130 Defodiet, condetque nitentia. 'cum bene notum NOTES. Ver. 53. TULLY, HYDE!] Equal to either, in the ministry of his profession; and, where the parallel fails, as it does in the rest of the character, superior to both. TULLY's brightest talents were frequently tarnished by Vanity and Fear; and HYDE'S most virtuous purposes perverted and defeated by superstitious notions concerning the divine origin of Government, and the unlimited obedience of the People. W. Ver. 53. than HYDE!] Much beyond the Original; particularly on account of the very happy and artful use Pope has made of the neighbourhood of the House of Parliament to Westminster Abbey; and of the well-turned and unexpected compliment he has paid to his illustrious friend. The character of Lord Chancellor Clarendon seems to grow every day brighter, the more it is sonetinized, and his integrity and abilities are more ascertained and acknowledged, even from the publication of private papers, never intended to see the light. They who censure his style as too diffuse and embarrassed with parentheses, may consult Lord Monboddo's 3d vol. of Origin of Languages. When Clarendon was going from Court, just after his profligate and ungrateful master had obliged him to resign, the great seal, the Dutchess of Cleveland meanly and wantonly insulted him from a window in the palace. He looked up at her, and only said, with a calm and contemptuous dignity, "Madam, if you live, you will grow old." Ver. 57. And desp'rate Misery lays hold on Dover.] There is a prettiness in this expression, which depends on its contrast to that slippery medicine, by which this Quack rendered himself famous, namely Quicksilver. W. There surely was never so idle and conceited a remark. Ver. 60. Would ye be blest?] This again is superior to the Original; where quis non, is feeble and flat; and the mention of Grac❜d as thou art, with all the Pow'r of Words, 50 (More silent far), where Kings and Poets lie; Where MURRAY (long enough his Country's pride) Shall be no more than TULLY, or than HYDE! "Rack'd with Sciatics, martyr'd with the Stone, Will any Mortal let himself alone? See Ward by batter'd Beaus invited over, And desp'rate Misery lays hold on Dover. The case is easier in the Mind's disease; 55 There all Men may be cur'd, whene'er they please. Would ye be blest? despise low Joys, low Gains; Disdain whatever CORNBURY disdains; Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains. NOTES. 61 a particular shining character gives a force and spirit to the line. This amiable young nobleman wrote from Paris, 1752, a very pressing remonstrance to Mr. Mallet, to dissuade him, but in vain, from publishing a very offensive digression on the Old Testament, in Lord Bolingbroke's Letters on History. "" 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 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 easily be 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 intrusted and obliged by Lord Bolingbroke, not to raise storms to his memory." Ver. 61. whatever CORNBURY disdains ;] It is said, that when Lord Cornbury returned from his travels, the late Earl of Essex, his brother-in-law, told him he had got a handsome pension for him. To which Lord Cornbury answered with a composed 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? To this anecdote Pope alludes. 'virtutem verba putes, et Lucum ligna? 'cave ne portus occupet alter. e NOTES. Ver. 63. art thou one,] Here we have a direct and decisive censure of a celebrated infidel writer; at this time, therefore, which was 1737, Pope was strongly and openly on the side of Religion, as he knew the great lawyer to be, to whom he was writing. Horace, it is said, alludes to the words of a dying Hercules in a Greek Tragedy; and Dion Cassius relates, in the twenty-seventh Book of his History, that these were the words which Brutus used just before he stabbed himself, after his defeat at Philippi. But it is observable, that this fact rests solely on the credit of this fawning and fulsome Court Historian; and that Plutarch, who treats largely of Brutus, is silent on the subject. If Brutus had adopted this passage, I cannot bring myself to believe, that Horace would so far have forgotten his old republican principles, as to have mentioned the words adopted by the dying patriot, with a mark of reproach and reprobation. It must be added, to what is said above, of our Author's orthodoxy at this time, that he wrote a very respectful letter to Dr. Waterland, to thank him for his Vindication of the Athanasian Creed, dated October 16, 1737. Which letter was given by Dr. Waterland to Mr. Seed, and was in the possession of Mr. Seed's widow, 1767, who shewed it to Mr. Bowyer the eminent and learned Printer. Ver. 65. Who Virtue and a Church alike disowns,] The one he renounces in his party-pamphlets; the other, in his Rights of the Christian Church. W. Ver. 77. For, mark] Not imitated with the vigour and energy of the Original. This 77th line is uncommonly weak and languid 'But art thou one, whom new opinions sway, One who believes as Tindal leads the way, Who Virtue and a Church alike disowns, 65 Thinks that but words, and this but brick and stones? Fly then, on all the Wings of wild Desire, Is Wealth thy passion? Hence! from Pole to Pole, Prevent the greedy, and outbid the bold; Add one round hundred, and (if that's not fair) 75 For, mark th' advantage; just so many score C And then such Friends-as cannot fail to last. 80 NOTES. Three Divinities, for such Horace has described them, Pecunia, Suadela, and Venus, conspire in giving their various accomplishments to this favourite of Fortune. That lively veteran General Oglethorpe told me, that the Duke of Marlborough dining with Prince Eugene spoke in high terms of his Queen Anne: the Prince whispered to Oglethorpe and said, "Regina Pecunia; that's his Queen." Ne fueris hic tu. 'chlamydes Lucullus, ut aiunt, Qui possum tot? ait: tamen et quæram, et quot habebo, Mittam: post paulo scribit, sibi millia quinque k Mercemur servum, qui dictet nomina, lævum NOTES. Ver. 85. His Wealth,] By no means equal to the Original: there is so much pleasantry in alluding to the known story of the Prætor coming to borrow dresses (paludamenta) for a chorus in a public spectacle that he intended to exhibit, who asked him to lend him a hundred, says Plutarch; but Lucullus bade him take wo hundred. Horace humorously has made it five thousand. We know nothing of Timon, except it be the Nobleman introduced in the Epistle to Lord Burlington, Ver. 99. There is still another beauty in Horace; he has suddenly, according to his manner, introduced Lucullus speaking; " qui possum," &c. He is for ever introducing these little interlocutions, which give his Satires and Epistles an air so lively and dramatic. This, also, is very frequently the practice of Bayle, and is one of those circumstances that has contributed to make his Dictionary so very entertaining; and he need not have said, as he did to Boi. leau, that the reading his work was like the journey of a caravan over the deserts of Arabia, which often went twenty or thirty leagues together, without finding a single fruit-tree or fountain. Ver. 87. Or if three Ladies like a luckless Play,] The common Reader, I am sensible, will be always more solicitous about the names of these three Ladies, the unlucky Play, and every other trifling circumstance that attended this piece of gallantry, than for the explanation of our Author's sense, or the illustration of |