"But ease in writing flows from art, not chance;
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance."5

If such the plague and pains to write by rule,
Better (say I) be pleased, and play the fool;
Call, if you will, bad rhyming a disease,
It gives men happiness, or leaves them ease.
There lived in primo Georgii (they record)
A worthy member, no small fool, a lord;

Who, though the House was up, delighted sate,
Heard, noted, answer'd, as in full debate:

In all but this, a man of sober life,
Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife;

Not quite a madman, though a pasty fell,
And much too wise to walk into a well.

Him, the damn'd doctors and his friends immured,

180

185

190

They bled, they cupp'd, they purged; in short, they cured:

Whereat the gentleman began to stare

66

My friends!" he cried, "pox take you for your care! 195 That, from a patriot of distinguish'd note,

Have bled and purged me to a simple vote."

Well, on the whole, plain prose must be my fate:

Wisdom (curse on it!) will come soon or late.

There is a time when poets will grow dull:

200

I'll e'en leave verses to the boys at school:

To rules of poetry no more confined,

I'll learn to smooth and harmonize my mind,

Teach every thought within its bounds to roll,
And keep the equal measure of the soul.

205

Soon as I enter at my country door,

My mind resumes the thread it dropp'd before;
Thoughts, which at Hyde-park-corner I forgot,
Meet, and rejoin me, in the pensive grot.
There all alone, and compliments apart,

210

I ask these sober questions of my heart:

If, when the more you drink, the more you crave,

You tell the doctor; when the more you have,

The more you want, why not with equal ease
Confess as well your folly, as disease?

215

The heart resolves this matter in a trice,
"Men only feel the smart, but not the vice."

5 [Two lines in the Essay on Criticism.]

When golden angels cease to cure the evil:
You give all royal witchcraft to the devil:
When servile chaplains 6 cry, that birth and place
Endue a peer with honour, truth, and grace,
Look in that breast, most dirty D――! be fair,7
Say, can you find out one such lodger there?
Yet still, not heeding what your art can teach,
You go to church to hear these flatterers preach.
Indeed, could wealth bestow or wit or merit,
A grain of courage, or a spark of spirit,
The wisest man might blush, I must agree,
If D loved sixpence more than he.8

220

225

If there be truth in law, and use can give A property, that's yours on which you live. Delightful Abbs Court,9 if its fields afford Their fruits to you, confesses you its lord:

230

All Worldly's hens, nay, partridge, sold to town,
His venison too, a guinea makes your own :

235

He bought at thousands, what with better wit

You purchase as you want, and bit by bit;

Now, or long since, what difference will be found?
You pay a penny, and he paid a pound.

Heathcote himself, and such large-acred men,10 Lords of fat E'sham, or of Lincoln-fen,

240

6 Dr. Ken-t.

[Dr. White Kennet had made a fulsome dedication of one of his works to the Duke of Devonshire, through whose influence he was made Dean of Peterborough. In 1718 he was promoted to the bishopric of Peterborough, which he held till his death in 1728. There were two circumstances which must have marked out this divine as a fit object for Pope's satire. He had written against Atterbury on the subject of the Convocation, and he had seceded from the Tory party to join the Whigs. Dr. Walton, the rector of Whitechapel, put up a painting of the Last Supper as an altar-piece in his church, and Dr. Kennet was represented in the character of Judas!]

[The "dirty D--," was the Duke of Devonshire-William, the third Duke, a stanch Whig, of whom Horace Walpole said, "the Duke's outside was unpolished, his inside unpolishable."]

8 [Devonshire, the Duke previously alluded to.]

9 [Abbs Court, near Hampton Court. The "Worldly" mentioned in the next couplet was probably Edward Wortley Montagu, whose general avarice, and practice of selling his game, Pope satirizes in his imitation of the second satire of the second book of Horace.]

10 [Sir Gilbert Heathcote. See Moral Essays, Ep. III.]

