Grac'd as thou art, 'with all the Pow'r of Words, Conspicuous Scene! another yet is nigh, 50 (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 Beaus invited over, And desp'rate Misery lays hold on Dover. The case is easier in the Mind's disease; 55 There all Men may be cur'd, whene'er they please. Would ye be blest? despise low Joys, low Gains; Disdain whatever CORNBURY disdains; Be virtuous, and be happy for your pains. NOTES. 61 a particular shining character gives a force and spirit to the line. This amiable young nobleman wrote from Paris, 1752, a very pressing remonstrance to Mr. Mallet, to dissuade him, but in vain, from publishing a very offensive digression on the Old Testament, in Lord Bolingbroke's Letters on History. "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 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 easily be 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 intrusted and obliged by Lord Bolingbroke, not to raise storms to his memory." Ver. 61. whatever CORNBURY disdains ;] It is said, that when Lord Cornbury returned from his travels, the late Earl of Essex, his brother-in-law, told him he had got a handsome pension for him. To which Lord Cornbury answered with a composed 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? To this anecdote Pope alludes. 'virtutem verba putes, et Lucum ligna? 'cave ne portus occupet alter. b Scilicet uxorem cum dote, fidemque, et amicos, Et genus, et formam, regina Pecunia donat; NOTES. Ver. 63. art thou one,] Here we have a direct and decisive censure of a celebrated infidel writer; at this time, therefore, which was 1737, Pope was strongly and openly on the side of Religion, as he knew the great lawyer to be, to whom he was writing. Horace, it is said, alludes to the words of a dying Hercules in a Greek Tragedy; and Dion Cassius relates, in the twenty seventh Book of his History, that these were the words which Brutus used just before he stabbed himself, after his defeat at Philippi. But it is observable, that this fact rests solely on the credit of this fawning and fulsome Court Historian; and that Plutarch, who treats largely of Brutus, is silent on the subject. If Brutus had adopted this passage, I cannot bring myself to believe, that Horace would so far have forgotten his old republican principles, as to have mentioned the words adopted by the dying patriot, with a mark of reproach and reprobation. It must be added, to what is said above, of our Author's orthodoxy at this time, that he wrote a very respectful letter to Dr. Waterland, to thank him for his Vindication of the Athanasian Creed, dated October 16, 1737. Which letter was given by Dr. Waterland to Mr. Seed, and was in the possession of Mr. Seed's widow, 1767, who shewed it to Mr. Bowyer the eminent and learned Printer. Ver. 65. Who Virtue and a Church alike disowns,] The one he renounces in his party-pamphlets; the other, in his Rights of the Christian Church. W. Ver. 77. For, mark] Not initated with the vigour and energy of the Original. This 77th line is uncommonly weak and languid 'But art thou one, whom new opinions sway, One who believes as Tindal leads the way, Who Virtue and a Church alike disowns, 65 Thinks that but words, and this but brick and stones? Fly 'then, on all the Wings of wild Desire, Is Wealth thy passion? Hence! from Pole to Pole, Prevent the greedy, and outbid the bold; For, mark th' advantage; just so many score NOTES. Three Divinities, for such Horace has described them, Pecunia, Suadela, and Venus, conspire in giving their various accomplishments to this favourite of Fortune. That lively veteran General Oglethorpe told me, that the Duke of Marlborough dining with Prince Eugene spoke in high terms of his Queen Anne: the Prince whispered to Oglethorpe and said, “ Regina Pecunia; that's his Queen.” 134 Ne fueris hic tu. 'chlamydes Lucullus, ut aiunt, Qui possum tot? ait: tamen et quæram, et quot habebo, Mittam: post paulo scribit, sibi millia quinque NOTES. Ver. 85. His Wealth,] By no means equal to the Original: there is so much pleasantry in alluding to the known story of the Prætor coming to borrow dresses (paludamenta) for a chorus in a public spectacle that he intended to exhibit, who asked him to lend him a hundred, says Plutarch; but Lucullus bade him take wo hundred. Horace humorously has made it five thousand. We know nothing of Timon, except it be the Nobleman introduced in the Epistle to Lord Burlington, Ver. 99. There is still another beauty in Horace; he has suddenly, according to his manner, introduced Lucullus speaking; " qui possum," &c. He is for ever introducing these little interlocutions, which give his Satires and Epistles an air so lively and dramatic. This, also, is very frequently the practice of Bayle, and is one of those circumstances that has contributed to make his Dictionary so very entertaining; and he need not have said, as he did to Boi. leau, that the reading his work was like the journey of a caravan over the deserts of Arabia, which often went twenty or thirty leagues together,without finding a single fruit-tree or fountain. Ver. 87. Or if three Ladies like a luckless Play,] The common Reader, I am sensible, will be always more solicitous about the names of these three Ladies, the unlucky Play, and every other trifling circumstance that attended this piece of gallantry, than for the explanation of our Author's sense, or the illustration of His Wealth brave 'Timon gloriously confounds; 85 A noble Superfluity it craves, 90 Not for yourself, but for your Fools and Knaves; Something, which for your Honour they may cheat, And which it much becomes you to forget. If Wealth alone then make and keep us blest, 95 But if to Pow'r and Place your passion lie, 100 NOTES. his poetry; even where he is most moral and sublime. But had it been Mr. Pope's purpose to indulge so impertinent a curiosity, he had sought elsewhere for a commentator on his writings. W. Notwithstanding this remark of Dr. Warburton, I have taken some pains, though indeed in vain, to ascertain who these Ladies were, and what the play they patronized. It was once said to be Young's Busiris. Ver. 99. or (if you will) a Lord] It having been disputed betwixt two eminent persons, whether Swift or Pope had in their writings said the severest things on English Peers, it was judged to be Swift in the following passage of Gulliver, v. i. p. 111. The King of Brobdignac asked me what methods were used to cultivate the minds and bodies of our young nobility; and in what kind of business they commonly spent the first and teachable part of their lives; what course was taken to supply that assembly when any noble family became extinct. What qualifications were necessary in those who are to be created new Lords; whe |