Still better, Ministers; or if the thing F. Stop! stop! 50 P. Must Satire, then, not rise nor fall? Speak out, and bid me blame no Rogues at all. F. What always Peter? Peter thinks you mad, 56 P. As S-k, if he lives, will love the PRINCE. 61 F. Strange spleen to S-k! P. Do I wrong the Man ? God knows, I praise a Courtier where I can. When NOTES. VER 51. why lay it on a King) Warburton fays, "He is ferious in the forgoing subjects of Satire, but ironical here; and only alludes to the common practice of Ministers, in laying their own miscarriages on their Masters." I fear Pope meant more. VER. 57. Ev'n Peter trembles only for his Ears.] Peter had, the year before this, narrowly escaped the Pillory for forgery; and got off with a fevere rebuke only from the bench. POPF. VER. 58. What always Peter?] His friend might well, I think, afk this question. VER. 61. As Sk.] Pope rests the justice of his Satire, in drawing his "Pen in virtue's caufe," and boasts that " No rich or noble knave, Shall go in quiet to his grave." Were such characters as Sherlock, Hoadly, &c. to be thus claffed? -2 64 When I confefs, there is who feels for Fame, Ev'n NOTES. VER. 62. Do I wrong the Man?] In publicly and wantonly holding up to ridicule, an amiable man, an exemplary and learned dignitary of the Church, can Pope ferioufly ask, whether or not, " he wrongs the May" VER. 65. SCARB'ROW] Earl of, and Knight of the Garter, whose personal attachments to the King appeared from his steady adherence to the royal interest, after his refignation of his great employment of Master of the Horse, and whose known honour and virtue made him esteemed by all parties. POPE. His Character is ably and elegantly drawn by Lord Chesterfield, and the manner of his lamented death, minutely and pathetically related by Dr. Maty, in the Memoirs of Lord Chesterfield's Life. WARTON. VER. 65. SCARB'ROW name?] Nothing has a more beautiful effect in pointed Satire, than an artful and happy introduction of appropriate praise. The instance here is very beautiful, as it interposes a fort of pleasing landscape, naturally and unaffectedly; on which, and on the amiable characters of Craggs and Scarborough, the mind has a pleasure in dwelling VER. 66. Esher's peaceful Grove, The house and gardens of Esher in Surry, belonging to the Honourable Mr. Pelham, brother of the Duke of Newcastle. The Author could not have given a more amiable idea of his Character, than in comparing him to Mr. Craggs. POPE. VER. 67. Kent and Nature] Means no more than art and nature. And in this consists the compliment to the Artist. 1 Ev'n in a Bishop I can spy Desert; Secker is decent, Rundel has a Heart: 70 Manners NOTES. VER. 71. Secker is decent,] To say of a prelate, whose life was exemplary, and his learning excellent, that he was only decent, is furely to damn with faint praise. His lectures and his fermons are written with a rare mixture of fimplicity and energy, and contain (what fermons too seldom possess) a great knowledge of life and human nature. Dr. Lowth, Dr. Kennicott, and Mr. Merrick, frequently acknowledged his uncommon skill in Oriental learning; but the Author of Warburton's Life has lately thought proper to deny him this praise. The characters of Benfon and Rundel are justly drawn. It was Gibson, Ethop of London, who pre. vented the latter, though strongly patronized by Lord Chancellor Talbot, from being an English Bishop, on account of fome unguarded expressions he had used relating to Abraham's offering of his fon Ifaac. WARTON. VER. 71. Secker is decent, &c.] Notwithstanding the candid and acute remarks of Warburton, this praise of Secker is undoubtedly parsimonious, and the poet almost incurs the cenfure, which he passed on Addison, Damns with faint praise. His notion of decent is proved with tolerable precision from his Moral Essays, ii. 163. where, after saying that Chloe, the subject of his fatire, wanted, what Rundel had, a heart, he subjoins: Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, He means, therefore, to allow Secker moderate, but not leading, excellencies of character; to exhibit him as free from informal improprieties, rather than a great proficient in fublimer virtue. Nor were the political principles of Secker likely to permit a very warm encomium from the prejudiced feelings of our poet. Concerning Rundel the reader may find more in Pope's and Swift's Letters, and in Whiston's Memoirs of himself. Swift's poem on the Bishop is excellent. WAKEFIELD Rundel's letters were published by Dallaway. Manners with Candour are to Benson giv'n, But does the Court a worthy man remove? NOTES. 