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Roast beef, though old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, although a bard, devout.
May Tom, whom Heaven sent down to raise
The price of prologues and of plays,
Be every birth-day more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner;
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a rascal and a coach.

TO LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGUE'.

IN beauty or wit,

No mortal as yet

To question your empire has dar'd;

But men of discerning

Have thought that in learning,

To yield to a lady was hard,
Impertinent schools,
With musty dull rules,

Have reading to females deny'd:
So papists refuse

The Bible to use,

Lest flocks should be wise as their guide,

'Twas a woman at first,
(Indeed she was curst)

In knowledge that tasted delight,
And sages agree

The laws should decree

To the first of possessors the right.
Then bravely, fair dame,
Resume the old claim,

Which to your whole sex does belong;
And let men receive,

From a second bright Eve,

The knowledge of right, and of wrong,
But if the first Eve

Hard doom did receive,

When only one apple had she,

What a punishment new "Shall he found out for you, Who tasting, have robb'd the whole tree?

THE FOURTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE'S EPISTLES,

A MODERN IMITATION,

SAY 3, St. John, who alone peruse
With candid eye, the mimic Muse,

This panegyric on lady Mary Wortley Montague might have been suppressed by Mr. Pope, on account of her having satirized him in her verses to the Imitator of Horace; which abuse he returned in the first Satire of the second book of Horace. From furious Sappho, scarce a milder fate, P-'d by her love, or libel'd by her hate. S.

2 This satire on Lord Bolingbroke, and the praise bestowed on him in a letter to Mr. Richardson, where Mr. Pope says,

The sons shall blush their fathers were his foes; being so contradictory, probably occasioned the former to be suppressed. S.

Ad ALBIUM TIBULLUM.

Albi, nostrorum sermonum candide judex, Quid nunc te dicam facere in regione Pedana? Scribere, quod Cassi Parmensis opuscula vincat?'

What schemes of politics, or laws,
In Gallic lands the patriot draws!
Is then a greater work in hand,
Than all the tomes of Haines's band?
"Or shoots he folly as it flics?
"Or catches manners as they rise?" 4
Or, urg'd by unquench'd native heat,
Does St. John Greenwich sports repeat?
Where (emulous of Chartres' fame)
Ev'n Chartres' self is scarce a name.

To you (th' all-envy'd gift of Heaven)
Th' indulgent gods, unask'd, have given
A form complete in every part,
And, to enjoy that gift, the art.

7 What could a tender mother's care
Wish better to her favourite heir,
Than wit, and fame, and lucky hours,
A stock of health, and golden showers,
And graceful fluency of speech,
Precepts before unknown to teach?

Amidst thy various cbbs of fear,
And gleaming hope, and black despair;
Yet let thy friend this truth impart;
A truth I tell with bleeding heart,
(In justice for your labours past)
That every day shall be your last;
That every hour you life renew
Is to your injur'd'country due.

9

In spite of fears, of mercy spite, My genius still must rail, and write, Haste to thy Twickenham's safe retreat, And mingle with the grumbling great: There, half devour'd by spleen, you'll find The rhyming bubbler of mankind; There (objects of our mutual hate) We'll ridicule both church and state.

EPIGRAM ON MRS. TOFTS.

A HANDSOME WOMAN WITH A FINE VOICE, BUT VERY COVETOUS AND PROUD. 10

So bright is thy beauty, so charming thy song, As had drawn both the beasts and their Orpheus along;

But such is thy avarice, and such is thy pride, That the beasts must have starv'd, and the poet have died.

4 The lines here quoted occur in the Essay on Man.

6

'An tacitam silvas inter reptare salubres ? Di tibi formam Di tibi divitias dederant, artemque fruendi. "Quid voveat dulci nutricula majus alumno, Quam sapere, et fari posset quæ sentiat, et cui Gratia, fama, valetudo contingat abunde, - non deficiente crumena?

* Inter spem, curamque, timores inter et iras, Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum. Me pinguem, et nitidum bene curata cute vises, Cum ridere voles Epicuri de grege porcum.

10 This epigram, first printed anonymously in Steele's Collection, and copied in the Miscellanies of Swift and Pope, is ascribed to Pope by sir John Hawkins, in his History of Music.-Mrs. Tofts, who was the daughter of a person in the family of bishop Burnet, is celebrated as a singer little in

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Why make I friendships with the great,

When I no favour seek?

Or follow girls seven hours in eight ?-
I need but once a week.

Still idle, with a busy air,

Deep whimsies to contrive;
The gayest valetudinaire,
Most thinking rake alive.
Solicitous for others ends,
Though fond of dear repose;
Careless or drowsy with my friends,
And frolic with my foes.
Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell,
For sober, studious days!
And Burlington's delicious meal,
For sallads, tarts, and pease !

