F. I'd write no more. P. Not write? but then I think, And for my foul I cannot fleep a wink. I nod in company, I wake at night, е Fools rush into my head, and so I write. F. You could not do a worse thing for your life. Why, if the nights feem tedious-take a Wife: f 'Or rather truly, if your point be rest, Lettuce and cowflip wine; Probatum eft. Hartshorn, or fomething that fhall clofe your eyes. NOTES. 14 19 Or, in floth, ignorance, and poverty; enflaved to the most cruel, as well as to the moft contemptible of tyrants, fuperftition and religious imposture: while this remote country, antiently the jest and contempt of the polite Romans, is become the happy feat of li berty, plenty, and letters; flourishing in all the arts and refinements of civil life; yet running, perhaps, the fame course which Rome itself had run before it; from virtuous industry to wealth; from wealth to luxury; from luxury to an impatience of discipline and corruption of morals; till, by a total degeneracy and lofs of virtue, being grown ripe for deftruction, it falls a prey at last to fome hardy oppreffor, and, with the lofs of liberty lofing every thing else that is valuable, finks gradually again into its original barbarism." VER. II. Not write? &c.] He has omitted the most humorous part of the answer, Peream male, fi non Optimum erat: and has lost the grace, by not imitating the concisenefs, of verum nequeo dormire. For concifenefs, when it is clear, (as in this place,) gives the higheft grace to elegance of expreffion.-But what follows is as much above the Original, as this falls fhort of it. W. VER. 12. Sleep a wink.] The rhyme conceals the vulgarity of the expreffion, fleep a wink. Rhyme has often this effect. But familiarity was perhaps intended. Aut, fi tantus amor fcribendi te rapit, aude CÆSARIS invecti res dicere, multa laborum Pramia laturus. H. Cupidum, pater optime, vires Deficiunt: neque enim quivis horrentia pilis Agmina, nec fracta pereuntes cufpide Gallos, Aut labentis equo defcribat vulnera Parthi. k T. Attamen et juftum poteras et fcribere fortem, Scipiadem ut fapiens Lucilius. H. Haud mihi deero, Cum res ipfa feret: 'nifi dextro tempore, Flacci NOTES. Verba VER. 23. What? like Sir Richard, &c.] Mr. Molyneux, a great Mathematician and Philofopher, had a high opinion of Sir Richard Blackmore's poetic vein. All our English poets, except Milton, (fays he, in a Letter to Mr. Locke,) have been mere balladmakers in comparison of him. And Mr. Locke, in anfwer to this obfervation, replies, I find, with pleafure, a frange harmony. throughout, between your thoughts and mine. Juft fo, a Roman Lawyer, and a Greek Historian, thought of the poetry of Cicero. But these being judgments made by men out of their own profesfion, are little regarded. And Pope and Juvenal will make Blackmore and Tully pafs for Poetafters to the world's end. W. Pope has turned the compliment to Auguftus into a fevere farcafm. All the wits feem to have leagued against Sir Richard Blackmore. In a letter now lying before me from Elijah Fenton to my father, dated Jan. 24, 1707, he says, "I am glad to hear Mr. Phillips will publish his Pomona : Who prints it? I fhall be mightily obliged to you if you could get me a copy of his verses against Blackmore." As the letter contains one or two literary particulars, I will tranfcribe the reft. As " to what you write about making a collection, I can only advise you to buy what poems you can, that Tonfon has printed, except the Ode to the Sun; unless you will take it in, because I writ it; which I am freer to own, that Mat. Prior may not fuffer in his reputation by having it afcribed to him. My humble fervice to Mr. Sachèverell, and * Or, if you needs must write, write CESAR'S Praise, You'll gain at least a Knighthood, or the Bays. P. What? like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce, With ARMS, and GEORGE, and BRUNSWICK Crowd the verse, Rend with tremendous found your ears afunder, 25 Or nobly wild, with Budgel's fire and force, NOTES. 