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(Such as on Hough's unsullied mitre shine,
Or beam, good Digby, from a heart like thine :)38
Let Envy howl, while Heaven's whole chorus sings,
And bark at honour not conferr'd by kings;
Let Flattery sickening see the incense rise,
Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies:
Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line,
And makes immortal verse as mean as mine.

245

Yes, the last pen for Freedom let me draw,
When Truth stands trembling on the edge of law;
Here, last of Britons! let your names be read;
Are none, none living? let me praise the dead,
And for that cause which made your father shine,
Fall by the votes of their degenerate line.

250

F. Alas! alas! pray end what you began, And write next winter more Essays on Man.39

255

38 Dr. John Hough, Bishop of Worcester, and the Lord Digby. The one an asserter of the Church of England, in opposition to the false measures of King James II.; the other as firmly attached to the cause of that king. Both acting out of principle, and equally men of honour and virtue.

[See Epigram on Bishop Hough, in Pope's Epigrams. Edward, Lord Digby, an Irish peer, and one of the Lords of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, died Nov. 30, 1737.]

39 In the MS.

"Quit these themes, and write Essays on Man."

This was the last poem of the kind printed by our author, with a resolution to publish no more, but to enter thus, in the most plain and solemn manner he could, a sort of protest against that insuperable corruption and depravity of manners which he had been so unhappy as to live to see. Could he have hoped to have amended any, he had continued those attacks, but bad men were grown so shameless and so powerful, that ridicule was become as unsafe as it was ineffectual. The poem raised him, as he knew it would, some enemies; but he had reason to be satisfied with the approbation of good men, and the testimony of his own conscience.

ADDITIONAL NOTE.

DEATH OF QUEEN CAROLINE.

Dial. i. v. 82. All parts perform'd and all her children bless'd.] A double sarcasm is conveyed in this line: the Queen did not take the sacrament in her last illness, and she did not send her blessing to her son, the Prince of Wales. Both circumstances were much canvassed at the time, and the most contradictory reports prevailed. Coxe, in his Memoirs of Walpole, states that the Queen sent her blessing to her son, with a message of forgiveness; but the minute details of Lord Hervey, an eye-witness, disprove the assertion; and Pope, who had access to correct information, at the Courts both of the King and the Prince, seems to have known the actual facts of the case. The Queen was taken ill on the 9th of November, 1737, and continued getting worse. On the 11th, the Prince sent to request that he might see her, but the King said this was like one of the scoundrel's tricks, and he forbade the Prince to send messages, or approach St. James's. The Queen herself was no less decided. In fact, the family feud was of the bitterest description, and of many years' standing. Its cause has never been satisfactorily explained, but in the rival Courts there were never wanting occasions for fresh enmity and exasperation. The King, it appears, relaxed so far as to say to her Majesty, that, if she had the least mind to see her son, he had no objection to it. "I am so far," said the Queen, "from desiring to see him, that nothing but your absolute commands should ever make me consent to it. For what should I see him? For him to tell me a hundred lies, and to give myself at this time a great deal of trouble to no purpose. If anything I could say to him would alter his behaviour, I would see him with all my heart; but I know that is impossible. Whatever advice I gave him he would thank me for, pleureoit comme un veau all the while I was speaking, and swear to follow my directions, and would laugh at me the moment he was out of the room, and do just the contrary of all I bid him the moment I was dead. And, therefore, if I should grow worse, and be weak enough to talk of seeing him, I beg you, sir, to conclude that I doat or rave." The speech was characteristic of Caroline-a strong-minded, resolute, ambitious woman, with little tenderness or religion. She was then dying of the effects of a rupture, which she had courageously concealed for fourteen years, and she would have died without declaring it, had not the King communicated the fact to her attendants. This delicacy was not (as Lord Hervey says) merely an ill-timed coquetry at fifty-four, that would hardly have been excusable at twenty-five. She feared to lose her power over the King, which she had held firmly in spite of all his mistresses, and was in constant apprehension of making her person distasteful to her husband. The Prince continued to send messages to the dying Queen,

and the messengers got into the palace, but the Queen wished to have the ravens (who, she said, were only there to watch her death, and would gladly tear her to pieces whilst she was alive) turned out of the house, and the old King was inexorable. About the seventh day of the Queen's illness, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Potter, was sent for. He continued to attend every morning and evening, but her Majesty did not receive the sacrament. Some of Lord Hervey's revelations are curious enough. Her Majesty, it appears, advised the King, in case she died, to marry again. George sobbed and shed tears: "whilst in the midst of this passion, wiping his eyes and sobbing between every word, with much ado he got out this answer: "Non, j'aurai des maîtresses;" to which the Queen made no other reply than "Ah! mon Diêu! cela n’empche pas.”

