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Lull with AMELIA'S1 liquid name the Nine,
And sweetly flow thro' all the Royal Line.

P. Alas! few verses touch their nicer ear;

They scarce can bear their Laureate twice a year2;
And justly CAESAR scorns the Poet's lays:
It is to History he trusts for Praise 3.

F. Better be Cibber, I'll maintain it still,
Than ridicule all Taste, blaspheme Quadrille,
Abuse the City's best good men in metre,
And laugh at Peers that put their trust in Peter.
Ev'n those you touch not, hate you.

P. What should ail them 4?
F. A hundred smart in Timon and in Balaam 5:
The fewer still you name, you wound the more;
Bond is but one, but Harpax is a score.
P. Each mortal has his pleasure: none deny
Scarsdale his bottle, Darty his Ham-pie";
Ridotta sips and dances, till she see

The doubling Lustres dance as fast as she;

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F- loves the Senate, Hockley-hole his brother,
Like in all else, as one Egg to another.
I love to pour out all my self, as plain
As downright SHIPPEN 10, or as old Montaigne :
In them, as certain to be lov'd as seen,
The Soul stood forth, nor kept a thought within;
In me what spots (for spots I have) appear,
Will prove at least the medium must be clear.
In this impartial glass, my Muse intends
Fair to expose myself, my foes, my friends;
Publish the present age; but where my text
Is Vice too high, reserve it for the next:
My foes shall wish my Life a longer date,
And ev'ry friend the less lament my fate.

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3 [The House of Brunswick was however particularly unfortunate in this respect.]

4 What should ail them?] Horace hints at one reason, that each fears his own turn may be next; his imitator gives another, and with more art, a reason which insinuates, that his very lenity, in using feigned names, increases the number of his Enemies.

5 [See Moral Essays, Ep. IV. vv. 99-176, and Ep. 111. vv. 339-402.]

6 Darty his Ham-pie;] This Lover of Hampie own'd the fidelity of the poet's pencil; and said, he had done justice to his taste; but that if, instead of Ham-pie, he had given him Sweet-pie, he never could have pardoned him. Warburton. Lyttelton in his Dialogues of the Dead, has introduced Darteneuf, bitterly lamenting his illfortune in having died before turtle-feasts were known in England. Warton. [Lord Scarsdale

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and Charles Dartiquenave, or Dartineuf, were noted epicures. The latter was in office as Paymaster of the Works; and the poet, Robert Dodsley, was his footman. Carruthers cites a paper written by him in the Tatler, No. 252, on the cheerful use of wine. Gay speaks of him as a 'grave joker.']

7 [Ridotta; from Ridotto, the fashionable Italian term for an assembly.]]

8 Most likely Henry Fox, first Lord Holland, alluded to in Epil. to Satires, Dial. 1. v. 71. The 'brother' is Stephen Fox, afterwards Lord Ilchester. Carruthers.

9 [The bear-garden at Hockley-in-the-Hole is described in the Spectator, No. 436. Cf. Dunciad, Bk. I. v. 326.]

10 William Shippen, an outspoken politician and a Jacobite, who was sent to the Tower in 1718. According to Coxe, he used to say of himself and Sir Robert Walpole: 'Robin and I are two honest men; though he is for King George, and I for King James.']

My head and heart thus flowing thro' my quill,
Verse-man or Prose-man, term me which you will,
Papist or Protestant, or both between1,
Like good Erasmus in an honest Mean,
In moderation placing all my glory,

While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.
Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet
To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet;
I only wear it in a land of Hectors,
Thieves, Supercargoes, Sharpers, and Directors,
Save but our Army! and let Jove encrust
Swords, pikes, and guns, with everlasting rust!
Peace is my dear delight-not FLEURY'S more2:
But touch me, and no Minister so sore.
Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time
Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme3,
Sacred to Ridicule his whole life long,
And the sad burthen of some merry song.

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Slander or Poison dread from Delia's rage,

Hard words or hanging, if your Judge be Page5.
From furious Sappho scarce a milder fate,
P-x'd by her love, or libell'd by her hate.
Its proper pow'r to hurt, each creature feels;

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Bulls aim their horns, and Asses lift their heels;
'Tis a Bear's talent not to kick, but hug;
And no man wonders he's not stung by Pug.
So drink with Walters, or with Chartres eat,
They'll never poison you, they'll only cheat.

Then, learned Sir! (to cut the matter short)
Whate'er my fate,-
-or well or ill at Court,
Whether Old age, with faint but cheerful ray,
Attends to gild the Ev'ning of my day,
Or Death's black wing already be display'd,
To wrap me in the universal shade;
Whether the darken'd room to muse invite,
Or whiten'd wall provoke the skew'r to write:
In durance, exile, Bedlam or the Mint,—
Like Lee or Budgel, I will rhyme and print..

