THE SIXTH EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE. TO MR. MURRAY. 'Nor to admire, is all the art I know; To make men happy, and to keep them so.' Plain truth, dear Murray, needs no flowers of speech, So take it in the very words of Creech. This vault of air, this congregated ball, Self-centred sun, and stars that rise and fall, There are, my friend! whose philosophic eyes Look through, and trust the Ruler with his skies; To him commit the hour, the day, the year, And view this dreadful all without a fear. Admire we then what earth's low entrails hold, Arabian shores, or Indian seas infold; All the mad trade of fools and slaves for gold? Or popularity? or stars and strings? The mob's applauses, or the gifts of kings? 10 15 The very words of Creech. If Pope could be suspected of sneering, there was pleasant malice in heading his own fluent and forcible lines by this deplorably prosaic couplet of his predecessor. Say, with what eyes we ought at courts to gaze, And pay the great our homage of amaze. 20 If weak the pleasure that from these can spring, The unbalanced mind, and snatch the man away: Go then, and if you can, admire the state 26 30 If not so pleased, at council-board rejoice, Shall one, whom nature, learning, birth, con spired 40 To form, not to admire, but be admired, 45 It brighten'd Craggs's. The secretary was the son of a man originally in a menial situation, yet who by industry and cha And what is fame? the meanest have their day; Rack'd with sciatics, martyr'd with the stone, 50 55 There all men may be cured whene'er they please. Would ye be bless'd? despise low joys, low gains; Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains; 61 Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains. racter rose to be postmaster-general. Pope had an unaccountable taste for reminding men of humble birth of their origin; a matter which no man can help, and none but a fool will deny ; but which neither fool nor philosopher can relish. Thus he offended humble Allen:' he praised his virtues, and told him that his father had been a footman. Allen spurned the praise, for the sake of the recollection. 53 Than Hyde. Warton gives a striking anecdote of this celebrated man's temper. When he was going from court, just after his resignation of the seals to his trifling and ungrateful master, the duchess of Cleveland insulted him from a window of the palace. He looked up at her, and only said, with calm and contemptuous dignity,- Madam, if you live, you too will grow old.' A fine sarcasm on the fickleness of the king, and probably a finer still on the profligate woman, whose sole merit was her beauty. 56 See Ward by batter'd beaux. Ward and Dover, wellknown quacks. 61 Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains. Lord Cornbury, a man of talents and virtue. On Mallet's intending to publish But art thou one, whom new opinions sway; One who believes as Tindal leads the way; Who virtue and a church alike disowns; Thinks that but words, and this but brick and stones? 65 Fly then, on all the wings of wild desire; 71 some of Bolingbroke's sneers at Scripture, lord Cornbury, in a letter from Paris in 1752, given by Warton, thus manfully and wisely remonstrates with this low mercenary of posthumous profaneness:-'I must say to you, sir, for the world's sake, and for his sake, that part of the work ought by no means to be communicated farther. If this digression (a particular attack on the Old Testament) be made public, it will be censured, it must be censured, it ought to be censured: it will be criticised too by able pens, whose erudition, as well as their reasonings, will not be easily answered.' He concludes by saying, I therefore recommend to you to suppress that part of the work, as a good citizen of the world, for the world's peace; as one entrusted and obliged by lord Bolingbroke not to raise storms to his memory.' Henry, viscount Cornbury, had an hereditary claim to virtue; he was great-grandson of the celebrated lord Clarendon. Ruff head tells us, that when this young nobleman returned from his travels, the earl of Essex, his brother-in-law, told him, that he had got a handsome pension for him:' he replied, with dignity,- How could you tell, my lord, that I was to be sold? or, at least, how came you to know my price so exactly?' He died in 1753. 65 Who virtue and a church alike disowns. The one be renounces in his party-pamphlets, the other in his Rights of the Christian Church.'- Warburton. 80 Add one round hundred; and, if that's not fair, 75 Upon my word, you must be rich indeed : 90 Not for yourself, but for your fools and knaves; Something, which for your honor they may cheat, And which it much becomes you to forget. If wealth alone then make and keep us bless'd, 95 Still, still be getting; never, never rest. 100 But if to power and place your passion lie, If in the pomp of life consist the joy; Then hire a slave, or, if you will, a lord, To do the honors, and to give the word; Tell at your levee, as the crowds approach, To whom to nod, whom take into your coach, Whom honor with your hand; to make remarks, 82 Anstis birth. Garter king-at-arms. 87 A luckless play. A frolic of some spendthrift which has escaped particular knowlege: the play was said to be Young's Busiris.' |