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There (fo the Dev'l ordain'd) one Christmas-tide
My good old Lady catch'd a cold, and dy'd.

A Nymph of Quality admires our Knight; 385
He marries, bows at Court, and grows polite :
Leaves the dull Cits, and joins (to please the fair).
The well-bred cuckolds in St. James's air:
First, for his Son a gay Commiffion buys,

Who drinks, whores, fights, and in a duel dies:
His daughter flaunts a Viscount's tawdry wife; 391
She bears a Coronet and P-x for life.

In Britain's Senate he a feat obtains,
And one more Penfioner St. Stephen gains.
My Lady falls to play; fo bad her chance,
He muft repair it; takes a bribe from France;

NOTES.

that a Man, who, had he continued in his primeval meannefs, would have circumfcribed his knowledge within the modeft limits of Socrates; yet, being push'd up, as the phrafe is, has felt himself growing into

395

a Hooker, a Hales, or a Sydenham; while, in the rapidity of his course, he imagined he saw, at every new station, a new door of science opening to him, without fo much as ftaying for a Flatterer to let him in?

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VER. 394. And one more Penfioner St. Stephen gains.]

-atque unum civem donare Sibyller

Juv.

The Houfe impeach him; Coningsby harangues;
The Court forfake him, and Sir Balaam hangs:
Wife, fon, and daughter, Satan! are thy own,
His wealth, yet dearer, forfeit to the Crown: 400
The Devil and the King divide the prize,

And fad Sir Balaam curfes God and dies.

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well-policied communities have found expedient to provide themfelves withal, is by no means to be understood as a reflexion on the Laws themselves, whofe neceffity, equity, and even lenity have been excellently well vindicated in that very learned and elegant Difcourfe, intitled Some Confider

VER. 401. The Devil and the King divide the Prize.] This is to be understood in a very fober and decent fenfe; as a Satire only on fuch Minifters of State which Hiftory informs us have been found, who aided the Devil in his temptations, in order to foment, if not to make, Plots for the fake of confifcations. So fure always, and juftations on the Law of Forfeiture is our author's fatire, even in for high Treafon. Third Edi thofe places where he feems tion, London, 1748.! most to have indulged himfelf VER. ult. curfes God and only in an elegant badinage. dies.] i. e. Fell under the But this Satire on the abufe of temptation; alluding to the the general Laws of forfeiture ftory of Job referred to above, for high treafon, which all

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Of the Use of RICHES.

The Vanity of Expence in People of Wealth and Quality. The abufe of the word Tafte, y 13. That the first principle and foundation, in this as in every thing else, is Good Senfe, 40. The chief proof of it is to follow Nature, even in works of mere Luxury and Elegance. Inftanced in Architecture and Gardening, where all must be adapted to the Genius and Use of the Place, and the Beauties not forced into it, but resulting from it, 50. How men are difappointed in their most expensive undertakings, for want of this true Foundation, without which nothing can please long, if at all; and the best Examples and Rules will but be perverted into fomething burdenfome or ridiculous, &c. to 92. A defcription of the false Tafte of Magnificence; the first grand Error of which is to imagine that Greatnefs confifts in the Size and Dimenfion, inftead of the Proportion and Harmony of the whole, 97. and the fecond, either in joining together

65,

Parts incoherent, or too minutely refembling, or in the Repetition of the fame too frequently, 105, &c. A word or two of falfe Tafte in Books, in Mufic, in Painting, even in Preaching and Prayer, and lastly in Entertainments, 133, &c. Yet PROVIDENCE is justified in giving Wealth to be fquandered in this manner, fince it is difperfed to the Poor and Laborious part of mankind, 169 [recurring to what is laid down in the first book, Ep. ii. and in the Epiftle preceding this, 159, &c.] What are the proper Objects of Magnificence, and a proper field for the Expence of Great Men, 177, &c. and finally, the Great and Public Works which become a Prince, 191, to the end.

EPISTLE IV.

Is ftrange, the Mifer fhould his Cares employ

"T TO

To gain those Riches he can ne'er enjoy : Is it lefs ftrange, the Prodigal fhould waft

His wealth, to purchase what he ne’er can taste ?

COMMENTARY.

EPISTLE IV.] The extremes of Avarice and Profufion being treated of in the foregoing Epiftle; this takes up one particular branch of the latter, the Vanity of Expence in people of wealth and quality; and is therefore a corollary to the preceding, just as the Epiftle on the Characters of Women is to that of the Knowledge and Characters of Men. It is equally remarkable for exactness of method with the reft. But the nature of the fubject, which is lefs philosophical, makes it capable of being analifed in a much narrower compass.

VER. I. 'Tis ftrange, &c.] The poet's introduction (from 1 to 39) confifts of a very curious remark, arifing from his intimate knowledge of nature; together with an illustration of it, taken from his obfervations on life. It is this, That the Prodigal no more enjoys his Profufion, than the Mifer, his Rapacity. It was generally thought that Avarice only kept without enjoyment; but the poet here first acquaints us with a circumftance in human life much more to be lamented,` viz. that Profufion too can communicate without it; whereas Enjoyment was thought to be as peculiarly the reward of the beneficent paffions (of which this has the appearance) as want of enjoyment was the punishment of the selfish. The phænomenon observed is odd enough. But if we look more narrowly into this matter, we shall find, that Prodigality, when in purfuit of Tafte, is only a Mode of Vanity, and confequently as felfifh a paffion as even avarice itself; and it is of the ordonance and constitution of all selfish paffions, when growing to excefs, to defeat their own end, which is Self-enjoyment. But befides the accurate

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