385 So well in paint and stone they judg❜d of merit ; d NOTES. 390 Oh! year 1671, tells the following ftory: "I and John Echard, the Author of the Contempt of the Clergy, dined with Archbishop Sheldon. After dinner, when the Archbishop had withdrawn and selected his company, I was called into the withdrawing room, and Echard was left behind to go drink and smoke with the Chaplains:" So well adjusted was this respect of persons; Echard, the wittiest man of the age, was very fitly left to divert the Chaplains ; and Anthony Wood, without all per-adventure the dullest, was called in to enjoy the conversation of his Grace. WARBURTON. VER. 385. But Kings in Wit] They may, nevertheless, be very good Kings. It is not for his verses, any more than for his victories, that the late King of Pruffia will be celebrated by posterity: but for foftening the rigours of a defpotic government, by a code of milder laws than his crouching people had known before; and for building many villages and farm-houses, to encourage agricul ture, and repair the wastes and He muft therefore be pardoned for an abfurd judgment, which he has paffed on Homer, whom he could not read in the Original, where he says; "Ses chants et l'action ont peu ou point de liafon les uns avec les autres, ce qui leur a mérité le nom de rapfodies." Preface to the Henriade. WARTON. ravages of war. VER. 387. penfion'd Quarles;] Who has lately been more favourably spoken of by fome ingenious critics; particularly by the author of Thirty Letters. WARTON, b Aufpiciis totum confecta duella per orbem, Clauftraque cuftodem pacis cohibentia Janum, Si quantum cuperem, poffem quoque. fed neque par vum Carmen majeftas recipit tua; nec meus audet Rem tentare pudor, quam vires ferre recufent. Sedulitas autem ftulte, quem diligit, urget; Præcipue cum fe numeris commendat et arte. Difcit enim citius, meminitque libentius illud Quod quis deridet, quam quod probat et veneratur. Nil moror" officium, quod me gravat: ac neque ficto In • pejus vultu proponi cereus ufquam, Nec prave factis decorari verfibus opto: NOTES. VER. 397. how dearly bought !] All this is in the fpirit of the moft contemptuous irony. VER. 409. they fay I bite.] If any key had been wanting to the artful irony contained in this imitation, especially in the last lixteen lines, this one verfe would have been fufficient to fix the Poet's intention Neither Dr Warburton nor Dr. Hurd take the leaft notice of any irony being intended in this imitation. To what motive fhall we afcribe this cautious fiience? WARTON. Oh! could I mount on the Mæonian wing, e 394 Your Arms, your Actions, your Repose to fing! What' feas you travers'd, and what fields you fought! Your Country's Peace, how oft, how dearly bought! How barb'rous rage fubfided at your word, And Nations wonder'd while they dropp'd the fword! Andi Afia's Tyrants tremble at your Throne- k And I'm not us'd to Panegyric strains : n מן That when I aim at praife, they fay I bite. P 9 405 410 (Like Journals, Odes, and fuch forgotten things As Eufden, Philips, Settle, writ of Kings) Cloath spice, line trunks, or flutt'ring in a row, 415 POPE, in his celebrated letter to Lord Hervey, has the hardi. hood to boaft himself " a man who never wrote a line in which "the religion or government of his country, the ROYAL FAMILY, or their miniftry, were disrespectfully mentioned." The cafe was very much altered, when he wrote this Imitation, the drift of which cannot be mistaken. I have before taken notice of the circumftances of the times when it was published, which the reader should keep in mind, as they are the best comment on some paffages of particular severity. No one, however, can be insensible of the great powers of language, and confummate dexterity of satire, which this Epiftle evinces. |