4

for the most part spared their Names, and they may escape being laughed at, if they please.

I would have some of them know, it was owing to the request of the learned and candid Friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of theirs, as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage, and honour, on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a nameless Character can never be found out, but by its truth and likeness.

Lady Wortley Montague begins her Address to Mr. Pope, on his Imitation of the 1st Satire of the Second Book of Horace, in these words:

"In two large columns, on thy motley page,
Where Roman wit is strip'd with English rage;
Where ribaldry to satire makes pretence,
And modern scandal rolls with ancient sense:
Whilst on one side we see how Horace thought,
And on the other how he never wrote:
Who can believe, who view the bad and good,
That the dull copyist better understood
That spirit he pretends to imitate,

Than heretofore the Greek he did translate?
Thine is just such an image of his pen
As thou thyself art of the sons of men ;
Where our own species in burlesque we trace,
A sign-post likeness of the noble race,
That is at once resemblance and disgrace.
Horace can laugh, is delicate, is clear;
You only coarsely rail, or darkly sneer:
His style is elegant, his diction pure,
Whilst none thy crabbed numbers can endure,
Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure.

5

If he has thorns, they all on roses grow;
Thine like rude thistles and mean brambles show,
With this exception, that though rank the soil,
Weeds, as they are, they seem produc'd by toil.
Satire should, like a polish'd razor keen,
Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.
Thine is an oyster-knife, that hacks and hews,
The rage, but not the talent of abuse;

And is in hate what love is in the stews;
"Tis the gross lust of hate, that still annoys
Without distinction, as gross love enjoys:
Neither to folly, nor to vice confin'd;
The object of thy spleen is human-kind :
It preys on all, who yield or who resist ;
To thee 'tis provocation to exist.

But if thou see'st a great and gen'rous heart,
Thy bow is doubly bent to force a dart.
Nor only justice vainly we demand,
But even benefits can't rein thy hand:
To this or that alike in vain we trust,
Nor find thee less ungrateful than unjust."

EPISTLE

ΤΟ

DR. ARBUTHNOT,

BEING THE

PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

P. SHUT, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd I said, Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.

NOTES.

Ver. 1. Shut, shut the door, good John!] John Searl, his old and faithful servant; whom he has remembered, under that character, in his Will: of whose fidelity Dodsley, from his own observation, used to mention many pleasing instances. His wife was living at Eccleshall, 1783, ninety years old, and knew many anecdotes of Pope.

Ver. 1. Shut, shut the door,] This abrupt exordium is animated and dramatic. Our Poet, wearied with the impertinence and slander of a multitude of mean scribblers that attacked him, suddenly breaks out with this spirited complaint of the ill-usage he had sustained. This piece was published in the year 1734, in the form of an Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot: it is now given as a Dialogue, in which a very small share is indeed allotted to his friend. Arbuthnot was a man of consummate probity, integrity, and sweetness of temper: he had infinitely more learning than Pope or Swift, and as much wit and humour as either of them. He was an excellent mathematician and physician, of which his letter on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning, and his Treatise on Air and Aliment, are sufficient proofs. His tables of ancient coins, weights, and measures, are the work of a man intimately acquainted with ancient history and literature, and are enlivened

The Dog-star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:

NOTES.

with many curious and interesting particulars of the manners and ways of living of the ancients. The History of John Bull, the best parts of the Memoirs of Scriblerus, the Art of Political Lying, the Freeholder's Catechism, It cannot rain but it pours, &c. abound in strokes of the most exquisite humour. It is known that he gave numberless hints to Swift, and Pope, and Gay, of some of the most striking parts of their works. He was so neglectful of his writings that his children tore his manuscripts and made paper-kites of them. Few letters in the English language are so interesting, and contain such marks of Christian resignation and calmness of mind, as one that he wrote to Swift a little before his death, and is inserted in the third volume of Letters, p. 157. He frequently, and ably, and warmly, in many conversations, defended the cause of revelation against the attacks of Bolingbroke and Chesterfield.

The strokes of satire, in many parts of this Epistle, have such an extraordinary energy and poignancy, that our Author's want of temper has been much censured; and I know not whether it will be a sufficient justification to say, that these malevolent scribblers, however impotent and insignificant, attacked his person, morals, and family. If Boileau ridicules and rallies vile writers with more seeming pleasantry and good-humour, we ought to recollect that Boileau was the aggressor, and had received no previous abuse, when he fell upon Cotin, De Pure, Quinalt, St. Amand, Colletet, Chapelain, and Theophyle. It was on this account that the Duke de Montausieur, a man of rigid virtue, so much condemned Boileau, that it was with great difficulty he was brought to read his Works, and be reconciled to him. The authors that Pope proscribed were in truth so mean and contemptible, that Swift said, "Give me a shilling and I will ensure you that posterity shall never know you had a single enemy, excepting those whose memory you have preserved."

"Laissez mourir un fat dans son obscurité,
Un auteur ne peut-il pourrir en seureté ?
Le Jonas inconnu seche dans la poussiere,
Le David imprimé n'a point veu la lumiere,
Le Moise commence à moisir par les bords.

Quel mal cela fait-il? Ceux qui sont morts sont morts.