If one, through Nature's bounty or his Lord's,
Has what the frugal, dirty soil affords,'
From him the next receives it, thick or thin,
As pure a mess almost as it came in ;
The blessed benefit, not there confined,
Drops to the third, who nuzzles close behind:

From tail to mouth, they feed and they carouse:
The last full fairly gives it to the House.

F. This filthy simile, this beastly line,

Quite turns my stomach.-P. So does flattery mine:
And all your courtly civet-cats can vent,
Perfume to you, to me is excrement.

But hear me further :-Japhet, 'tis agreed,

Writ not, and Chartres scarce could write or read,
In all the Courts of Pindus guiltless quite;
But pens can forge, my friend, that cannot write:
And must no egg in Japhet's face be thrown,
Because the deed he forged was not my own?
Must never patriot then declaim at gin,
Unless, good man! he has been fairly in?
No zealous pastor blame a failing spouse,
Without a staring reason on his brows?
And each blasphemer quite escape the rod,
Because the insult's not on man, but God?

This part of the simile was doubtless intended to point to the parsimony of the Court.

2 He now diverges into a fresh argument. Hitherto he has been excusing himself for the preponderance of blame over praise in his verse; but apart from all personal feeling, he continues, the true inspiring motive of my satire is "the strong antipathy of good to bad " (ver. 198).

175

180

185

190

195

Epistle to Lord Bathurst.-POPE. See Moral Essays, iii. 86 and note. Pope evidently derived his knowledge of Japhet Crook's history from a pamphlet called The Unparalleled Im postor, published in 1731. In this many of Japhet's letters are printed, and they go far to confirm Pope's statement that he could not write. The following, enclosing to Hawkins, his dupe, one of his forged deeds, exhibits the extent of his literature: "Worthy Sir: Inclosed in the Bage is the Grant from the Crown with the other Writeinges be pleased to Take them home with you and at your own Laziour Peruse them

Ask

you what provocation I have had?

The strong antipathy of good to bad.

When truth or virtue an affront endures,

The affront is mine, my friend, and should be yours.

200

Mine, as a foe professed to false pretence,
Who think a coxcomb's honour like his sense;

Mine, as a friend to every worthy mind;

And mine as man, who feel for all mankind.'

F. You're strangely proud.

P. So proud, I am no slave:
So impudent, I own myself no knave: '
So odd, my country's ruin makes me grave.
Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see
Men not afraid of God, afraid of me:"
Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,
Yet touched and shamed by ridicule alone.

O sacred weapon! left for Truth's defence,

Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence!
To all but Heaven-directed hands denied,

The Muse may give thee, but the gods must guide:
Reverent I touch thee! but with honest zeal;
To rouse the watchmen of the public weal,
To Virtue's work provoke the tardy Hall,'
And goad the prelate slumbering in his stall.'

and If it may be your Pleasuer to be Consernd or to serve Me int I shall make the Tittell as good and firm as any on earth and all that I have Afirmed of it is truth. Your Most obledged obeidant Humbell Servant Till He's I Crook &c."

1 From Terence : Homo

sum:

205

210

215

Leur cœur, qui se connoit, et qui fuit la
lumière,

S'il se moque de Dieu, craint Tartuffe et
Molière.-WAKEFIELD.

3 He probably means Westminster Hall, the local habitation of the Law and Justice.

4 The good Eusebius, in his Evan

humani nihil a me alienum puto. gelical Preparation, draws a long

POPE.

2 This seems fabricated from the materials of Boileau, Discours au Roi, v. 99:

En vain d'un lâche orgueil leur esprit revêtu

So couvre du manteau d'une austère vertu :

parallel between the ox and the Christian priesthood. Hence the dignified clergy, out of mere humility, have ever since called their thrones by the name of stalls. To which a great prelate of Winchester, one W. Edinton, modestly alluding, has

Ye tinsel insects! whom a Court maintains,
That counts your beauties only by your stains,
Spin all your cobwebs o'er the eye of day!'
The Muse's wing shall brush you all away:
All his grace preaches, all his lordship sings,
All that makes saints of queens, and gods of kings,—
All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the press,
Like the last Gazette, or the last address."

When black Ambition stains a public cause,
A monarch's sword when mad Vain-glory draws,
Not Waller's wreath can hide the nation's scar,*
Nor Boileau turn the feather to a star."

Not so, when diademed with rays divine,
Touched with the flame that breaks from Virtue's shrine,

920

925

230

rendered his name immortal by this ecclesiastical aphorism, who would otherwise have been forgotten: "Canterbury is the higher rack, but Winchester is the better manger." By which, however, it appears that he was not one of those here condemned who slumber in their stalls. -SCRIBLERUS.

1 Weak and slight sophistry against virtue and honour. Thin colours over vice, as unable to hide the light of truth, as cobwebs to shade the sun. -POPE.

2 After ver. 227 in the MS. Where's now the star that lighted Charles to rise?

With that which followed Julius to the
skies.

Angels that watched the Royal Oak so well,
How chanced ye nod, when luckless
Sorel (a) fell ?

Hence, lying miracles! reduced so low;
As to the regal touch and Papal toe,
Hence, haughty Edgar's title to the main,
Britain's to France, and thine to India,
Spain

(a) The horse on which William III. was riding when he met with the accident that caused his death.

3 The case of Cromwell in the Civil War of England, and (ver. 229) of Louis XIV. in his conquest of the Low Countries.-POPE.

4 Alluding to Waller's Panegyric on the Protector, of which Johnson says: "Such a series of verses had rarely appeared before in the English language. Of the lines some are grand, some are graceful, and all are musical. There is now and then a feeble verse, or a trifling thought; but its great fault is the choice of a hero."

5 See his Ode on Namur, where (to use his own words, "Il a fait un astre de la plume blanche que le Roi porte ordinairement à son chapeau, et qui est en effet une espèce de comète, fatale à nos ennemis."-POPE. following is the stanza alluded to:

Contemplez dans la tempête
Qui sort de ces boulevards,
La plume qui sur sa tête
Attire tous les regards.
A cet astre redoutable.
Toujours un sort favorable
S'attache dans les combats;
Et toujours avec la gloire,
Mars amenant la victoire
Vole, et le suit à grands pas.

The

Her priestess Muse forbids the good to die,
And opes the temple of Eternity:'
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,)"
Let Envy howl, while Heaven's whole chorus sings,
And bark at honour not conferred by kings;

Let Flattery sickening see the incense rise,
Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies:
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; 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.

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