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IMITATIONS OF HORACE.

BOOK I., EPISTLE VII.

IMITATED IN THE MANNER OF DR. SWIFT.

'Tis true, my Lord, I gave my word,
I would be with you, June the third;
Changed it to August, and (in short)
Have kept it as you do at Court.
You humour me when I am sick,
Why not when I am splenetic?
In town, what objects could I meet?
The shops shut up in every street,
And funerals blackening all the doors,
And yet more melancholy whores :
And what a dust in every place!
And a thin court that wants your face,
And fevers raging up and down,
And W* and H** both in town!

"The dog-days are no more the case."

"Tis true, but winter comes apace :
Then southward let your bard retire,
Hold out some months 'twixt sun and fire,
And you shall see, the first warm weather,
Me and the butterflies together.

My Lord, your favours well I know;
"Tis with distinction you bestow;
And not to every one that comes,

Just as a Scotchman does his plums.

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"Pray take them, sir,-enough's a feast :
Eat some, and pocket up the rest."-
What, rob your boys? those pretty rogues!
"No, sir, you'll leave them to the hogs."
Thus fools with compliments besiege ye,
Contriving never to oblige ye.'
Scatter your favours on a fop,
Ingratitude's the certain crop;

And 'tis but just, I'll tell ye wherefore,
You give the things you never care for.
A wise man always is, or should
Be mighty ready to do good;

But makes a difference in his thought
Betwixt a guinea and a groat.

Now this I'll say, you'll find in me
A safe companion, and a free;
But if you'd have me always near—
A word, pray, in your honour's ear.
I hope it is your resolution

To give me back my constitution!
The sprightly wit, the lively eye,"
The engaging smile, the gaiety,

That laughed down many a summer-sun,
And kept you up so oft till one:
And all that voluntary vein,

As when Belinda raised my strain.'

1 Compare Prologue to Satires, 208. The pronunciation of "obliged" in the eighteenth century was "obleeged," following the French.

2 Pope's references to his eyesight are contradictory. In the Imitation of Horace, 1st Epistle i., he says that he is far from a lynx," and that he will

Do what Mead and Cheselden advise

To keep these limbs, and to preserve these eyes.

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On the other hand, he represents his flatterers as telling him, "Sir, you have an eye!" and Warburton says in a note to that passage (Prologue to Satires, i. 118) that his "eye was fine, sharp, and piercing." Probably it was so in appearance when Warburton knew him, and in his early days it may have been as sound and strong as the word "lively implies, but in later life he contracted the complaint for which he consulted Cheselden.

3 i.e., when he wrote the Rape of

A weasel once made shift to slink
In at a corn-loft through a chink;
But having amply stuffed his skin,
Could not get out as he got in:
Which one belonging to the house
('Twas not a man, it was a mouse)
Observing, cried, "You 'scape not so,
Lean as you came, sir, you must go."
Sir, you may spare your application,
I'm no such beast, nor his relation;
Nor one that temperance advance,
Crammed to the throat with ortolans:
Extremely ready to resign

All that may make me none of mine.
South-sea subscriptions take who please,
Leave me but liberty and ease.

'Twas what I said to Craggs and Child,'
Who praised my modesty, and smiled.
Give me, I cried (enough for me),
My bread and independency!
So bought an annual rent or two,"
And lived-just as you see I do;
Near fifty, and without a wife,
I trust that sinking-fund, my life.
Can I retrench? Yes, mighty well,
Shrink back to my paternal cell,
A little house, with trees a-row,
And, like its master, very low.

the Lock. Belinda was Arabella
Fermor.

1 Mr. Craggs gave him some South Sea subscriptions. He was so indifferent about them as to neglect making any benefit of them. He used to say it was a satisfaction to him that he did not grow rich, as he might have done, by the public calamity. - WAR

BURTON.

His philosophy was probably as

VOL. III.-POETRY.

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sumed. The frequent references to his investments which occur in his correspondence, show that he was not at all indifferent to such matters.

The "Child" here mentioned is Sir Francis Child, the eminent banker, and Lord Mayor of London in 1732.

2 One of his annuities was on the estate of John of Bucks, son of Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, and Katherine his wife.

D D

There died my father, no man's debtor,
And there I'll die, nor worse nor better.'
To set this matter full before ye,

Our old friend Swift will tell his story.

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Harley, the nation's great support,”-
But you may read it,'-I stop short.

1 His father died in the house in Mawson's Buildings, Chiswick, which the family had rented.

80

2 The rest is imitated by Swift. Pope therefore says, "You may read it in his poems."

IMITATIONS OF HORACE.

BOOK II., SATIRE VI.

THE FIRST PART IMITATED IN THE YEAR 1714, BY DR. SWIFT; THE LATTER PART ADDED AFTERWARDS.

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