No power the muse's friendship can command;
No power when virtue claims it, can withstand:
To Cato, Virgil paid one honest line;
O let my country's friends illumine mine!

What are you thinking? F. Faith, the thought's no sin,

I think your friends are out, and would be in.
P. If merely to come in, Sir, they go out,
The way they take is strangely roundabout.

F. They too may be corrupted, you'll allow ?
P. I only call those knaves who are so now.
Is that too little? Come, then, I'll comply-
Spirit of Arnall! aid me while I lie.
COBHAM'S a coward, POLWARTH2 is a slave,
And LYTTELTON a dark designing knave,
ST. JOHN has ever been a wealthy fool-
But let me add, SIR ROBERT's mighty dull,
Has never made a friend in private life,
And was, besides, a tyrant to his wife.

But pray, when others praise him, do I blame?
Call Verres, Wolsey, any odious name?
Why rail they then, if but a wreath of mine,
O all-accomplish'd ST. JOHN! deck thy shrine?

What shall each spur-gall'd hackney of the day, When Paxton gives him double pots and pay, Or each new-pension'd sycophant, pretend To break my windows if I treat a friend; Then wisely plead, to me they meant no hurt, But 'twas my guest at whom they threw the dirt? Sure, if I spare the Minister, no rules Of honour bind me, not to maul his tools; Sure, if they cannot cut, it may be said His saws are toothless, and his hatchet's lead. It anger'd TURENNE, once upon a day, To see a footman kick'd that took his pay: But when he heard the affront the fellow gave, Knew one a man of honour, one a knave; The prudent general turn'd it to a jest, And begg'd he'd take the pains to kick the rest: Which not at present having time to do—

F. Hold, Sir! for God's sake, where's the affront
to you?

Against your worship when had Sherlock writ?
Or Page pour'd forth the torrent of his wit?
Or grant the bard whose distich all commend
[In power a servant, out of power a friend]3
To Walpole guilty of some venial sin;

What's that to you, who ne'er was out nor in?
The priest whose flattery be-dropp'd the crown,
How hurt he you? he only stain'd the gown.
And how did, pray, the florid youth offend",
Whose speech you took, and gave it to a friend?
P. Faith, it imports not much from whom it
Whoever borrow'd could not be to blame, [came;
Since the whole House did afterwards the same.
Let courtly wits to wits afford supply,
As hog to hog in huts of Westphaly;

If one through Nature's bounty or his lord's,
Has what the frugal dirty soil affords,
From him the next receives it, thick or thin,
As pure a mess almost as it came in ;

1 Look for him in his place, Dunc. B. ii. Ver. 315. * The Hon. Hugh Hume, son of Alexander, Earl of Marchmont, grandson of Patrick, Earl of Marchmont, and distinguished, like them, in the cause of liberty.

3 A verse taken out of a poem to Sir R. W.

4 Spoken not of any particular priest, but of many priests.

This seems to allude to a complaint made ver. 71 of the preceding dialogue.

The blessed benefit, not there confined,
Drops to the third, who nuzzles close behind;
From tail to mouth they feed and they carouse:
The last full fairly gives it to the House.
F. This filthy simile, this beastly line
Quite turns my stomach-

P. So does flattery mine;
And all your courtly civet-cats can vent,
Perfume to you, to me is excrement.
But hear me further-Japhet ", 'tis agreed,
Writ not, and Chartres scarce could write or read;
In all the courts of Pindus guiltless quite;
But pens can forge, my friend, that cannot write;
And must no egg in Japhet's face be thrown,
Because the deed he forged was not my own?
Must never patriot then declaim at gin,
Unless, good man! he has been fairly in?
No zealous pastor blame a failing spouse,
Without a staring reason on his brows?
And each blasphemer quite escape the rod,
Because the insult's not on man, but God?

Ask you what provocation I have had? The strong antipathy of good to bad. When truth or virtue an affront endures, The affront is mine, my friend, and should be yours. Mine, as a foe profess'd to false pretence, Who think a coxcomb's honour like his sense; Mine, as a friend to every worthy mind; And mine as man, who feel for all mankind 7. F. You're strangely proud.

