Can fleep without a Poem in my head,
Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead.

274

66

Why am I afk'd what next fhall fee the light? Heay'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 foul to save? "I found him close with Swift-Indeed? no doubt (Cries prating Balbus) fomething will come out. 'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will. "No, fuch a Genius never can lie ftill; And then for mine obligingly mistakes The first Lampoon Sir Will. or Bubo makes. Poor guiltlefs I! and can I chufe but smile, When ev'ry Coxcomb knows me by my Style?

VARIATIONS.

After VER. 270. 'in the MS.

Friendships from youth I fought, and seek them ftill;
Fame, like the wind, may breathe where'er it will,
The world I knew, but made it not my school a,
And in a courfe of flatt'ry liv'd no fool.

270

After VER. 282. in the MS.

P. What if I fing Auguftus, great and good?
A. You did fo lately, was it understood?

Be nice no more, but, with a mouth profound,
As rumbling D. -s or a Norfolk hound;
With GEORGE and FRED'RIC roughen ev'ry verfe,
Then smooth up all, and CAROLINE rehearse.
P. No-the high task to lift up Kings to Gods

Leave to Court-sermons, and to birth-day Odes.

280

a By not making the World bis School he means, he did not form his fyftem of morality, on the principles or practice of men in business,

Curft be the verfe, how well-foe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give Virtue fcandal, Innocence a fear,
Or from the foft-ey'd Virgin fteal a tear!
But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace,
Infults fall'n worth, or Beauty in distress,
Who loves a Lye, lame flander helps about,
Who writes a Libel, or who copies out:
That Fop, whofe pride affects a patron's name,
Yet abfent, wounds an author's honeft fame:
Who can your merit felfibly approve,

And how the fenfe of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend;

VARIATIONS.

On themes like these, fuperior far to thine,
Let laurell'd Cibber, and great Arnal shine.
Why write at all?-A. Yes, filence if you keep,
The Town, the Court, the Wits, the Dunces weep.

285

296

295

VER. 295. Who has the vanity to call you friend, Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend;] When a great Genius, whose writings have afforded the world much pleasure and instruction, happens to be enviously attacked, or falfly accufed, it is natural to think, that a fenfe of gratitude for fo agreeable an obligation, or a fenfe of that honour refulting to our Country from fuch a Writer, should raise amongst those who call themselves his friends, a pretty general indignation. But every day's experience fhews us the very contrary. Some take a malignant fatisfaction in the attack; others a foolish pleasure in a literary conflict; and the far greater part look on with a selfish indifference.

Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you fay,
And, if he lye not, muft at leaft betray:
Who to the Dean, and filver bell can fwear,
And fees at Cannons what was never there;
Who reads, but with a luft to misapply,
Make Satire a Lampoon, and Fiction Lye.
A lafh like mine no honest man shall dread,
But all fuch babbling blockheads in his ftead.
Let Sporus tremble-A. What? that thing of filk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of Ass's milk?
306
Satire or fenfe, 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 ftings; 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 fmiles his emptinefs betray,

As fhallow ftreams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,

And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet fqueaks;
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar Toad,

Half froth, half venom, fpits himself abroad,

300

315

320

VER. 299. Who to the Dean, and filver bell &c] Meaning the man who would have perfuaded the Duke of Chandos that Mr. P. meant him in those circumftances ridiculed in the Epiftle on Tafte. See Mr. Pope's Letter to the Earl of Burlington concerning this matter.

VER. 319. See Milton, Book jv.

In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,
Or fpite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies.
His wit all fee-faw, between that and this,

}

Now high, now low, now mafter up, now miss,
And he himself one vile Antithefis.
325
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 ftruts a Lord.
Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest,
A Cherub's face, a reptile all the reft,
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will truft,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the duft.
Not Fortune's worshiper, nor Fashion's fool,
Not Lucre's madman, nor Ambition's tool,
Not proud, nor fervile; 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 Lye in verse or prose the fame.
That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long, 340
But ftoop'd to Truth, and moraliz'd his fong:

330

335

VER. 320. Half froth,] Alluding to those frothy excretions, called by the people, Toad-fpits, feen in fummer-time hanging upon plants, and emitted by young infects which lie hid in the midft of them, for their prefervation, while in their helpless ftate.

!

VIR 340. That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long,] His merit in this will appear very great, if we confider, that in this walk he had all the advantages which the most poetic Imagination could give to a great Genius. M. Voltaire, in a MS. letter

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 lofs of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The diftant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale reviv'd, the lye fo oft o'erthrown,
Th' imputed trash, and dulness not his own;

345

350

now before me, writes thus from England to a friend in Paris. "I intend to fend you two or three poems of Mr Pope, the "best poet of England, and at present of all the world. I hope 66 you are acquainted enough with the English tongue, to be "fenfible of all the charms of his works. For my part, I look << upon his poem called the Efay on Criticism as fuperior to "the Art of poetry of Horace; and his Rape of the Lock is, in "my opinion, above the Lutrin of Defpreaux. I never faw "fo amiable an imagination, fo gentle graces, fo great variety, "fo much wit, and fo refined knowledge of the world, as in "this little performance." MS. Let. Of. 15, 1726.

VER. 341. But ftoop'd to Truth] The term is from falconry ; and the allusion to one of those untamed birds of spirit, which fometimes wantons at large in airy circles before it regards, or floops to, its prey.

VER. 350. the lye so oft o'ertbrown] As, that he received subfcriptions for Shakespear, that he fet his name to Mr. Broome's verfes, &c. which, tho' publicly disproved, were nevertheless fhamelessly repeated in the Libels, and even in that called the Nobleman's Epifle.

VER. 351. Th' imputed Traf] Such as profane Pfalms, Court-Poems, and other fcandalous things, printed in his Name by Curl and others.