340

Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, 332
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Not Fortune's worshipper, nor Fashion's fool,
Not Lucre's madman, nor Ambition's tool,
Not proud, nor servile; be one poet's praise,
That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways:
That flattery, even to kings, he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same.
That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stoop'd to Truth, and moralised his song:
That not for Fame, but Virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half-approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown,1
Th' imputed trash,2 and dulness not his own;
The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape,
The libell'd person, and the pictured shape;
Abuse, on all he loved, or loved him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father dead;

The whisper that, to greatness still too near,
Perhaps yet vibrates on his sovereign's ear—

350

'The lie so oft o'erthrown:' as, that he received subscriptions for Shakspeare; that he set his name to Mr Broome's verses, &c., which, though publicly disproved, were nevertheless shamelessly repeated.—P. -The imputed trash' such as profane psalms, court-poems, and other scandalous things, printed in his name by Curll and others.-P. Abuse:' namely, on the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Burlington, Lord Bathurst, Lord Bolingbroke, Bishop Atterbury, Dr Swift, Dr Arbuthnot, Mr Gay, his friends, his parents, and his very nurse, aspersed in printed papers, by James Moore, G. Ducket, L. Welsted, Tho. Bentley, and other obscure persons.-P.

Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past:
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome even the last!
A. But why insult the poor, affront the great?
P. A knave 's a knave, to me, in every state:
Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail,

Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail,
A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer,
Knight of the post corrupt, or of the shire;
If on a pillory, or near a throne,

He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own.

Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit, Sappho can tell you how this man was bit:

1

This dreaded satirist Dennis will confess

Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress:
So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door,

Has drunk with Cibber, nay, has rhymed for Moore.
Full ten years slander'd, did he once reply?
Three thousand suns went down on Welsted's 2 lie.
To please a mistress one aspersed his life;

He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife :

3

Let Budgell charge low Grub-street on his quill,
And write whate'er he pleased, except his will;
Let the two Curlls of town and court 5 abuse
His father, mother, body, soul, and Muse.
Yet why? that father held it for a rule,

It was a sin to call our neighbour fool:

1 6

358

370

380

'Sappho Lady M. W. Montague.-2 Welsted:' accused Pope of killing a lady by a satire.—3 ‘Budgell:' Budgell, in a weekly pamphlet called The Bee, bestowed much abuse on him.- 'Except his will:' alluding to Tindal's will by which, and other indirect practices, Budgell, to the exclusion of the next heir, a nephew, got to himself almost the whole fortune of a man entirely unrelated to him.-P. 5 Curlls of town and court:' Lord Hervey.

เ

VER. 368 in the MS.

VARIATIONS.

Once, and but once, his heedless youth was bit,
And liked that dangerous thing, a female wit:
Safe as he thought, though all the prudent chid.

He writ no libels, but my lady did:
Great odds in amorous or poetic game,
Where woman's is the sin, and man's the
shame.

That harmless mother thought no wife a whore:
Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore !
Unspotted names, and memorable long!

If there be force in virtue, or in song.

Of gentle blood (part shed in honour's cause, While yet in Britain honour had applause)

Each parent sprung

A.

P.

What fortune, pray?————

384

And better got, than Bestia's from the throne.
Born to no pride, inheriting no strife,
Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,1
Stranger to civil and religious rage,

The good man walk'd innoxious through his age.
No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dared an oath,2 nor hazarded a lie.
Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,
No language but the language of the heart.
By nature honest, by experience wise,
Healthy by temperance, and by exercise;

His life, though long, to sickness pass'd unknown,
His death was instant, and without a groan.

O grant me thus to live, and thus to die!

Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.
O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!
Be no unpleasing melancholy mine :
Me, let the tender office long engage,

To rock the cradle of reposing age,

400

1 'Noble wife :' alluding to the fate of Dryden and Addison.-2 'An oath :' Pope's father was a nonjuror.

VARIATIONS.

After VER. 405 in the MS.-
And of myself, too, something must I say?
Take then this verse, the trifle of a day.
And if it live, it lives but to commend

The man whose heart has ne'er forgot a
friend,

Or head, an author: critic, yet polite,
And friend to learning, yet too wise to write.

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like these if length of days attend,
May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend,
Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,

And just as rich as when he served a Queen.
A. Whether that blessing be denied or given,
Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heaven.

410

SATIRES AND EPISTLES OF HORACE
IMITATED.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The occasion of publishing these 'Imitations' was the clamour raised on some of my 'Epistles.' An answer from Horace was both more full, and of more dignity, than any I could have made in my own person; and the example of much greater freedom in so eminent a divine as Dr Donne, seemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat vice or folly, in ever so low or ever so high a station. Both these authors were acceptable to the princes and ministers under whom they lived. The satires of Dr Donne I versified, at the desire of the Earl of Oxford while he was Lord Treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury who had been Secretary of State; neither of whom looked upon a satire on vicious courts as any reflection on those they served in. And, indeed, there is not in the world a greater error than that which fools are so apt to fall into, and knaves with good reason to encourage, the mistaking a satirist for a libeller; whereas to a true satirist nothing is so odious as a libeller, for the same reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a hypocrite.

'Uni aequus virtuti atque ejus amicis.'

SATIRE I. TO MR FORTESCUE.1

P. THERE are (I scarce can think it, but am told)
There are, to whom my satire seems too bold:
Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough,

And something said of Chartres much too rough.

1 Fortescue: Baron of Exchequer, and afterwards Master of the Mint.

The lines are weak, another's pleased to say,
Lord Fanny1 spins a thousand such a day.
Timorous by nature, of the rich in awe,
I come to counsel learnèd in the law:

'You'll give me, like a friend both sage and free,
Advice; and (as you use) without a fee.'

F. I'd write no more.

P.

Not write? but then I think,

And for my soul I cannot sleep a wink.

I nod in company, I wake at night,
Fools rush into my head, and so I write.

F. You could not do a worse thing for your life.
Why, if the nights seem tedious-take a wife :
Or rather truly, if your point be rest,
Lettuce and cowslip-wine; probatum est.
But talk with Celsus, Celsus will advise

Hartshorn, or something that shall close your eyes.
Or, if you needs must write, write Cæsar's praise,
You'll gain at least a knighthood, or the bays.

5

10

20

P. What! like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce,

With arms, and George, and Brunswick crowd the verse,
Rend with tremendous sound your ears asunder,
With gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder?
Or, nobly wild, with Budgell's fire and force,
Paint angels trembling round his falling horse ?2
F. Then all your Muse's softer art display,

Let Carolina smooth the tuneful lay,
Lull with Amelia's liquid name the Nine,
And sweetly flow through all the royal line.

P. Alas! few verses touch their nicer ear;

They scarce can bear their Laureate twice a-year;

1

30

'Fanny: 'Hervey-2 Falling horse: the horse on which George II. charged at the battle of Oudenarde.