75 I shun VER. 73. Berkley, &c.] Dr. Berkley was, I believe, a good Man, a good Christian, a good Citizen, and all, in an eminent degree. He was besides very learned; and of a fine and lively imagination; which he unhappily abused by advancing, and, as far as I can learn, throughout his whole life perfifting in, the most outrageous whimsey that ever entered into the head of any ancient or modern madman; namely, the impoffibility of the real or actual existence of matter; which he supported on principles that take away the boundaries of truth and falsehood; expose reason to all the outrage of unbounded Scepticism; and even, in his own opinion, make mathematical demonstration doubtful. To this man may be eminently applied that oracle of the Stagirite, which says, To follow Reason against the SENSES, is a fure fign of a bad underflanding. But if (though at the expence of his moral character) we should suppose, that all this was only a wanton exercise of wit; how his metaphyfics came to get him the character of a great genius, unless from the daring nature of his attempt, I am at a loss to conceive. His pretended demonftration, on this capital question, being the pooreft, lowest, and most miferable of all fophifms; that is, a fophifm which begs the question, as the late Mr. Baxter has clearly shewn: a few pages of whose reasoning have not only more fense and substance than all the elegant discourses of Dr. Berkley, but infinitely better entitle him to the character of a great Genius. He was truly such: and a time will come, if learning ever revive amongst us, when the present inattention to his admirable Metaphyfies, established on the Physics of Newton, will be deemed as great a dishonour to the Wisdom of this age as the neglect of Milton's Poetry was to the Wit of the past. WARBURTON. VER. 74. But does the Court, &c.] Surely fuch a contumacious and incidental benevolence is not very honourable to any man. His expreffions are unguarded and incorrect. WAKEFIELD. I shun his Zenith, court his mild Decline; Oft, in the clear, still Mirrour of Retreat, I study'd SHREWSBURY, the wife and great : CARLETON'S calm Sense, and STANHOPE'S noble Flame, 80 Compar'd, and knew their gen'rous End the same : How NOTES. VER. 77. SOMMERS] John Lord Sommers died in 1716. He had been Lord Keeper in the reign of William III. who took from him the feals in 1700. The Author had the honour of knowing him in 1706. A faithful, able, and incorrupt Minister; who, to qualities of a confummate statesman, added those of a man of Learning and Politeness. POPE. "One of those divine men," says Lord Orford finely, "who, like a chapel in a palace, remains unprofaned, while all the rest is tyranny, corruption, and folly. All the traditional accounts of him, the historians of the last age, and its best authors, reprefent him, as the most incorrupt lawyer, and the honestest statesman; as a master orator, a genius of the finest taste, and as a patriot of the noblest and most extenfive views; as a man, who dispensed bleffings by his life, and planned them for pofterity. He was at once the model of Addison, and the touchstone of Swift: The one wrote from him, the other for him." WARTON. VER. 77. HALLIFAX,] A Peer, no less distinguished by his love of Letters than his abilities in Parliament. He was difgraced in 1710, on the change of Q. Anne's ministry POPE. VER. 79. SHREWSBURY, Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewfbury, had been Secretary of State, Embassador in France, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Chamberlain, and Lord Treasurer. He several times quitted his employments, and was often recalled. He died in 1718. POPE. VER. 80. CARLETON] Hen. Boyle, Lord Carleton, (nephew of the famous Robert Boyle,) who was Secretary of State under William III. and Prefident of the Council under Q. Anne. POPE, VER. 80. STANHOPE] James Earl Stanhope. A Nobleman of equal courage, spirit, and learning. General in Spain, and Secretary of State. POPE. |