Adieu to all but Gay alone,

Whose soul sincere and free,
Loves all mankind, but flatters none,
And so may starve with me.

A FAREWELL TO LONDON,

IN THE YEAR 1715.

DEAR, damn'd, distracting town, farewell!
Thy fools no more I'll teaze:
This year in peace, ye critics, dwell,

Ye harlots, sleep at ease!

Soft B and rough C—, adieu!

Earl Warwick make your moan,

The lively H-k and you

May knock up whores alone.

To drink and droll be Rowe allow'd
Till the third watchman toll;
Let Jervis gratis paint, and Frowde
Save three-pence and his soul.
Farewell Arbuthnot's raillery

On every learned sot,

And Garth, the best good Christian he,
Although he knows it not.

Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go;
Farewell, unhappy Tonson!

Heaven gives thee, for thy loss of Rowe,
Lean Philips, and fat Johnson.

Why should I stay? Both parties rage;
My vixen mistress squalls;

The wits in envious feuds engage;
And Homer (damn him!) calls.
The love of arts lies cold and dead
In Halifax's urn;

And not one Muse of all he fed,

Has yet the grace to mourn.

My friends, by turns, my friends confound, Betray, and are betray'd:

Poor Y-r's sold for fifty pound,

And B1 is a jade.

ferior, either for her voice or manner, to the best Italian women. She lived at the introduction of the opera into this kingdom, and sung in company with Nicolini; but, being ignorant of Italian, chanted her recitative in English, in answer to his Italian; yet the charms of their voices vercame the absurdity.

1 It is not generally known that the person here meant was Dr. Robert Freind, head master of Westminster-school.

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A FRAGMENT.

WHAT are the falling rills, the pendant shades,

The morning bowers, the evening colonades,
But soft recesses for th' uneasy mind
To sigh unheard in, to the passing wind!
So the struck deer, in some sequester'd part,
Lies down to die (the arrow in his heart);
There hid in shades, and wasting day by day,
Inly he bleeds, and pants his soul away.

VERSES LEFT BY MR. POPE,

Blest courtier! who could king and country please
Yet sacred keep his friendships, and his ease.
Blest peer! his great forefathers' every grace
Reflecting, and reflected in his race;
Where other Buckhursts, other Dorsets shine,
And patrons still, or pocts, deck the line.

ON SIR WILLIAM TRUMBAL,

ONE OF THE PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE TO KING WILLIAM III. WHO, HAVING RESIGNED HIS PLACE, DIED IN HIS RETIREMENT AT EASTHAMSTED IN BERKSHIRE, 1716.

A PLEASING form; a firm, yet cautious mind;

●N HIS LYING IN THE SAME BED WHICH WILMOT THE Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resign'd;

AT

CELEBRATED EARL OF ROCHESTER SLEPT IN, ADDERBURY, THEN BELONGING TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLE, JULY 9th, 1739.

WITH no poetic ardour fir'd

I press'd the bed where Wilmot lay;
That here he lov'd, or here expir'd,
Begets no numbers grave, or gay.
But in thy roof, Argyle, are bred

Such thoughts as prompt the brave to lie
Stretch'd out in Honour's nobler bed,
Beneath a nobler roof-the sky.
Such flames as high in patriots burn,
Yet stoop to bless a child or wife;
And such as wicked kings may mourn,
When freedom is more dear than life.

VERSES TO MR. C.

ST. JAMES'S PLACE.
LONDON, OCTOBER 22.

Few words are best; I wish you well;

Bethel, I'm told, will soon be here: Some morning-walks along the Mall,

And evening friends, will end the year. If, in this interval, between

The falling leaf and coming frost, You please to see, on Twit'nam green,

Your friend, your poet, and your host; For three whole days you here may rest,

From office, business, news, and strife; And (what most folks would think a jest)

Want nothing else, except your wife.

EPITAPHS,

His saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani Munere! Virg.

ON CHARLES EARL OF DORSET,

IN THE CHURCH OF WITHYAM IN SUSSEX,

DORSET, the grace of courts, the Muses' pride,
Patron of Arts, and judge of Nature, dy'd.
The scourge of pride, though sanctified or great,
Of fops in learning, and of knaves in state:
Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay,
His anger moral, and his wisdoın gay.
Blest satyrist! who touch'd the mean so true,
As show'd, Vice had his hate and pity too.

