But shall a printer, weary of his life,' Learn, from their books, to hang himself and wife? he doubtless would rejoice for such an opportunity to bear him company." All this was said and done with so much resolution and solemnity that the Italian found himself under the necessity to cry out, Murder; which brought in company to his relief. The unhappy man at last died a penitent.-WARTON. A fact that happened in London a few years past. The unhappy man left behind him a paper, justifying his action by the reasonings of some of these authors.-POPE. The man's name was Richard Smith. He was a bookbinder, and a prisoner for debt within the Liberties of the King's Bench. He and his wife were found hanging in their room, their child having been shot. The account of the suicide, and a copy of the paper in which Smith justified his action, are to be found in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. ii., p. 722. 2 A spirituous liquor, the exorbitant use of which had almost destroyed the lowest rank of the people, till it was restrained by an Act of Parliament in 1736.-POPE. The Gin Act was passed chiefly through the exertions of Sir Joseph Jekyll and against the judgment both of Pulteney and Walpole. It was meant to restrain the people from their excessive indulgence in Geneva or gin, and was a virtually prohibitory Act, 20s. being charged on each gallon sold by the retailer, and £50 being the price of a licence to retail 130 the liquor. So far from checking the evil against which it was aimed, it only led to the increase of frauds on the Revenue, of drunkenness, and of rioting, and in 1743 it was found necessary to frame a new Bill, "by which a small duty was laid on the spirits at the still-head, and the price of licenses reduced to twenty shillings." Mahon's Hist. of England, chap. xxv. 3 In the first edition, "humble Foster." One of the leading Dissenting preachers of the day. Pope was probably induced to single out Foster for this special praise, because he was a dissenter, and because in 1733 he became conspicuous in a controversy with some of the Church of England clergy, and particularly Dr. Stebbing, Archdeacon of Wilts.CROKER. Hogarth, in his Memoirs of the Opera (vol. i. p. 305), incidentally illustrates Foster's popularity as a preacher; "Sir John Hawkins in his History of Music, says: "All the world flocked thither' (i.e. to the Haymarket Theatre), 'even Aldermen and other citizens with their wives and daughters, to so great a degree, that in the city it became a proverbial expression, that those who had not heard Farinelli sing and Foster preach, were not qualified to appear in genteel company. In a note to the above passage, Foster is described as "a celebrated Anabaptist preacher, who lectured on Sunday evenings in the Old Jewry." A simple Quaker, or a Quaker's wife,' Virtue may She's still the same beloved, contented thing. Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more:" The Quaker's wife was Mrs. Drummond, of whose preaching a long account is given in Spence's Anecdotes, p. 346. In the British Chronologist under October, 1735, it is stated that "Mrs. Drummond, a young Scottish lady, having turned Quaker, came up to London, and preached in that city, and in most of the great towns of England, particularly to the whole University of Cambridge." 2 A poor bishopric in Wales, as poorly supplied.-POPE. Dr. Harris died 28th August, 1738, and it is stated that the see was then only worth £600, the Deanery of Wells which he held with it being £700. Mawson succeeded Harris. -CROKER. Warton says that Harris was a prelate of irreproachable character, who is said never to have offended Pope." In the reading of v. 37 of the First Imitation of Horace in the Chauncy MS., the name "Harris " occurs. If this is meant for the bishop, it would certainly appear that Pope must have had some grudge against him. Noble, in his continuation of Granger's Biographies (vol. iii. 490), says that Harris was recommended by Gibson to the see of Llandaff at the instance of the Duke of Argyle, 135 140 145 and that he owed his promotion to a patriotic book on dress, written when he was Prebendary of Canterbury, called Treatise on the Modes, or Farewell to Freneh Kicks, in which he urged his countrymen to dress according to their own taste, and to discard French fashions. 3 In the folio, "low-born Allen." Mr. Pope, on the republication of this poem, in a letter to Mr. Allen, writes thus: "I am going to insert in the body of my works, my two last poems in quarto. I always profit myself of the opinion of the public to correct myself on such occasions; and sometimes the merits of particular men, whose names I have made free with, for examples either of good or bad, determine me to alterations. I have found a virtue in you more than I certainly knew before, till I had made experiment of it, I mean humility. I must therefore, in justice to my own conscience of it, bear testimony to it, and change the epithet I first gave you of low born' to 'humble.' I shall take care to do you the justice to tell everybody this change was not made at yours, or any friend's request for you, but my own knowledge you merited it."