Some with fat bucks on childless dotards fawn;
Some win rich widows by their chine and brawn ;
While with the silent growth of ten per cent,
In dirt and darkness, hundreds stink content.
Of all these ways, if each 'pursues his own,
Satire, be kind, and let the wretch alone:
But shew me one who has it in his power
To act consistent with himself an hour.

135

Sir Job sail'd forth, the evening bright and still ; "No place on earth (he cried) like Greenwich

hill!"

"Up starts a palace: lo, the obedient base 140
Slopes at its foot, the woods its sides embrace,
The silver Thames reflects its marble face.
Now let some whimsey, or that 'Devil within
Which guides all those who know not what they

mean,

But give the Knight, or give his Lady, spleen;

66

Away, away! take all your scaffolds down,

For snug's the word: my dear! we'll live in town."

NOTES.

Heidelberg in the Clandestine Marriage. This ridicule of citizens was borrowed from the French. We have some citizens whose good taste is equal to their riches. Warton.

Ver. 143. Now let some whimsey, &c.] This is very spirited, but much inferior to the elegance of the original :

"Cui si vitiosa libido Fecerit auspicium;"

which alluding to the religious manners of that time, no modern imitation can reach. Warburton.

Ver. 147. live in town."] Horace says, he will carry his buildings from so proper and pleasant a situation as Baiæ to Teanum ; a situation unhealthy, disagreeable, and inland. Pope says, he will

M 2

Tolletis, fabri. Lectus genialis in aulâ est?
Nil ait esse prius, melius nil cœlibe vitâ:
'Si non est, jurat bene solis esse maritis.

m

"Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo? Quid "pauper? ride: mutat cœnacula, lectos, Balnea, tonsores; Pconducto navigio æquè Nauseat ac locuples, quem ducit priva triremis. Si curtatus inæquali tonsore capillos Occurri, rides. Si fortè subucula pexæ Trita subest tunicæ, vel si toga dissidet impar, Rides. Quid, 'mea cùm pugnat sententia secum? Quod petiit, spernit; repetit quod nuper omisit? Estuat, et vitæ disconvenit ordine toto? 'Diruit, ædificat, mutat quadrata rotundis ? "Insanire putas solennia me; neque rides, Nec medici credis, nec "curatoris egere

NOTES.

will not build at all, he will again retire to town. He has, I think, destroyed the connexion by this alteration. Mutability of temper is indeed equally exhibited in both instances, but Horace keeps closer to his subject. Warton.

Ver. 163. You laugh, if coat] I am inclined to think that Horace laughs at himself, not at Virgil, as hath been supposed, for the ungraceful appearance he sometimes made among the courtiers of Augustus, on account of the incongruity of his dress. Warton.

Ver. 177. philosopher, and friend?] Bentley was for reading, in the original, with Heinsius, suspicientis, instead of respicientis ; which reading Gesner opposes. Horace, in these concluding lines, laughs at the high-flown and unnatural doctrines of the stoics. Pope has turned this piece of irony into a great compliment to Bolingbroke, whom he so much idolized; little imagining what this friend would say of him soon after his decease.

Warton.

At amorous Flavio is the stocking thrown? That very night he longs to lie alone.

'The fool, whose wife elopes some thrice a quarter, For matrimonial solace dies a martyr.

Did ever Proteus, Merlin, any witch,

Transform themselves so strangely as the rich? Well, but the "poor-the poor have the same

itch;

They change their weekly barber, weekly news,
Prefer a new japanner to their shoes,

Discharge their garrets, move their beds, and run
(They know not whither) in a chaise and one;
They hire their sculler, and when once aboard,
Grow sick, and damn the climate-like a Lord. 160
"You laugh, half beau, half sloven if I stand,
My wig all powder, and all snuff my band;
You laugh, if coat and breeches strangely vary,
White gloves, and linen worthy Lady Mary!
But when 'no prelate's lawn with hair-shirt lined,
Is half so incoherent as my mind,

When (each opinion with the next at strife,
One 'ebb and flow of follies all my life)

'I plant, root up; I build, and then confound;
Turn round to square, and square again to round;
"You never change one muscle of your face,
You think this madness but a common case,
Nor "once to Chancery, nor to Hale apply;
Yet hang your lip, to see a seam awry!
Careless how ill I with myself agree,
Kind to my dress, my figure, not to me.

175

A prætore dati; rerum 'tutela mearum
Cùm sis, et pravè sectum stomacheris ob unguem,
De te pendentis, te respicientis amici.

Ad summam, sapiens uno minor est Jove, 'dives,
Liber, 'honoratus, pulcher, 'rex denique regum;
Præcipuè sanus, nisi cùm pituita molesta est.

Is this my 'guide, philosopher, and friend?

This he, who loves me, and who ought to mend? Who ought to make me (what he can, or none) That man divine whom wisdom calls her own; 180 Great without title, without fortune bless'd;

Rich 'even when plunder'd, 'honour'd while oppress'd;

a

Loved without youth, and follow'd without power; At home, though exiled; 'free, though in the Tower; In short, that reasoning, high, immortal thing, 185 Just less than Jove, and much above a king; Nay, half in heaven-except (what's mighty odd) A fit of vapours clouds this demi-god.