XIV. On Edmund Duke of Buckingham, who died in the nineteenth year of his age, 1735.

IF modeft youth, with cool reflection crown'd,
And ev'ry op'ning virtue blooming round,
Could fave a parent's jufteft pride from fate,
Or add one patriot to a finking ftate,
This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear,
Or fadly told how many hopes lie here!
The living virtue now had fhone approv'd!
The fenate heard him, and his country lov'd.
Yet fofter honours and lefs noify fame
Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham,
In whom a race, for courage fam'd and art,
Ends in the milder merit of the heart;
And chiefs or fages long to Britain giv'n,
Pays the last tribute of a faint to Heav'n.

XV. For one who would not be buried in
Weftminfter-Abbey.

HEROES and kings! your distance keep;

In peace let one poor poet fleep,

Who never flatter'd folks like you:

Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.

XVI. Another on the fame.

UNDER this marble, or under this fill,
Or under this turf, or ev'n what they will,
Whatever an heir, or a friend in his stead,
Or any good creature fhall lay o'er my head,
Lies one who ne'er car'd, and still cares not, a pin
What they faid, or may fay, of the mortal within
But who, living and dying, ferene still and free,
Trufts in God that as well as he was he shall be.

5

ΙΟ

14

A LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER. Occafioned by the first correct Edition of

IT

THE DUNCIAD.

T is with pleasure I hear that you have procured a correct copy of the Dunciad, which the many furreptitious ones have rendered fo neceffary; and it is yet with more that I am informed it will be attended with a Commentary; a work fo requifite, that I cannot think the Author himself would have ommitted it, had he approved of the first appearance of this Poem.

Such Notes as have occurred to me I herewith fend you: you will oblige me by inferting them amongst thofe which are, or will be, tranfmitted to you by others; fince not only the Author's friends, but even ftrangers, appear engaged, by humanity, to take fome care of an Orphan of fo much genius and spirit, which its Parent feems to have abandoned from the very beginning, and fuffered to step into the world, naked, unguarded, and unattended.

It was upon reading fome of the abufive papers lately published, that my great regard to a perfon whose friendhip I efteem as one of the chief honours of my life, and a much greater respect to truth than to him or any man living, engaged me in enquiries of which the enclosed Notes are the fruit.

I perceived that most of these authors had been (doubtless very wifely) the firft aggreffors. They had tried, till they were weary, what was to be got by railing at each other: no body was either concerned or furprifed if this or that fcribbler was proved a dunce, but every one was curious to read what could be faid to prove Mr. Pope one, and was ready to pay fomething for fuch a discovery; a ftratagem which, would they fairly own it, might not only reconcile them to me, but fcreen them from the refentment of their lawful fuperiors, whom they daily abufe, only (as I charitably.

ritably hope) to get that by them, which they cannot get from them.

I found this was not all: ill fuccefs in that had transported them to personal abuse either of himself, or (what I think he could less forgive) of his friends. They had called men of virtue and honour bad men, long before he had either leisure or inclination to call them bad writers; and fome of them had been fuch old offenders, that he had quite forgotten their perfons, as well as their flanders, till they were pleafed to revive them.

Now, what had Mr. Pope done before to incenfe them? He had published thofe Works which are in the hands of every body, in which not the leaft mention is made of any of them. And what has he done fince? He has laughed, and written the Dunciad. What has that faid of them? A very ferious truth, which the Public had faid before, that they were dull; and what it had no fooner faid, but they themselves were at great pains to procure, or even purchase, room in the prints to teftity under their hands to the truth of it.

I fhould ftill have been filent, if either I had feen any inclination in my friend to be ferious with fuch accufers, or if they had only meddled with his writings; fince whoever publifhes puts himself on his trial by his country: but when his moral character was attacked, and in a manner from which neither truth nor virtue can fecure the most innocent; in a manner which, though it annihilates the credit of the accufation with the juft and impartial, yet aggravates very much the guilt of the accufers, I mean by authors without names; then I thought, fince the danger was common to all, the concern ought to be fo; and that it was an act of justice to detect the authors, not only on this account, but as many of them are the fame who, for feveral years past, have made free with the greatest names in Church and State, expofing to the world the private misfortunes of families, abufed all, even to women, and whofe proftituted papers (for one or

other