Cried: Madam, why, surely my master's possessed.
Sir Arthur the malster! how fine it will sound!
I'd rather the bawn were sunk under ground.
But, madam, I guessed there would never come good,
When I saw him so often with Darby and Wood. (1)
And now my dream 's out; for I was a-dreamed
That I saw a huge rat; O dear, how I screamed!
And after, methought, I had lost my new shoes;
And Molly she said I should hear some ill news.

'Dear madam, had you but the spirit to tease,
You might have a barrack whenever you please:
And, madam, I always believed you so stout,
That for twenty denials you would not give out.
If I had a husband like him, I purtest,

"Till he gave me my will, I would give him no rest;
And rather than come in the same pair of sheets
With such a cross man, I would lie in the streets.
But, madam, I beg you contrive and invent,
And worry him out, till he gives his consent.

'Dear madam, whene'er of a barrack I think,
An' I were to be hanged, I can't sleep a wink:
For if a new crotchet comes into my brain,
I can't get it out, though I'd never so fain.
I fancy already a barrack contrived,

At Hamilton's Bawn, and the troop is arrived;
Of this, to be sure, Sir Arthur, has warning,

And waits on the captain betimes the next morning.
'Now see when they meet how their honours behave:
Noble captain, your servant-Sir Arthur, your slave;
You honour me much-The honour is mine-
"Twas a sad rainy night-But the morning is fine.
Pray, how does my lady ?-My wife 's at your service.
I think I have seen her picture by Jervas.
Good-morrow, good captain-I'll wait on you down-
You shan't stir a foot-You 'll think me a clown-
For all the world, captain, not half an inch farther-
You must be obeyed-your servant, Sir Arthur;
My humble respects to my lady unknown—

I hope you will use my house as your own.'

Go, bring me my smock, and leave off your prate;
Thou hast certainly gotten a cup in thy pate.'
'Pray, madam, be quiet: what was it I said?
You had like to have put it quite out of my head.
Next day, to be sure, the captain will come
At the head of his troop, with trumpet and drum;
Now, madam, observe how he marches in state }
The man with the kettle-drum enters the gate;
Dub, dub, adub, dub. The trumpeters follow,
Tantara, tantara, while all the boys halloo.

See now comes the captain all daubed with gold-lace;
O la! the sweet gentleman, look in his face;

And see how he rides like a lord of the land,

With the fine flaming sword that he holds in his hand; And his horse, the dear creter, it prances and rears,

With ribbons and knots at its tail and its ears;

At last comes the troop, by the word of command,

Drawn up in our court, when the captain cries "Stand." Your ladyship lifts up the sash to be seen

(For sure I had dizened you out like a queen);

The captain, to shew he is proud of the favour,

1 Two of Sir Arthur's managers.

Looks up to your window, and cocks up his beaver.
(His beaver is cocked; pray, madam, mark that,
For a captain of horse never takes off his hat;
Because he has never a hand that is idle,

For the right holds the sword, and the left holds the bridle);
Then flourishes thrice his sword in the air,

As a compliment due to a lady so fair;

66

(How I tremble to think of the blood it hath spilt !)
Then he lowers down the point and kisses the hilt.
Your ladyship smiles, and thus you begin:
"Pray, captain, be pleased to alight and walk in."
The captain salutes you with congee profound,
And your ladyship curtsies half-way to the ground.
Kit, run to your master, and bid him come to us;
I'm sure he'll be proud of the honour you do us;
And, captain, you'll do us the favour to stay,
And take a short dinner here with us to-day;
You're heartily welcome; but as for good cheer,
You come in the very worst time of the year.
If I had expected so worthy a guest "-
"Lord, madam! your ladyship sure is in jest ;
You banter me, madam, the kingdom must grant
"You officers, captain, are so complaisant."

'Hist, hussy; I think I hear somebody coming;'
'No, madam; 'tis only Sir Arthur a-humming.
To shorten my tale (for I hate a long story),
The captain at dinner appears in his glory;

The dean and the doctor (1) have humbled their pride,
For the captain's entreated to sit by your side;

And, because he's their betters, you carve for him first.

