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Who has the vanity to call you friend,

295

Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend ;
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say,
And, if he lye not, must at least betray:
Who to the Dean, and filver bell can fwear,
And fees at Cannons what was never there; 300
Who reads, but with a luft to misapply,

Make Satire a Lampoon, and Fiction Lye.
A lash like mine no honeft man fhall dread,
But all fuch babling blockheads in his stead.

Let Sporus tremble ---A.What? that thing of filk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of Afs's milk? 306
Satire or fenfe, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

NOTES.

VER. 295. Who has the vanity to call you friend, Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend ;] When a great Genius, whofe writings have afforded the world much pleasure and inftruction, 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 sense of that honour refulting to our Country from fuch a Writer, should raife amongst thofe 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 felfifh indif

ference.

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 circumstances ridiculed in the Epiftle on Tafe. See Mr. Pope's Letter to the Earl of Burlington concerning this matter.

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 fmiles his emptinefs betray,
315
As fhallow ftreams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,

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

Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, 320
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,

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

NOTES.

VER. 319. See Milton, Book iv.

325

P.

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.

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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 expreft, 330
A Cherub's face, a reptile all the rest,

335

Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
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 verfe or profe the same.,
That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long, 340
But ftoop'd to Truth, and moraliz'd his song:

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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 most 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 three poems of Mr. Pope, the "best 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.

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

345

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 fhed;
The tale reviv'd, the lye fo oft o'erthrown, 350
Th' imputed trash, and dulness not his own;

NOTES.

may be faid no lefs in commendation of his literary, than of his moral character. And his 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 his proper talent. For having read Quintilian early, this precept did not escape him, Sunt hæc duo vitanda prorfus: unum ne tentes quod effici non poffit; alterum, ne ab eo, quod quis optime facit, in aliud, cui minus eft idoneus, transferas. It was in this knowledge and cultivation of his genius that he had principally the advantage of his great mafter, Dryden; who, by his MacFlecno, his Abfolom and Achitophel, but chiefly by his Prologues and Epilogues, appears to have had great talents for this Ipecies 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 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 fo oft o'erthrown] As, that he received fubfcriptions for Shakespear, that he fet his name to Mr. Broome's verfes, &c. which, tho' publicly difproved, were nevertheis fhamelessly repeated in the Libels, and even in that called the Nobleman's Epiftle.

P.

The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape,

The libel'd person, and the pictur'd shape;
Abuse, on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father, dead;

355

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 scandalous things, printed in his Name by Curl and others.

P.

VER. 354, Abufe, on all be 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 expreffion! 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 evn the last!] This line is remarkable for presenting us with the most amiable image of fteddy Virtue, mixed with a modeft concern for his

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