8 Or, if you needs muft write, write CAESAR's Praife, hYou'll gain at least a Knighthood, or the Bays. P. What? like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce, With ARMS, and GEORGE, and BRUNSWICK crowd. the verse, Rend with tremendous found your ears afunder, 25 With Gun, Drum, Trumpet, Blunderbufs, and Thunder ? 30 Or nobly wild, with Budgel's fire and force, NOTES. tell him I will never imitate Milton more, till the author of Blenheim is forgotten." In vain was Blackmore extolled by Molyneux, and Locke but Locke, to his other fuperior talents, did not add good tafte. He affeded to defpife poetry, and he depreciated the ancients: which circumftance, as I was informed by the late Mr. James Harris, his relation, was the fource of perpetual difcontent and difpute betwixt him and his pupil Lord Shaftesbury; who, in many parts of his Chara&eriftics, and Letters to a Clergyman, has ridiculed Locke's felfish philosophy, and has represented him as a difciple of Hobbes; from which writer it muft in truth be confeffed that Locke borrowed frequently and largely. Locke had not the fine tafte of a greater philofopher, I mean Galileo, who wrote a comment on Ariofto full of juft criticifm, and whofe letter to Fr. Rinuccini on this fubje& may be seen in Martinelli's Letters, p. 255. London; 1758. VER. 28. Falling Horfe? The horse on which his Majefty charg ed at the battle of Oudena d; when the Pretender, and the Pripces of the blood of France, fled before him. W. Verba per attentam non ibunt Cæfaris aurem : T. Quanto rectius hoc, quam trifti lædere verfu Pantolabum fcurram, Nomentanumve nepotem? "Cum fibi quifque timet, quanquam eft intactus, et o odit. H. Quid faciam? faltat Milonius, ut femel ico Acceflit fervor capiti, numerufque lucernis, P Caftor gaudet equis; ovo prognatus eodem, Pugnis. quot capitum vivunt, totidem ftudiorum NOTES. VFR. 39. Abufe the City's beft good men in metre,] The best good Man, a City phrafe for the richef. Metre-not used here purely to help the verse, but to fhew what it is a Citizen efteems the greateft aggravation of the offence. W. VER. 41. What should ail 'em?] 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 infinuates, that his very levity, in ufiog feigned names, increases the number of his Enemies, who fufpe& they may be included under that cover. W. VER. 45. Each mortal] Thefe words, indeed, open the fenfe of Horace; but the quid faciam is better, as it leaves it to the reader to difcover, what is one of Horace's greatest beauties, his fecret and delicate tranfitions and connections, to which those who do not carefully attend, lofe half the pleafure of reading him. VER. 46. Darty his Ham-pye;] This lover of Ham-pye own'd the fidelity of the Poet's pencil; and faid, he had done juffice to his tafte; but that if, inftead of Ham-pyé, he had given him Sweet-pye, he never could have pardoned him. W. Lyttelton, in his Dialogues of the Dead, has introduced Darteneuf, in a pleasant difcourfe betwixt him and Apicius, bitterly lamenting his ill-fortune in having lived before turtle-feafts were known in England. The ftory of the Ham-pye was confirmed by Mr. Dodley, who knew Darteneuf, and, as he candidly owned, had waited on him at dinner. VFR. 50. Like in all elfe,] This parallel is not happy and exa&: To fhew the variety of human paffions and purfuits, Caftor and And jufly CESAR fcorns the Poet's lays, 35 F. Better be Cibber,. I'll maintain it ftill, P. What fhould ail 'em? F. A hundred fmart in Timon and in Balaam: P. • Each mortal has his pleasure: none deny 45 The doubling Luftres dance as fast as fhe; PF--- loves the Senate, Hockley-hole his brother, 50 NOTES. Pollux were unlike, even though they came from one and the fame egg. This is far more extraordinary and marvellous than that two common brothers fhould bave different inclinations. Aud afterwards, Ver. 51. "I love to pour out all myself, as plain As downright SHIPPEN, or as old MONTAGNE. "My chief pleasure is to write Satires like Lucilius," fays Horace. "My chief pleasure," fays Pope, is what? to speak my mind freely and openly." There should have been an inftance of fome employment, and not a virtuous habit. Pope would not have been pleased with this cenfure of the politics of Shippen, who was an able fpeaker, which the commentator has fubjoined to this paffage. A poet, like Lucilius, ought to have been named, not a politician. In the original, Horace calls Lucilius, Jenis; not because he was an old man, but because, he was of an Millia. 9 me pedibus delectat claudere verba, Ille velut fidis arcana fodalibus olim Credebat libris ; neque, fi male cefferat ufquam, Decurren's alio, neque fi bene: quo fit ut omnis Votiva pateat, veluti defcripta tabella Vita fenis, fequor hunc. anceps: Lucanus an Appulus, [Nam Venufinus arat finem fub utrumque colonus, NOTES. antient equeftrian family, and was great-uncle of Pompey the Great. Lucilius, among other inaccuracies of Style, fometimes Arangely disjoined words, as in cere comminuit brum, for cerebrum. VER. 63. My head and heart thus flowing through my quill,] Inferior to the Original: "Il velut fidis arcana fodalibus olim Credebat libris," &c. VER. 64. Verfe-man or Profe-man, The original, Ver. 35. Nam Venulinus arat, down to Ver. 39. and to the words, incuteret violenta, which are improperly printed in a parenthesis, bave been thought an awkward and a monkish interpolation, but were undoubtedly intended by Horace 'to represent the loose, incoherent, and verbole manner of Lucilius, who compofed haftily and carelessly, ducentos ante cibum verfus; and who loaded his Satires with many ufelefs and impertinent thoughts; very offenfive to the chate and corre& tafte of Horace. I love to pour out all myself, as plain The foul food forth, nor kept a thought within; Like good Erafmus in an honeft Mean, 60 65 While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory. NOTES. VER. 66. Like good Erafmus] The violence and haughtiness of Luther disgufted the mild and moderate Erasmus, and alienated him from pursuing the plan of reformation which at firft he seemed to encourage and engage in. Luther reprefented him as an Arian and a time-ferver. I thought," said Erafmus, "Luther's marriage would have softened him a little. It is hard for a man of my moderation and of my years to be obliged to write against a favage beaft and a furious wild boar." But great revolutions and great reformations are not effected by calm and fober reafon, nor without fuch violence and enthufiafin as Luther poffeffed. When Voltaire was lamenting that Locke and Newton had few difciples in comparison of the numerous followers of Luther and Calvin, it was replied to him, that, without a Luther and Calvin, we fhould never have had a Locke or Newton." |