"Come, if you'll be a quiet soul, "That dares tell neither truth nor lies, "I'll lift you in the harmless roll "Of those that sing of these poor eyes." 30 IMITATION OF MARTIAL.2 Ar length, my friend, (while Time, with still career, away, Pleas'd with the series of each happy day. 1 Lady Frances Shirley was the fourth daughter of Earl Ferrers, and a celebrated beauty of the day. Sir C. H. Williams' lines on the "eternal whisper," that was constantly passing between her and Lord Chesterfield, are well known. She died unmarried, however, in 1778, having previously joined the Methodists. Walpole writes to Mason on 16th July in that year: "Fanny blooming fair" died here yesterday of a stroke of palsy. She had lost her memory for some years, and remembered nothing but her beauty and not her Methodism. Being confined with only servants, 5 10 she was continually lamenting, 'I to mus: "Jam numerat placido felixAntonius ævo," The epigram referred to is the twenty third of the tenth book. IMITATION OF TIBULLUS.' HERE, stopt by hasty death, Alexis lies, THE TRANSLATOR.' OZELL, at Sanger's call,' invoked his muse- 10 ticeship with Jacob Tonson, and succeeded Bernard Lintot in his shop at the Middle Temple Gate, Fleet Street. 5 Lintot printed Ozell's translation of Perrault's Characters, and Sanger his translation of Boileau's Lutrin, which was recommended by Rowe, in 1709. The "Plain-Dealer" of Wycherley, and the "Biter," an unsuccessful comedy of Rowe's. THE THREE GENTLE SHEPHERDS.1 OF gentle Philips will I ever sing, With gentle Philips shall the valleys ring. With gentle Budgell and with gentle Carey.' And from all wits that have a knack, God save ye. 5 10 VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU.3 "Un Jour dit un Auteur," etc. ONCE (says an author; where, I need not say) 1 First published in Curll's Miscellanies, 1727. 2 The person here satirised has been generally supposed to be Henry Carey, author of "Sally in our Alley." But it appears that by his character of "Umbra," Pope meant Walter Carey, who is represented in those lines as a hanger-on of Addison. And Spence says in his Anecdotes, that Budgell, Philips, Carey, and Davenant, were Addison's chief companions. Pope may therefore have meant to satirise the Little Senate of his rival in these lines. 3 First published by Warburton in his edition of 1751. |