[As Warburton points out, a great improvement on Horace's 'Lucanus an Appulus, anceps,' &c. As to Pope's religious standpoint see Introductory Memoir, p. xxxiii.]

[Cardinal Fleury, formerly tutor of King Lous XV., became Prime Minister of France in 1726, and held power till his death in 1743. He was able to maintain the pacific policy which he advocated till two years before that event.] 3 Closely copied from Boileau. Warton.

[A Miss Mackenzie died about this time, and was supposed to have been poisoned from jealousy.] The person alluded to was Lady D-ne. Bowles. [Mary Howard Countess of Deloraine, who died in 1744. See note to Lord Hervey's Memoirs by Croker, who has not discovered the grounds of the suspicion, but it was very pre

valent.']
156.]

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[Judge Page; cf. Epil. to Sat. Dial. II. v. 6 Whether the darken'd room-Or whiten'd wall-] This is only a wanton joke upon the terms of his Original,

Quisquis erit vita, scribam, color.

Warburton.

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7 [the skewer, i.e. the stilus, or pen.] 8 [the Mint. See Epistle to Arbuthnot, v. 13, 156.]

9 [Nathaniel Lee (born 1657, died 1692). This gifted but extravagant tragic poet, the author of the Rival Queens, went mad in 1684, but recovered his sanity. Some critics have discovered in his most famous tragedy signs of his malady; another has well remarked on this that if 'it be

F. Alas young man! your days can ne'er be long,
In flow'r of age you perish for a song!
Plums and Directors, Shylock and his Wife,
Will club their Testers, now, to take your life!

P. What? arm'd for Virtue when I point the pen,
Brand the bold front of shameless guilty men;
Dash the proud Gamester in his gilded Car;
Bare the mean Heart that lurks beneath a Star;
Can there be wanting, to defend Her cause,
Lights of the Church, or Guardians of the Laws?
Could pension'd Boileau lash in honest strain
Flatt'rers and Bigots ev'n in Louis' reign1?
Could Laureate Dryden Pimp and Friar engage2,
. Yet neither Charles nor James be in a rage?
And I not strip the gilding off a knave,

Unplac'd, unpension'd, no man's heir, or slave?
I will, or perish in the gen'rous cause:

Hear this, and tremble! you, who 'scape the Laws.
Yes, while I live, no rich or noble knave
Shall walk the World, in credit, to his grave.
TO VIRTUE ONLY and HER FRIENDS A FRIEND,
The World beside may murmur, or commend.
Know, all the distant din that world can keep,
Rolls o'er my Grotto, and but soothes my sleep.
There, my retreat the best Companions grace,
Chiefs out of war, and Statesmen out of place.
There ST JOHN mingles with my friendly bowl
The Feast of Reason and the Flow of Soul:
And HE, whose lightning pierc'd th' Iberian Lines 4,

Now forms my Quincunx, and now ranks my Vines,
Or tames the Genius of the stubborn plain,
Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain.
Envy must own, I live among the Great 5,
No Pimp of Pleasure, and no Spy of State.
With eyes that pry not, tongue that ne'er repeats,
Fond to spread friendships, but to cover heats;

madness, there's method in it.' There is real fire in Lee, besides a great deal of smoke.]

1 Boileau acted with much caution when he first published his Lutrin here alluded to, and endeavoured to cover and conceal his subject by a preface laying the scene at Bourges, not at Paris, for which it was intended. When in 1683 he threw off the mask, no offence was taken by the Canons whom he had ridiculed. From Warton's note. [Moreover, the ascendancy of bigotry and Mad. de Maintenon had not begun when Boileau wrote his famous satire; when they fully prevailed he retired from Court.]

2 [In his Spanish Friar. But he soon atoned for that piece by Absalom and Achitophel.]

3 [Pope declined the pension offered him by Lord Halifax early in George I.'s reign.]

4 And HE, whose lightning, etc.] Charles Mordaunt Earl of Peterborough, who in the year

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1705 took Barcelona, and in the winter following
with only 280 horse and 900 foot enterprized and
accomplished the Conquest of Valentia.
[See Macaulay's captivating account of Peter-
borough in his Essay on the War of Succession
in Spain.]

5 Envy must own, &c.] Horace makes the point of honour to consist simply in his living familiarly with the Great,

Cum magnis vixisse invita fatebitur usque
Invidia.

Our poet, more nobly, in his living with them on
the footing of an honest man. He prided himself
in this superiority, as appears from the following
words, in a letter to Dr Swift: "To have pleased
great men, according to Horace, is a praise; but
not to have flattered them, and yet not have
displeased them, is a greater." Let. vII. Jan.
12, 1723.
Warburton.

beware!

