What's Fame, a fancied life in others' breath, A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death. Just what you hear, you have, and what's unknown The same (my Lord) if Tully's, or your own. All that we feel of it begins and ends In the small circle of our foes or friends; To all beside as much an empty shade A Eugene living, as a Cæsar dead: 240 Alike or when, or where, they shone, or shine, 245 Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine. A Wit's a feather, and a Chief a rod : An honest Man's the noblest work of God. NOTES. posing and ridiculing the common fabulous poetic accounts of these inferior and subordinate gods, which accounts were held sacred by the people. It was hence he was accused of impiety. Ver. 237. What's Fame,] It is the fate of many philosophical reflections, that, in the same proportion with which they diminish. and destroy vicious passions and pursuits, they also diminish and destroy such as are virtuous and reasonable, and by degrees render the mind callous, indifferent, and inactive: just as when Fontenelle says, that the true system of astronomy ought to extinguish ambition; "for what a poor thing is the conquest of the whole globe in comparison of the infinite extent of Nature?" Such a reflection would extinguish patriotism as well as ambition. Perhaps our author, in these fine lines, has carried the matter too far, as Mr. Wollaston has certainly done: "The man is not known ever the more to posterity, because his name is transmitted to them. He doth not live because his name does. Since Pompey is as little known as Cæsar, all that is said of their conquests amounts to this, Somebody conquered somebody." The reader may be highly gratified if he will peruse a very fine speech on this subject, in a poem too much neglected, the Paradise Regained of Milton, book iii. v. 45. Is exposing and depreciating the passion for fame consistent with the doctrine before advanced, that "Not a vanity is giv'n in vain?" Ver. 248. An honest Man's] Plato says, Пávrov iepáratóv ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος ὁ ἀγαθός. Fame but from death a villain's name can save, 250 Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart: In Parts superior what advantage lies? 260 NOTES. Ver. 257. Marcellus exil'd] "Brutus," said he, "perished untimely, and Cæsar did no more.-'Twas thus, as I remember, not long since, you were expressing yourself: and yet suppose their fortunes to have been exactly parallel, which would you have preferred? Would you have been Cæsar or Brutus ?" "Brutus," replied I, "beyond all controversy." He asked me, "Why? where was the difference, when their fortunes, as we now supposed them, were considered as the same ?" "There seems," said I, "abstract from their fortunes, something, I know not what, intrinsically preferable in the life and character of Brutus." "If that," said he, "be true, then must we derive it, not from the success of his endeavours, but from their truth and rectitude. He had the comfort to be conscious that his cause was a just one. 'Twas impossible the other should have any such feeling." "I believe," said I," you have explained it." Harris's Discourse on Happiness, v. 1. Cicero's fine oration to Cæsar on behalf of Marcellus, is sufficiently known. Middleton has given an elegant account of his enmity to Cæsar, and of his being stabbed by Magius, and his funeral rites at Athens, vol. ii. 286. By Marcellus, Pope was said to mean the Duke of Ormond. Ver. 259. In Parts superior] To a person that was praising Dr. Balguy's admirable Discourses on the Vanity and Vexation of our Pursuits after Knowledge, he replied, "I borrowed the whole "Tis but to know how little can be known! Above life's weakness, and its comforts too. 266 Bring then these blessings to a strict account: Make fair deductions; see to what they mount; 270 How much of other each is sure to cost; How each for other oft is wholly lost; How inconsistent greater goods with these; How sometimes life is risk'd, and always ease: Think, and if still the things thy envy call, 275 Say, would'st thou be the Man to whom they fall? NOTES. from ten lines of the Essay on Man, at ver. 259; and I only enlarged and commented upon what the Poet had expressed with such marvellous conciseness, penetration, and precision." He particularly admired verse 266. "Men value themselves," says Fontenelle, "for having wit, and genius, and talents, more than for the gifts of fortune, riches, and birth, as not depending on hazard. But how unjust and ill-grounded is this! Does not genius consist in a certain conformation of the brain? and is the hazard less to be born with a brain so well disposed, than to be born the son of a king? There is therefore no more personal merit to be born witty than to be born rich. Let this mortify our pride." Ver. 266. All fear, none aid you,] "A persecuted man of genius," says a certain celebrated wit, "is like a flying-fish; if he rises above the surface of the water, the birds seize and devour him; if he plunges down, the fishes eat him." Ver. 277. To sigh for ribands] Why laugh at a modern peer Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life? NOTES. 280 for his solicitude to obtain two or three yards of riband, green or blue, more than at an ancient champion for his laborious efforts to gain a chaplet of parsley, or crown of oak-leaves? Ver. 279. Is yellow dirt] A depreciating idle term, like the concisum argentum in titulos of Juvenal. Ver. 281. how Bacon] Can we believe the mortifying account of this great philosopher's vices, given by Sir S. Dewes in Hearne's Richard II.? Ver. 281, 283. If Parts allure thee, Or ravish'd with the whistling of a Name,] These two instances are chosen with great judgment. The world, perhaps, doth not afford two such other. BACON discovered and laid down those true principles of science, by whose assistance Newton was enabled to unfold the whole law of Nature. He was no less eminent for the creative power of his imagination, the brightness of his conceptions, and the force of his expression: yet being convicted on his own confession for bribery and corruption in the administration of justice, while he presided in the supreme Court of Equity, he endeavoured to repair his ruined fortunes by the most profligate flattery to the Court; which, indeed, from his very first entrance into it, he had accustomed himself to practise with a prostitution that disgraceth the very profession of letters, or of science. CROMWELL Seemeth to be distinguished in the most eminent manner, with regard to his abilities, from all other great and wicked men, who have overturned the liberties of their Country. The times in which others have succeeded in this attempt, were such as saw the spirit of Liberty suppressed and stifled by a general luxury and venality: but Cromwell subdued his country, when this spirit was in its height, by a successful struggle against court-oppression; and while it was conducted and supported by a set of the greatest Geniuses for Government the world ever saw embarked together in one common cause. W. If all united, thy ambition call, 285 From ancient story learn to scorn them all. In hearts of Kings, or arms of Queens who lay, NOTES. 290 Ver. 283. Or ravish'd with the whistling of a Name,] And even this fantastic glory sometimes suffers a terrible reverse.—Sacheverel, in his Voyage to Icolumb-kill, describing the Church there, tells us, that "in one corner is a peculiar enclosure, in which were the monuments of the kings of many different nations, as Scotland, Ireland, Norway, and the Isle of Man. THIS (said the person who shewed me the place, pointing to a plain stone) was the monument of the GREAT TEAGUE, king of Ireland. I had never heard of him, and could not but reflect of how little value is Greatness, that has barely left a name scandalous to a nation, and a grave which the meanest of mankind would never envy." W. From Cowley in his imitation of Virgil; "Charm'd with the foolish whistlings of a name." He frequently borrows expressions from Cowley; as did Gray. Ver. 285. thy ambition call,] Candide meets at supper, in an inn at Venice, six dethroned and unfortunate kings. Their number, of late, might be augmented. Ver. 292. From dirt and sea-weed] There is something striking in the origin of this extraordinary state: "No one can reproach the Venetians with having acquired their liberty by revolt," says Voltaire; "no one could say, I have enfranchised you; here is the charter of your manumission. They did not usurp the territory as the Cæsars usurped the empire; as so many bishops, to begin with him of Rome, have usurped the regal sceptre. They are lords of Venice (if one may use such a presumptuous comparison), as the Supreme Being is Lord of the earth, because they founded it. Attila, who never took the title of the Scourge of God, carried his ravages over Italy. He had undoubtedly as much right as Charlemagne, Ar |