Page images
PDF
EPUB

Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit, Sappho can tell you how this man was bit: This dreaded satirist Dennis will confess Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress: So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door, Has drunk with Cibber, nay, has rhym'd for Moore. Full ten years slander'd, did he once reply? Three thousand suns went down on Welsted's lie.2 To please a mistress one aspers'd his life; He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife: Let Budgell charge low Grub-street on his quill, And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his will; Let the two Curlls of town and court abuse His father, mother, body, soul, and muse: Yet why? that father held it for a rule, It was a sin to call our neighbour fool; That harmless mother thought no wife a whore : Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore! Unspotted names, and memorable long,

If there be force in virtue, or in song.

Of gentle blood (part shed in honour's cause,

2 Welsted asserted in print that Pope had caused a lady's death, and that he had libelled the Duke of Chandos (in the character of Timon), from whom, it was added, he had received five hundred pounds.

8 Budgell was suspected of having forged the will of Dr. Tindal, by which he acquired almost the whole fortune of a man not at all related to him.

4 The "Curll of court" means Lord Hervey.

[ocr errors]

"Mr. Pope's father," says our author in a note on this passage, 'was of a gentleman's family in Oxfordshire, the head of which was the Earl of Downe, whose sole heiress

While yet in Britain honour had applause)

Each parent sprung-A. What fortune, pray?—
P. Their own;

And better got than Bestia's from the throne.
Born to no pride, inheriting no strife,
Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,

The good man walk'd innoxious through his age:
No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dar'd an oath, nor hazarded a lie.
Unlearned, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,
No language but the language of the heart.
By nature honest, by experience wise,
Healthy by temperance and by exercise;
His life, though long, to sickness past unknown,
His death was instant and without a groan.
O grant me thus to live, and thus to die!
Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.
O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!
Be no unpleasing melancholy mine:
Me, let the tender office long engage

To rock the cradle of reposing age,

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death;

married the Earl of Lindsay. His mother was the daughter of William Turner, Esq. of York: she had three brothers, one of whom was killed, another died in the service of King Charles; the eldest following his fortunes, and becoming a general officer in Spain, left her what estate remained after the sequestrations and forfeitures of her family."

6 Pope's father was a non-juror.

[blocks in formation]

Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like these if length of days attend,
May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my
friend!

Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,
And just as rich as when he serv'd a queen.

A. Whether that blessing be denied or given, Thus far was right;-the rest belongs to heaven.

SATIRES, EPISTLES, AND ODES

OF HORACE.

IMITATED.

Ludentis speciem dabit, et torquebitur.-HOR.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The occasion of publishing these imitations was the clamour raised on some of my Epistles. An answer from Horace was both more full and of more dignity than any I could have made in my own person; and the example of much greater freedom in so eminent a divine as Dr. Donne, seemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat vice or folly, in ever so low or ever so high a station. Both these authors were acceptable to the princes and ministers under whom they lived. The satires of Dr. Donne I versified at the desire of the Earl of Oxford, while he was lord treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury, who had been secretary of state; neither of whom looked upon a satire on vicious courts as any reflection on those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error than that which fools are so apt to fall into, and knaves with good reason to encourage, -the mistaking a satirist for a libeller; whereas to a true satirist nothing is so odious as a libeller, for the same reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a hypocrite.

Uni æquus virtuti atque ejus amicis.

THE FIRST SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK

OF HORACE.

TO MR. FORTESCUE.1

P. THERE are (I scarce can think it, but am told),
There are to whom my satire seems too bold;
Scarce to wise Peter 2 complaisant enough,
And something said of Chartres much too rough.
The lines are weak, another's pleas'd to say;
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
Timorous by nature, of the rich in awe,
I come to counsel learned in the law:

4

You'll give me, like a friend both sage
and free,
Advice; and (as you use) without a fee.
F. I'd write no more.

P. Not write? but then I think,
And for my soul I cannot sleep a wink.
I nod in company, I wake at night;
Fools rush into my head, and so I write.

F. You could not do a worse thing for your life. Why, if the night seem tedious-take a wife: Or rather, truly, if your point be rest, Lettuce and cowslip wine: probatum est. But talk with Celsus, Celsus will advise

Hartshorn, or something that shall close your eyes.

1 Baron of the Exchequer, and afterwards Master of the Rolls.

2 See note 2 vol. ii. p. 121. 4 Lord Hervey.

8 See note 4 vol. ii. p. 75.

« PreviousContinue »