P. So proud, I am no slave:

So impudent, I own myself no knave:
So odd, my country's ruin makes me grave.
Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see
Men, not afraid of God, afraid of me:
Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,
Yet touch'd and shamed by ridicule alone.

O sacred weapon! left for truth's defence,
Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence!
To all but Heaven-directed hands denied,
The muse may give thee, but the gods must guide:
Reverent I touch thee! but with honest zeal;
To rouse the watchmen of the public weal,
To virtue's work provoke the tardy Hall,
And goad the prelate slumbering in his stall.
Ye tinsel insects! whom a court maintains,
That counts your beauties only by your stains,
Spin all your cobwebs o'er the eye of day!
The MUSE'S wing shall brush you all away:
All his grace preaches, all his lordship sings,
All that makes saints of queens, and gods of kings;
All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the press,
Like the last gazette, or the last address.

When black ambition stains a public cause, A monarch's sword when mad vain-glory draws, Not Waller's wreath can hide the nation's scar, Nor Boileau turn the feather to a star 10,

6 See the Epistle to Lord Bathurst.

7 From Terence:

"Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto."

8 Weak and slight sophistry against virtue and honour. Thin colours over vice, as unable to hide the light of truth as cobwebs to shade the sun.

? The case of Cromwell in the civil war of England, and of Louis XIV. in his conquest of the Low Countries.

10 See his Ode on Namur, where (to use his own words) "Il a fait un astre de la plume blanche que le roy porte ordinairement à son chapeau, et qui est en effet une espèce de comète, fatale à nos ennemis."

Not so, when diadem'd with rays divine, Touch'd with the flame that breaks from Virtue's

shrine,

Her priestess Muse forbids the good to die, And opes the temple of Eternity.

and ** wear,

There, other trophies deck the truly brave,
Than such as Anstis1 casts into the grave;
Far other stars than
And may descend to Mordington from STAIR2;
(Such as on HoUGH'S 3 unsullied mitre shine,
Or beam, good DIGBY, from a heart like thine ;)
Let Envy howl, while heaven's whole chorus sings,
And bark at honour not conferr'd by kings;
Let Flattery sickening see the incense rise,
Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies:
Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line,
And makes immortal, verse as mean as mine.

Yes, the last pen for freedom let me draw, When Truth stands trembling on the edge of law; Here, last of Britons! let your names be read; Are none, none living? let me praise the dead, And for that cause which made your fathers shine, Fall by the votes of their degenerate line.

F. Alas! alas! pray end what you began, And write next winter more Essays on Man1.

ON RECEIVING FROM THE

RT. HON. THE LADY FRANCES SHIRLEY A STANDISH AND TWO PENS.

YES, I beheld the Athenian queen

Descend in all her sober charms;

"And take" (she said, and smiled serene) "Take at this hand celestial arms:

"Secure the radiant weapons wield;

This golden lance shall guard desert, And if a vice dares keep the field,

This steel shall stab it to the heart."

Awed, on my bended knees I fell,

Received the weapons of the sky; And dipt them in the sable well,

The fount of fame or infamy.

The chief herald at arms. It is the custom, at the funeral of great peers, to cast into the grave the broken staves and ensigns of honour.

2 John Dalrymple, Earl of Stair, Knight of the Thistle, served in all the wars under the Duke of Marlborough, and afterwards as ambassador in France.

3 Dr. John Hough, Bishop of Worcester, and the Lord Digby: the one an assertor of the church of England, in opposition to the false measures of King James II.; the other as firmly attached to the cause of that king: both acting out of principle, and equally men of honour and virtue.

4 This was the last poem of the kind printed by our author, with a resolution to publish no more, but to enter thus, in the most plain and solemn manner he could, a sort of PROTEST against that insuperable corruption and depravity of manners which he had been so unhappy as to live to see. Could he have hoped to have amended any, he had continued those attacks; but bad men were grown so shameless and so powerful, that ridicule was become as unsafe as it was ineffectual. The poem raised him, as he knew it would, some enemies: but he had reason to be satisfied with the approbation of good men, and the testimony of his own conscience.

"What well? what weapon?" (Flavia cries) "A standish, steel and golden pen! It came from Bertrand's, not the skies; I gave it you to write again.

