So when the sun's broad beam has tired the sight, Oh! blessed with temper, whose unclouded ray 255 260. dryness of the season requires it; and here we frequently see four or five lines of noblemen's and gentlemen's coaches rolling gently round the Ring, in all their gayest equipage, some moving this way, others that, which makes a very splendid show. Here they have an opportunity of being personally known to each other, of inquiring after each other's health, and of forming an opinion of what is most decent in life; at the same time, they have an opportunity of taking the air, and of improving their healths."-History of the Present State of the British Islands, (1730) vol. ii. p. 339. There are not perhaps in the whole compass of the English language four lines more exquisitely finished; not a syllable can be altered for the better; every word seems to be the only proper one that could have been used. So pure and pellucid is the style. Ut pura nocturno renidet, "virgin_modesty," which is pleo nastic. With this exception the lines in this context are an improvement on the original. Erinna, to whom the compliment was first addressed, was Judith Cowper. 2 Pope says in a letter to Martha Blount : ""Tis true you are not handsome, for you are a woman, and think you are not; but this good humour and tenderness for me has a charm that cannot be resisted." Compare also Epistle to Miss Blount, with the works of Voiture, ver. 61. 3 In the first edition : That pleased can see a younger charm, or Sighs for a sister with unwounded ear, The picture of an estimable woman with the best kind of contrarieties, created out of the poet's imagination; who therefore feigned those circumstances of a husband, a daughter, and love for a sister, to prevent her being mistaken for any of his acquaintance.-WARBURTON. But it is hard to see why he should have altered "virgin majesty," which was the reading of the verse as it stood in the Lines to Erinua, to p. 11. See Introduction to this Volume, VOL. III.-POETRY. I Let fops or fortune fly which way they will,' And yet, believe me, good as well as ill, 1 This and the three following lines show false taste, as they are out of harmony with the serious and touching sentiment in the rest of the passage. It would have been well to wind up the earnest address with the light humour of the last line, but the introduction of so much elaborate triviality makes the general effect rather discordant. 2 So in the Rape of the Lock : Just in the jaws of ruin and codille. Codille was a term in the game of quadrille, which was played by four persons, each playing as he thought proper, but at the same time in partnership with another during each deal. One party was said to stand the game, the other to defend the pool. Ombre, or the leading player, who was said to stand the game, called for a king, and the person who held it became his partner during the deal. Codille was when those who defended the pool made more tricks than those who stood the game, and this was called winning the codille. It is mentioned with a humorous reference to politics in the Ballad of 265 270 275 Quadrille, in the Miscellany of 1727. Sure cards he has for every thing, Which well Court-cards they name, 3 It appears from a letter of Pope to Teresa Blount, that Martha had had the small-pox. He says: "Whatever ravages a merciless distemper may commit, I dare promise her boldly what few (if any) of her makers of visits and compliments dare do: She shall have one man as much her admirer as ever." 4 From La Bruyère, De l'Homme : "Pendant que l'homme, qui est en effet sort de son sens, crie, se désespère, étincelle des yeux, et perd la respiration pour un chien perdu, ou pour une porcelaine qui est en pièces." 5 There is true elegance in thus carrying her back to the opening of the Epistle, and turning the quality, which he had indicated as the general defect of the sex, into a particular compliment to herself. Fixed principles, with fancy ever new; Be this a woman's fame; with this unblest, Kept dross for duchesses, the world shall know it, So Swift, in the Miscellanies on Mrs. Biddy Floyd, after enumerating the qualities of a true woman: Jove mixed up all and his best clay employed, Then called the happy composition-Floyd. Horace Walpole writes not long after Pope's death: "I was standing at my window after dinner in summer, in Arlington Street, and saw Patty Blount, with nothing remaining of her immortal charms but her blue 280 285 290 eyes, trudging on foot with her petticoats pinned up, for it rained, to visit 'blameless Bethel' who was sick at the end of the street." 3 So Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, v. 553: As those who unripe veins in mines explore, On the rich bed again the warm turf lay, Till time digests the yet imperfect ore, And know it will be gold another day. Compare Moral E say, iii. 12. EPISTLE III1 ΤΟ ALLEN, LORD BATHURST.2 1 This Epistle was written after a violent outcry against our author on a supposition that he had ridiculed a worthy nobleman merely for his wrong taste. He justified himself upon that article in a letter to the Earl of Burlington, at the end of which are these words: I have learnt that there are some who would rather be wicked than ridiculous; and therefore it may be safer to attack vices than follies. I will, therefore, leave my betters in the quiet possession of their idols, their groves, and their high places; and change my subject from their pride to their meanness, from their vanities to their miseries; and, as the only certain way to avoid misconstruction, to lessen offence, and not to multiply ill-natured applications, I may probably, in my next, make use of real names instead of feigned ones.-POPE. The "outery" referred to was of course that raised on the occasion of the publica tion of the Epistle on False Taste (now Epistle IV.), containing the character of Timon. 2 Allen Apsley, Lord Bathurst, born in 1684, represented Cirencester in Parliament, and was one of the Tory peers created in 1711. He steadily supported his party against Walpole, and was one of Atterbury's most active defenders in the House of Lords. He was for some time Treasurer to the Prince of Wales, but when George III. came to the throne, he retired with a pension of £2000. He died in 1775. A few years before his death he made the acquaintance of Sterne, who says of him in a Letter to Eliza (cxxxiii.): "This nobleman I say is a prodigy; for at eighty-five he has all the wit and prompt ness of a man of thirty. A disposition to be pleased and the power to please others beyond whatever I knew: added to which, a man of learning, courtesy, and feeling." |