from Nash's classification of "Drunkards," where he describes the seventh species as

“Martin-drunk, when a man is drunk and drinks himself sober ere he stir."

I shall take a few more samples from Pope. In his "Windsor Forest" we have the couplet :

"T' observe a mean, be to himself a friend,
To follow nature and regard his end;"

which has been appropriated from this passage in Lucan:

"Servare modum, fidemque tenere, Naturamque sequi.”

Add the following, in "Eloisa to Abelard:"

"One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight;
Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight."

The last line of which has been copied from
Smith's "Hippolytus and Phædra:"—

"Priests, tapers, temples, swam before my sight."

In the same poem are the impassioned lines:

"See my lips tremble and my eyeballs roll;

Suck my last breath, and catch my flying soul;"

which are adopted from Oldham's "Death of Adonis :"

"Kiss while I watch thy swimming eyeballs roll;
Watch thy last gasp, and catch thy flying soul."

The principal thought, however, may be traced to Dryden's tragedy of "Don Sebastian :"

"How can we better die than close embraced,

Sucking each other's soul while we expire ?"

or, perhaps, more correctly to Marlow's "Tragical History of Dr. Faustus :"

"Sweet Helen! make me immortal with a kiss!

Her lips sucke forth my soule: see where it flies."

Not the least noticeable of Pope's imitations is his Ode of the "Dying Christian to his Soul." Here are the first two stanzas :

"Vital spark of heavenly flame,
Quit, O quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
O the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.

"Hark! they whisper; Angels say:
'Sister spirit, come away!'
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,

Drowns my spirits, draws my breath:

Tell me, my soul, can this be death ?”

Pope admits that when he wrote these lines he had in his head not only the Emperor Hadrian's verses to his departing soul:

"Animula, vagula, blandula,

Hospes, comesque corporis ;
Quæ nunc abibis in loca ?
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis joca,"-

but also the beautiful fragment of Sappho, of which the concluding stanzas are thus elegantly translated by Philips :

"My bosom glow'd, the subtle flame
Ran quick thro' all my vital frame;
O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung;
My ears with hollow murmurs rung.

"In dewy damps my limbs were chill'd:
My blood with gentle horrors thrill'd;
My feeble pulse forgot to play,

I fainted, sunk, and died away."

In addition to these sources of inspiration, Pope seems to have had in his eye the following lines by Flatman :

"When on my sick bed I languish,
Full of sorrow, full of anguish,

Fainting, gasping, trembling, crying,

Panting, groaning, speechless, dying,
Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say:

'Be not fearful, come away.'

Pope's "Pastorals" also contain some borrowed thoughts. The line,

"A shepherd boy (he seeks no better name),"

is copied from this in Spenser :—

"A shepherd boy (no better do him call)."

So of the couplet :

"While labouring oxen, spent with toil and heat,
In their loose traces from the field retreat;"

which has been appropriated from Milton's "Comus:"

"Two such I saw, what time the labour'd ox

In his loose traces from the furrow came."

Hide their diminish'd heads,"

has been transferred by Pope to one

"Moral Essays:"

"Ye little stars, hide your diminish'd rays."

of his

Before we take leave of Pope, it is but right that we should restore to him the original thought of a Latin hexameter, which is commonly ascribed to Horace. We allude to the oft-quoted:

"Indocti discant et ament meminisse periti ;"

the history of which is given in an interesting little volume by M. Edouard Fournier, entitled, L'Esprit des Autres."

66

This verse appeared for the first time as an epigraph to President Henault's "Abrégé Chronologique;" and it was much admired both for its appositeness and its Horatian elegance. For some time the good president chuckled in secret at the blundering and want of memory of the admirers of Horace. In 1749, however, on the

appearance of the third edition of his work, he took occasion to state in the Preface that the much-admired epigraph was not written by Horace, but by himself; and that he had given it as a translation of the following couplet in Pope's "Essay on Criticism:”—

"Content if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view, The learn'd reflect on what before they knew."

This revelation took the critics by surprise. Henault's claim, however, was soon forgotten; and to this day, whenever the hexameter is quoted, as it frequently is on the title-page of works on education, to Horace, and not to Henault, is the merit of it invariably assigned. And thus it comes to pass that the poor rhymster's mite, which constitutes his whole riches, is swallowed up by the literary Croesus.

Considering the slender productions of his muse, there is no English poet whose versified maxims are so often quoted as those of Gray

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."

Thoughts that breathe and words that burn."

"His hoary hair stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air.”

"The still small voice of gratitude."

"And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

"Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind." "The paths of glory lead but to the grave."