F. This filthy fimile, this beastly line Quite turns my ftomach And all your courtly Civet-cats can vent, P. So does Flatt'ry mine; 185 Perfume to you, to me is Excrement. But hear me further Japhet, 'tis agreed, Writ not, and Chartres scarce could write or read; VER. 185 in the MS. VARIATIONS. I grant it, Sir; and further, 'tis agreed, NOTES. In VER. 182. So does Flatt'ry mine ;) Fontenelle has written a pleasant Dialogue between Augustus and Peter Aretine, the Italian Satirist, who laughs immoderately at the Emperor, for the gross flattery he so cordially received from his poets, particularly Virgil, at the beginning of the Third Georgic. And Aretine, among other delicate strokes of ridicule, tells him, "On louoit une partie de votre vie, aux depens de l'autre." But Fontenelle ends like a true Frenchman, and affures Augustus, " he will no longer be quoted as a model for Kings, fince Louis XIV. has appeared." Such is the language held of a man, who could banish Fenelon, burn the Palatinate, and drive away or destroy fo many of his protestant subjects; who kept in pay 40,000 men. It is grievous to reflect, that for incurring the difspleafure of fuch a man, Racine had the weakness to be so much affected, as to bring on, by vexation and grief, a disease that was fatal to him. Racine and Boileau relinquished, after a small progrefs, the Hiftory of Louis XIV. which they were appointed to write. Boileau honestly owned to his friends, that he did not well know what reasons to allege in justification of the war against Holland in 1672. The pride, profusion, ambition, and despotism of Louis XIV. laid the foundation of the ruin of France, and all the miseries we have lived to fee. WARTON. VER. 185. Japhet-Chartres] See the Epistle to Lord Bathurst. POPE. Dr. Warton says very justly, we are wearied with the perpetual repetition of these names, and those of Ward, Waters, Dennis, &c. In all the Courts of Pindus guiltless quite; And muft no Egg in Japhet's face be thrown, 195 Unless, good Man! he has been fairly in? And mine as Man, who feel for all Mankind. F. You're strangely proud. 201 P. So proud, I am no Slave: 206 So impudent, I own myself no Knave: So odd, my Country's Ruin makes me grave. Safe NOTES. VER. 204. And mine as Man, who feel for all Mankind.] From Terence: "Homo fum: humani nihil a me alienum puto." POPE. VER. 208. Yes, I am proud, &c.] In this ironical exultation the Poet infinuates a fubject of the deepest humiliation. 3 WARBURTON. L Safe from the Bar, the Pulpit, and the Throne, 210 Yet touch'd and sham'd by Ridicule alone. O facred weapon! left for Truth's defence, Sole Dread of Folly, Vice, and Infolence! To all but Heav'n-directed hands deny'd, 216 To rouse the Watchmen of the public Weal, NOTES. 220 Spin VER. 208. Yes, I am proud, &c.] This feems fabricated from the materials of Boileau, Difcours au Roi, ver. 99. En vain d'un lâche orgueil leur esprit revétu Se couvre du manteau d'une austère vertu : Leur cœur, qui se connoit, et qui fuit la lumière, S'il se moque de Dieu, craint I artuffe ct Molière. WAKEFIELD. VER. 211. Yet touch'd and Sham'd by Ridicule alone.] The paffions are given us to awake and support Virtue. But they fre. quently betray their trust, and go over to the interests of Vice. Ridicule, when employed in the cause of Virtue, shames and brings them back to their duty. Hence the use and importance of Satire. WARBURTON. VER. 219. And goad the Prelate slumb'ring in his Stull.] The good Eufebius, in his Evangelical Preparation, draws a long parallel between the Ox and the Christian Prie hood. Hence the dig. nified Clergy, out of mere humility, have ever fince called their thrones by the name of flalls. 'To which a great Prelate of Winchefter, one W. Edinton, modestly alluding, has rendered his name immortal by this ecclefiaftical aphorifm, who would otherwife have been forgotten; Canterbury is the higher rack, but Winchester is the better manger. By which, however, it appears that he was not one of those here condemned, who slumber in their stalls. SCRIBLERUS. Spin all your Cobwebs o'er the Eye of Day! All his Grace preaches, all his Lordship sings, 224 NOTES. All, VER.220 Ye Infects!-The Muse's wing shall brush you all away:] This it did very effectually; and the memory of them had been now forgotten, had not the Poet's charity, for a while, protracted their miferable Being. There is now in his Library at Mr. Allen's, a complete collection of all the horrid Libels written and published against him ; "The tale reviv'd, the lie so oft o'erthrown, These he had bound up in several volumes, according to their various fizes, from folios down to duodecimos; and to each of them hath affixed this motto out of the book of Job: Behold, my defire is, that mine adversary should write a book. Surely I should take it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me. Ch. xxxi. ver. 35, 36. WARBURTON. VER. 220. Ye tinsel Infects!] Poets have frequently been partymen, ancient as well as modern. Euripides was of Alcibiades's faction, for war; Ariftophanes, for peace. Hence arose their mutual animosity. The Inferno of Dante is as much a political poem as the Abfalom and Achitophel of Dryden. The Eneid is alfo of this kind; and so is the Pharfalia of Lucan, and the Henriade of Voltaire. WARTON. VER. 222. Cobwebs] Weak and flight sophistry against virtue and honour. Thin colours over vice, as unable to hide the light of Truth, as cobwebs to shade the Sun. POPE. VER. 223. The Muse's wing shall brush you all away:] An exquifite verse, of which Mr. Gray has made excellent use in his Ode on Spring: Brush'd by the hand of rough mischance, Or chill'd by age-. WAKEFIELD. VER. 225. Gods of Kings.] When James the First had once befpeeched his Parliament, Bishop Williams, Keeper of the Great Seal, All, all but Truth, drops dead-born from the Press, Like the last Gazette, or the last Address, When black Ambition stains a public Cause, A Monarch's sword when mad Vain-glory draws, Not Waller's Wreath can hide the Nation's Scar, Nor Boileau turn the Feather to a Star, 231 Not VARIATIONS. After VER. 227. in the MS. Where's now the Star that lighted Charles to rife? NOTES. Seal, added-that, after his Majesty's DIVINUM ET IMMORTALE DICTUM, he would not dare mortale aliquid addere. On which, Wilfon the Hiftorian obferves-This is not inferted to shew the PREGNANCY and GENIUS of the man, but the temper of the times. WARBURTON. VER. 228. When black Ambition, &c.] The cafe of Cromwell in the civil war of England; and (Ver. 229.) of Louis XIV. in his conquest of the Low Countries. POPE. VER. 230. Not Waller's Wreath] "Such a feries of verses," says Dr. Johnson, " as the Panegyric on Cromwell, had hardly appeared before in the English language." I cannot forbear adding, that I am furprized Waller should never name Milton, who was of the same party, and which he had so many opportunities of doing in his works. But Waller was not of Milton's school. WARTON. VER. 231. Nor Boileau turn the Feather to a Star.] See his Ode on Namur; where (to use his own words) " Il a fait un Astre de la Plume blanche que le Roy porte ordinairement à fon Chapeau, et qui est en effet une espece de Comete, fatale à nos ennemis." POPE. |