255 Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow? But clear and artless, pouring through the plain He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state, Prescribes, attends, the medicine makes, and gives. B. Thrice happy man! enabled to pursue 260 265 270 275 Oh say, what sums that generous hand supply? 280 P. Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear, This man possess'd-five hundred pounds a-year! Blush, Grandeur, blush! proud courts, withdraw your blaze! Ye little stars, hide your diminish'd rays. B. And what? no monument, inscription, stone? His race, P. Who builds a church to God, and not to fame, 285 290 That live-long wig which Gorgon's self might own, 295 Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend! In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung, The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung, 300 On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw, Great Villiers lies,30-alas! how changed from him, 305 29 The parish register. Thus in the MS. "The register enrolls him with his poor, Tells he was born and died, and tells no more. 30 This lord, yet more famous for his vices than his misfortunes, having been possessed of about £50,000 a year, and passed through many of the highest posts in the kingdom, died in the year 1687, in a remote inn in Yorkshire, reduced to the utmost misery. [See Additional Notes.] Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove,31 Or just as gay, at council, in a ring 310 No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. 315 That I can do, when all I have is gone." Resolve me, Reason, which of these is worse, 320 31 A delightful palace on the banks of the Thames, built by the Duke of Buckingham. 32 The Countess of Shrewsbury, a woman abandoned to gallantries. The Earl, her husband, was killed by the Duke of Buckingham in a duel; and it has been said, that during the combat she held the Duke's horses, in the habit of a page. Thy life more wretched, Cutler, was confess'd, A few grey hairs his reverend temples crowned; 325 330 335 A knotty point! to which we now proceed. But you are tired-I'll tell a tale. B. Agreed. P. Where London's column, pointing at the skies33 Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies; 340 There dwelt a citizen of sober fame, A plain good man, and Balaam was his name ; Religious, punctual, frugal, and so forth; His word would pass for more than he was worth. 345 An added pudding solemnized the Lord's: Constant at Church, and 'Change; his gains were sure, The Devil was piqued such saintship to behold, And longed to tempt him, like good Job of old: 350 33 The Monument, built in memory of the fire of London, with an inscription importing that city to have been burnt by the Papists. [The inscription was engraved on the monument in 1681, when the city was frighted from its propriety by Titus Oates and his plot. "This pillar was set up in perpetual remembrance of that most dreadful burning of this Protestant city, begun and carried on by the treachery and malice of the Popish faction, in the beginning of September, in the year of our Lord, 1666, in order to the carry. ing on their horrid plot for extirpating the Protestant religion and old English liberty, and then introducing Popery and slavery." Such was the downright Saxon "lie." It was erased in the reign of James II., re-cut in the reign of William III., and erased again in the reign of William IV. (1831.) Though curious as a relic of ancient prejudice and belief, the inscription is better away.] But Satan now is wiser than of yore, And tempts by making rich, not making poor. Roused by the Prince of Air, the whirlwinds sweep An honest factor stole a gem away: He pledged it to the knight, the knight had wit, 555 360 365 4 The Tempter saw his time; the work he plied; Stocks and subscriptions pour on every side, 370 34 The author has placed the scene of these shipwrecks in Cornwall, not only from their frequency on that coast, but from the inhumanity of the inhabitants to those to whom that misfortune arrives. When a ship happens to be stranded there, they have been known to bore holes in it, to prevent its getting off; to plunder, and sometimes even to massacre, the people. Nor has the Parliament of England been yet able wholly to suppress these barbarities. [Fielding and Smollett, it will be recollected, give scenes of this description.] 35 [Pope was supposed to allude here to the Pitt diamond, a gem brought to this country by Thomas Pitt, Governor of Madras, about 1700. Mr. Pitt purchased this celebrated diamond, which goes by his name, for £20,400, and sold it to the King of France for more than five times that sum. It was then reckoned the largest jewel in Europe, and weighed 127 carats. When polished it was as big as a pullet's egg; the cuttings amounted in value to eight or ten thousand pounds. The report that Mr. Pitt had obtained this diamond by dishonourable means was very general; and he was at last induced to publish a narrative of the circumstances connected with its purchase. This gentleman, we may remark, was grandfather of the great William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. He sat in Parliament for some time after his final return to England, and died in 1726. The affair of the Pitt diamond may have suggested the incident of the stolen gem to Pope, but the whole episode appears fanciful, and the history of Sir Baalam and his family is outrageously improbable.] |