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EPITAPH.

WELL then, poor Glies underground!

So there's an end of honest Jack.

So little justice here he found,

"Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.

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Now

THE BALANCE OF EUROPE.

OW Europe balanced, neither side prevails;
For nothing's left in either of the scales.

66

TO A LADY WITH THE TEMPLE OF FAME.”

WHAT'S fame with men by custom of the nation,

Is call'd in women only reputation :

About them both why keep we such a pother?
Part you with one, and I'll renounce the other.

["I send you my Temple of Fame, which is just come out; but my sentiments about it you will see better by this epigram."-Pope to Martha Blount, 1714.]

ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB, ANNO 1716.

HENCE deathless Kit-Cat took its name,

WH

Few critics can unriddle;

Some say from pastry-cook it came,

And some from cat and fiddle.

From no trim beaux its name it boasts,
Gray statesmen or green wits;
But from this pell-mell pack of toasts

Of old "cats" and young "kits."

[The Kit-cat Club was formed about the year 1700, and met at first in a pastry-cook's in Shire-lane, near Temple-Bar. This person, famous for mutton pies, was called Christopher Cat, whence the name of the club. Toasting ladies after dinner was a rule of the club. A lady was chosen for the year by ballot, and her name written with a diamond on a drinking glass. Poetical jeux d'esprit on the beauties thus selected to reign supreme were written by Addison, Garth, the Earl of Halifax, Lord Dorset, Lord Wharton, &c. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when a child of only eight years of age, was nominated by her father, Lord Kingston. Jacob Tonson, the publisher, was mainly instrumental in keeping the club together, and the members presented him with their portraits, painted by Kneller, all uniform in size. These portraits, forty-eight in number, Tonson hung up in a room which he had added to his residence at Barn Elms, for the meetings of the club. They are still preserved, and have been often engraved.]

A DIALOGUE (1717).

POPE.-Since my old friend is grown so great
As to be Minister of State,

I'm told, but 'tis not true, I hope,
That Craggs will be ashamed of Pope.

CRAGGS.-Alas! if I am such a creature

To grow the worse for going greater;
Why, faith, in spite of all my brags,
'Tis Pope must be ashamed of Craggs.

ON DRAWINGS OF THE STATUES OF APOLLO, VENUS, AND HERCULES, MADE FOR POPE BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

WHAT god, what genius, did the pencil move,

When Kneller painted these ?

'Twas friendship warm as Phoebus, kind as love,
And strong as Hercules.

UPON THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH'S HOUSE AT WOODSTOCK.

SEE, sir, here's the grand approach;

This way is for his grace's coach:

There lies the bridge, and here's the clock,
Observe the lion and the cock,

The spacious court, the colonnade,

And mark how wide the hall is made!
The chimneys are so well design'd,
They never smoke in any wind.
This gallery's contrived for walking,
The windows to retire and talk in;
The council chamber for debate,
And all the rest are rooms of state.

Thanks, sir, cried I, 'tis very fine,
But where d'ye sleep, or where d' ye
I find, by all you have been telling,

That 'tis a house, but not a dwelling.

dine?

[Lord Chesterfield has the same idea in his Epigram on Burlington House:

"How well you build, let flattery tell;

And all mankind, how ill you dwell.”

Lord Hervey said of Lord Burlington's villa at Chiswick, that it was too small to live in, and too large to hang by one's watch!]

ON A PICTURE OF QUEEN CAROLINE, DRAWN BY
LADY BURLINGTON.

PEACE, flattering Bishop! lying Dean!

This portrait only paints the Queen!

[The Bishop was Gilbert; the Dean, Dr. Alured Clarke, satirised in Epilogue to the Satires.]

ON BENTLEY'S "MILTON."

DID Milton's prose, O Charles, thy death defend?

A furious foe unconscious proves a friend.
On Milton's verse did Bentley comment? Know
A weak officious friend becomes a foe.

While he but sought his author's fame to further,
The murderous critic has avenged thy murther.

WHEN

ON CERTAIN LADIES.

HEN other fair ones to the shades go down,
Still Chloe, Flavia, Delia, stay in town:
Those ghosts of beauty wandering here reside,
And haunt the places where their honour died.

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ENGRAVED ON THE COLLAR OF A DOG WHICH I GAVE TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS.

[Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George III.]

I

AM his Highness' dog at Kew;

Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

[This is taken from Sir William Temple's Heads designed for an Essay on Conversation. "Mr. Grantam's fool's reply to a great man that asked whose fool he was,-'I am Mr. Grantam's fool-pray tell me whose fool are you?'"

VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU.

Un jour, dit un Auteur, &c.

ONCE, says an author-where I need not say

Two travellers found an oyster in their way;
Both fierce, both hungry, the dispute grew strong,
While, scale in hand, Dame Justice pass'd along.
Before her each with clamour pleads the laws,
Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause.

Dame Justice, weighing long the doubtful right,,
Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight.
The cause of strife removed so rarely well,
"There,-take," says Justice, "take ye each a shell;
We thrive at Westminster on fools like you:
'Twas a fat oyster-live in peace-Adieu."

A

BISHOP HOUGH.

BISHOP, by his neighbours hated,

Has cause to wish himself translated;
But why should HOUGH desire translation,
Loved and esteemed by all the nation?
Yet if it be the old man's case,

I'll lay my life I know the place:

'Tis where God sent some that adore him,
And whither Enoch went before him.

[Dr. John Hough was made Bishop of Oxford in 1690; Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry in 1699, and Bishop of Worcester in 1717. He died in 1743, at the great age of ninety-three. Pope's compliments to this prelate are creditable to his liberality, for Hough made a courageous and memorable stand against the bigotry and tyranny of James II.]

ΜΥ

EPIGRAM.

Y Lord complains that Pope, stark mad with gardens,
Has cut three trees, the value of three farthings.

"But he's my neighbour;" cries the peer polite:
“And if he visit me, I'll waive the right."
What! on compulsion, and against my will,

A lord's acquaintance? Let him file his bill!

[Pope had cut three walnut-trees, which hindered the view from his garden. Warton says the peer alluded to was Lord Radnor. The Countess of Hertford, in her Correspondence with the Countess of Pomfret (2nd edit. 1806), says the trees belonged to Lady Ferrers, "whom he makes a lord."

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