To please a Mistress one afpers'd his life;
He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife:
Let Budgel charge low Grubstreet on his quill,
And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his Will;
Let the two Curls of Town and Court, abuse
His father, mother, body, foul, and muse.

376

380

NOTES.

VER. 378. Let Budgel] Budgel, in a weekly pamphlet called the Bee, beftowed much abuse on him, in the imagination that he writ fome things about the Laft Will of Dr. Tindal, in the Grubftreet Journal; a Paper wherein he never had the leaft hand, direction, or fupervifal, nor the least knowledge of its Author. P.

VER. 379. except his Will] Alluding to Tindal's Will: by which, and other indirect practices, Budgell, to the exclufion of the next heir, a nephew, got to himself almost the whole fortane of a man entirely unrelated to him.

VER. 381. His father, mother, &c.] In fome of Curl's and other pamphlets, Mr. Pope's father was faid to be a Mechanic, a Hatter, a Farmer, nay a Bankrupt. But, what is ftranger, a Nobleman (if fuch a Reflection could be thought to come from a Nobleman) had dropt an allufion to that pitiful untruth, in a paper called an Epiftle to a Doctor of Divinity: And the following line, Hard as thy Heart, and as thy Birth obfcure,

had fallen from a like Courtly pen, in certain Verfes to the Imitation of Horace. Mr. Pope's Father was of a Gentleman's Family in Oxfordshire, the head of which was the Earl of Downe, whose fole Heirefs married the Earl of Lindsey-His mother was the daughter of William Turnor, Efq. of York: She had three brothers, one of whom was killed, another died in the fervice of King Charles; the eldest following his fortunes, and becoming

Yet why? that Father held it for a rule,
It was a fin to call our neighbour fool:
That harmless Mother thought no wife a whore:
Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore!
Unfpotted names, and memorable long!
If there be force in Virtue, or in Song.

Of gentle blood (part shed in Honour's cause,
While yet in Britain Honour had applause)
Each parent fprung-A. What fortune, pray?-P.
Their own,

390

And better got, than Beftia's from the throne.
Born to no Pride, inheriting no Strife,
Nor marrying Discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,
The good man walk'd innoxious thro' his age.

386

395

NOTES.

a general officer in Spain, left her what eftate remained
after the fequeftrations and forfeitures of her family-
Mr. Pope died in 1717, aged 75; She in 1733, aged 93,
a very few weeks after this poem was finifhed. The fol-
lowing infcription was placed by their fon on their Monu-
ment in the parish of Twickenham, in Middle fex,
D. O. M.

ALEXANDRO. POPE. VIRO. INNOCVO. PROBO. PIO.
QUI. VIXIT. ANNOS. LXXV. OB. MDCCXVII.
ET. EDITHAE. CONIVGI. INCVLPABILI.
PIENTISSIMAE. QVAE. VIXIT. ANNOS.

XCIII. OB. MDCCXXXIII.

PARENTIBVS. BENEMERENTIBVS. FILIVS. FECIT.
ET. SIBI.

P.

No Courts he faw, no fuits would ever try,
Nor dar'd an Oath, nor hazarded a Lye.
Un-learn'd, he knew no fchoolman's fubtile art,
No language, but the language of the heart.
By Nature honeft, by Experience wife,
Healthy by temp'rance, and by exercise;
His life, tho' long, to sickness past unknown,
His death was inftant, and without a groan.
O grant me, thus to live, and thus to die!
Who fprung from Kings fhall know lefs joy than I.
O Friend! may each domestic blifs be thine!
Be no unpleafing Melancholy mine:
Me, let the tender office long engage,

404

To rock the cradle of repofing Age,
With lenient arts extend a Mother's breath,
410
Make Langour fmile, and smooth the bed of Death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like these if length of days attend,
May Heav'n, to bless those days, preserve my friend,

VARIATIONS.

After 405. in the MS.

And of myself, too, fomething must I say?
Take then this verfe, the trifle of a day.
And if it live, it lives but to commend

The man whofe heart has ne'er forgot a Friend,
Or head, an Author: Critic, yet polite
And friend to Learning, yet too wife to write.

400

Preserve him focial, chearful, and ferene,
And just as rich as when he serv'd a QUEEN.
A. Whether that bleffing be deny'd or giv❜n,
Thus far was right, the reft belongs to Heav'n.

416

NOTES.

VER. 417. And just as rich as when he ferv'd a Queen.] An honeft compliment to his Friend's real and unaffected difinterestedness, when he was the favourite Physician of Queen Anne.

VER. 418. A. Whether this bleffing, &c.] He makes his friend close the Dialogue with a fentiment very expreffive of that religious refignation, which was the Character both of his temper, and his piety.

SATIRES

AND

EPISTLES

OF

HORACE

IMITATE D.

* D