404 His death was inftant, and without a groan. Me, let the tender office long engage, VARIATION §. After Ver. 405. in the MS. And of myself, too, fomething muft I say? And if it live, it lives but to commend The man whofe heart has ne'er forgot a Friend, And friend to Learning, yet too wife to write. NOTES. VER. 408. Me, let the tender office] Thefe exquifite lines give us a very interefting picture of the exemplary filial piety of our Author! There is a penfive and pathetic fweetnefs in the very flow of them. The eye that has been wearied and oppreffed by the harsh and auftere colouring of fome of the preceding paffages, turns away with pleafure from these afperities, and repofes with complacency on the foft tints of domeftic tenderness. We are naturally gratified to see men defcending from their heights, into the familiar offices of common life; and the fenfation is the more pleafing to us, because admiration is turned into affection. In the very entertaining Memoirs of the Life of Racine (published by his fon (we find no paffage more amusing and interefting, than where that great Poet fends an excufe to Monfieur, the Duke, who had earneftly invited him to dine at the Hotel de Condé, because he had promised to partake of a great fish that his children had got for him, and he could not think of disappointing them. Melan&hon appeared in an amiable light, when he was feen holding a book in one hand, and attentively reading, and with the other rocking the cradle of his infant child. And we read with more fatisfa&ion, с - παιδος ορέξατο φαίδιμος Εκτωρ. Δ. δ' ὁ παῖς προς κολπον εύζωνοιο τιδήιης Εκλίνθη ιαχών than we do, Τρις μεν ορέξατ ιων' το δε τετρατον ικετο τεκμωρ To rock the cradle of repofing Age, With lenient arts extend a Mother's breath, 410 Make Languor smile, and smooth the bed of Death, Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep a while one parent from the sky! On cares like thefe, if length of days attend, May, Heav'n, to bless those days, preferve my friend, Preferve him focial, cheerful, and ferene, And just as rich as when he serv'd a QUEEN. A. Whether that bleffing be deny'd or giv'n, Thus far was right, the reft belongs to Heav'n. NOTES. 416 VER. 409. To rock the cradle] This tender image is from the Effays of Montaigne. Mr. Gray was equally remarkable for affectionate attention to bis aged mother; fo was Ariofto. Pope's mother was a fifter of Cooper's wife, the very celebrated miniature painter. Lord Carleton had a portrait of Cooper, in crayons, which Mrs. Pope faid was not very like; and which, defcending to Lord Burlington, was given by his Lordship to Kent. "I have a drawing," fays Mr. Walpole, " of Pope's father, as he lay dead in his bed, by his brotherin-law, Cooper." It was Mr. Pope's. Anecdotes of Painting, vol. iii. p. 115. VER. 417. And just as rich as when he ferv'd a QUEEN.] An honeft compliment to his Friend's real and unaffected difiutereftedness, when he was the favourite Physician of Queen Anne. W. SATIRES *This motto fuited the free and eafy manner of Horace; not the more fole un tones of his imitator Pope told Mr. Speace, that be wrote this Imitation in two mornings, excellent as it is. VOL. IV. E ADVERTISEMENT. THE Occafion of publishing these Imitations was the Clamour raised on fome of my Epistles. An Anfwer from Horace was both more fall, and of more Dignity, than any I could have made in my own Perfon; and the Example of much greater Freedom in fo eminent a Divine as Dr. Donne, seemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Chriftian may treat Vice or Folly, in ever fo low, or ever fo high a Station. Both these Authors were acceptable to the Princes and Minifters under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr. Donne I verfified, at the defire of the Earl of Oxford, while he was Lord Treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury, who had been Secretary of State; neither of whom looked upon a Satire on Vicious Courts as any Reflection on those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error, than that which Fools are so apt to fall into, and Knaves with good reafon to encourage, the miftaking a Satirift for a Libeller; whereas to a true Satirift nothing is is fo odious as a Libeller, for the fame reafon as to a man truly virtuous nothing is fo hateful as a Hypocrite. Uni æquus Virtuti atque ejus Amicis. P. Few Imitations of Horace are executed with more fidelity and spirit than that of the 1ft Sat. of B. i. by Sir Brooke Boothby, addreffed to his amiable and poetical friend Dr. Darwin. "Had Horace wrote his Satires or Ep files in the fame kind of numbers with Virgil's Eneid, it would have been a monftrous impropriety; like bunting the fox or the bare on a war-horfe, with the equipage of a General at a review, or in the day of battle. He knew very well, that, in familiar writings, dignity of verfification would be quite ridiculous." ARMSTRONG. |