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This dreaded Satʼrift Dennis will confefs

Foe to his pride, but Friend to his diftrefs:

So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door,

370

Has drunk with Cibber, nay has rhym'd for Moor.
Full ten years flander'd, did he once reply?

Three thoufand funs went down on Welfted's lie. 375
To please his Miftrefs, one afpers'd his life;

He lafh'd him not, but let her be his wife:

NOTES.

Let

VER. 37. This dreaded Sat'tij?] He wrote the Prologue for his benefit, ia Dennis's old age.

VER. 372. So humble, &c.] By all this, Pope would feem to us a perfect pattern of meeknefs and patience; at the fame time, one cannot avoid a moment confilering what fhould have been the cause of his having fo many angry enemies. Could he place his hand on his heart, and fay he had not been often the aggreffor? How different is the language of real and dignified fuperiority?

Hear Milton, who had as many enemies and more forrows: "More fafe. I fing with mortal voice, unchang'd

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To hoarfe and mute, tho' fail'n on evil days,

On evil days tho' fall'n, and evil tongues,

In dayknefs, and with dangers compass'd round,
And folitude"

VER.374 ten years] It was fo long after many libels, before the Author of the Dunciad published that poem, till when, he never writ a word in anfwer to the many fcurrilities and falfehoods concerning him.

POPE.

VER 375 Welfted's lie.] This man had the impudence to tell in print, that Mr P. had occafioned à Lady's death, and to name a perfon he never heard of. He alfo publifhed that he libelled the Duke of Chandos; with whom (it was added) that he had lived in familiarity, and received from him a prefent of five hundred pounds: the falsehood of both which is known to his Grace. Mr P. never received any prefent, farther than the fubfcription for Homer, from him, or from any great Man whatfoever. POPE.

Let Budgel charge low Grubstreet on his quill,
And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his Will;
Let the two Curls of Town and Court, abuse
His father, mother, body, foul, and muse.
Yet why? that Father held it for a rule,
It was a fin to call our neighbour fool:

NOTES.

380

That

VER. 378. Let Budgel] Budgel, in a weekly pamphlet called the Bee, bestowed much abufe on him, in the imagination that he writ fome things about the Last Will of Dr. Tinda', in the Grubfreet Journal; a Paper wherein he never had the least hand, direction, or supervifal, nor the lealt knowledge of its Author.

POPE.

VIR. 379. except his Will;] Alluding to Tindal's Will: by which, and other indirect practices, Budgel, to the exclufion of the next heir, a nephew, got to himself almoft the whole fortune of a man entirely unrelated to him, POPE.

Refpecting the circumflance hinted at, of Euftace Budgel having forged Dr. Tindal's will, the reader might perhaps with to have fome further account. Dr. Tindal, of All Souls College, Oxford, of notorious character, the author of Christianity as old as the Creation, left the following will:

"1 Mathew Tindal, &c. (after a legacy to his maid-servant) give and bequeath to Euftace Budgel, the fum of two thoufand one hundred pounds, that his great talents may serve his country, &c. my ftrong box, my diamond ring, MS. Books, &c.

(Signed)

MAT. TINDAL."

The reverend Nicholas Tindal, his nephew, author of the Continuation of Rapin, declared his fufpicion that this will was forged. This was generally credited, and Budgel, in 1737, threw himself out of a boat and was drowned. He wrote feveral of the Spectators; the Hiftory of the Boyles, Earls of Shannon, &c. and a weekly pamphlet called the Bee. The caufe of his death was fuppofed to have been in relation to this will.

VER. 381. His father, mother, &c.] In fome of Curl's and other pamphlets, Mr. Pope's Father was faid to be a Mechanic,

a Hatter,

That harmless Mother thought no wife a whore: Hear this, and fpare his family, James Moore! 385 Unspotted names, and memorable long!

If there be force in Virtue, or in Song.

