Page images
PDF
EPUB

LOVET.

Cease your contention, which has been too long; I grow impatient, and the Tea's too strong. Attend, and yield to what I now decide; The Equipage fhall grace SMILINDA's Side; The Snuff-Box to CARDELIA I decree, Now leave complaining, and begin your Tea.

[ocr errors]

GAY wrote a Quaker's Eclogue, and Swift a Footman's Eclogue; and faid to Pope, "I think the Pastoral Ridicule is not exhaufted; what think you of a Newgate Paftoral, among the whores and thieves there?" When Lady M. W. Montagu would fometimes fhew a copy of her verses to Pope, and he would make fome little alterations, "No," faid fhe," Pope, no touching! for then, whatever is good for any thing will pafs for your's, and the reft for mine."

WARTON.

VERBATIM FROM BOILEAU.

UN JOUR DIT UN AUTEUR, etc.

ONCE (fays an Author, where I need not fay)
Two Trav❜lers found an Oyster in their way;
Both fierce, both hungry; the difpute grew ftrong,
While Scale in hand Dame Justice past along.
Before her each with clamour pleads the Laws,
Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause.
Dame Juftice weighing long the doubtful Right,
Takes, opens, fwallows it, before their fight.
The cause of ftrife remov'd fo rarely well,
There take (fays Juftice), take ye each a Shell.
We thrive at Westminster on Fools like you;
'Twas a fat Oyster-Live in peace-Adieu.

IT will be no unufeful or unpleafing amusement to compare this tranflation with the original :

"Un jour, dit un Auteur, n'importe en quel chapitre,
Deux voyageurs à jeun rencontrerent une huître,

Tous deux la conteftoient, lorfque dans leur chemin,
La juftice paffa, la balance à la main.

Devant elle à grand bruit ils expliquent la chose.
Tous deux avec depens veulent gagner leur caufe.
La juftice pe ant ce droit litigieux,

Demande l'huitre, l'ouvre, & l'avale à leur yeux,
Et par ce bel arreft terminant la bataille :

Tencz voilà, dit elle, à chacun une écaille.

Des fottifes d'autrui, nous vivons au palais;

Meffieurs, l'huître étoit bonne. Adieu, Vivez en paix."

In the fifth, fixth, feventh, ninth, and twelfth verfes, Pope is inferior to the original.

WARTON.

ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION OF MRS. HOW.

HAT IS PRUDERY?

WHAT

'Tis a Beldam,

Seen with Wit and Beauty feldom.

'Tis a fear that starts at fhadows

'Tis, (no, 'tis'n't) like Mifs Meadows.
'Tis a Virgin hard of Feature,
Old, and void of all good-nature;
Lean and fretful, would seem wise;
Yet plays the fool before fhe dies.
'Tis an ugly envious Shrew,
That rails at dear Lepell and You.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

VER. 11. That rails at dear Lepell] Mifs Lepell was one of the maids of honour to Queen Caroline, and she afterwards was married to Lord Hervey. She and Mifs Mary Bellenden, mentioned in Gay's ballad, and in Pope's letters, were the ornaments of the court, for beauty, engaging manners, and amiable character. I have a MS. letter from her, written at Paris to Lord Melcomb, which fufficiently evinces her fuperior understanding, and might be claffed with the letters of Lady M. W. Montagu.

In Gay's ballad she is defignated as,

"Youth's youngest daughter, fweet Lepell."

He also celebrates her with Miss Bellenden, in his ballad, intitled, Damon and Cupid :

"So well I'm known at Court,

None afks where beauty dwells,

But readily refort,

To Bellenden's or Lepell's."

Of

Of Mifs Meadows, mentioned in this little jeu d'efprit, I find the following notice in a MS. poem of Lord Melcomb, the celebrated Bubb Dodington:

As chafte as "Hervey or Mifs Meadows !”

AMONG thefe fmaller poems of our Author, the following couplet was expofed, on a dog's collar, which he gave to the Prince of Wales:

"I am his Highness's dog at Kew;

Pray tell me, Sir, whofe dog are you?”

which was taken from Sir William Temple's Miscellanies, vol. iii. p. 323. faid to be the anfwer of Mr. Grantham's Fool to one who afked him whofe fool he was. WARTON.

OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

MUSE, 'tis enough: at length thy labour ends,

And thou fhalt live, for Buckingham commends. Let Crouds of Critics now my Verfe affail, Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail: This more than pays whole years of thankless pain, Time, health, and fortune, are not loft in vain. Sheffield approves, confenting Phoebus bends, And I and Malice from this hour are friends.

NOTES.

VER. 2. Buckingham commends,] It would be difficult to add any thing to the finished portrait of this nobleman, given by Mr. Walpole in his Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 118. WARTON.

VER. 5 and 6. This more] A very groundless complaint! Few authors, during their lives, were more respected and revered than himself by perfons of rank and judges of merit.

WARTON.

« EelmineJätka »