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There, other trophies deck the truly brave; Than such as Anstis casts into the grave; Far other stars than ** and *** wear, And may descend to Mordington from STAIR; (Such as on HOUGH's unsullied mitre shine, Or beam, good DIGBY, from a heart like thine ;)

NOTES.

240

Prior burlesqued this Ode with infinite pleasantry and humour. And the same may be said of Prior's Epistle to Boileau. Louis XIV., who had a personal regard for Prior, did not, we may well imagine, know that he had ridiculed his favourite Poet. Another French flatterer read to Malherbe some fulsome verses, in which he had represented France as moving out of its place to receive the King. "Though this," said the honest Malherbe," was in my time, yet I protest I do not remember it." Warton.

Ver. 235. And opes] From Milton's Comus, ver. 14.

Warton.

"That opes the palace of eternity.” Ver. 237. Anstis] 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.

Pope. wear] That is, Kent

Ver. 238. Far other stars than *** and and Grafton. The next line wants explanation. I have some notion Lord Mordington kept a gaming-house.

Bennet.

Ver. 239. STAIR;] John Dalrymple, Earl of Stair, Knight of the Thistle, served in all the wars under the Duke of Marlborough; and afterwards as ambassador to France.

Pope.

Ver. 240, 241. HOUGH DIGBY,] 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 virPope.

tue.

Ver. 240. (Such as on HOUGH's unsullied mitre shine,] Dr. John Hough, successively Bishop of Oxford, Lichfield, and Worcester, was born in 1655, and died May 8, 1743, at the very advanced age of ninety-two, after an episcopacy of fifty-three years.

Wakefield.

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: 245
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: 250
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.

NOTES.

Ver. 240. on HOUGH's unsullied] In the fifty-seventh Persian Letter, is an elegant and well written eulogium on this excellent prelate, by Lord Lyttelton. These Letters have been too much depreciated and neglected. Warton.

Ver. 253. of their degenerate line.] Such was the language at that time, used by our author and his friends and associates. Lord Chesterfield ends the account of his friend Hammond, author of the Love Elegies, with these words: "He looked back, with a kind of religious awe and delight, upon those glorious and happy times of Greece and Rome, when wisdom, virtue, and liberty formed the only triumvirates; in these sentiments he lived, and would have lived, even in these times; in these sentiments he died; but in these times too, ut non erepta a diis immortalibus vita, sed donata, mors videatur."

In

every age, and in every nation, there is a constant progression of manners; "For the manners of a people seldom stand still, but are either POLISHING or SPOILING."

Warton.

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 255. In the MS.

Quit, quit these themes and write Essays on Man.

Fr. Alas! alas! pray end what you began, And write next winter more Essays on Man. 255

NOTES.

Ver. ult.] 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. Pope.

We must own that these Dialogues, excellent as they are, exhibit many and strong marks of our author's petulance, partyspirit, and self-importance; and of assuming to himself the character of censor general; who, alas! if he had possessed a thousand times more genius, integrity, and ability, than he actually enjoyed, could not have altered or amended the manners of a rich and commercial, and consequently of a luxurious and dissipated nation. But we make ourselves unhappy, by hoping to possess incompatible things; we want to have wealth without corruption, and liberty without virtue !

Warton.

Could Pope with his good sense, unless self-love had blinded him, seriously believe, that his pen could effect such mighty purposes, even if the objects of his satire were so notorious, that every good and wise man would have been on his side, and nothing was dictated by private spleen, and political asperity! Alas, we might say, in the language of poor Cowper,

"Leviathan is not so tamed;

Laugh'd at, he laughs again, and stricken hard,
Turns to the stroke his adamantine scales."

Bowles.

The foregoing objections of Dr. Warton and Mr. Bowles to these Satires, would, if just, apply not only to the writings of Pope, but to all moral instruction and remonstrance whatsoever. That the efforts of any single individual are not likely to effect an entire

change

change in the manners of a people may be admitted; but it will not thence follow that no attempt is to be made to resist the torrent of corruption and depravity, and to awaken the energies of a people to a better sense of their own true interests and happiness. What results may be produced by such efforts no one can ascertain. They are lessons not confined to a single age or nation, but are common to all times and to all mankind; and whatever may be thought of temporary politics and private partialities or resentments, will inculcate a scorn of factitious greatness, a contempt of meanness and servility, and a generous indignation against profligacy and vice, as long as the language in which they are written may endure.

IMITATIONS

OF

HORACE.

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