IV. Then bravely, fair dame, Which to your whole sex does belong; From a second bright Eve, The knowledge of right and of wrong. 20 V. But if the first Eve Hard doom did receive, When only one apple had she, What a punishment new Shall be found out for you, Who, tasting, have robb'd the whole tree? TO MR. GAY, WHO HAD CONGRATULATED MR. POPE ON FINISHING HIS HOUSE AND AH, friend! 'tis true-this truth you lovers know- 1 In Hammond's Miscellany, "Renew." 2 These lines must have been written in the early part of 1722. In April or May of that year (see Moy Thomas's edition of Lady M. W. Montagu's Works, vol. i., p. 461), Lady M. W. Montagu writes to Lady Mar: "I see sometimes Mr. Congreve, and very seldom Mr. Pope, who continues to embellish his house at Twickenham. He has made a subterranean grotto, which he has furnished with looking-glass, and they tell me it has a very good effect I here send you some verses addressed to Mr. Gay, who wrote him a congratulatory letter on the finishing his house. I stifled them here, and I beg they may die the same death at Paris, and never go further than your closet." Verses 7 to the end were published in the London Magazine for March, 1737, after some lines of blank verse, attributed to Dr. Young. The verses in the text are "said to be added by Mr. Pope." In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes 2 To sigh unheard in, to the passing winds? EXTEMPORANEOUS LINES ON THE PICTURE OF LADY M. W. MONTAGU, BY KNELLER. 5 THE playful smiles around the dimpled mouth, That happy air of majesty and truth; So would I draw (but oh! 'tis vain to try, In Lady M. W. Montagu's letter, "W-." 2 In Lady M. W. Montagu's letter: "is." 3 In Lady M. W. Montagu's letter: "sequestrate." 10 4 In Lady M. W. Montagu's letter: "There." 5 First published in Dallaway's Life of Lady M. W. Montagu. ON HIS GROTTO AT TWICKENHAM,' COMPOSED OF MARBLES, SPARS, GEMS, ORES, AND MINERALS. THOU who shalt stop, where Thames' translucent wave Approach! Great Nature studiously behold; 1 These lines were enclosed in a letter to Bolingbroke, dated 3rd September, 1740. They were first published in the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1741. Warburton says, as if explaining the origin of the verses: "The improvement and finishing his grott was the favourite amusement of his declining years.” But his grotto had been finished, as we see from Pope's letter to Blount, before the 2nd June, 1725. And the feeling which gave birth to these lines was evidently a political one. 2 Alluding to Numa's projecting his system of politics in this Grot, assisted as he gave out by the nymph Egeria.-WARBURTON. It may be assumed that Pope, who never wrote without point, if he gave this information to Warburton, meant more by the words than appears on the surface. We know that the Opposition met at Pope's villa for consultation in the year 1740. We know also that their policy was to set up the Prince of Wales against his father (see Introduction to the Epi 10 logue to the Satires, and "1740"). It is highly probable that this scheme may have been dignified by Pope with the term "System of Politics;" the Numa of the occasion would have been Bolingbroke, and Egeria may have been the Princess of Wales. The Marchmont Papers (i. 3) show that "the Prince always made the Princess be present at all their conversations, and that she showed her approbation always in the right place; that she desired to be informed, and had a great deal to say with the Prince." Further, Lord Chesterfield writes to Lyttelton in November, 1737: “If the Prince would play the Rising Sun, he would gild it finely; if not he will be under a cloud which he will never hereafter be able to shine through. Instil this into the Woman." Sir G. Rose, the editor, adds, "The Woman is clearly the Princess." 3 This line stood in the original MS.: "To Wyndham's breast the patriot passion stole," Let such, such only tread this sacred floor, Who dare to love their country, and be poor. TO MRS. M. B. ON HER BIRTHDAY.' 1723. Он be thou blest with all that Heav'n can send, Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend: and in the Gentleman's Magazine : "Here, Wyndham, thy last sighs for Liberty." The point of printing the word "British," in italics, is illustrated in a very curious and interesting manner by the Marchmont Papers, which show that in the years 1743 and 1744 the Opposition seriously contemplated a separation between Great Britain and Hanover. See Marchmont Papers, i., pp. 11, 38, 52, 63, 73. It is of course highly probable that this idea formed part of the "System of Politics" discussed in the Grotto in 1740, before Wyndham's death. Compare "1740," v. 93. Wyndham died 17th June, 1740. The history of these verses is extremely curious. They first appeared in print in the Miscellany Poems of Pope, published by Lintot in 1726. But they were then quite different in form, and ran as follows: "The Wish, sent to Mrs. M. B. on her birthday, June 15th: "Oh be thou blest with all that Heav'n can send, Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend: Not with those toys the female world admire, Riches that vex, and vanities that tire. Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er, And all we gain some pensive notion more; ray. To gild the evening of our future day; The allusion in the last line is to the suicide of Colonel Harry Mordaunt, nephew of the Earl of Peterborough, who shot himself on the 7th of May, 1724. It is obvious, therefore, that the verses cannot have been sent to Martha Blount on her 33rd birthday in 1723. Pope says in a letter to Gay, that ver. 5-10 were written on his own birthday; and this seems probable enough, though he may afterwards have determined to expand them into the birthday compliment to Martha Blount in the form given above. In 1727 the verses appear in Pope's and Swift's Miscellanies in their present form, except that after the fourth line are introduced the six verses, beginning, "Not as the world its pretty slaves rewards," which now stand, with a slight variation, in Moral Essay, ii. 243-248. These were obviously inserted in order to pave the way for the explanation as to the authorship of the verses, after Not with those toys the female world admire, Let joy or ease, let affluence or content, |