Page images
PDF
EPUB

Content with little, I can piddle here

X

On brocoli and mutton, round the year;

But ' ancient friends (tho' poor, or out of play)
That touch my bell, I cannot turn away.

[ocr errors]

'Tis true, no Turbots dignify my boards,

140

But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords : To Hounflow-heath I point, and Banfted-down, Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own: yon old walnut-tree a show'r fhall fall; 145 And grapes, long lingʼring on my only wall,

a From

And figs from standard and efpalier join;

The Dev'l is in you if you cannot dine:

Then 'chearful healths, (your Mistress shall have place,) And, what's more rare, a Poet fhall fay Grace. Fortune not much of humbling me can boast;

Tho' double tax'd, how little have I lost?

My Life's amufements have been just the fame,
Before and after Standing Armies came.

C

150

My lands are fold, my father's houfe is gone; 155

I'll hire another's; is not that my own,

And yours, my friends? through whofe free op'ning gate

None comes too early, none departs too late;

(For I, who hold fage Homer's rule the best, Welcome the coming, speed the going Guest.) 160

NOTES.

❝ Pray

e.] A conftant topic of declaWARTON.

VER. 154. Standing Armies came. mation against the court, at this time.

The outcry was equally violent against the Excife, and no left

unjuftly. See Coxe's Memoirs, ch. 41.

d

Nam propria telluris herum natura neque illum,
Nec me, nec quemquam ftatuit. nos expulit ille;
Illum aut nequities aut 'vafri infcitia juris,

e

Poftremum expellet certe & vivacior heres,

h

Nunc ager Umbreni fub nomine, nuper Ofelli Dictus erat: nulli proprius; fed cedit in ufum Nunc mihi, nunc alii. quocirca vivite fortes, Fortiaque adverfis opponite pectora rebus.

i

NOTES.

VER. 160. Welcome the coming,] From Homer, Od. b. 15. v. 74. χρη ξείνον παρεόντα φίλειν, εθελοντα δε πέμπειν.

Theocritus has finely touched this fubject in the fixteenth Idyllium. WARTON.

VER. 165 Wel, if the ufe be mine, &c.] In a letter to this Mr. Bethel, of March 20, 1743, he fays, "My Landlady, Mrs. Vernon, being dead, this Garden and House are offered me in fale; and, I believe, (together with the cottages on each fide my grafs plot next the Thames,) will come at about a thousand pounds. If I thought any very particular friend would be pleafed to live in it after my death, (for, as it is, it ferves all my purposes as well, during life,) I would purchafe it; and more particularly could I hope two things; that the friend who fhould like it, was fo much younger and healthier than my self, as to have a profpect of its continuing his, fome years longer than I can of its continuing mine. But most of those I love are travelling out of the world, not into it; and unless I have fuch a view given me, 1 have no vanity nor pleasure that does not ftop fhort of the Grave." So that we fee (what fome who call themselves his friends would not believe) his thoughts in profe and verse were the fame. WARBURTON.

VER. 171-2. Or in pure equity, (the cafe not clear,) The Chanc'ry takes your rents for twenty year:] A Proteftant Mifer's money in Chancery, and a Catholic Mifer's perfon in Purgatory, are never to be got out, till the Law and the Church have been well paid for their redemption. WARBURTON. VER. 175 that to BACON could] Gorhambury, near St. Al ban's, a fine and venerable old manfion. WARTON.

Pope, with his ufual proneness to invective, alludes to a very refpectable nobleman, William, firft Lord Grimftone.

"Pray Heav'n it laft! (cries SWIFT) as you go on

"I wish to God this house had been your own:

66

Pity! to build, without a fon or wife :

"Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life."

Well, if the ufe be mine, can it concern one, 165
Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon?
What's Property? dear Swift! you fee it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
Or, in a mortgage, prove a Lawyer's fhare;
Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;
Or, in pure equity, (the cafe not clear,)
The Chanc'ry takes your rents for twenty year:
At beft, it falls to fome ungracious fon,

1'70

Who cries, "My father's damn'd, and all's my own."
Shades, that to BACON could retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby Lord;

And Hemfley, once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a Scriv❜ner or a city Knight.

Let lands and houfes have what Lords they will,
Let Us be fix'd, and our own masters still.

NOTES.

175

180

VER. 177. And Hemfley,] Helmfley, in Yorkshire. VER. 177. proud Buckingham's, &c.] Villiers Duke of Buckingham.

་¢

РОРЕ.

THIS imitation appears to me, the leaft fuccessfully polished and pointed of any he has attempted. The obfervations, indeed, are not very ftriking in the original; and as to Pope, if Bethel always spoke what he thought, and always thought as he ought," we cannot be impreffed with the fagenes of his remarks. The chief merit of Horace is the language, and in this refpect Pope has followed him with much lefs fuccefs than he has done in his other Imitations.

THE FIRST EPISTLE

OF THE

FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.

« PreviousContinue »