-WARBURTON. 4 Warburton says: "The poet in Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess, Old England's genius, rough with many a scar, Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim, this whole passage was willing to be Warton, however, quotes Gibbon, vol. iv., p. 26: "Without Warburton's critical telescope I should never have seen in this general picture of triumphant vice any personal allusion to Theodora." Nor is it very likely that Pope intended any, though we may easily believe that, as Warburton says, he was "willing to be understood " to have had Theodora in his mind when his future commentator pointed out the coincidence. The idea of personifying the corruption of Walpole's age as a prostitute was sufficiently obvious without the abstruse aid of Procopius. Alluding to the scarlet whore of the Apocalypse. -WARBURTON. 150 155 160 165 How then can Pope be supposed to have alluded to Theodora ? 2 Modern readers may require to be reminded that in Pope's days carting, or exhibiting from a cart, was a punishment of prostitutes and procuresses.-CROKER. 3 A sneer at the peace at any price policy of Walpole. The reader of London, which appeared on the same day as this satire, will remember numerous allusions which Johnson makes to the aggrandisement of Spain at the expense of England. 4 The Pagod. He probably selected this word with an eye to the many adventurers who about this period were returning from India with vast fortunes, and were buying seats in the House of Commons to profit by Walpole's system of parliamentary corruption. The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore : At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law: Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain) Show there was one who held it in disdain. 170 DIALOGUE II. FR. 'Tis all a libel-Paxton (Sir) will say.' How should I fret to mangle every line, 1 Late Solicitor to the Treasury.WARBURTON. Nicholas Paxton. He is referred to again in ver. 141: When Paxton gives him double pots and pay? Horace Walpole mentions him in a letter, April 15, 1742, as having been prosecuted for malversation. He was committed to Newgate and remained there during the session. Mr. Croker says: In the poem called A Supplement to 1738. "Not by Mr. Pope." Pope is made to account for his gall to Paxton thus: The largest shower should on his head descend, Who spoiled a gracious plot, and hanged my friend. 5 The allusion, of course, is to Atterbury's plot. 2 An allusion to the Play-house Act, which was declared by the Opposition to be the first step towards the suppression of all freedom of the press. The line seems also to have reference to the old maxim "The greater the truth, the greater the libel." To-day, he says (ver. 8), there is something of invention in my satire, but to-morrow it will be the literal truth. 3 Imitated from An Epilogue by Dryden : The sweating Muse does almost leave the chase, She puffs, and hardly keeps your Protean vice's pace. F. Yet none but you by name the guilty lash; P. How, Sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice ?" Ye reverend atheists-F. Scandal! name them. P. Why that's the thing you bid me not to do. Who starved a sister, who foreswore a debt,^ I never named; the town's inquiring yet. 3 Who ? 10 15 20 The poisoning dame-F. You mean-P. I don't-F. You do. P. The bribed elector-F. There you stoop too low. The Ordinary of Newgate, who publishes the memoirs of the malefactors, and is often prevailed upon to be so tender of their reputation as to set down no more than the initials of their name.-POPE. 2 Imitated from Martial, lib. x. xxxiii. Hunc servare modum nostri novere libelli, It is pity that the liveliness of the reply cannot excuse the bad reasoning the dice, though they rhyme to vice, can never stand for it; which his argument requires they should do. For dice are only the instruments of fraud; but the ques 6 25 30 30 tion is not whether the instrument, but whether the act committed by it, should be exposed instead of the person.-WARBURTON. 4 In the first edition : Who starved a mother, who foreswore a debt. 5 Wakefield says this refers to Lady Betty Molineux, who married Dr. St. André, after poisoning her former husband, the friend of Locke. It seems, however, much more probable that Pope is alluding to his old attack on Lady Deloraine (" Delia ") in Satire i. 81. |