;

"But, friend, take heed whom you attack
You'll bring a house (I mean of peers)
Red, blue, and green, nay white and black,
L- and all about your ears.

"You'd write as smooth again on glass,
And run, on ivory, so glib,
As not to stick at fool or ass,
Nor stop at flattery or fib.
"Athenian queen! and sober charms!
I tell ye, fool, there's nothing in't:
'Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms;
In Dryden's Virgil see the print.
"Come, if you'll be a quiet soul,

That dares tell neither truth nor lies,
I'll list you in the harmless roll
Of those that sing of these poor eyes."

ΤΟ

THE AUTHOR OF A POEM ENTITLED "SUCCESSIO,"

[ELKANAH SETTLE.]

BEGONE, ye critics! and restrain your spite,
Codrus writes on, and will for ever write :
The heaviest muse the swiftest course has gone,
As clocks run fastest when most lead is on.
What though no bees around your cradle flew,
Nor on your lips distill'd their golden dew?
Yet have we oft discover'd in their stead
A swarm of drones, that buzz'd about your head.
When you, like Orpheus, strike the warbling lyre,
Attentive blocks stand round you and admire.
Wit pass'd through thee no longer is the same,
As meat digested takes a different name;
But sense must sure thy safest plunder be,
Since no reprisals can be made on thee.
Thus thou may'st rise, and in thy daring flight
(Tho' ne'er so weighty) reach a wondrous height:
So forced from engines, lead itself can fly,
And ponderous slugs move nimbly through the sky.
Sure Bavius copied Mævius to the full,
And Chorilus taught Codrus to be dull;
Therefore, dear friend, at my advice give o'er,
This needless labour; and contend no more
To prove a dull succession to be true,
Since 'tis enough we find it so in you.

1740.

A FRAGMENT OF A POEM.

O WRETCHED B-! jealous now of all,
What God, what mortal, shall prevent thy fall?
Turn, turn thy eyes from wicked men in place,
And see what succour from the patriot race.
C, his own proud dupe, thinks monarchs things
Made just for him, as other fools for kings;
Controls, decides, insults thee every hour,
And antedates the hatred due to power.

Thro' clouds of passion P's views are clear, He foams a patriot to subside a peer ;

least expectation that such an one was reserved for this post, as has since obtained the laurel: but since that had happened, he could no longer deny this justice either to him or the Dunciad.

And yet I will venture to say, there was another motive which had still more weight with our author: this person was one, who from every folly (not to say vice) of which another would be ashamed, has constantly derived a vanity and therefore was the man in the world who would least be hurt by it.

BY AUTHORITY.

W. W.

BY VIRTUE OF THE AUTHORITY IN US VESTED BY THE ACT FOR SUBJECTING POETS TO THE POWER OF A LICENSER, WE HAVE REVISED THIS PIECE; WHERE, FINDING THE STYLE AND APPELLATION OF KING TO HAVE BEEN GIVEN TO A CERTAIN PRETENDER, PSEUDO-POET, OR PHANTOM, OF THE NAME OF TIBBALD; AND APPREHENDING THE SAME MAY BE DEEMED IN SOME SORT A REFLECTION ON MAJESTY, OR AT LEAST AN INSULT ON THAT LEGAL AUTHORITY WHICH HAS BESTOWED ON ANOTHER PERSON THE CROWN OF POESY: WE HAVE ORDERED THE SAID PRETENDER, PSEUDO-POET, OR PHANTOM, UTTERLY TO VANISH AND EVAPORATE OUT OF THIS WORK AND DO DECLARE THE SAID THRONE OF POESY FROM HENCEFORTH TO BE ABDICATED AND VACANT, UNLESS DULY AND LAWFULLY SUPPLIED BY THE LAUREATE HIMSELF. AND IT IS HEREBY ENACTED, THAT NO OTHER PERSON DO PRESUME TO FILL THE SAME.

MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS

ж. сн.

HIS PROLEGOMENA AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE DUNCIAD: WITH THE HYPER-CRITICS OF ARISTARCHUS.

A LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER, OCCASIONED BY THE FIRST CORRECT EDITION OF THE DUNCIAD.