Honour unchang'd, a principle profest,
Fix'd to one side, but moderate to the rest:
An honest courtier, yet a patriot too :
Just to his prince, and to his country true:
Fill'd with the sense of age, the fire of youth,
A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth;
A generous faith, from superstition free:
A love to peace, and hate of tyranny;
Such this man was: who now from Earth remov'd
At length enjoys that liberty he lov'd.

ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT,

ONLY SON OF THE LORD CHANCELLOR HARCOURT, AT THE CHURCH OF STANTON-HARCOURT IN OXFORDSHIRE, 1720.

To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art! draw near,
Here lies the friend most lov'd, the son most dear;
Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he dy'd.

How vain is reason, eloquence how weak!
If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak.
Oh let thy once-lov'd friend inscribe thy stone,
And with a father's sorrows mix his own.

ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ.

IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY.

JACOBUS CRAGGS,

REGI MAGNE BRITANNIE A SECRETIS

ET CONSILIIS SANCTIORIBUS,

PRINCIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMOR ET DELICIE
VIXIT TITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR
ANNOS, HEU PAUCOS, XXXV.

OB. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX.

Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear!
Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend.
Ennobled by himself, by all approv'd,
Prais'd, wept, and honour'd, by the Muse he lov'd

INTENDED FOR MR. ROWE.

IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY.

THY reliques, Rowe, to this fair urn we trust, And sacred, place by Dryden's awful dust:

VARIATION.

It is as follows on the monument in the Abbey, erected to Rowe and his daughter,

Thy reliques, Rowe! to this sad shrine we trust, And near thy Shakspeare place thy honour'd bust,

Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies,
To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes.
Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest!
Blest in thy genius, in thy love too blest! -
One grateful woman to thy fame supplies
What a whole thankless land to his denies.

ON MRS. CORBET,

WHO DIED OF A CANCER IN HER BREAST.

HERE rests a woman, good without pretence, Blest with plain reason, and with sober sense : : No conquests she, but o'er herself, desir'd, No arts essay'd, but not to be admir'd. Fassion and pride were to her soul unknown, Convine'd that virtue only is our own. So unaffected, so compos'd a mind; So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refin'd; Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures try'd; The saint sustain'd it, but the woman dy'd.

ON THE MONUMENT OF THE HONOURABLE

ROBERT DIGBY, AND OF HIS SISTER MARY, ERECTED BY THEIR FATHER THE LORD DIGBY,

IN THE CHURCH OF SHERBORNE, IN DORSETSHIRE, 1727.

Go! fair example of untainted youth,
Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth;
Compos'd in sufferings, and in joy sedate,
Good without noise, without pretension great.
Just of thy word, in every thought sincere,

Who knew no wish but what the world might hear:
Of softest manners, unaffected mind,
Lover of peace, and friend of human kind:
Go, live! for Heaven's eternal year is thine,
Go, and exalt thy moral to divine.

And thou, blest maid! attendant on his doom,
Pensive hast follow'd to the silent tomb,
Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore,
Not parted long, and now to part no more!
Go then, where only bliss sincere is known!
Go, where to love and to enjoy are one!

Yet take these tears, mortality's relief,
And till we share your joys, forgive our grief:
These little rites, a stone, a verse receive;
"Tis all a father, all a friend can give!

ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1723. KNELLER, by Heaven, and not a master taught, Whose art was Nature, and whose pictures thought; Now for two ages having snatch'd from Fate Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great,

VARIATION.

Oh, next him, skill'd to draw the tender tear,
For never heart felt passion more sincere!
To nobler sentiment to fire the brave,
For never Briton more disdain'd a slave.
Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest;
Blest in thy genius, in thy love too blest!
And blest, that, timely from our scene remov'd,
Thy soul enjoys the liberty it lov'd.

To these so mourn'd in death, so lov'd in life;
The childless parent and the widow'd wife,
With tears inscribe this monumental stone,
That holds their ashes and expects her own,

Lies crown'd with princes' honours, poets' lays, Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise.

Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie Her works; and, dying, fears herself may die.

ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS,

IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1729.

HERE, Withers, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind,
Thy country's friend, but more of human kind.
Oh born to arms! O worth in youth approv'd!
O soft humanity, in age belov'd!

For thee the hardy veteran drops a tear,
And the gay courtier feels the sigh sincere.
Withers, adieu! yet not with thee remove
Thy martial spirit, or thy social love!
Amidst corruption, luxury, and rage,
Still leave some ancient virtues to our age:
Nor let us say (those English glories gone)
The last true Briton lies beneath this stone.

ON MR. ELIJAH FENTON,

AT EASTHAMSTED, IN BERKS, 1730.
THIS modest stone, what few vain marbles can,
May truly say, "Here lies an honest man:"
A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate,
Whom Heaven kept sacred from the proud and
great:

Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease,
Content with Science in the vale of Peace,
Calmly he look'd on either life, and here
Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear;
From Nature's temperate feast rose satisfy'd,
Thank'd Heaven that he had liv'd, and that he dy'd

ON MR. GAY,

IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1732.

