And what is fame? the meanest have their day;
The greatest can but blaze, and pass away.
Graced as thou art with all the power of words,
So known, so honor'd at the house of lords;
Conspicuous scene! another yet is nigh,
More silent far, where kings and poets lie;
Where Murray, long enough his country's pride,
Shall be no more than Tully or than Hyde!

Rack'd with sciatics, martyr'd with the stone,
Will any mortal let himself alone?
See Ward by batter'd beaux invited over,
And desperate misery lays hold on Dover.
The case is easier in the mind's disease;

50

55

There all men may be cured whene'er they please.
Would ye be bless'd? despise low joys, low gains;
Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains;
Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains.

61

racter rose to be postmaster-general. Pope had an unaccountable taste for reminding men of humble birth of their origin; a matter which no man can help, and none but a fool will deny ; but which neither fool nor philosopher can relish. Thus he offended humble Allen:' he praised his virtues, and told him that his father had been a footman. Allen spurned the praise, for the sake of the recollection.

53 Than Hyde. Warton gives a striking anecdote of this celebrated man's temper. When he was going from court, just after his resignation of the seals to his trifling and ungrateful master, the duchess of Cleveland insulted him from a window of the palace. He looked up at her, and only said, with calm and contemptuous dignity,—' Madam, if you live, you too will grow old.' A fine sarcasm on the fickleness of the king, and probably a finer still on the profligate woman, whose sole merit was her beauty.

56 See Ward by batter'd beaux. Ward and Dover, wellknown quacks.

61 Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains. Lord Cornbury, a man of talents and virtue. On Mallet's intending to publish

But art thou one, whom new opinions sway; One who believes as Tindal leads the way; Who virtue and a church alike disowns; Thinks that but words, and this but brick and stones?

65

Fly then, on all the wings of wild desire;
Admire whate'er the maddest can admire.
Is wealth thy passion? Hence! from pole to pole,
Where winds can carry, or where waves can roll,
For Indian spices, for Peruvian gold,
Prevent the greedy, and outbid the bold :
Advance thy golden mountain to the skies;
On the broad base of fifty thousand rise;

71

some of Bolingbroke's sneers at Scripture, lord Cornbury, in a letter from Paris in 1752, given by Warton, thus manfully and wisely remonstrates with this low mercenary of posthumous profaneness:-'I must say to you, sir, for the world's sake, and for his sake, that part of the work ought by no means to be communicated farther. If this digression (a particular attack on the Old Testament) be made public, it will be censured, it must be censured, it ought to be censured: it will be criticised too by able pens, whose erudition, as well as their reasonings, will not be easily answered.' He concludes by saying,' I therefore recommend to you to suppress that part of the work, as a good citizen of the world, for the world's peace; as one entrusted and obliged by lord Bolingbroke not to raise storms to his memory.'

Henry, viscount Cornbury, had an hereditary claim to virtue; he was great-grandson of the celebrated lord Clarendon. Ruffhead tells us, that when this young nobleman returned from his travels, the earl of Essex, his brother-in-law, told him, that he had got a handsome pension for him:' he replied, with dignity,- How could you tell, my lord, that I was to be sold? or, at least, how came you to know my price so exactly?' He died in 1753.

65 Who virtue and a church alike disowns. The one be renounces in his party-pamphlets, the other in his Rights of the Christian Church.'-Warburton.

80

Add one round hundred; and, if that's not fair, 75
Add fifty more, and bring it to a square:
For, mark the advantage; just so many score
Will gain a wife with half as many more,
Procure her beauty, make that beauty chaste,
And then such friends-as cannot fail to last.
A man of wealth is dubb'd a man of worth;
Venus shall give him form, and Anstis birth.
(Believe me, many a German prince is worse,
Who proud of pedigree, is poor of purse.)
His wealth brave Timon gloriously confounds; 85
Ask'd for a groat, he gives a hundred pounds;
Or if three ladies like a luckless play,
Takes the whole house upon the poet's day.
Now, in such exigences not to need,
Upon my word, you must be rich indeed:

A noble superfluity it craves,

90

Not for yourself, but for your fools and knaves; Something, which for your honor they may cheat, And which it much becomes you to forget.

If wealth alone then make and keep us bless'd, 95 Still, still be getting; never, never rest.

100

But if to power and place your passion lie, If in the pomp of life consist the joy; Then hire a slave, or, if you will, a lord, To do the honors, and to give the word; Tell at your levee, as the crowds approach, To whom to nod, whom take into your coach, Whom honor with your hand; to make remarks,

82 Anstis birth. Garter king-at-arms.

87 A luckless play. A frolic of some spendthrift which has escaped particular knowlege: the play was said to be Young's Busiris.'

Who rules in Cornwall, or who rules in Berks: This may be troublesome, is near the chair; 105 That makes three members; this can choose a mayor.'

110

Instructed thus, you bow, embrace, protest;
Adopt him son, or cousin at the least;
Then turn about, and laugh at your own jest.
Or if your life be one continued treat;
If to live well means nothing but to eat;
Up, up! cries Gluttony, 'tis break of day;
Go, drive the deer, and drag the finny prey;
With hounds and horns go hunt an appetite.
So Russel did, but could not eat at night;
Call'd happy dog! the beggar at his door,
And envied thirst and hunger to the poor.
Or shall we every decency confound;
Through taverns, stews, and bagnios take our
round;

Go dine with Chartres, in each vice outdo
K-l's lewd cargo, or Ty-y's crew;

115

120

From Latian sirens, French Circean feasts,
Return well travell'd, and transform'd to beasts;
Or for a titled punk, or foreign flame,
Renounce our country, and degrade our name.
If, after all, we must with Wilmot own,
The cordial drop of life is love alone;
And Swift cry wisely, 'Vive la bagatelle!'
The man that loves and laughs, must sure do
well.

126

104 Bowles conceives this to allude to lord Falmouth, once a powerful arbiter of Cornish representation.

126 Wilmot. The earl of Rochester.

128 Swift cry wisely. Swift, in the whim of believing that

Adieu! If this advice appear the worst,
Ev'n take the counsel which I gave you
Or better precepts if
you can impart,

first:

Why do; I'll follow them with all my heart.

130

virtue and wisdom depend on location, and that he was thrown away in Ireland, in his latter years affected to study waste of time. I read,' says one of his letters to Pope, 'the most trifling books I can find; and, whenever I write, it is on the most trifling subjects. * * * I love la bagatelle. I am always writing bad prose or bad verses, either of rage or raillery.' He was idly fond of repeating the sentiment. He writes to Gay-'My rule is, Vive la bagatelle!'

Harris (Philological Inquiries) is solemnly angry with Swift for this carelessness; and, in his anger, even enrages himself into the absurdity of saying, that the story of the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos is a worse book to peruse than those which we forbid as the most profligate.' But this overstrained indignation defeats itself. The grossness of the story is palpable but to assert, as Harris does, that it 'saps the very foundations of morality and religion,' is only to prove that the critic mistook both, and that he equally mistook bombast for fine writing.

POEP.

II.

Q