The parsons for envy are ready to burst;

The servants amazed are scarce ever able

To keep off their eyes, as they wait at the table;
And Molly and I have thrust in our nose

To peep at the captain in all his fine clothes;
Dear inadam, be sure he's a fine-spoken man;

Do but hear on the clergy how glib his tongue ran;
"And, madam," says he, "if such dinners you give,
You'll never want parsons as long as you live:
I ne'er knew a parson without a good nose,
But the devil's as welcome wherever he goes.
G-d- me, they bid us reform and repent,
But, zounds, by their looks they never keep Lent.
Mister curate, for all your grave looks, I'm afraid
You cast a sheep's eye on her ladyship's maid;
I wish she would lend you her pretty white hand
In mending your cassock, and smoothing your band;
(For the dean was so shabby, and looked like a ninny,
That the captain supposed he was curate to Jenny).
Whenever you see a cassock and gown,

A hundred to one but it covers a clown;

Observe how a parson comes into a room;
G-d-me, he hobbles as bad as my groom.

A scholard, when just from his college broke loose,
Can hardly tell how to cry bo to a goose;

Your Noveds and Bluturks and Omurs (2) and stuff,
By G-, they don't signify this pinch of snuff.
To give a young gentleman right education,
The army's the only good school in the nation;

1 Dr. Jenny, a clergyman in the neighbourhood.

2 Ovids, Plutarchs, Homers.

My schoolmaster called me a dunce and a fool,
But at cuffs I was always the cock of the school;
I never could take to my book for the blood o' me,
And the puppy confessed he expected no good o' me.
He caught me one morning coquetting his wife,
But he mauled me; I ne'er was so mauled in my life;
So I took to the road, and what 's very odd,
The first man I robbed was a parson, by G-.
Now, madam, you'll think it a strange thing to say,
But the sight of a book makes me sick to this day."
'Never since I was born did I hear so much wit,
And, madam, I laughed till I thought I should split.
So then you looked scornful, and sniffed at the dean,
As who should say, Now am I Skinny and Lean? (1)
But he durst not so much as once open his lips,
And the doctor was plaguily down in the hips.'

Thus merciless Hannah ran on in her talk,

Till she heard the dean call: Will your ladyship walk?'
Her ladyship answers: 'I'm just coming down.'
Then turning to Hannah, and forcing a frown,
Although it was plain in her heart she was glad,
Cried: Hussy! why sure the wench is gone mad;
How could these chimeras get into your brains?
Come hither, and take this old gown for your pains.
But the dean, if this secret should come to his ears,
Will never have done with his gibes and his jeers.
For your life, not a word of the matter, I charge ye;
Give me but a barrack, a fig for the clergy.'

ALEXANDER POPE.

United with Swift in friendship and in fame, but possessing far higher powers as a poet, and more refined taste as a satirist, was ALEXANDER POPE, born in London, May 21, 1688. He claimed to be of gentle blood,' and stated that his father was of a gentleman's family in Oxfordshire, the head of which was the Earl of Downe; his mother was the daughter of William Turner, Esq. of York. To this information, a relative of the poet added, that Pope's grandfather was a clergyman in Hampshire, who had two sons, the younger of whom, Alexander, the poet's father, was sent to Lisbon to be placed in a mercantile house, and that there he became a Roman Catholic. Recent researches have been directed to the poet's personal history, and it has been found that at the proper period (from 1631 to 1645), there was a Hampshire clergyman of the name of Alexander Pope, rector of Thruxton, and holding two other livings in the same county; but as there is no memorial of him in the church, and no entry in the register of his having had children, it is still doubtful whether this rector of Thruxton was an ancestor of the poet. The poet's maternal descent has been clearly traced.* His grandfather, Mr. William Turner, held property in Yorkshire, including the manor of Towthorpe, which he inherited from his uncle. He was wealthy, but did not take rank amongst the gentry, as there is no mention of the

1 Nicknames for my lady.

Critical and Historical Tracts, by Joseph Hunter, No. 5. London. 1857.

