As Pope's pictures, then, are all portraits, it becomes necessary to know something of the characters which are brought upon the stage. It is true that the execution and literary beauties of his verse may be appreciated without this knowledge; yet not then wholly, inasmuch as the appropriateness of the touches is one of the elements of our judgment. But Pope is also a landmark in the literary and social history of England. There has accumulated round Pope's poems a mass of biographical anecdote such as surrounds the writings of no other English author. The student of our literature will find that his enjoyment of the wit of the Satires and Epistles is increased exactly in proportion as he extends his knowledge of the period.

It would be useful to begin by reading over a summary of the public events of the reign of George II. For this purpose, Lord Stanhope's History of England offers a convenient and elegant abridgment. Mr. Carruthers' Life of Pope, 2nd edition, 1858, will be found to embody in an interesting narrative most of the ascertained facts about the poet and his works. For more complete information, the Memoirs, and other publications of the time, referred to in the Notes at the end of this volume should be consulted. Nothing further has been attempted in these Notes than. to indicate to the student the sources of illustration. He should. in no case rest satisfied with the information the Notes afford. They are a mere key to the explanatory literature, and not a substitute for it.

Not only

Pope's orthography is careless and inconsistent. proper names, but ordinary words, are spelt in different ways at different times. But in this also he was the man of his age. It may be a question if his errors should be corrected. But it cannot be right to reduce the orthography of 1730-40 to the conventional standard now established. The text therefore of Warburton's ed. 1751 has been scrupulously retained, errors, press or clerical, alone excepted.

LINCOLN COLLege,

January, 1872.

M. P.

SATIRES AND EPISTLES.

PROLOGUE.

An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. C

ADVERTISEMENT.

THIS paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some persons of rank and fortune (the authors of Verses to the imitator of Horace, and of an Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a nobleman at Hampton Court) to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the public is judge), but my person, morals, and family, whereof, to those who know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so aukward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to this epistle. If it have anything pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the truth and the sentiment; and if anything offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious or the ungenerous.

Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and they may escape being laughed at, if they please.

I would have some of them know, it was owing to the request of the learned and candid friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage, and honour, on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a nameless character can never be found out, but by its truth and likeness.

P.

P.

HUT, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd I said,
Tye up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.

The dog-star rages! nay 'tis past a doubt,

All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:

2

Fire in each eye, and papers in `each hand,

They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, thro' my grot they glide,
By land, by water, they renew the charge,

They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
No place is sacred, not the church is free,
Ev'n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me:

3

Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,
Happy! to catch me, just at dinner-time.

Is there a parson, much be-mus'd in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,

A clerk, foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross?

Is there, who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls
With desp'rate charcoal round his darken'd walls?
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain

Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.
Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,

20

Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause:
Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,

And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.

Friend to my life! (which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song)
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?
Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love?
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped.
If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead.
Seiz'd and ty'd down to judge, how wretched I!
Who can't be silent, and who will not lye:
To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace,
And to be grave, exceeds all pow'r of face.

30

5

I sit with sad civility, I read

With honest anguish, and an aching head;
And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,

This saving counsel, 'Keep your piece nine years.' 40
Nine years! cries he, who high in Drury-lane,

Lull'd by soft zephyrs thro' the broken pane,

Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends,
Oblig'd by hunger, and request of friends:

'The piece, you think, is incorrect? why take it,
I'm all submission, what you'd have it, make it.'
Three things another's modest wishes bound,
My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound.
Pitholeon sends to me: 'You know his Grace,
'I want a patron; ask him for a place.'
Pitholeon libell'd me' but here's a letter

Informs you, Sir, 'twas when he knew no better.
Dare you refuse him? Curl invites to dine,
He'll write a journal, or he'll turn divine.'
Bless me! a packet.-'Tis a stranger sues,
A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse.'

If I dislike it, 'Furies, death and rage!'

8 If I approve, Commend it to the stage.'

There, thank my stars, my whole commission ends,
The players and I, are, luckily, no friends.
Fir'd that the house reject him, "'Sdeath I'll print it,
And shame the fools-Your int'rest, Sir, with Lintot.'
Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much:
'Not, Sir, if you revise it, and retouch.'
All my demurs but double his attacks;
At last he whispers, 'Do; and we go snacks.'
Glad of a quarrel, strait I clap the door,
Sir, let me see your works and you no more.

50

6с

9

'Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring, (Midas, a sacred person and a king)

His very minister who spy'd them first,

Some say his queen, was forc'd to speak, or burst.
And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case,
When ev'ry coxcomb perks them in my face?

70

A. Good friend forbear! you deal in dang'rous things,
I'd never name queens, ministers, or kings;
Keep close to ears, and those let asses prick,
'Tis nothing-P. Nothing? if they bite and kick?

10 Out with it, Dunciad! let the secret pass,
That secret to each fool, that he's an ass:
The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?)
The queen of Midas slept, and so may I.
You think this cruel? take it for a rule,
No creature smarts so little as a fool.
Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break,
Thou unconcern'd canst hear the mighty crack:
Pit, box, and gall'ry in convulsions hurl'd,
Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world.
Who shames a scribler? break one cobweb thro',
He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew:
Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,

The creature's at his dirty work again,
Thron'd on the centre of his thin designs,
Proud of a vast extent of flimzy lines!
Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer,
Lost the arch'd eye-brow, or Parnassian sneer?

80

90

Does not one table Bavius still admit? VStill to one bishop Philips seem a wit?

ICO