P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, 311
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 smiles his emptiness betray,

315 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, 320
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,

Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blafphemies.
His wit all fee-faw, between that and this,
Now high, now low, now mafter up, now mifs,
And he himself one vile Antithefis.
325)
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,

NOTEL

VER. 319. See Milton, Book iv.

P.

VER. 32. Half forte,] Alluding to thole fondy excretions, called by the people, Tas-pits, feen in fummer time hanging upon plants, and emitted by young infects which le hid in the most of them, for their prefervation, wille in teir helpicás

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, 330
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, 335
Not proud, nor fervile; Be one Poet's praife,
That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways:
That Flatt'ry, cv'n to Kings, he held a fhame,
And thought a Lye in verfe or profe the fame.,
That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long, 340
But floop'd to Truth, and moraliz'd his fong:

NOTES.

VER. 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 moft poetic Imagination could give to a great Genius. M.Voltaire, in a MS. letter now before me, writes thus from England to a friend in Paris. "I intend to fend you two or thrce pocms of Mr. Pope, the beft poet of England, and at prefent of all the world. I hope "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 Effay on Criticifm 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. Oct. 15, 1726.

VER. 341. But loop'd to Truth, and moraliz'd his fong:] This

That not for Fame, but Virtue's better on 8.
He ftood the furious foe, the tile fland,
The damning critic, half approvings
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit,
Laugh'd at the loft of friends he never had,
be
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad,
The diftant threats of vengeance on 111 Lead,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never thed;
The tale reviv'd, the lye fo oft c'erthrown,

Th' imputed trah, and dulnefs Lot his own;

NOTES.

339

may be faid no left in commendation of His literary, thun of dis moral character. And nis fuperior excellence in poetry is owing to it. He foon difcovered in what his force lay, and he made the best of that advantage, by a fedulous cultivation of Lis proper talent. For having read Quintilian early, this precept cid not escape him, Sunt hæc duo vitanda prorfus: unum ve tentes quod effici non poffit; alterum, ne ab eo, quod quis prime facit, in aliud, cui minus eft idoneu:, transferas. It was in this Fnowledge and cultivation of his genius that he had principslly the advantage of his great mafter, Dryden, who, by his MasFlecno, his Abfolom and Achitophel, but chiefly by his Prologues and Epilogues, appears to have had great talents for this fpecies of moral poetry; but, unluckily, he feem'd neither to understand nor attend to it.

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

VER. 350. the lye fo oft d'erthrown] As, that he received fuhfcriptions for Shakespear, that he fet his name to Mr. Broome's verfes, &c. which, tho' publicly difproved, were nevert hamelessly repeated in the Libels, and even in that called the Nobleman's Epiftle.

P.

The morals blacken'd when the writings 'fcape,

355

The libel'd perfon, and the pictur'd shape;
Abuse, on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father, dead;
The whisper, that to greatness ftill too near,
Perhaps, yet vibrates on his Sov'REIGN's ear ---
Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past:
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev'n the last!
A. But why infult the poor, affront the great? 360
P, A knave's a knave, to me, in ev'ry state:

NOTES.

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

P.

VER. 354, Abufe, on all he lov'd, ar lov'd him, fpread.] Namely on the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Burlington, Lord Bathurst, Lord Bolingbroke, Bishop Atterbury, Dr. Swift, Dr, Arbuthnot, Mr. Gay, his Friends, his Parents, and his very Nurfe, afperfed in printed papers, by James Moore, G. Ducket, L. Welfted, Tho. Bentley, and other obfcure perfons. P.

VER. 356. The whisper, that to greatness fill too near,] By the whisper is meant calumniating honeft Characters. Shakefpear has finely expreffed this office of the fycophant of greatnefs in the following line:

Rain facrificial whisperings in his ear.

By which is meant the immolating mens reputations to the vice or vanity of his Patron,

VER. 357. Perhaps, yet vibrates] What force and elegance of expreflion which, in one word, conveys to us the phyfical effects of found, and the moral effects of an often repeated fcandal,

VER. 359. For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev'n the laft!] This line is remarkable for prefenting us with the moft amiable Image of fteddy Virtue, mixed with a modeft concern for his

Alike my scorn, if he fucceed or fail,
Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail,

A hireling fcribler, or a hireling peer,
Knight of the poft corrupt, or of the fhire; 365
If on a Pillory, or near a Throne,

379

He gain his Prince's ear, or lofe his own.
Yet foft by nature, more a dupe than wit,
Sappho can tell you how this man was bit:
This dreaded Sat'rift Dennis will confefs
Foe to his pride, but friend to his diftrefs:
So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door,
Has drunk with Cibber, nay has rhym'd for Moor.
Full ten years flander'd, did he once reply?
Three thousand funs went down on Welfted's lye.

VARIATIONS.

VER. 368. in the MS.

Once, and but once, his heedlefs youth was bit,
And lik'd that dang'rous thing, a female wit:
Safe as he thought, tho' all the prudent chid;

He writ no Libels, but my Lady did:

Great cdds in am'rous or poetic game,

Where Woman's is the fin, and Man's the fhame.

NOTES,

being forced to undergo the fevereft proofs of his love for it, which was the being thought hardly of by his SOVEREIGN. VER. 374. ten years] It was fo long after many libeks before the Author of the Dunciad publifhed that poem, till when, be never writ a word in anfwer to the many fcurrilities and faithoods concerning him.

P.