And all your courtly civet-cats can vent, 185 Writ not, and Chartres scarce could write or read; But pens can forge, my friend, that cannot write; NOTES. tie de votre vie, aux depens de l'autre." But Fontenelle ends like a true Frenchman, and assures Augustus, "he will no longer be quoted as a model for kings, since Louis XIV. has appeared." Such is the language held of a man, who could banish Fenelon, burn the Palatinate, and drive away or destroy so many of his protestant subjects; who kept in pay 440,000 men. It is grievous to reflect, that for incurring the displeasure of such a man, Racine had the weakness to be so much affected, as to bring on, by vexation and grief, a disease that was fatal to him. Racine and Boileau relinquished, after a small progress, the History of Louis XIV. which they were appointed to write. Boileau ho nestly owned to his friends, that he did not well know what reasons to allege in justification of the war against Holland in 1672. The pride, profusion, ambition, and despotism of Louis XIV. laid the foundation of the ruin of France, and all the miseries we have lived to see. Warton. Ver. 185. Japhet-Chartres] See the Epistle to Lord Bathurst. VARIATIONS. Ver. 185. In the MS. I grant it, Sir; and further, 'tis agreed, Japhet writ not, and Chartres scarce could read. Pope. And each blasphemer quite escape the rod, When truth or virtue an affront endures, 195 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; F. You're strangely proud. 200 P. So proud, I am no slave: So odd, my country's ruin makes me grave. Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, 210 NOTES. Ver. 204. And mine as man, who feel for all mankind.] From Terence : "Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto." Pope. Ver. 208. Yes, I am proud, &c.] In this ironical exultation the poet insinuates a subject of the deepest humiliation. Warburton. Ver. 208. Yes, I am proud, &c.] This seems fabricated from the materials of Boileau, Discours au Roi, ver. 99. En vain d'un lâche orgueil leur esprit revêtu S'il se moque de Dieu, craint Tartuffe et Molière. Wakefield. O sacred weapon! left for truth's defence, The muse may give thee, but the Gods must guide. NOTES. 220 Ver. 211. Yet touch'd and shamed by ridicule alone.] The passions are given us to awake and support virtue. But they frequently betray their trust, and go over to the interests of vice. Ridicule, when employed in the cause of virtue, shames and brings them back to their duty. Hence the use and importance of satire. Warburton. Ver. 219. And goad the prelate slumbering in his stall.] The good Eusebius, in his Evangelical Preparation, draws a long parallel between the or and the Christian priesthood. Hence the dignified clergy, out of mere humility, have ever since called their thrones by the name of stalls. To which a great prelate of Winchester, one W. Edinton, modestly alluding, has rendered his name immortal by this ecclesiastical aphorism, who would otherwise have been forgotten; Canterbury is the higher rack, but Winchester is the better manger. By which, however, it appears that he was not one of those here condemned, who slumber in their stalls. Scriblerus. you all Ver. 220. Ye insects!--The MUSE's wing shall brush away;] This it did very effectually; and the memory of them had been now forgotten, had not the Poet's charity, for a while, protracted their miserable being. There is now in his library, at Mr. Allen's, a complete collection of all the horrid libels written and published against him: "The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown, The imputed trash, and dulness not his own; The Spin all your cobwebs o'er the eye of day! NOTES. The morals blackened, when the writings 'scape, These he had bound up in several volumes, according to their various sizes, from folios down to duodecimos; and to each of them hath affixed this motto out of the book of Job: Behold, my desire is, that mine adversary should write a book. Surely I should take it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to Ch. xxxi. ver. 35, 36. Warburton. me. Ver. 220. Ye tinsel insects!] Poets have frequently been partymen, ancient as well as modern. Euripides was of Alcibiades's faction, for war; Aristophanes, for peace. Hence arose their mutual animosity. The Inferno of Dante is as much a political poem as the Absalom and Achitophel of Dryden. The Eneid is also of this kind; and so is the Pharsalia of Lucan, and the Henriade of Voltaire. Warton. Ver. 222. cobwebs] 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. Pope. Ver. 223. The MUSE's wing shall brush you all away;] An exquisite verse, of which Mr. Gray has made excellent use in his Ode on Spring: "Brush'd by the hand of rough mischance, Or chill'd by age-." Wakefield. Ver. 225. gods of kings.] When James the First had once bespeeched his parliament, Bishop Williams, Keeper of the Great Seal, added-that, after his Majesty's DIVINUM ET IMMORTALE DICTUM, he would not dare mortale aliquid addere. On which Wilson, the historian, observes-This is not inserted to shew the PREGNANCY and GENIUS of the man, but the temper of the times. Warburton. 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, 230 Nor Boileau turn the feather to a star. 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, NOTES. 235 Ver. 228. When black ambition, &c.] The case of Cromwell in the civil war of England; and (Ver. 229.) of Louis XIV. in his conquest of the Low Countries. Pope. Ver. 230. Not Waller's wreath] "Such a series of verses," says Dr. Johnson, "as the Panegyric on Cromwell, had hardly appeared before in the English language." I cannot forbear adding, that I am surprized Waller should never name Milton, who was of the same party, and which he had so many opportunities doing in his works. But Waller was not of Milton's school. Warton. of Ver. 231. Nor Boileau turn the feather to a star.] See his Ode on Namur; where (to use his own words) "Il a fait un astre de la plume blanche que le Roi porte ordinairement à son chapeau, et qui est en effet une espèce de comete, fatale à nos ennemis.” Pope. VARIATIONS. After Ver. 227 in the MS. "Where's now the star that lighted Charles to rise? With that which follow'd Julius to the skies. Angels, that watch'd the Royal Oak so well, How chanced ye nod, when luckless Sorel fell? Prior |