The Poet replies by vaunting his tolerance and equanimity.

Good Heaven forbid that I should blast their glory,

Who know how like Whig minister to Tory,

And when three sovereigns died,1 could scarce be vexed,
Considering what a gracious prince was next.

But he cannot endure that the dignity of vice should be lost. With virtue the case was altered:

Virtue may choose the high or low degree,

'Tis just alike to Virtue and to me :
Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king,
She's still the same beloved, contented thing.
Vice is undone if she forgets her birth,

And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth.

Then follows the famous passage descriptive of the Triumph of Vice in high places, the sounding exposure of the corruption of the church, the state, and society in general:

Her birth and 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,
Old England's genius, rough with many a scar,
Dragged in the dust! his arms hang idly round,
His flag inverted trails along the ground;
Our youth, all liveried 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 through the land proclaim,

1 William, Anne, and George I.

That not to be corrupted is the shame,
In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power,
'Tis avarice 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 villainy.

Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain)
Show there was one who held it in disdain.

46

CHAPTER LIII

1738

Epilogue to the Satires: Dialogue II."-Visit from Bolingbroke-Conduct of "Mrs. Blount "-Marriage of Lord Orrery

STYLE apart, the first " Dialogue" is little more

than a long-drawn indictment of a whole nation by a soured poet, who set himself up as the judge and executioner of his fellow-men.' The severity of the satire roused both protest and resentment. Aaron Hill, who always played the part of a candid friend, pointed out the tendency to pique and contempt, which seemed to him the only blot on Mr. Pope's character. It was a pity that so humane and benevolent a thinker "should scatter gall which his heart never licensed." If his dear friend would only guard against this seeming "tartness of spirit by submitting his wit to his philosophy he would become, in Mr. Hill's opinion, the most unnatural good man in the world, and leave himself without a fault.

"

When, a few months later, the second "Dialogue" appeared, the Friend is represented as remonstrating with the Poet for the libels contained in the first

1 Horace Walpole used to call Pope the Grand Inquisitor.

part. The latter replies that his accusations are not yet libels in the eye of the law, though they may become so the next day-an allusion to the new Play-house Act, which was regarded as an attack on the liberty of the subject. Moreover, he points out that—

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.

The Friend argues that no one else would lash the guilty by name, and urges that the person should be spared while the vice is exposed. The Poet then calls on Satire, general and unconfined, to spread her broad wings and souse on all the kind.

Ye statesmen, priests of one religion all!
Ye tradesmen vile, in army, court, or hall!
Ye reverend atheists-

F. Scandal! name them-Who?

P. Why, that's the thing you bid me not to do.
Who starved a sister,1 who foreswore a debt,
I never named; the town's inquiring yet,
The poisoning dame 2 F. You mean-

F. You do.

P. See, now I keep the secret, and not you!

P. I don't.

The Friend pleads that one man should not be attacked because he is too high, and another because

1 An allusion to a couplet in the first Dialogue :

And at a peer or peeress, shall I fret,

Who starves a sister or forswears a debt?

Lady Mary Wortley had been accused of ill-treating her sister, Lady Mar, who had been placed in her care in consequence o her mental affliction. Lady Mary, it will be remembered, was charged by Pope with having cheated her admirer, Rémond, over the South Sea business.

• Probably Lady Deloraine, the Delia of the "First Satire."

he is too low, for blame. The Poet declares that he praises a courtier, and even a bishop-when he can.1

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 flame
Compared, and knew them generous and the same.
How pleasing Atterbury's softer hour!

How shined the soul unconquered in the Tower! 2

The Friend has a sneer at Pope's own muchbelauded friends. They happen to be "out," but doubtless they desire to be "in," and they too may become as corrupt as the rest. The Poet retorts that he only dubs those knaves that are so now. But if that is not enough, he'll call to his aid the spirit of Arnall, and lie. Then follows a specimen of his powers in this direction:

Cobham's a coward, Polwarth is a slave,3
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.

1 In the following lines Pope praises Pelham, Scarborough, Secker, Bishop of Oxford, Rundle, Bishop of Derry, Benton, Bishop of Gloucester, and Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne.

This fine passage is too long to quote in full. The other politicians who come in for praise are Pulteney, Chesterfield, Wyndham, and Argyll.

3 Lord Polwarth, afterwards Lord Marchmont, one of the "Boy Patriots."

In a letter to Fortescue, dated July 31, Pope says:

"You see I have made him [Sir Robert] a second compliment

VOL. II

15