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CHARACTERS.

MACER: A CHARACTER.'

WHEN Simple Macer, now of high renown,
First sought a poet's fortune in the town,
'Twas all th' ambition his high soul could feel,
To wear red stockings, and to dine with Steele.
Some ends of verse his betters might afford,
And gave the harmless fellow a good word."
Set up with these he ventur'd on the town,
And with a borrow'd play, out-did poor Crown.'
There he stopp'd short, nor since has writ a tittle,
But has the wit to make the most of little;
Like stunted hide-bound trees, that just have got
Sufficient sap at once to bear and rot.

1 Macer was intended to be a character of Ambrose Philips. The lines first appeared in the Miscellanies, 1727.

2 Ambrose Philips seems to have been notorious for his red stockings. Pope, in his 'Account of the Condition of E. Curll,' assigns this characteristic as the mark by which he may be identified among Curll's authors: "At a Blacksmith's shop in the Friars, a Pindarick writer in red stockings."

3 In the Miscellanies there is the following note. He requested by public advertisements the aid of the ingenious, to make up a Miscellany in 1713. Mr. Peter Cunningham produces an advertisement from the

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London Gazette of 4th January, 1714-15, which shows conclusively that "Macer" was intended for A. Philips. "There is now preparing for the Press a collection of original Poems and Translations by the most Eminent Hands, to be published by Mr. Philips. Such gentlemen, therefore, who are willing to appear in this Miscellany, are desired to communicate the same, directed to Jacob Tonson, bookseller in the Strand."

Philips' borrowed play was "The Distrest Mother," taken from Racine's Andromaque. John Crowne, a dramatist in the latter half of the seventeenth century, was plagiarism.

notorious

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Now he begs verse, and what he gets commends,
Not of the wits his foes, but fools his friends.

So some coarse country wench, almost decay'd,
Trudges to town, and first turns chambermaid;
Awkward and supple, each devoir to pay;
She flatters her good lady twice a day;
Thought wond'rous honest, tho' of mean degree,
And strangely lik'd for her simplicity:
In a translated suit, then tries the town,
With borrow'd pins, and patches not her own:
But just endur'd the winter she began,
And in four months a batter'd harridan.
Now nothing left, but wither'd, pale, and shrunk,
To bawd for others, and go shares with Punk.

UMBRA.'

CLOSE to the best known author Umbra sits,

The constant index to all Button's wits.

"Who's here?" cries Umbra: "only Johnson,"—" Oh!

Your slave," and exit; but returns with Rowe:
"Dear Rowe, let's sit and talk of tragedies:"
Ere long Pope enters, and to Pope he flies.
Then up comes Steele: he turns upon his heel,
And in a moment fastens upon Steele;

But cries as soon, "Dear Dick, I must be gone,

For, if I know his tread, here's Addison."
Says Addison to Steele, ""Tis time to go;"
Pope to the closet steps aside with Rowe.

1 First published in the Miscellanies, 1727. "Characters of the Times," which Pope included in the collection of "Libels" against him,

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which he bound in four volumes, says that "Umbra" was Walter Carey, for whom see Second Versification of Donne, 177, and note.

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Poor Umbra left in this abandoned pickle,
E'en sits him down and writes to honest T—.
Fool! 'tis in vain from wit to wit to roam;

Know, sense, like charity, begins at home.

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SYLVIA. A FRAGMENT.'

SYLVIA, my heart in wondrous wise alarmed,
Awed without sense, and without beauty charmed:
But some odd graces and some flights she had,
Was just not ugly, and was just not mad:
Her tongue still ran on credit from her eyes,
More pert than witty, more a wit than wise:
Good nature, she declared it, was her scorn:
Though 'twas by that alone she could be borne:
Affronting all, yet fond of a good name;

A fool to pleasure, yet a slave to fame :
Now coy, now studious in no point to fall,
Now all agog for D-y at a ball: '

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Now deep in Taylor and the Book of Martyrs,
Now drinking citron with his Grace and Chartres.❜
Men, some to business, some to pleasure take,

But every woman is at heart a rake,

Frail feverish sex; their fit now chills, now burns:
Atheism and superstition rule by turns;
And a mere heathen in her carnal part,
Is still a sad good Christian in her heart.

1 First published in the Miscel lanies, 1727. It will be seen by comparing these lines with verses 45-68 of the Second Moral Essay, that the poet afterwards divided the character into two, and developed into

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the portraits of Calypso and Narcissa.

2 i.e., Durfey.

3 The Duke of Wharton and Francis Chartres, for whom see Moral Essay iii. 20.

VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ,

DEVOTIONAL POEMS, ETC.

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