TO MRS M. B. ON HER BIRTH-DAY1. [1723.] H be thou blest with all that Heav'n can send, Obe a Friend: Not with those Toys the female world admire, Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o'er, Let Joy or Ease, let Affluence or Content, Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face. 5 10 15 20 THE CHALLENGE. A COURT BALLAD. To the Tune of 'To all you Ladies now at Land,' &c. [By Dorset.] Written anno 1717. Warton. [THIS delightful trifle is addressed to Pope's charming friends at the Court of the Prince and Princess of Wales (afterwards King George II. and Queen Caroline), and is full of petits mots alluding to the ladies and gentlemen of their society.] 1 [Martha Blount. Lines 5-10 occur as a reflexion on the poet's own birthday in a letter to Gay of the year 1722, and they were also adapted for him to a kind of epitaph on Henry Mordaunt, the nephew of Lord Peterborough, who committed suicide in 1724. On this occasion the following lines were added: 'If there's no hope with kind, though fainter ray The lines concerning which the charge of plagiarism was mutually made between Pope and James Moore-Smythe were omitted by Pope on reprinting the poem, but introduced (slightly altered) in the Characters of Women (Moral Essays, Ep. 11. vv. 243-248).] 2 [This delightful trifle is addressed to Pope's charming friends at the Court of the Prince and Princess of Wales (afterwards King George II. and Queen Caroline), and is full of petits mots The same dull story-MORDAUNT, thou didst alluding to the ladies and gentlemen of their society.] well.' 3 [Mary, youngest daughter of the second Lord Bellenden, was afterwards married to Colonel Campbell, who became after her death fifth Duke of Argyll. Lord Hervey (Memoirs, Vol. I. p. 54) speaks of her as 'incontestably the most agreeable, the most insinuating, and the most likeable woman of her time; made up of every ingredient likely to engage or attach a lover.'] 4 [The beautiful Miss Mary Lepell, Maid of Honour to the Princess Caroline, and afterwards married to Lord Hervey. Born 1700; married 1720; died 1768.] 5 [Sister to the Lady Rich mentioned below.] 6 [Lord Townshend was dismissed from office in 1616, the King being jealous of his supposed V. In truth, by what I can discern, Of courtiers, 'twixt you three, Some wit you have, and more may learn From Court, than Gay or Me: Perhaps, in time, you'll leave high diet, To sup with us on milk and quiet. With a fa, la, la. VI. At Leicester Fields", a house full high, (A Milliner, I mean;) There may you meet us three to three, For Gay 12 can well make two of Me. With a fa, la, la. VII. But should you catch the prudish itch, And each become a coward, Bring sometimes with you lady Rich 18 And sometimes mistress Howard 14; For virgins, to keep chaste, must go Abroad with such as are not so. VIII. And thus, fair maids, my ballad ends; subserviency to the Prince of Wales.] [The Earl of Sunderland, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.] 8 [See Imit. of Horace, Bk. 1. Ep. I. v. 112.] 9 [Charles second Duke of Grafton, born in 1683; afterwards Lord Chamberlain.] To [Henrietta Duchess of Marlborough, whom Pope is believed to have so cruelly satirised as the 'Flavia' of Moral Essays, Ep. 11. vv. 87 ff. [Now Leicester Square, where Leicester House, the town residence of the Prince of Wales, was situate.] 12 [Alluding to Gay's rotundity of person.] 13 [Lady Rich, daughter of Col. Griffin and wife of Sir Robert Rich. Many of Lady M. W. Montagu's letters are addressed to her.] 14 [See On a Certain Lady at Court, p. 471.] this has been omitted.] The love of arts lies cold and dead And not one Muse of all he fed Betray, and are betrayed: Why make I friendships with the great, Deep whimsies to contrive; And Garth, the best good Christian he, The gayest valetudinaire, Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go; And Homer (damn him!) calls*. of George II., who, according to Horace Walpole, quoted by Carruthers, granted the reprieve of a condemned malefactor, in order that an experiment might be made on his ears for her benefit.] [Cs is evidently Craggs; and H-k, as Carruthers interprets the hiatus, Lord Hinchinbrook, a young nobleman of spirit and fashion.] 2 Rowe had the year before, on the accession of George I., been made Poet Laureate, one of the land-surveyors of the port of London, Clerk of the Closet to the Prince of Wales, and Secre Most thinking rake, alive. Though fond of dear repose; For sober, studious days! For salads, tarts, and pease! Adieu to all, but Gay alone, THE BASSET-TABLE. AN ECLOGUE. ONLY this of all the Town Eclogues was Mr Pope's; and is here printed from a copy corrected by his own hand.-The humour of it consists in this, that the one is in love with the Game, and the other with the Sharper. Warburton. [The original edition of the Town Eclogues was published in 1716 anonymously, and consisted of three eclogues, written to parody the Pastorals of Pope and Philips, entitled respectively the Basset-Table, the Drawing-Room, and The Toilet. They were first ascribed to Gay, to whose mock pastorals they bear much resemblance. Three others were added by the same hand which had written all the Town Eclogues except the Basset-Table, viz. that of Lady M. W. Montagu.] CARDELIA. SMILINDA. CARDELIA. HE Basset-Table spread, the Tallier come1; SMILINDA. Ah, Madam, since my SHARPER is untrue, I joyless make my once ador'd Alpeu. I saw him stand behind OMBRELIA'S Chair, And whisper with that soft, deluding air, And those feign'd sighs which cheat the list'ning Fair. CARDELIA. Is this the cause of your Romantic strains? 5 A mightier grief my heavy heart sustains. IO SMILINDA. Is that the grief, which you compare with mine? 15 CARDELIA. A Lover lost, is but a common care; And prudent Nymphs against that change prepare: The KNAVE OF CLUBS thrice lost: Oh! who could guess 1 [Basset was a game commonly played in England at the period after the Restoration; and in France in the reign of Louis XIV., who issued 20 an ordinance prohibiting it and similar games. Chatto.] |