When she had finished all she had to say on these subjects, she said she fancied she could sleep. The King said many kind things to her, and kissed her face and her hands a hundred times; but even at this time, on her asking for her watch, which hung by the chimney, in order to give it to him to take care of her seal, the natural brusquerie of his temper, even in these moments, broke out, which showed how addicted he was to snapping without being angry, and that he was often capable of using those worst whom he loved best; for, on this proposal of giving him the watch to take care of the seal with the Queen's arms, in the midst of sobs and tears, he raised and quickened his voice, and said, "Ah, my God! let it alone: the Queen has always such strange fancies. Who should meddle with your seal? Is it not as safe there as in my pocket?"

During their night watches, the King and Lord Hervey had many conversations, all which the Court Boswell reports fully. George wished to impress upon the Privy Seal that the Queen's affectionate behaviour was the natural effect of an amorous attachment to his person, and an adoration of his great genius! He narrated instances of his own intrepidity, during a severe illness and in a great storm; and, one night while he was discoursing in this strain, the Princess Emily, who lay upon a couch in the room, pretended to fall asleep. Soon after, his Majesty went into the Queen's room. "As soon as his back was turned, Princess Emily started up, and said, 'Is he gone? How tiresome he is!" Lord Hervey replied only, 'I thought your Royal Highness had been asleep.' 'No,' said the Princess Emily; 'I only shut my eyes that I might not join in the ennuyant conversation, and wish I could have shut my ears too. In the first place, I am sick to death of hearing of his great courage every day of my life; in the next place, one thinks now of mamma, and not of him. Who cares for his old storm? I believe, too, it is a great lie, and that he was as much afraid as I should have been, for all what he says now.'"

Other glimpses of the interior of this strange Court at this time are furnished by Lord Hervey. Walpole appears in no better light than the coarse, boasting sovereign. But at length the last scene came. There had been about eleven days of suffering:

"On Sunday, the 20th November, in the evening, she asked Dr. Tesier— with no seeming impatience under any article of her present circumstances

but their duration-how long he thought it was possible for all this to last? to which he answered, 'Je crois que votre Majesté sera bientôt soulagée.' And she calmly replied, ' Tant mieux.' About ten o'clock on Sunday night, the King being in bed and asleep, on the floor, at the foot of the Queen's bed, and the Princess Emily in a couch bed in a corner of the room, the Queen began to rattle in the throat; and Mrs. Purcel giving the alarm that she was expiring, all in the room started up. Princess Caroline was sent for, and Lord Hervey, but before the last arrived the Queen was just dead. All she said before she died was, 'I have now got an asthma; open the window.' Then she said, 'Pray,' upon which the Princess Emily began to read some prayers, of which she scarce repeated ten words before the Queen expired. The Princess Caroline held a looking-glass to her lips, and finding there was not the least damp upon it, cried, "Tis over.'"

George did not marry again, but contented himself with "des maîtresses." He survived nearly twenty-three years, dying suddenly on the 25th of October, 1760. He directed that his remains and those of the Queen should be mingled together, and accordingly one side of each of the wooden coffins was withdrawn, and the two bodies placed together in a stone sarcophagus.

IMITATIONS OF HORACE.

BOOK I. EPISTLE VII.

IMITATED IN THE MANNER OF DR. SWIFT.

IS true, my Lord, I gave my word,

'TIS

I would be with you, June the third;
Changed it to August, and (in short)
Have kept it as you do at court.
You humour me when I am sick,
Why not when I am splenetic ?
In town, what objects could I meet?
The shops shut up in every street,
And funerals black'ning all the doors,
And yet more melancholy whores :
And what a dust in every place!

And a thin court that wants your face,
And fevers raging up and down,
And W✶ and H** both in town!

10

"The dog-days are no more the case."

15

'Tis true, but winter comes apace:
Then southward let your bard retire,
Hold out some months 'twixt sun and fire,

And you shall see, the first warm weather,
Me and the butterflies together.

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My Lord, your favours well I know;

"Tis with distinction you bestow; And not to every one that comes,

Just as a Scotchman does his plums.

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Pray take them, sir,-enough's a feast:

Eat some, and pocket up the rest."

What, rob your boys? those pretty rogues!
"No, sir, you'll leave them to the hogs."
Thus fools with compliments besiege ye,
Contriving never to oblige ye.

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