1740. A POEM. O WRETCHED B—!' jealous now of all, And see what succour from the patriot race. 2 C-, his own proud dupe, thinks monarchs things Made just for him, as other fools for kings; Controls, decides, insults thee every hour, Through clouds of passion P's' views are clear, Impatient sees his country bought and sold, And damns the market where he takes no gold. 4 Grave, righteous S jogs on till, past belief, He finds himself companion with a thief. 5 10 from the Marchmont and other papers that a section of the Opposition to which Pope belonged were dissatisfied with the patriotism of Pulteney and Carteret.-CROKER. 4 Sandys.-Bowles. Samuel Sandys (pronounced Sands). Horace Walpole, who hated him as the author of the motion for the removal of his father in 1741, describes him as "a republican, raised on the fall of Sir R. W. to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, then degraded to be a peer and cofferer, and soon after laid aside." His dulness and respectability are sufficiently indicated in this line, and To purge and let thee blood, with fire and sword, Is all the help stern S wou'd afford. That those who bind and rob thee, would not kill, Good Chopes, and candidly sits still. Whose names once up, they thought it was not wrong To lie in bed, but sure they lay too long. G―r, Cm, B-t,' pay thee due regards, Unless the ladies bid them mind their cards. as to his gravity, H. Walpole says in a letter to Mann, Christmas Eve, 1741: "Did you hear what Earle said of Sandys-that he never laughed but once, and that was when his best friend broke his thigh." He was raised to the peerage in 1743, and died in 1770. Shippen. -BOWLES. This is not quite consistent with the fact that the emissaries of the Pretender, who visited England about this period, found Shippen "timid." See Mahon's History of England, vol. 3, p. 43 (larger edition). Perhaps the Earl of Carlisle.BOWLES. More probably Lord Cornbury, who proved his "candour" in the following year by refusing to vote with the Opposition for Walpole's removal. 3 Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.— BOWLES. "Charles Williams" would not suit the metre, nor indeed the sense, for Sir C. H. Williams was an adherent of Walpole; but the initials suit no other single politician whose name would fit better. The line was perhaps left unfinished, or more probably, as Mr. Carruthers suggests, two surnames were intended. Sir Henry Oxenden and Sir Paul Methuen.-BOWLES. Oxenden was There is a Sir George.-CROKER. passage in Lord Hervey's Memoirs 15 20 which may explain the allusion to Sir Paul Methuen. He says: "The end of this session (1729) was remarkable only for one change, which was Sir Paul Methuen's quitting the employment of Treasurer of the Household. His pretence for quitting was disliking the conduct of the Court in general, but his true reason was his disapprobation, not of any actual sin, but of their sin of omission in not making him Secretary of State, an appointment which he had once unaccountably in the late reign obtained, and quitted when Lord Townsend and Sir Robert Walpole were disgraced. The character of this man was a very singular one. As to the affair of party he called himself always a Whig after he had quitted he went too often to Court to be well with the Opposition, and too seldom to Parliament to be well with either side-a conduct which procured him the agreeable mixed character of courtier without profit, and country gentleman without popularity."- Vol. i., 125. Compare note to ver. 2 of Dialogue 1 of the Epilogue to the Satires, in which Pope dwells more fully on those features in Sir Paul's character which he here glances at. : Lord Gower, Cobham, and Bathurst.-BowLES. with wit that must. And Cd,' who speaks so well and writes, Whose wit and must needs equally provoke one, Finds thee, at best, the butt to crack his joke on. 3 2 They follow rev'rently each wond'rous wight, Utter'd a speech, and ask'd their friends to dine; And all agree, Sir Robert cannot live." Rise, rise, great W, fated to appear, Spite of thyself, a glorious minister! Speak the loud language princes 1 Lord Chesterfield.-BOWLES. 2 Lord Carteret.-BOWLES. William Pulteney, created in 1742 Earl of Bath.-BOWLES. Lord Chesterfield writes to the Earl of Stair, May, 1740, with a clear reference to Pulteney and Carteret: "Some few mean the public good, and they are for acting, and pushing of constitutional measures; but many more mean only their private interest, and they think public inaction and secret negociations the most conducive to it." And Bolingbroke writes in the same sense and in almost identical words to Marchmont on New Year's Day, 1740. These and the following lines VOL. III.-POETRY. refer to the bulk of the party, the Tory squires. 5 i.e., their only cause of discontent is that they have to pay a landtax of five shillings in the pound. 6 See Lord Chesterfield's Letter to the Earl of Stair, 3 December, 1739: "Sir Robert's life is thought to be very precarious, and there are many of us who already anticipate in their thoughts the joyful moment which they think not remote of coming into power; and consequently, far from desiring to make shackles for themselves, are rather willing to continue those upon the people which Sir R. has forged for them." 7 Walpole.-BOWLES. K K Tho' still he travels on no bad pretence, Or those foul copies of thy face and tongue, Veracious W, and frontless Young; Sagacious Bub, so late a friend, and there So late a foe, yet more sagacious H-?5 Hervey and Hervey's school, F————‚§ HYea, moral Ebor or religious Winton.' At length to Britain kind, as to thy whore, Espouse the nation, you debauched before. 2 Either Sir Robert's brother Horace, who had just quitted his embassy at the Hague, or his son Horace, who was then on his travels. -BOWLES. The word "Dutch" in ver. 50 shows that old Horace was intended. Young Horace was travelling in Italy. Besides, he was not of sufficient importance to be noticed here. 3 Winnington.--BOWLES. Thomas Winnington died in 1746. Horace Walpole, in his "Memoirs of George II.," says of him: "His jolly way of laughing at his own want of principle revolted the graver sort of politicians." Hence perhaps the epithet "veracious.' "See Lord Hailes in Malone's Life, p. 253. 4 Bubb Doddington.-BOWLES. In power a servant, out of power a friend. -Epilogue to Satires, Dial. ii., 160. 5 Probably Hare, Bishop of Chichester.-BOWLES. Hare, with others of the Bishops, opposed and defeated the Mortmain and Quakers Bill in 1736. Lord 6 y, H Hervey says (Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 104) that he afterwards made his peace with the Court. He had been Sir R. Walpole's tutor at Cambridge, and, according to Lord Hervey, the latter was desirous to promote him to the see of Canterbury. 6 Fox, Henley, Hinton.-BowLES. This line was written by some one well acquainted with secret politics, for it appears by the Hervey Papers that Fox, meaning Stephen Fox, his brother Harry, and Lord Hinton, composed what may be called Lord Hervey's personal party.-CROKER. Lord Hinton, eldest son of Earl Powlett, was made a Lord of the Bedchamber 8th Feb., 1733. See Historical Register under that date. Bishop Hare called him "Lord Hervey's Ape." See Memoirs, vol. ii. 103. For the connection between Fox and Hervey, see Epilogue to Satires, i. 71, and note. 7 Blackburn, Archbishop of York, and Hoadley, Bishop of Winchester. -BOWLES. The morals of the former were reflected on by Pope in his Sober Advice, and, though he is not actually named, in the first Moral Essay, where he appears as the "reverend sire," Hoadley's hetero |