I too could write, and I am twice as tall

But foes like these-P. One flatterer's worse than all.

Of all mad creatures, if the learn'd are right,

105

It is the slaver kills, and not the bite.

A fool quite angry is quite innocent:

Alas! 'tis ten times worse when they repent.
One dedicates in high heroic prose,
And ridicules beyond a hundred foes:
One from all Grub-street will my fame defend,
And, more abusive, calls himself my friend.15
This prints my letters, that expects a bribe,
And others roar aloud, "Subscribe, subscribe!"

There are, who to my person pay their court:
I cough like Horace, and, though lean, am short.
Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high,—
Such Ovid's nose,--and, "Sir! you have an eye." 16.
Go on, obliging creatures, make me see
All that disgraced my betters met in me.
Say, for my comfort, languishing in bed,
"Just so immortal Maro held his head;"
And, when I die, be sure you let me know
Great Homer died three thousand years ago."
Why did I write? what sin to me unknown
Dipp'd me in ink, my parents', or my own?
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.

15 In the MS.

"17

110

115

120

125

16 [Warburton mentions that Pope's eye was "fine, sharp, and piercing." He was, however, troubled with some complaint in his eyes, for which he placed himself under Dr. Cheselden.]

17 After ver. 124, in the MS.

"But, friend, this shape which you and Curll admire,

Came not from Ammon's son, but from my sire;
And for my head, if you 'll the truth excuse,
I had it from my mother, not the Muse.
Happy, if he, in whom these frailties join'd,

Had heir'd as well the virtues of the mind."

[Curll set up his head for a sign. His father was crooked. His mother

was much afflicted with headaches.-Warburton.]

I left no calling for this idle trade,

No duty broke, no father disobey'd:

130

The Muse but served to ease some friend, not wife,

To help me through this long disease, my life;
To second, ARBUTHNOT! thy art and care,
And teach the being you preserved to bear.

But why then publish? Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve loved, and Swift endured my lays;
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Even mitred Rochester would nod the head, 18
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friends before)
With open arms received one poet more.
Happy my studies, when by these approved!
Happier their author, when by these beloved!
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cookes.19

135

140

145

21

Soft were my numbers; who could take offence
While pure description held the place of sense?
Like gentle Fanny's 20 was my flowery theme,
A painted mistress, or a purling stream.
Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;
I wish'd the man a dinner, and sate still.
Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret;
I never answer'd-I was not in debt.

150

18 All these were patrons or admirers of Mr. Dryden; though a scandalous libel against him, entitled Dryden's Satyr to his Muse, has been printed in the name of the Lord Somers, of which he was wholly ignorant. These are the persons to whose account the author charges the publication of his first pieces; persons, with whom he was conversant (and, he adds, beloved) at 16 or 17 years of age; an early period for such acquaintance. The catalogue might be made yet more illustrious, had he not confined it to that time when he writ the Pastorals and Windsor Forest, on which he passes a sort of censure in the lines following,

"While pure description held the place of sense?"

19 Authors of secret and scandalous history. [They will all be found in the Dunciad, with Gildon, Dennis, &c., subsequently introduced.]

20 [In first edit. "Like gentle Damon's," &c. Altered, no doubt, to apply to Lord Hervey, the Lord Fanny of many a satire.]

21 "A painted meadow, or a purling stream," is a verse of Mr. Addison's.

If want provoked, or madness made them print,
I waged no war with Bedlam or the Mint.

Did some more sober critic come abroad-
If wrong, I smiled; if right, I kiss'd the rod.
Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence,
And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense.
Commas and points they set exactly right,
And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite;

Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds,

From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds: 22

155

160

Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, 165
Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables,

Even such small critics, some regard may claim,
Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespear's name.
Pretty in amber to observe the forms

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things we know are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there. 23

170

Were others angry-I excused them too;

Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.