To help who want, to forward who excel;
This, all who know me, know; who love me, tell;
And who unknown defame me, let them be
Scribblers or Peers, alike are Mob to me.
This is my plea, on this I rest my cause-
What saith my Counsel, learned in the laws?
F. Your Plea is good; but still I say,
Laws are explain'd_by_Men-so have a care.
It stands on record, that in Richard's times
A man was hang'd for very honest rhymes1.
Consult the Statute: quart. I think, it is,
Edwardi sext. or prim. et quint. Eliz.
See Libels, Satires-here you have it-read.

P. Libels and Satires! lawless things indeed!
But grave Epistles, bringing Vice to light,
Such as a King might read, a Bishop write;
Such as Sir ROBERT 2 would approve-

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F. Indeed?

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The Case is alter'd-you may then proceed;
In such a cause the Plaintiff will be hiss'd;
My Lords the Judges laugh, and you're dismiss'd3.

THE SECOND SATIRE

OF THE

SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.

SATIRE II.

To Mr BETHEL*.

[IN Horace's Satire the praise of temperance is laid in the mouth of Ofellus, a simple farmer with whom the poet had been acquainted from his boyhood.]

WHAT, and how great, the Virtue and the Art

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To live on little with a cheerful heart,

(A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine,)
Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine.
Not when a gilt Buffet's reflected pride
Turns you from sound Philosophy aside;

Not when from plate to plate your eyeballs roll,
And the brain dances to the mantling bowl.

1 [Bowles reminds the reader of the mob in Julius Caesar (Act III. Sc. 3), demanding that Cinna the poet should be torn for his bad verses.'] 2 [Walpole.]

3 Solventur risu tabulae: tu missus abibis. Hor.

4 [Hugh Bethel, the 'blameless Bethel' of Moral Essays, Ep. v., a Yorkshire gentleman with whom Pope was intimate, and frequently corresponded. He was a close friend of Pope's dearest friends, the Blounts of Mapledurham. He died in 1748.]

Hear BETHEL'S Sermon, one not vers'd in schools,
But strong in sense, and wise without the rules.
Go work, hunt, exercise! (he thus began)
Then scorn a homely dinner, if you can.
Your wine lock'd up, your Butler stroll'd abroad,
Or fish deny'd (the river yet unthaw'd),
If then plain bread and milk will do the feat,
The pleasure lies in you, and not the meat.

Preach as I please, I doubt our curious men
Will choose a pheasant still before a hen;
Yet hens of Guinea full as good I hold,
Except you eat the feathers green and gold.
Of carps and mullets why prefer the great,
(Tho' cut in pieces 'ere my Lord can eat)
Yet for small Turbots such esteem profess?
Because God made these large, the other less.

Oldfield1 with more than Harpy throat endued,

Cries "Send me, Gods! a whole Hog barbecued 2!
Oh blast it, South-winds! till a stench exhale
Rank as the ripeness of a rabbit's tail.
By what Criterion do ye eat, d'ye think,
If this is priz'd for sweetness, that for stink?
When the tir'd glutton labours thro' a treat,
He finds no relish in the sweetest meat,
He calls for something bitter, something sour,
And the rich feast concludes extremely poor:
Cheap eggs, and herbs, and olives still we see;
Thus much is left of old Simplicity!

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The Robin-red-breast till of late had rest3,
And children sacred held a Martin's nest,

Till Becca-ficos sold so dev'lish dear

To one that was, or would have been a Peer.
Let me extol a Cat, on oysters fed,
I'll have a party at the Bedford-head 4;
Or ev'n to crack live Crawfish recommend;
I'd never doubt at Court to make a friend.
'Tis yet in vain, I own, to keep a pother
About one vice, and fall into the other:
Between Excess and Famine lies a mean;
Plain, but not sordid; tho' not splendid, clean.
Avidien, or his Wife (no matter which,
For him you'll call a dog, and her a bitch)
Sell their presented partridges, and fruits,
And humbly live on rabbits and on roots:

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Oldfield] This eminent Glutton ran thro' in Mr Hayward's Essay on the Art of Dining.]

a fortune of fifteen hundred pounds a year in the simple luxury of good eating. Warburton.

Hog barbecued, etc.] A West Indian term of gluttony, a hog roasted whole, stuffed with spice, and basted with Madeira wine. P. [How gross an antithesis to Charles Lamb's favourite delicate sucking-pig!]

3 ['Cet aimable oiseau se mange à la broche et en salmi.' Almanach des Gourmands, quoted

P.

4 Bedford-head;] A famous Eating-House. [In Covent-Garden.]

5 Edward Wortley Montagu, the husband of Lady Mary. Carruthers. [Their son Edward, alluded to in v. 56, was a source of constant annoyance to both his parents; and Lady M. speaks of 'the impossibility of his behaving as a rational creature.']

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