30 And and tell him I will never imitate Milton more, till the author of Blenheim is forgotten." In vain was Blackmore extolled by Molyneux and Locke: but Locke, to his other fuperior talents, did not add good taste. He affected to defpife poetry, and he depreciated the antients: which circumftance, as I was informed by the late Mr. James Harris, his relation, was the fource of perpetual discontent and difpute betwixt him and his pupil Lord. Shaftesbury; who, in many parts of his Characteristics, and Let ters to a Clergyman, has ridiculed Locke's selfish philofophy, and has represented him as a disciple of Hobbes; from which writer it must in truth be confeffed that Locke borrowed frequently and largely. Locke had not the fine taste of a greater philosopher, I mean Galileo, who wrote a comment on Ariofto full of just criticifm, and whofe letter to Fr. Rinuccini on this subject may be feen in Martinelli's Letters, p. 255. London; 1758. VER. 28. Falling Horfe?] The horse on which his Majefty charged at the battle of Oudenard; when the Pretender, and the Princes of the blood of France, fled before him. W. Verba per attentam non ibunt Cafaris aurem: T. "Quanto rectius hoc, quam trifti lædere verfu Pantolabum fcurram, Nomentamnuve nepotem? "Cum fibi quifque timet, quanquam eft intactus, et odit. H. Quid faciam? faltat Milonius, ut femel ico Acceffit fervor capiti, numerufque lucernis. P Caftor gaudet equis; ovo prognatus eodem, NOTES. Millia. VER. 39. Abufe the City's best good men in metre,] The best good Man, a City phrafe for the richeft. Metre-not used here purely to help the verse, but to fhew what it is a Citizen efteems the greatest aggravation of the offence. W.. VER. 41. What should ail 'em?] Horace hints at one reason, that each fears his own turn may be next; his imitator gives another, and with more art, a reason which infinuates, that his very levity, in ufing feigned names, increases the number of his Enemies, who fufpect they may be included under that cover. W. VER. 45. Each mortal] Thefe words, indeed, open the fenfe of. Horace; but the quid faciam is better, as it leaves it to the reader to discover, what is one of Horace's greatest beauties, his secret and delicate transitions and connections, to which those who do not carefully attend, lofe half the pleasure of reading him. VER. 46. Darty his Ham-pye;] This lover of Ham-pye own'd the fidelity of the Poet's pencil; and said, he had done justice to his tafte; but that if, inftead of Ham-pye, he had given him Sweetpye, he never could have pardoned him. W. Lyttelton, in his Dialogues of the Dead, has introduced Darteneuf, in a pleafant difcourfe betwixt him and Apicius, bitterly lamenting his ill-fortune in having lived before turtle-feafts were known in England. The ftory of the Ham-pye was confirmed by Mr. Dodfley, who knew Darteneuf, and, as he candidly owned, had waited on him at dinner. VER. 50. Like in all elfe,] This parallel is not happy and exact : To fhew the variety of human paffions and pursuits, Caftor and Pollux And justly CESAR fcorns the Poet's lays, m F. Better be Cibber, I'll maintain it still, Than ridicule all Tafte, blafpheme Quadrille, Abuse the City's best good men in metre, 35 And laugh at Peers that put their truft in Peter. 40 "Ev'n thofe touch not hate you. you F. A hundred fmart in Timon and in Balaam: The fewer ftill you name, you wound the more; Bond is, but one, but Harpax is a score. P. Each mortal has his pleafure: none deny Scarfdale his bottle, Darty his Ham-pye; Ridotta fips and dances, till fhe fee The doubling Luftres dance as fast as she; PF- loves the Senate, Hockley-hole his brother, Like in all else, as one egg to another. NOTES. 50 I love Pollux were unlike, even though they came from one and the fame egg. This is far more extraordinary and marvellous than that two common brothers fhould have different inclinations. And afterwards, Ver. 51. race. "I love to pour out all myself, as plain As downright SHIPPEN, or as old MONTAGNE." "My chief pleasure is to write Satires like Lucilius," fays Ho"My chief pleasure," fays Pope, "is-what? to speak my mind freely and openly." There should have been an instance of fome employment, and not a virtuous habit. Pope would not have been pleased with this cenfure of the politics of Shippen, who was an able speaker, which the commentator has subjoined to this paffage. A poet, like Lucilius, ought to have been named, not a politician. In the original, Horace calls Lucilius, fenis; not because he was an old man, but because |