Turner family in the Herald's Visitations.' Of the reputed alliance with the Earls of Downe there is no proof; if the poet's family was of the same stock, it must have been two centuries before his birth, when the Popes, afterwards ennobled as Earls of Downe, were in the rank of humble yeomen. In 1677 the poet's father is found carrying on business as a linen-merchant in London, and having acquired a respectable competency by trade, and additional property by his marriage with Edith Turner-who enjoyed £70 per annum, a rent-charge on an estate in Yorkshire-he retired from business about the year 1688, to a small estate which he had purchased at Binfield, near Windsor. The poet was partly educated by the family priest. He was afterwards sent to a Catholic seminary at Twyford, near Winchester, where he lampooned his teacher, was severely whipped, and then removed to a small school in London, where he learned little or nothing. In his twelfth or thirteenth year, he returned home to Binfield, and devoted himself to a course of self-instruction, and to the enthusiastic pursuit of literature. He delighted to remember that he had seen Dryden; and as Dryden died on the 1st of May 1700, his youthful admirer could not have been quite twelve years of age. But Pope was then a poet.

As yet a child, and all unknown to fame,

I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.

At the age of sixteen, he had commenced his 'Pastorals,' translated part of Statius, and written imitations of Waller and other English poets. He soon became acquainted with some of the most eminent persons of the age-with Walsh, Wycherley, Congreve, Lansdowne, and Garth; and from this time his life was that of a popular poet enjoying high social distinction. His 'Pastorals' were published in Tonson's Miscellany' in 1709. In 1711 appeared his Essay on Criticism,' which is said to have been composed two years before publication, when Pope was only twenty-one. The ripeness of judgment which it displays is remarkable. Addison commended the 'Essay warmly in the Spectator,' and it soon rose into great popularity. The style of Pope was now formed and complete. His versification was that of his master, Dryden, but he gave the heroic couplet a peculiar terseness, correctness, and melody. The Essay' was shortly afterwards followed by the Rape of the Lock' (1712). The stealing of a lock of hair from a beauty of the day, Miss Arabella Fermor, by her lover, Lord Petre, was taken seriously, and caused an estrangement between the families, and Pope wrote his poem to make a jest of the affair, and laugh them together again.' In this he did not succeed, but he added greatly to his reputation by the effort. The machinery of the poem, founded upon the Rosicrucian theory, that the elements are inhabited by spirits, which they called sylphs, gnomes, nymphs, and salamanders, was added in 1713, and published in the spring of 1714. The addition forms the most perfect work of Pope's genius and art. Sylphs had been previously mentioned as

invisible attendants on the fair, and the idea is shadowed out in Shakspeare's Ariel, and the amusements of the fairies in the Midsummer Night's Dream.' But Pope has blended the most delicate satire with the most lively fancy, and produced the finest and most brilliant mock-heroic poem in the world. It is,' says Johnson,' the most airy, the most ingenious, and the most delightful of all Pope's compositions.' In 1713 appeared his Windsor Forest,' evidently founded on Denham's ' Cooper's Hill,' which it far excels. Pope was, properly speaking, no mere descriptive poet. He made the picturesque subservient to views of historical events, or to sketches of life and morals. But most of the Windsor Forest' being composed in his earlier years, amidst the shades of those noble woods which he selected for the theme of his verse, there is in this poem a greater display of sympathy with external nature and rural objects than in any of his other works. The lawns and glades of the forest, the russet plains, and blue hills, and even the purple dyes' of the 'wild heath,' had struck his young imagination. ~ His account of the dying pheasant is a finished picture—

See from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,

And mounts exulting on triumphant wings;

Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound,

Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.

Ah! what avail his glossy varying dyes,

His purple crest and scarlet-circled eyes;

The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,

His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold?

Another fine painting of external nature, as picturesque as any to be found in the purely descriptive poets, is the winter-piece in the Temple of Fame'-a vision after Chaucer, published by Pope, in 1715

So Zembla's rocks-the beauteous work of frost-
Rise ite in air, and glitter o'er the coast;
Pale suns, unfelt, at distance roll away,
And on the impassive ice the lightnings play;
External snows the growing mass supply,

Till the bright mountains prop the incumbent sky:
As Atlas fixed, each hoary pile appears,

The gathered winter of a thousand years.

Pope now commenced his translation of the 'Iliad,' for which he issued proposals in 1713. It was published at intervals between 1715 and 1720. At first, the gigantic task oppressed him with its difficulty. He was but an indifferent Greek scholar; but gradually he grew more familiar with Homer's images and expressions, and in a short time was able to despatch fifty verses a day. Great part of the manuscript was written upon the backs and covers of letters, evincing that it was not without reason Swift called him paper-sparing Pope. The poet obtained a clear sum of £5320, 4s. by this translation. His exclamation