Has Life no joys for me? or (to be grave)
Have I no friend to ferve, no foul to fave?

274

"I found him clofe with Swift ---Indeed? no doubt (Cries prating Balbus) fomething will come out. 'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will.

No, fuch a Genius never can lie ftill; And then for mine obligingly mistakes

The firft Lampoon Sir Will. or Bubo makes. 280 Poor guiltless I! and can I chufe but smile, When ev'ry Coxcomb knows me by my Style?

VARIATIONS.

After 282. in the MS.

P. What if I fing Augustus, great and good?
A.You did so lately, was it understood?

Be nice no more, but, with a mouth profound,
As rumbling D-s or a Norfolk hound;
With GEORGE and FRED'RIC roughen ev'ry verse,
Then smooth up all, and CAROLINE rehearse.
P. No-the high task to lift up Kings to Gods
Leave to Court sermons, and to birth-day Odes.
On themes like these, fuperior far to thine,
Let laurell❜d Cibber, and great Arnal shine.
Why write at all?-A. Yes, filence if you keep,
The Town, the Court, the Wits, the Dunces weep.

NOTES.

VER. 271. Why am I afk'd &c.] This is intended as a reproof of thofe impertinent complaints, which were continually made to him by those who called themselves his friends, for not entertaining the Town as often as it wanted amusement.-A French writer fays well on this occafion-Dès qu'on eft auteur, VOL. IV. D

Curst be the verse, how well foe'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe,

NOTES.

il femble qu'on foit aux gages d'un tas de fainéans, pour leur fournir de quoi amufer leur oifiveté.

VER. 273. or, to be grave, &c.] This important truth, concerning the Soul, was always fo prefent with him, that, in his more ferious hours, he ufed to fay, That he was certain of its immortality, that he feemed to feel it, as it were, within him by intuition.

VER. 282. When ev'ry Coxcomb knows me by my Style?] The discovery of a concealed author by his Style, not only requires a perfect intimacy with his writings, but great skill in the nature of compofition. But, in the practice of these Critics, knowing an author by his ftyle, is like judging of a man's whole perfon from the view of one of his moles.

When Mr. Pope wrote the Advertisement to the first Edition of the new Dunciad, intimating, that it was by a different "hand from the other, and found in detached pieces, incor"rect, and unfinished," I objected to him the affectation of ufing fo unpromifing an attempt to miflead his Reader. He replied, that I thought too highly of the public tafte; that, moft commonly, it was formed on that of half a dozen people in fashion, who took the lead, and who fometimes have obtruded on the Town. the dulleft performances, for works of Wit: while, at the fame time, fome true effort of genius, without name or recommendation, hath paffed by the public eye unobferved or neglected: That he once before made the trial I now objected to, with fuccefs, in the Essay on Man: which was at firft given (as he told me) to Dr. Younge, to Dr. Defaguliers, to Lord Bolingbroke, to Lord Pagett, and, in short, to every body but to him who was capable of writing it. However, to make him amends, this fame Public, when let into the fecret, would, for fome time after, fuffer no poem, with a moral title, to pafs for any one's but his. So the Effay on human Life, the Effay on Reafon, and many others of a worse tendency, were very liberally bestowed upon him.

This, and a great deal more he added on the fame occafion, and affured me, that his new Dunciad would be full as well un

Give Virtue fcandal, Innocence a fear,

285

Or from the foft-ey'd Virgin steal a tear!
But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace,
Infults fall'n worth, or Beauty in distress,
Who loves a Lye, lame flander helps about,
Who writes a Libel, or who copies out:
That Fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet abfent, wounds an author's honeft fame:
Who can your merit felfifhly approve,

And show the sense of it without the love;

NOTES.

290

derstood. He was not mistaken. This fourth book, the most studied and highly finished of all his Poems, was efteemed obfcure (a name, which, in excefs of modefty, the Reader gives to what he does not understand) and but a faint imitation, by fome common hand, of the other three. He had, himself, the malicious pleasure to hear this judgment paffed on his favourite Work by feveral of his Acquaintance; a pleasure more to his tafte than the flatteries they used to entertain him with, and were then intentionally paying him. Of which he gave me another instance, that afforded him much diverfion, While thefe acquaintance read the Essay on Man as the work of an unknown author, they fairly owned they did not understand it; but when the reputation of the poem became fecured by the knowledge of the Writer, it foon grew fo clear and intelligible, that, on the appearance of the Comment on it, they told him, they wondered the Editor fhould think a large and minute interpretation neceffary.

VER, 293.- selfishly approve,] Because to deny, or pretend not to fee, a well established merit, would impeach his own heart or understanding.

VER. 294. And how the fenfe of it without the love; i, e. will never fuffer the admiration of an excellence to produce any efteem for him, to whom it belongs.

Who has the vanity to call you friend,

295

Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend ;
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say,
And, if he lye not, must at least betray:

Who to the Dean, and filver bell can swear,
And fees at Cannons what was never there; 300
Who reads, but with a luft to misapply,
Make Satire a Lampoon, and Fiction Lye.
A lafh like mine no honeft man fhall dread,
But all fuch babling blockheads in his stead.

Let Sporus tremble ---A.What? that thing of filk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of Afs's milk? 306
Satire or fenfe, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

NOTES.

VER. 295. Who has the vanity to call you friend, Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend ;] When a great Genius, whose writings have afforded the world much pleasure and inftruction, happens to be enviously attacked, or falfly accused, it is natural to think, that a sense of gratitude for fo agreeable an obligation, or a sense of that honour resulting to our Country from fuch a Writer, should raise amongst those who call themselves his friends, a pretty general indignation. But every day's experience fhews us the very contrary. Some take a malignant fatisfaction in the attack; others a foolish pleasure in a literary conflict; and the far greater part look on with a selfish indifference.

VER. 299. Who to the Dean, and filver bell &c.] Meaning the man who would have perfuaded the Duke of Chandos that Mr. P. meant him in thofe circumftances ridiculed in the Epiftle on Tafte. See Mr. Pope's Letter to the Earl of Burlington concerning this matter.

311

P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys:
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight

In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal fmiles his emptiness betray,
315
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,

And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar Toad,

Half froth, half venom, fpits himself abroad, 320
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,

Or fpite, or smut, or rhymes, or blafphemies.
His wit all fee-faw, between that and this,
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss,
And he himfelf one vile Antithefis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,

NOTES.

VER. 319. See Milton, Book iv.,

325

P.

VER. 320. Half froth,] Alluding to those frothy excretions, called by the people, Toad-fpits, feen in fummer time hanging upon plants, and emitted by young infects which lie hid in the midst of them, for their prefervation, while in their helpless ftate.