have for the most part spared their names, and they may escape being laughed at, if they please. I would have some of them know, it was owing to the request of the learned and candid friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage and honour on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a nameless character can never be found out, but by its truth and likeness. Pope. EPISTLE ΤΟ DR. ARBUTHNOT; BEING THE PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES. P.SHUT, shut the door, good John! fatigued I Tie said, up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead. The dog-star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt, All Bedlam or Parnassus is let out: Fire in each eye and papers in each hand, NOTES. 5 Ver. 1. Shut, shut the door, good John!] John Searl, his old and faithful servant, whom he has remembered, under that character, in his will: of whose fidelity, Dodsley, from his own observation, used to mention many pleasing instances. His wife was living at Eccleshall, 1783, ninety years old, and knew many Warton. anecdotes of Pope. Ver. 1. Shut, shut the door,] This abrupt exordium is animated and dramatic. Our poet, wearied with the impertinence and slander of a multitude of mean scribblers that attacked him, suddenly breaks out with this spirited complaint of the ill-usage he had sustained. This piece was published in the year 1734, in the form of an Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. It is now given as a Dialogue, in which a very small share, indeed, is allotted to his friend. Arbuthnot was a man of consummate probity, integrity, and sweetness of temper: he had infinitely more learning than Pope or Swift, and as much wit and humour as either of them. He was an excellent mathematician and physician, of which his letter on the Usefulness What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide? They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide, By land, by water, they renew the charge, Is there a parson much bemused in beer, NOTES.. 15 Usefulness of Mathematical Learning, and his Treatise on Air and Aliment, are sufficient proofs. His tables of ancient coins, weights, and measures, are the work of a man intimately acquainted with ancient history and literature, and are enlivened with many curious and interesting particulars of the manners and ways of living of the ancients. The History of John Bull, the best parts of the Memoirs of Scriblerus, the Art of Political Lying, the Freeholder's Catechism, It cannot rain but it pours, &c. abound in strokes of the most exquisite humour. It is known that he gave numberless hints to Swift, and Pope, and Gay, of some of the most striking parts of their works. He was so neglectful of his writings that his children tore his manuscripts and made paper-kites of them. Few letters in the English language are so interesting, and contain such marks of Christian resignation and calmness of mind, as one that he wrote to Swift a little before his death, and is inserted in the third volume of Letters, p. 157. He frequently, and ably, and warmly, in many conversations, defended the cause of revelation against the attacks of Bolingbroke and Chesterfield. Warton. Ver. 13. Mint] A place to which insolvent debtors retired, to enjoy an illegal protection, which they were there suffered to afford to one another, from the persecution of their creditors. Warburton. Ver. 15. Is there a parson] Some lines in this Epistle to Arbuthnot had been used in a letter to Thomson when he was in Italy A clerk, foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws, 25 Friend to my life, (which did not you prolong, The world had wanted many an idle song) What drop or nostrum can this plague remove? Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love? 30 A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped, If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead. NOTES. Italy, and transferred from him to Arbuthnot, which naturally displeased the former, though they lived always on terms of civility and friendship; and Pope earnestly exerted himself, and used all his interest to promote the success of Thomson's Agamemnon, and attended the first night of its being performed. Warton. Ver. 20. desperate charcoal] The idea is from Boileau's Art of Poetry-"Charbonner les murailles." Bowles. Warburton. Ver. 23. Arthur,] Arthur Moore, Esq. VARIATIONS. After Ver. 20. in the MS. Is there a bard in durance? turn them free, With all their brandish'd reams they run to me: Is there a 'prentice, having seen two plays, Ver. 29. in the first Ed. Dear Doctor, tell me, is not this a curse? Say, is their anger, or their friendship worse? Seized and tied down to judge, how wretched I! With honest anguish and an aching head; This saving counsel," Keep your piece nine years." Pitholeon libell'd me-" but here's a letter Informs you, Sir, 'twas when he knew no better. NOTES. 50 Ver. 33. Seized and tied down to judge,] Alluding to the scene in the Plain-Dealer, where Oldfox gags and ties down the Widow, to hear his well-penned stanzas. Rather from Horace; vide his Druso. Warburton. Warton. eleven years in his short satire of L'Equivoque. Patru was four years altering and correcting the first paragraph of his translation of the Oration for Archias. Warton. Ver. 49. Pitholeon] The name taken from a foolish poet of Rhodes, who pretended much to Greek. Schol. in Horat. 1. i. Dr. Bentley pretends that this Pitholeon libelled Cæsar also. See notes on Hor. Sat. 10. I. i. Pope. |