Has life no fournefs, drawn fo near its end? Can't thou endure a foe, forgive a friend? Has but melted the rough parts away, age As winter-fruits grow mild ere they decay? Or will you think, my friend, your bus❜ness done, When, of a hundred thorns, you pull out one? 321 " Learn to live well, or fairly make will; your

h

You've play'd, and lov'd, and eat, and drank your

fill:

Walk fober off; before a sprightlier age

Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage: Leave fuch to trifle with more grace and eafe, 326 Whom Folly pleases, and whofe Follies please*.

NOTES.

VER. 326. Leave fuch to trifle] It, perhaps, might have been better to have omitted these two last lines: the second of which has a quaint and modern turn; and the humour confifts in being driven off the stage, potum largius aquo. The word lusisti in the Original, is used in a loose and naughty sense, says Upton. A, alfo 1. 4. 13. Od. and in Propertius,

66

populus lufit Ericthonius.”

WARTON.

rpose, our Poe
r three Satires

DR. JO or three of B. ON NE,

he much a

€

Acade

DEAN OF lang PAUL'S,

little, VERSIED.

Quid vetat et nofmet Lucili fcripta legentes
Quærere, num illius, num rerum dura negârit
Verficulos natura magis factos, et euntes
Mollius ?

HOR.

TH

IR

OF

THE wit, the vigour, and the honefty of Mr. Pope's Satiric Writings had raised a great clamour against him, as if the Supplement, as he calls it, to the Public Laws, was a violation of morality and fociety. In anfwer to this charge he had it in his purpose to fhew, that two of the most refpectable characters in the modest and virtuous age of Elizabeth, Dr. Donne and Bishop Hall, had arraigned Vice publicly, and shewn it in stronger colours, tlian he had done, whether they found it,

"On the Pillory, or near the Throne.

In pursuance of this purpose, our Poet hath admirably verfified, as he expreffes it, two or three Satires of Dr. Donne. He intended to have given two or three of Bishop Hall's likewise, whose force and claffical elegance he much admired; but as Hall was a better verfifier, and, as a mere Academic, had not his vein vitiated like Donne's, by the fantaftic language of Courts, Mr. Pope's purpose was only to correct a little, and smooth the verfification. In the first edition of Hall's Satires, which was in Mr. Pope's library, we find that long Satire, called the Firft of the Sixth Book, corrected throughout, and the versification mended for his ufe. He intitles it, in the beginning of his corrections, by the name of Sat. Opt. This writer, Hall, fell under a fevere examiner of his wit and reafoning, in the famous Milton. For Hall, a little before the unhappy breach between Charles I. and the long Parliament, having written in defence of Epifcopacy, Milton, who first set out an advocate for Prefbytery, thought fit to take Hall's defence to task. And as he rarely gave quarter to his adverfaries, from the Bishop's theologic writings, he fell upon his Poetry. But a ftronger proof of the excellency of these Satires can hardly be given, than that all he could find to cavil at, was the title to the three firft Books, which Hall, ridiculously enough, calls TOOTHLESS SATIRE: on this, for want of better hold, Milton faftens, and fufficiently mumbles. WARBURTON.

Dryden was the first who recommended the plan pursued by Pope, in rendering Donne more harmonious, and who says, if his fatires were tranflated into numbers, they would be admired.