The first firm P -- y foon refign'd his breath, d Brave Sw lov'd thee, and was ly'd to death. Good M - mt's fate tore 'P -- th from thy fide, And thy laft figh was heard when & W m died. 80 g Thy NOTES. VER. 80. W-m died.] Sir William Wyndham died this year; his death was a fevere blow to the Party, and none felt it perhaps more than Bolingbroke, whose friendship for him appears to have been ardent and fincere. The following extract of a letter from Bolingbroke, to Sir Charles Wyndham on this occafion will be read with intereft, as it particularly fhews the sentiments of the Party at this time: "DEAR SIR, Lord BOLINGBROKE to Sir CHARLES WYNDHAM. Argeville, August 8th, 1740. "I feel as I ought to do, the kindness you shew me in sending a fervant on purpose, with a letter that gives me as much comfort as I am capable of receiving, fince the lofs we have fuftained by the death of your Father and my Friend. You are in the right, and I love you the better for the sentiment: it is reputation to be defcended from fo great and so good a man; and furely it is some to have lived thirty years with him in the warmest and most active friendship. Far from any need of making excuses, that you did not write the cruel news to me when you sent to my Lady Denbigh, I have thanks to return you for fparing me, as you spared yourself. The news came to me with less furprize, but not with lefs effect. My unhappiness, for fuch it will be as long as I am able to feel pleasure and pain, began however a little later. It is a plain truth, free from all affectation or compliment, that as your Father was dearer to me than all the reft of the world, fo must every thing be that remains of him : you, Sir, especially, who are as dear to my heart as you could be, if, being the fame worthy man you are, you was my own fon. The refolutions you have taken both as to public and private life, are fuch as become the fon d Earl of Scarborough. name with a w. Ep. to the Sat. Dial. 2. 1. 65. e Marchmont. * Wyndham. In another place Pope spells his f Polwarth, fon to Lord Marchmont, BB4 Thy Nobles Sl-s, thy' Ses bought with gold, Thy Clergy perjur'd, thy whole People fold. Alas! on one alone our all relies, ftill a h Nor like his .. And free at once the Senate and the Throne; Efteem the public love his best supply, ... · ... Rich with his NOTES. Slaves. * Adminiftration. 85 i Senates. fon and fucceffor of Sir William Wyndham. To be a friend to your country, is to be what he was eminently; it is to be what he would have recommended you to be, even with his dying breath, if the nature of his diftemper had permitted fuch an effort. He thought this country on the brink of ruin, and that monarchical but free conftitution of government, wherein the glory and the happiness of our nation confifted, at the point of being diffolved, and facrificed to the fupport of a weak and wicked administration ; but he thought that the greater the distress was, the more incumbent and the more prefling the duty of ftruggling to prevent, or to alleviate, it became. One of the last things he said to me the day before he left this place was, that he did not expect to live to fee Britain restored to a flourishing and fecure ftate, but that he would die in labouring to procure that happiness to those he fhould leave behind him." M. S. from the Egremont Papers; communicated by Mr. Coxe. Whatever Whatever his religion or his blood, His public virtue makes his title good. 95 NOTES. VER. 65. Whatever his religion] He probably means Frederick Prince of Wales, who took a decided part with the malecontents againft Sir R. Walpole's adminiftration. This was written the year before the general election, which decided the fate of Walpole. It is fingular that Pope, in this Satire, turns his weapons against his own party, and attacks many of those whom he had lately panegyrised with the moft extravagant praise, particularly Pulteney and Chesterfield, of whom he said in 1738: "How can I, Pulteney, Chesterfield forget, While Roman fpirit charms and Attic wit." |