Or manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit, a man; simplicity, a child:
With native humour tempering virtuous rage,
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age:
Above temptation in a low estate,
And uncorrupted, ev'n among the great:
A safe companion, and an easy friend,
Unblam'd through life, lamented in thy end. •
These are thy honours! not that here thy bust
Is mix'd with heroes, or with kings thy dust;
But that the worthy and the good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms-Here lies Gay,

ANOTHER.

WELL then, poor Gay lies under ground,
So there's an end of honest Jack:
So little justice here he found,

"Tis ten to one he 'll ne'er come back.

INTENDED FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON,
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

ISAACUS NEWTONUS:

Quem Immortalem

Testantur Tempus, Natura, Cœlum: Mortalem

Hoc marmor fatetur.

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, “Let Newton be!" and all was light

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ON EDMOND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, WHO DIED IN THE NINETEENTH YEAR OF HIS AGE, 1735.

IF modest youth, with cool reflection crown'd, And every opening virtue blooming round, Could save a parent's justest pride from fate, Or add one patriot to a sinking state; This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear, Or sadly told how many hopes lie here! The living virtue now had shone approv'd, The senate beard him, and his country lov'd. Yet softer honours, aud less noisy fame Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham: In whom a race, for courage fam'd and art, Ends in the milder merit of the heart; And, chiefs or sages long to Britain given, Pays the last tribute of a saint to Heaven.

FOR ONE

WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

HEROES and kings! your distance keep,

In peace let one poor poet sleep,
Who never flatter'd folks like you:

Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.

ANOTHER, ON THE SAME

UNDER this marble, or under this sill, Or under this turf, or e'en what they will; Whatever an heir, or a friend in his stead, Or any good creature shall lay o'er my head, Lics one who ne'er car'd, and still cares not a pin, What they said, or may say, of the mortal within: But who, living and dying, serene still and free, Trusts in God, that as well as he was, he shall be.

LORD CONINGSBY'S EPITAPH'.

HERE lies lord Coningsby-be civil;

The rest God knows-so does the Devil.

ON BUTLER'S MONUMENT.

PERHAPS BY MR. POPE'.

RESPECT to Dryden, Sheffield justly paid, And noble Villers honour'd Cowley's shade: But whence this Barber?-that a name so mean Should, join'd with Butler's, on a tomb be scen: This pyramid would better far proclaim, To future ages humbler Settle's name: Poet and patron then had been well pair'd, The city printer, and the city bard.

THE DUNCLAD:

IN FOUR BOOKS.

WITH THE PROLEGOMENA OF SCRIBIERUS, THE HYPERCRITICS OF ARISTARCHUS,

AND NOTES VARIORUM.

A LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER, OCCASIONED BY THE FIRST CORRECT EDITION OF THE DUNCIAD.

Ir is with pleasure I hear, that you have procured a correct copy of the Dunciad, which the many surreptitious ones have rendered so necessary; and it is yet with more, that I am informed it will be attended with a commentary: a work so requisite, that I cannot think the author himself would have omitted it, had he approved of the first appearance of this poem.

Such notes as have occurred to me I herewith send you: you will oblige me by inserting them amongst those which are, or will be, transmitted to you by others; since not only the author's friends, but even strangers, appear engaged by humanity, to take some care of an orphan of so much genius and spirit, which its parent seems to have abandoned from the very beginning, and suffered to step into the world naked, unguarded, and unattended.

It was upon reading some of the abusive papers lately published, that my great regard to a person, whose friendship I esteem as one of the chief honours of my life, and a much greater respect to truth, than to him or any man living, engaged me in inquiries, of which the inclosed notes are the fruit.

'Mr. Pope, in one of the prints from Scheemaker's monument of Shakspeare in Westminster alderman Barber, by the following couplet, which Abbey, has sufficiently shown his contempt of is substituted in the place of "The cloud-capp'd towers, &c."

Thus Britain lov'd me; and preserv'd my fame,
Clear from a Barber's or a Benson's name.

A. POPE.

Pope might probably have suppressed his satire on the alderman, because he was one of Swift's ac quaintances and correspondents; though in the This epitaph, originally written on Picus Mi-fourth book of the Dunciad he has an anonymous randula, is applied to F. Chartres, and printed among the works of Swift. See Hawkesworth's edition, vol. vi. S.

stroke at him:

So by each bard an alderman shall sit,
A heavy lord shall hang at every wit. S

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