Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,
Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,
Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blafphemies;
His wit all fee-saw between that and this,
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.

325

Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head or the corrupted heart;
Fop at the toilette, flatt'rer at the board,
Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve's tempter thus, the Rabbins have exprest,
A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest;
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will truft,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.

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, e'en to kings, he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the fame;
That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stoop'd to truth, and moraliz'd his song;
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 loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale reviv'd, the lie so oft' o'erthrown,
Th' imputed trash and dulness not his own;
The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape,
The libell'd person, and the pictur'd shape;
Abuse on all he lov'd or lov'd him spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead;
The whisper that, to greatness still too near,
Perhaps yet vibrates on his fov'reign's ear-

D3

320

}

330

335

340

345

350

355

Welcome

Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past;
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome e'en the last!

A. But why infsult the poor, affront the great? 360
P. A knave's a knave to me in ev'ry state;
Alike my scorn if he fucceed or fail,
Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail;
A hireling scribbler or a hireling peer,
Knight of the Pott corrupt, or of the shire,
If on a pillory, or near a throne,
He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own.
Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit,

365

Sappho can tell you how this man was bit:
This dreaded fat'rift Dennis will confefs
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 ?

370

Three thousand funs went down on Welfted's lie. 375

380

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-ftreet 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, foul, and Muse:
Yet why? that father held it for a rule
It was a fin to call our neighbour Fool;
That harmless mother thought no wife a whore;
Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore! 385

Unspotted names, and memorable long!
If there be force in virtue or in fong.

Of gentle blood (part shed in Honour's cause,
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 ftrife,

Nor marrying difcord in a noble wife,

Stranger to civil and religious rage

The good man walk'd innoxious thro his age:

390 400

No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dar'd an oath, nor hazarded a lie.
Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's fubtle art,
No language but the language of the heart.
By nature honest, by experience wife,
Healthy by temp'rance and by exercise;
His life, tho long, to fickness 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.
Oh, friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!

Be no unpleasing melancholy mine:

Me let the tender office long engage

To rock the cradle of repofing age,

404

410

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make Languor fimile, and smooth the bed of Death,

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 Heav'n, to bless those days, preserve my friend,

Preserve him social, cheerful, and ferene,

And just as rich as when he ferv'd a Queen.

416

A. Whether that blessing be deny'd or giv'n, Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heav'n. 419

OF HORACE,

IMITATED.

Ludentis fpeciem dabit, et torquebitur. HOR.

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THE occafion of publishing these Imitations was the clamour raised on fome of my Epistles. An anfwer from Horace was both more full and of more dignity than any I could have made in my own perfon; and the example of much greater freedom in so eminent a divine as Dr. Donne, feemed 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 minifters under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr. Donne I verfified at the defire 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 fatire 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 reafon to encourage, the mistaking a fatirist for a libeller; whereas to a true fatirist nothing is so odious as a libeller; for the fame reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is fo hateful as a hypocrite.

Uni æquus virtuti atque ejus amicis. P.

[33]

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WHOEVER expects a paraphrase of Horace, or a faithful copy of his genius

or manner of writing, in these Imitations, will be much disappointed. Our Author uses the Roman Poet for little more than his canvas; and if the old de fign or colouring chance to fuit his purpose, it is well; if not, be employs his own without fcruple or ceremony. Hence it is he is so frequently ferious where Horace is in jest, and at ease where Horace is disturbed. In a word, he regulates bis movements no further on his original, than was necessary for bis concurrence in promoting their common plan of reformation of manners.

Had it been his purpose merely to paraphrafe an ancient fatirift, be bad hardly made choice of Horace, with whom, as a poet, he held little in common, besides a comprehenfive knowledge of life and manners, and a certain curious felicity of expreffion, which consists in using the simplest language with dignity, and the most ornamented with ease. For the rest, bis harmony and strength of numbers, his force and splendour of colouring, his gravity and fublimity of fentiment, would have rather led him to another model. Nor was his temper less unlike that of Horace than his talents. What Horace would only smile at, Mr. Pope would treat with the grave severity of Perfius; and what Mr. Pope would ftrike with the cauflic lightning of Juzenal, Horace would content hinself with turning into ridicule.

If it be asked, then, why he took any body at all to imitate, he has informed us in his Advertisement; to which we may add, that this fort of Imitation, which is of the nature of Parody, throws reflected grace and splendour on original wit. Besides, he deemed it more modest to give the name of Imitations to his Satires, than, like Defpreaux, to give the name of Satires to Imitations.