Of gentle blood (part fhed in Honour's caufe, While yet in Britain Honour had applause)

Each

NOTES.

a Hatter, a Farmer, nay a Bankrupt. But, what is ftranger, a Nollman (if fuch a reflection could be thought to come from a Nobleman) had dropt an allufion to that pitiful untruth, in a paper called an Epifl'e to a Doctor of Divinity: and the following line,

"Hard as thy Heart, and as thy Birth obfcure,"

had fallen from a like Courtly pen, in certain Verses to the Imitator of Horace. Mr. Pope's Father was of a Gentleman's Family in Oxfordshire, the head of which was the Earl of Downe, whose fole Heirefs married the Earl of Lindsay.-His Mother was the daughter of William Turner, Efq. of York: She had three brothers, one of whom was killed, another died in the service of King Charles; the eldest following his fortunes, and becoming a general officer in Spain, left her what estate remained after the fequeftrations and forfeitures of her family.-Mr. Pope died in 171-, aged 75; she in 1733, aged 93, a very few weeks after this Poem was finished. The following infcription was placed by their fon on their Monument in the parish of Twickenham, in Middlefex:

D. O. M.

ALEXANDRO. POPE. VIRO. INNOCVO. PROBO. PIO.
QUI. VIXIT ANNOS. LXXV. OB. MDCCXVII.

ET. EDITH. CONIVGI. INCVLPABILI.
PIENTISSIME. QUÆ. VIXIT. ANNOS.

XCIII. OB. MDCCXXXIII.

PARENTIBVS. BENEMERENTIBV3. FILIVS. FECIT.

ET. SIBI.

POPE.

VER. 388. Of gentle blood] When Mr. Pope published the notes on the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, giving an account of his fa mily, Mr. Pottinger, a relation of his, obferved, that his coufin

Pope

pray?————

Each parent fprung-A. What fortune, pray

P. Their own,

And better got, than Beftia's from the throne.
Born to no Pride, inheriting no Strife,

Nor marrying Discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,

390

The good man walk'd innoxious through his age.
No Courts he faw, no fuits would ever try,

Nor dar'd an Oath, nor hazarded a Lie.

396

Unlearn'd

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 40;. in the MS.

And of myself, too, fomething muft I say?
Take then this verfe, the trifle of a day,

And if it live, it lives but to commend

The man whofe heart has ne'er forgot a Friend,
Or head, an Author; Critic, yet polite,

And friend to Learning, yet too wife to write.

NOTES.

Pope had made himself out a fine pedigree, but he wondered where he got it; that he had never heard any thing himself of their being defcended from the Earls of Downe; and, what is more, he had an old maiden aunt, equally related, a great genealogift, who was always talking of her family, but never mentioned this circumstance; on which the certainly would not have been filent, had she known any thing of it. Mr. Pope's grandfather was a clergyman of the church of England in Hampshire He placed his fon, Mr. Pope's father, with a merchant at Lifbon, where he became a convert to Popery. (Thus far Dr. Bolton, late Dean of Carlifle, a friend of Pope; from Mr. Pottinger.) The buryingplace and monuments of the family of the Popes, Earls of Downe, is at Wroxton, Oxfordshire. The Earl of Guildford fays, that he has seen and examined the pedigrees and defcents of that family, and is fure that there were then none of the name of Pope left, who could be defcended from that family.(From John Loveday, of Caversham, Efquire.) WARTON..

This account is also confirmed to me by my friend Mr. Dallaway, of the Heralds' College.

Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's fubtle art,
No language, but the language of the heart.
By Nature honest, by Experience wise,
Healthy by temp❜rance, and by exercise;

His life, tho' long, to sickness past unknown,
His death was inftant, and without a groan,
O grant me, thus to live, and thus to die!

400

404

Who sprung from Kings shall know less joy than I. O Friend! may each domestic blifs be thine!

Be no unpleafing Melancholy mine :

Me, let the tender office long engage,

To rock the cradle of repofing Age,

With lenient arts extend a Mother's breath,

410

Make Languor fmile, and fmooth the bed of Death,

NOTES.

Explore

VER. 397. Nor dar'd an Oath,] He was a non-juror, and would not take the oath of allegiance or fupremacy, or the oath against the Pope.

VER 408. Me, let the tender office] Thefe exquifite lines give us a very interesting picture of the exemplary filial piety of our Author! There is a penfive and pathetic sweetness in the very flow of them. The eye that has been wearied and oppreffed by the harsh and auftere colouring of fome of the preceding paffages, turns away with pleasure from these afperities, and repofes with complacency on the foft tints of domestic tenderness. We are naturally gratified to see men defcending from their heights, into the familiar offices of common life; and the fenfation is the more pleafing to us, because admiration is turned into affection. In the very entertaining Memoirs of the Life of Racine (published by his fon) we find no paffage more amusing and interefting, than where that great Poet fends an excufe to Monfieur, the Duke, who had earnestly invited him to dine at the Hotel de Conde, because he had promised to partake of a great fish that his children had got for him, and he could not think of disappointing them. Melanthon

VOL. IV.

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