Ir is with pleasure I hear, that you have procured a correct copy of the DUNCIAD, which the many surreptitious ones have rendered so necessary and it is yet with more, that I am informed it will be attended with a COMMENTARY: a work so requisite, that I cannot think the author himself would have omitted it, had he approved of the first appearance of this poem.

Such notes as have occurred to me I herewith send you: you will oblige me by inserting them amongst those which are, or will be, transmitted to you by others; since not only the author's friends, but even strangers, appear engaged by humanity, to take some care of an orphan of so much genius and spirit, which its parent seems to have abandoned from the very beginning, and suffered to step into the world naked, unguarded, and unattended.

It was upon reading some of the abusive papers lately published, that my great regard to a person, whose friendship I esteem as one of the chief honours of my life, and a much greater respect to truth, than to him or any man living, engaged me in inquiries, of which the inclosed notes are the fruit.

I perceived, that most of these authors had been (doubtless very wisely) the first aggressors. They had tried, 'till they were weary, what was to be got by railing at each other: nobody was either concerned or surprised, if this or that scribbler was proved a dunce. But every one was curious to read what could be said to prove Mr. POPE one, and was ready to pay something for such a discovery: a stratagem, which would they fairly own, might not only reconcile them to me, but screen them from the resentment of their lawful superiors, whom they daily abuse, only (as I charitably hope) to get that by them, which they cannot get from them.

I found this was not all: ill success in that had transported them to personal abuse, either of himself, or (what I think he could less forgive) of his friends. They had called men of virtue and honour bad men, long before he had either leisure or inclination to call them bad writers: and some had been such old offenders, that he had quite forgotten their persons as well as their slanders, 'till they were pleased to revive them.

Now what had Mr. POPE done before, to incense them? He had published those works which are in the hands of every body, in which not the least mention is made of any of them. And what has he done since? He has laughed, and written the DUNCIAD. What has that said of them? A very serious truth, which the public had said before, that they were dull: and what it had no sooner said, but they themselves were at great pains to procure or even purchase room in the prints, to testify under their hands to the truth of it.

I should still have been silent, if either I had seen any inclination in my friend to be serious with such accusers, or if they had only meddled with his writings; since whoever publishes, puts himself on his trial by his country. But when his moral character was attacked, and in a manner from which neither truth nor virtue can secure the most innocent, in a manner, which, though it annihilates the credit of the accusation with the just and impartial, yet aggravates very much the guilt of the accusers; I mean by authors without names: then I thought, since the danger was common to all, the concern ought to be so; and that it was an act of justice to detect the authors, not only on this account, but as many of them are the same who for several years past have made free with the greatest names in church and state, exposed to the world the private misfortunes of families, abused all, even to women, and whose prostituted papers (for one or other party, in the unhappy divisions of their country) have insulted the fallen, the friendless, the exiled, and the dead.

I

Besides this, which I take to be a public concern, I have already confessed I had a private one. am one of that number who have long loved and esteemed Mr. POPE; and had often declared it was not his capacity or writings (which we ever thought the least valuable part of his character) but the honest, open, and beneficent man, that we most esteemed, and loved in him. Now, if what these people say were believed, I must appear to all my friends either a fool, or a knave; either imposed on myself, or imposing on them; so that I am as much interested in the confutation of these calumnies, as he is himself.

I am no author, and consequently not to be

suspected either of jealousy or resentment against any of the men, of whom scarce one is known to me by sight; and as for their writings, I have sought them (on this one occasion) in vain, in the closets and libraries of all my acquaintance. I had still been in the dark, if a gentleman had not procured me (I suppose from some of themselves, for they are generally much more dangerous friends than enemies) the passages I send you. I solemnly protest I have added nothing to the malice or absurdity of them; which it behoves me to declare, since the vouchers themselves will be so soon and so irrecoverably lost. You may in some measure prevent it, by preserving at least their titles', and discovering (as far as you can depend on the truth of your information) the names of the concealed authors.

