the service of King Charles; the eldest following his fortunes, and becoming Yet why? that Father held it for a rule, That harmless Mother thought no wife a whore: 386 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, 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, : 390 The good man walk'd innoxious thro' his age. 395 1 NOTES. a general officer in Spain, left her what estate remained after the sequestrations and forfeitures of her familyMr. Pope died in 1717, aged 75; She in 1733, aged 93, a very few weeks after this poem was finished. The following inscription was placed by their son on their Monument in the parish of Twickenham, in Middle sex. D. O. Μ. ALEXANDRO. POPE. VIRO. INNOCVO. PROBO. ΡΙΟ. QUI. VIXIT. ANNOS. LXXV. OB. MDCCXVII. PIENTISSIMAE. QUAE. VIXIT. ANNOS. PARENTIBVS, BENEMERENTIBVS, FILIVS. FECIT. No Courts he saw, no suits would ever try, 400 Healthy by temp'rance, and by exercise; His death was inftant, and without a groan. O grant me, thus to live, and thus to die ! 404 Be no unpleasing Melancholy mine: Me, let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of repofing Age, 418 With lenient arts extend a Mother's breath, 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, VARIATIONS. After * 405. in the MS. And of myself, too, something must I say? Take then this verfe, the trifle of a day. And if it live, it lives but to commend The man whose heart has ne'er forgot a Friend, And friend to Learning, yet too wife to write. 416 Preserve him social, chearful, and serene, NOTES. VER. 417. And just as rich as when he feru'd a Queen.] An honest compliment to his Friend's real and unaffected difinterestedness, when he was the favourite Phyfician of Queen Anne. VER. 418. A. Whether this blessing, &c.] He makes his friend close the Dialogue with a fentiment very expressive of that religious resignation, which was the Character both of his temper, and his piety. + |