A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find;

175

But each man's secret standard in his mind,

That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness,
This, who can gratify, for who can guess?
The bard whom pilfer'd Pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown, 24
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,

180

And strains from hard-bound brains, eight lines a-year;

22 [In the first publication of these verses, as a fragment in the Miscellanies, 1727, this line stood

66 From sanguine Sew" &c.

It was then altered to daring Bentley, and next to slashing Bentley. One of the poet's contemporary critics (Letter to Mr. Pope, 1735), says "Who this Sew is I don't know, but why must Bentley come slashing and take his place? You are grown very angry, it seems, at Dr. Bentley of late. Is it because he said (to your face I have been told) that your Homer was miserable stuff; that it might be called Homer modernised, or something to that effect: but that there were very little or no vestiges of the old Grecian?"] 23 [In early editions

Not that the things are either rich or rare, But all the wonder is, how they got there?"] 24 Amb. Philips translated a book called the Persian Tales.

He, who still wanting, though he lives on theft,
Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left:
And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning:
And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad,

It is not poetry, but prose run mad:
All these, my modest satire bade translate,
And own'd that nine such poets made a Tate. 25

185

190

How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe!
And swear, not Addison himself was safe.

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires

195

True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires ;
Blest with each talent, and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease:
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserved to blame, or to commend,
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause;

200

205

210

While wits and Templars every sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise-
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he! 26

25 See their works, in the translations of classical books by several hands. 26 It was a great falsehood, which some of the libels reported, that this character was written after the gentleman's death: which see refuted in the Testimonies prefixed to the Dunciad. But the occasion of writing it was such as he would not make public out of regard to his memory; and all that could further be done was to omit the name, in the edition of his works. [Pope first published this celebrated Satire in the Miscellanies, 1727. But it had been published by Mr. Jeremiah Markland in 1723, in a pamphlet entitled Cytherea;" and afterwards by Curll. See also Life of Pope in this edition, Vol. I, p. 101.]

66

What though my name stood rubric on the walls, 215 Or plaster'd posts, with claps, in capitals?

Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers load,

On wings of winds came flying all abroad? 27

I sought no homage from the race that write ;
I kept, like Asian monarchs, from their sight:
Poems I heeded (now berhym'd so long)

No more than thou, great George! a birthday song.

I ne'er with wits or witlings pass'd my days,

To spread about the itch of verse and praise;
Nor like a puppy, daggled through the town,
To fetch and carry, sing-song up and down;
Nor at rehearsals sweat, and mouth'd, and cried,
With handkerchief and orange at my side;

220

225

On the line, "Who would not weep if Atticus were he?" Warburton has the following note, dictated, no doubt, by Pope :-" But when we come to know it belongs to Atticus-i. e. to one whose more obvious qualities had before engaged our love or esteem, then friendship, in spite of ridicule, will make a separation : our old impressions will get the better of our new; or at least suffer themselves to be no farther impaired than by the admission of a mixture of pity and concern."

It appears from a letter of Atterbury's that copies of the verses were circulated before February, 1721-2. "No small piece of your writing," he says, "has been ever sought after so much it has pleased every man without exception to whom it has been read." Pope added a note to this passage in the correspondence, stating that "an imperfect copy had got out, very much to the author's surprise, who never would give any." Even Spence doubts this. Most of the sentiments and imagery in the satire are contained in a letter to Craggs, July 15, 1715. "I translated Homer for the public in general; he (Tickell) to gratify the inordinate desires of one man only. We have, it seems, a great Turk in poetry, who can never bear a brother on the throne; and he has his mutes, too, a set of nodders, winkers, and whisperers, whose business is to strangle all other offsprings of wit in their birth. The new translator of Homer is the humblest slave he has, that is to say, his first minister; let him receive the honours he gives me, but receive them with fear and trembling; let him be proud of the approbation of his absolute lord, I appeal to the people as my rightful judges and masters; and if they are not inclined to condemn me, I fear no arbitrary, high-flying proceeding from the small Court-faction at Button's. But after all I have said of this great man, there is no rupture between us. We are each of us so civil and obliging, that neither thinks he is obliged: and I, for my part, treat with him as we do with the Grand Monarch, who has too many good qualities not to be respected, though we know he watches any occasion to oppress us." With respect to the merits of this memorable quarrel, we have spoken in the sketch of Pope's life.] 27 Hopkins in the 104th Psalm.