Buy every stick of wood that lends them heat;
Buy every pullet they afford to eat;

Yet these are wights, who fondly call their own
Half that the devil o'erlooks from Lincoln town.
The laws of God, as well as of the land,
Abhor a perpetuity should stand:

245

Estates have wings, and hang in Fortune's power
Loose on the point of every wavering hour:
Ready, by force, or of your own accord,

250

By sale, at least by death, to change their lord.

Man? and for ever? wretch! what wouldst thou have?

Heir urges heir, like wave impelling wave.
All vast possessions (just the same the case
Whether you call them villa, park, or chase,)
Alas, my Bathurst! what will they avail?
Join Cotswood hills to Saperton's fair dale,
Let rising granaries and temples here,
There mingled farms and pyramids appear,
Link towns to towns with avenues of oak,

255

260

Enclose whole downs in walls,— 'tis all a joke!
Inexorable Death shall level all,

And trees, and stones, and farms, and farmer fall.

Gold, silver, ivory, vases sculptured high,

Paint, marble, gems, and robes of Persian dye,
There are who have not-and thank Heaven there are,
Who, if they have not, think not worth their care.

Talk what you will of taste, my friend, you'll find
Two of a face, as soon as of a mind.
Why, of two brothers, rich and restless one
Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun;
The other slights, for women, sports, and wines,
All Townshend's turnips,11 and all Grosvenor's mines:

265

270

11 Lord Townshend, Secretary of State to George the First and Second.When this great statesman retired from business, he amused himself in husbandry and was particularly fond of that kind of rural improvement which arises from turnips; it was the favourite subject of his conversation.

[Charles, the second Viscount Townshend, brother-in-law of Sir Robert Walpole. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's notice of this nobleman is to the same effect as Pope's sarcasm. He had that sort of understanding, she observes, "which commonly makes men honest in the first part of their lives; they follow the instruction of their tutor, and, till somebody thinks it worth

275

Bows and votes on, in court and parliament;

while to show them a new path, go regularly on in the road where they are

set."]

12 ["Bu-," Bubb Dodington, afterwards Lord Melcombe.]

One, driven by strong benevolence of soul,
Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole:
Is known alone to that Directing Power
Who forms the genius in the natal hour;
That God of Nature, who, within us still,
Inclines our action, not constrains our will;
Various of temper, as of face or frame,
Each individual: his great end the same.

Yes, sir, how small soever be my heap,

A part I will enjoy, as well as keep;

My heir may sigh, and think it want of grace
A man so poor would live without a place:
But sure no statute in his favour says,
How free, or frugal, I shall pass my days: 14
I, who at sometimes spend, at others spare,
Divided between carelessness and care.
"Tis one thing madly to disperse my store;
Another, not to heed to treasure more;

Glad, like a boy, to snatch the first good day,
And pleased, if sordid want be far away.

What is 't to me (a passenger, God wot,)
Whether my vessel be first-rate or not?
The ship itself may make a better figure,
But I that sail am neither less nor bigger;

13

280

285

290

295

13 Employed in settling the colony of Georgia. [General Oglethorpe was a remarkable man. He had served under Prince Eugene, and in 1733 he entered upon those services for founding the colony of Georgia which the poet has so finely commemorated. The two eminent brothers, John and Samuel Wesley, accompanied him to Georgia. He returned in 1734, bringing some Indian chiefs with him; and two years afterwards he repaired again to Georgia, accompanied by a second body of emigrants. The war with Spain threatened the destruction of the colony, but Oglethorpe repelled the Spaniards, though he was unsuccessful in an expedition he made against St. Augustin. On his return to England he was employed against the followers of Charles Edward in Scotland, in 1745. He could not come up with them, and was tried for neglect of duty, but acquitted. The circumstance that Oglethorpe was a decided Jacobite, perhaps led to this slur on his military character, as it led to subsequent neglect on the part of the court and ministry. The general, however, was repaid by the praises of Pope, Thomson, and Dr. Johnson, and by the regard which his amiable character and intelligence inspired. He died in 1785.]

14 Alluding to the statutes made in England and Ireland, to regulate the succession of Papists, &c.