Page images
PDF
EPUB

The first firm P -- y foon refign'd his breath,

d

Brave Sw lov'd thee, and was ly'd to death.

e

Good M - m - t's fate tore 'P -- th from thy fide,

And thy last figh was heard when & W - - m died. 80 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, whofe 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 fentiments of the Party at this time:

Lord BOLINGBROKE to Sir CHARLES WYNDHAM. "DEAR SIR,

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 sustained by the death of your Father and my Friend. You are in the right, and I love you the better for the fentiment: it is reputation to be defcended from fo great and fo 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 fent to my Lady Denbigh, I have thanks to return you for fparing me, as you spared yourself. The news came to me with less surprize, but not with lefs effect. My unhappiness, for such 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, so muft everything 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

Earl of Scarborough. In another place Pope spells his name with a w. Ep. to the Sat. Dial. 2. 1. 65.

e Marchmont.

• Wyndham.

f Polwarth, fon to Lord Marchmont,

BB 4

Thy Nobles " SI-s, thy Se- - s bought with gold, Thy Clergy perjur'd, thy whole People fold.

An atheist a ''''s * ad ...

Blotch thee all o'er, and fink . . .

Alas! on one alone our all relies,

Let him be honest, and he must be wise,

Let him no trifler from his

Nor like his .

school,

ftill a ...

Be but a man! unminister'd, alone,

And free at once the Senate and the Throne ;
Efteem the public love his best supply,
A'O's true glory his integrity;

Rich with his... in his . . . ftrong,

[ocr errors]

Affect no conqueft, but endure no wrong.

85

90

Whatever

NOTES.

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 thofe he fhould leave behind him. M. S. from the Egremont

[ocr errors]

Papers; communicated by Mr. Coxe.

Slaves.

k Administration.

i Senates.

King's.

Whatever his religion or his blood,

His public virtue makes his title good.

Europe's just balance and our own may stand,
And one man's honesty redeem the land.

95

NOTES.

VER. 65. Whatever his religion] He probably means Frederick Prince of Wales, who took a decided part with the malecontents against Sir R. Walpole's administration. 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 panegyrifed 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."

[ocr errors]

THE

PLAN OF AN EPIC POEM,

TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN BLANK VERSE,

AND INTITLED,

BRUTUS.

« PreviousContinue »