A Fav'rite's Porter with his Mafter vie,
Be brib'd as often, and as often lie?

Shall Ward draw Contracts with a Statesman's skill ?
Or Japhet pocket, like his Grace, a Will?
Is it for Bond, or Peter, (paltry things)

120

To pay their Debts, or keep their Faith, like Kings?
If Blount dispatch'd himself he play'd the man,
And fo may'ft thou, illuftrious Pafferan!

But fhall a Printer, weary of his life,
125
Learn, from their Books, to hang himself and Wife?
This, this, my Friend, I cannot, must not bear;
Vice thus abus'd, demands a Nation's care:
This calls the Church to deprecate our Sin,
And hurls the Thunder of the Laws on Gin.

130

NOTES.

VER. 123. If Blount] Author of an impious and foolish book called the Oracles of Reafon, who being in love with a near kinfwoman of his, and rejected, gave himself a ftab in the arm, as pretending to kill himself, of the confequence of which he really died. P..

VER. 124. Pafferan!] Author of another book of the fame ftamp, called A philofophical difcourfe on death, being a defence of fuicide.

VER. 125. But shall a Printer, etc.] A Fact that happened in London a few years paft. The unhappy man left behind him a paper juftifying his action by the reafonings of fome of thefe authors.

P.

VER. 129. This calls the Church to deprecate our Sin,] Alluding to the forms of prayer, compofed in the times of public calamity; where the fault is generally laid upon the People.

VER. 130. Gin.] A fpirituous liquor, the exorbitant

Let modeft FOSTER, if he will, excell
Ten Metropolitans in preaching well;
A fimple Quaker, or a Quaker's Wife,
Out-do Landaffe in Doctrine,-yea in Life :
Let humble ALLEN, with an aukward Shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it Fame.

I

#

135

NOTES.

afe of which had almoft deftroyed the loweft rank of the People till it was reftrained by an act of Parliament in 1736. P.

VER. 131. Let modeft FOSTER,] This confirms an obfervation which Mr. Hobbes made long ago, That there be very few Bishops that act a fermon fo well, as divers Prefbyterians and fanatic Preachers can do. Hift. of Civ.

Wars. p. 62. SCRIBL.

VER. 134. Landaffe] A poor Bishoprick in Wales, as poorly fupplied. P.

VER. 135. Let humble ALLEN with an aukward Shame, Do good by fealth, and blush to find it Fame.] The true Character of our Author's moral pieces, confidered as a Supplement to human laws (the force of which they have defervedly obtained) is, that his praise is always delicate, F and his reproof never misplaced: and therefore the firft not reaching the bead, and the latter too fenfibly touching the heart of his vulgar readers, have made him cenfured as a cold Panegyrist, and a cauftic Satirift; whereas, indeed, he was the warmest friend, and the most placable enemy.

The lines above have been commonly given as an inftance of this ungenerous backwardness in doing justice to merit. And, indeed, if fairly given, would bear hard upon the Author, who believed the perfon here celebrated to be one of the greateft characters in private life that ever was; aud known by him to be, in fact, all, and

*R

Virtue may chufe the high or low Degree,

'Tis juft alike to Virtue, and to me;

NOTES.

much more than he had feigned in the imaginary virtues of the man of Rafs. One, who, whether he be confidered in his civil, focial, domestic, or religious character, is, in all these views, an ornament to human nature.

And, indeed, we fhall fee, that what is here faid of him agrees only with fuch a Character. But as both the thought and the expreffion have been cenfured, we shall confider them in their order.

Let bumble ALLEN, with an aukward Shame,
Do good by fealth -

This encomium has been called obfcure (as well as penu-
rious.) It may be fo; not from any defect in the concep
tion, but from the deepnefs of the fenfe; and, what may
feem more strange, (as we fhall fee afterwards) from the
elegance of phrafe, and exactnefs of expreffion. We are
fo abfolutely governed by custom, that to act contrary to
it, creates even in virtuous men, who are ever modeít, a
kind of diffidence, which is the parent of Shame. But
when, to this, there is joined a consciousness that, in for-
faking custom, you follow truth and reason, the indigna-
tion arifing from fuch a confcious virtue, mixing with
Shame, produces that amiable aukwardness, in going out
of the fashion, which the Poet, here, celebrates.
and blush to find it Fame.

i. e. He blushed at the degeneracy of his times, which, at beft, gave his goodness its due commendation (the thing he never aimed at) instead of following and imitating his example, which was the reason why some acts of it were not done by ftealth, but more openly.

So far as to the thought: but it will be faid, tantamne rem tam negligenter?

And this will lead us to fay fomething concerning the ex

;

Dwell in a Monk, or light upon a King,
She's ftill the fame, belov'd, contented thing.
Vice is undone, if the forgets her Birth,
And stoops from Angels to the Dregs of Earth:
But 'tis the Fall degrades her to a Whore;
Let Greatness own her, and she's mean no more, 144
Her Birth, her Beauty, Crowds and Courts confefs,
Chafte Matrons praise her, and grave Bishops bless
In golden Chains the willing World she draws,
And hers the Gofpel is, and hers the Laws,
Mounts the Tribunal, lifts her fcarlet head,
And fees pale Virtue carted in her stead.
Lo! at the wheels of her Triumphal Car,
Old England's Genius, rough with many a Scar,
Dragg'd in the Duft! his arms hang idly round,
His Flag inverted trails along the ground!
Our Youth, all livery'd o'er with foreign Gold, 155
Before her dance: behind her, crawl the Old !

See thronging Millions to the Pagod run,

And offer Country, Parent, Wife, or Son!

140

150

NOTES.

preffion, which will clear up what remains of the difficulty. In thefe lines, and in thofe which precede and follow them, are contained an ironical neglect of Virtue, and an ironical concern and care for Vice. So that the Poet's elegant correctness of compofition required, that his lan guage, in the first cafe fhould prefent fomething of negli gence and cenfure; which is admirably implied in the expreffion of the thought.

Hear her black Trumpet thro' the Land proclaim,
That NOT TO BE CORRUPTED IS THE SHAME. 160.
In Soldier, Churchman, Patriot, Man in Pow'r,...
'Tis Av'rice all, Ambition is no more!

See, all our Nobles begging to be Slaves!
See, all our Fools afpiring to be Knaves!
The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore, 165
Are what ten thousand envy and adore :

All, all look up, with reverential Awe,

At Crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the Law: While Truth, Worth, Wisdom, daily they decry→ "Nothing is Sacred now but Villainy." 170

Yet may this Verse (if such a Verse remain) Show, there was one who held it in difdain.