The first objection I have heard made to the poem is, that the persons are too obscure for satire. The persons themselves, rather than allow the objection, would forgive the satire; and if one could be tempted to afford it a serious answer, were not all assassinates, popular insurrections, the insolence of the rabble without doors, and of domestics within, most wrongfully chastised, if the meanness of offenders indemnified them from punishment? On the contrary, obscurity renders them more dangerous, as less thought of: law can pronounce judgment only on open facts ; morality alone can pass censure on intentions of mischief; so that for secret calumny, or the arrow flying in the dark, there is no public punishment left, but what a good writer inflicts.

But

The next objection is, that these sort of authors are poor. That might be pleaded as an excuse at the Old Bailey, for lesser crimes than defamation, (for 'tis the case of almost all who are tried there) but sure it can be none: for who will pretend that the robbing another of his reputation supplies the want of it in himself? I question not but such authors are poor, and heartily wish the objection were removed by any honest livelihood. poverty is here the accident, not the subject: he who describes malice and villany to be pale and meagre, expresses not the least anger against paleness or leanness, but against malice and villany. The apothecary in Romeo and Juliet is poor; but is he therefore justified in vending poison? Not but poverty itself becomes a just subject of satire, when it is the consequence of vice, prodigality, or neglect of one's lawful calling; for then it increases the public burden, fills the streets and highways with robbers, and the garrets with clippers, coiners, and weekly journalists.

But admitting that two or three of these offend less in their morals, than in their writings; must poverty make nonsense sacred? If so, the fame of bad authors would be much better consulted than that of all the good ones in the world; and not one of an hundred had ever been called by his right name.

They mistake the whole matter: It is not charity to encourage them in the way they follow, but to get them out of it; for men are not bunglers because they are poor, but they are poor because they are bunglers.

Is it not pleasant enough, to hear our authors crying out on the one hand, as if their persons

1 Which we have done in a list printed in the appendix.

and characters were too sacred for satire; and the public objecting, on the other, that they are too mean even for ridicule? But whether bread or fame be their end, it must be allowed, our author, by and in this poem, has mercifully given them a little of both.

There are two or three, who by their rank and fortune have no benefit from the former objections, supposing them good, and these I was sorry to see in such company. But if, without any provocation, two or three gentlemen will fall upon one, in an affair wherein his interest and reputation are equally embarked, they cannot certainly, after they have been content to print themselves his enemies, complain of being put into the number of them.

Others, I am told, pretend to have been once his friends. Surely they are their enemies who say so, since nothing can be more odious than to treat a friend as they have done. But of this I cannot persuade myself, when I consider the constant and eternal aversion of all bad writers to a good one.

Such as claim a merit from being his admirers I would gladly ask, if it lays him under a personal obligation? At that rate, he would be the most obliged humble servant in the world. I dare swear for these in particular, he never desired them to be his admirers, nor promised in return to be theirs that had truly been a sign he was of their acquaintance; but would not the malicious world have suspected such an approbation of some motive worse than ignorance, in the author of the "Essay on Criticism?" Be it as it will, the reasons of their admiration and of his contempt are equally subsisting, for his works and theirs are the very same that they were.

One, therefore, of their assertions I believe may be true, "That he has a contempt for their writings." And there is another, which would probably be sooner allowed by himself than by any good judge beside, "That his own have found too much success with the public." But as it cannot consist with his modesty to claim this as a justice, it lies not on him, but entirely on the public, to defend its own judgment.

There remains what in my opinion might seem a better plea for these people, than any they have made use of. If obscurity or poverty were to exempt a man from satire, much more should folly or dulness, which are still more involuntary; nay, as much so as personal deformity. But even this will not help them: deformity becomes an object of ridicule when a man sets up for being handsome; and so must dulness when he sets up for a wit. They are not ridiculed because ridicule in itself is, or ought to be, a pleasure; but because it is just to undeceive and vindicate the honest and unpretending part of mankind from imposition, because particular interest ought to yield to general, and a great number who are not naturally fools, ought never to be made so, in complaisance to a few who are. Accordingly we find that in all ages, all vain pretenders, were they ever so poor or ever so dull, have been constantly the topics of the most candid satirists, from the Codrus of JUVENAL to the Damon of BOILEAU.

Having mentioned BOILEAU, the greatest poet and most judicious critic of his age and country, admirable for his talents, and yet perhaps more