Can fleep without a Poem in my head,
Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead.

Why am I afk'd what next shall see the light?
Heav'ns! was I born for nothing but to write?
Has Life no joys for me? or (to be grave)
Have I no friend to ferve, no foul to fave?

270

274

"I found him close with Swift-Indeed? no doubt

"(Cries pratling Balbus) fomething will come out. 'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will.

"No, fuch a Genius never can lie ftill;
And then for mine obligingly mistakes
The firft Lampoon Sir Will. or Bubo makes.
Poor guiltless I! and can I chufe but smile,
When ev'ry Coxcomb knows me by my Style?

VARIATIONS.

After VER. 270. in the MS.

280

Friendships from youth I fought, and feek them still:
Fame, like the wind, may breathe where'er it will.
The world I knew, but made it not my school *,
And in a course of flatt'ry liv'd no fool.

After VER. 282. in the MS.

P. What if I fing Auguftus, great and good?
A. You did fo lately, was it understood?

Be nice no more, but, with a mouth profound,
As rumbling D----s or a Norfolk hound
With GEORGE and FRED'RIC roughen ev'ry verfe,
Then smooth up all, and CAROLINE rehearse.
P. No--the high task to lift up Kings to Gods

Leave to Court-fermons, and to birth-day Odes.

a By not making the World his School he means, he did not form his fyftem of morality, on the principles or practice of men in business.

Curft be the verfe, how well foe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give Virtue fcandal, Innocence a fear,
Or from the foft-ey'd Virgin fteal a tear!
But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace,
Infults fall'n worth, or Beauty in diftrefs,
Who loves a Lye, lame flander helps about,
Who writes a Libel, or who copies out:
That Fop, whofe pride affects a patron's name,
Yet abfent, wounds an author's honest fame :
Who can your merit selfishly approve,

And fhow the fenfe of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend ;

VARIATIONS,

285

290

295

On themes like thefe, fuperior far to thine,
Let laurell'd Cibber, and great Arnal shine.
Why write at all?--A. Yes, filence if you keep,
The Town, the Court, the Wits, the Dunces weep.

VER. 295. Who has the vanity to call you friend, Yet wank the bonour, injur'd, to defend ;] When a great Genius, whose writings have afforded the world much pleasure and inftruction, happens to be enviously attacked, or falfly accused, it is natural to think, that a fenfe of gratitude for fo agreeable an obligation, or a sense of that honour refulting to our Country from fuch a Writer, should raise amongst those who call themselves his friends, a pretty general indignation. But every day's experience fhews us the very contrary. Some take a malignant fatisfaction in the attack; others a foolish pleafure in a literary conflict; and the far greater part look on with a selfish indifference.

300

Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you fay,
And, if he lye not, must at least betray:
Who to the Dean, and filver bell can fwear,
And fees at Cannons what was never there;
Who reads, but with a luft to misapply,
Make Satire a Lampoon, and Fiction Lye.
A lafh like mine no honeft man fhall dread,
But all fuch babbling blockheads in his ftead.
Let Sporus tremble-A. What? that thing of filk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of Afs's milk?
Satire or fenfe, alas! can Sporus feel ?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,

306

This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings; 310
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,

Yet wit ne'er taftes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight

In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptinefs betray,

As fhallow ftreams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,

315

And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet fqueaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar Toad,

Half froth, half venom, fpits himself abroad, 320

VER. 299. Who to the Dean, and filver bell, &c.] Meaning the man who would have persuaded the Duke of Chandos that Mr. P. meant him in those circumstances ridiculed in the Epiftle on Tafte. See Mr. Pope's Letter to the Earl of Burlington concerning this matter.

VEL. 319. See Milton, Book iv.

In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,

Or fpite, or smut, or rhymes, or blafphemies.
His wit all fee-faw, between that and this,

325

Now high, now low, now mafter up, now mifs,
And he himself one vile Antithefis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,
Fop at the toilet, flatt'rer at the board,
Now trips a Lady, and now ftruts a Lord.
Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have 'exprest,
A Cherub's face, a reptile all the reft.

Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the duft.

Not Fortune's worshipper, nor Fashion's fool,
Not Lucre's madman, nor Ambition's tool,
Not proud, nor fervile; Be one Poet's praise,
That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways:
That Flatt'ry, ev'n to Kings, he held a fhame,
And thought a Lye in verfe or profe the fame.
That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stoop'd to Truth, and moraliz'd his fong:

}

330

335

340

VER. 320. Half froth,] Alluding to those frothy excretions, called by the people, Toad-fpits, feen in fummer-time hanging upon plants, and emitted by young infects which lie hid in the midst of them, for their prefervation, while in their helpless state.

VER. 340. That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long.] His merit in this will appear very great, if we confider, that in this walk he had all the advantages which the most poetic Imagination could give to a great Genius. M. Voltaire, in

That not for Fame, but Virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laugh'd at the lofs of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The diftant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never fhed
The tale reviv'd, the lye fo oft o'erthrown,
Th' imputed trafh, and dulnefs not his own;

345

350

a MS. letter now before me, writes thus from England to a friend in Paris, "I intend to fend you two or three poems "of Mr. Pope, the best poet of England, and at prefent of "all the world. I hope you are acquainted enough with "the English tongue, to be fenfible of all the charms of "his works. For my part, I look upon his poem called "the Efay on Criticifm as fuperior to the Art of poetry of "Horace; and his Rape of the Lock is, in my opinion, above "the Lutrin of Defpreaux. I never faw fo amiable an "imagination, fo gentle graces, fo great variety, so much "wit, and fo refined knowledge of the world, as in this little performance." MS. Let. 087. 15, 1726.

VER. 341. But froop'd to Truth] The term is from falconry; and the allufion to one of thofe untamed birds of spirit, which fometimes wantons at large in airy circles before it regards, or floops to, its prey.

VER. 350. the lye fo oft o'erthrown] As, that he received Tubfcriptions for Shakespear, that he fet his name to Mr. Broome's verses, &c. which, tho' publicly disproved, were 'nevertheless fhamelessly repeated in the Libels, and even in that called the Nobleman's Fpiftle.

VER. 351. Th' imputed Traf.] Such as profane Pfalms, Court-Poems, and other fcandalous things, printed in his Name by Curl and others.