+ Who thinks that Fortune cannot change her

mind,

Prepares a dreadful jeft for all mankind.

And "who ftands fafeft? tell me, is it he

That spreads and swells in puff'd Profperity,
Or bleft with little, whofe preventing care

In peace provides fit arms against a war?

125

Thus BETHEL fpoke, who always fpeaks his

thought,

And always thinks the very thing he ought:130 His equal mind I copy what I can,

And as I love, would imitate the Man.

In South-fea days not happier, when farmis'd
The Lord of Thousands, than if now "Excis'd;
In foreft planted by a Father's hand,

Than in five acres now of rented land.
Content with little I can piddle here
On brocoli and mutton, round the years

135

NOTES.

which oblique Panegyric the Imitator has very properly turned into a just stroke of satire.

VER. 133. In South-fea days not happier, etc.] Mr. Pope had South-fea ftock, which he did not fell out. It was valued at between twenty and thirty thousand pounds when it fell.

Ac mihi feu longum poft tempus venerat hofpes,

Sive operum vacuo gratus conviva per imbrem

Vicinus; bene erat, non pifcibus urbe petitis,

O pueri, nituiftis, ut huc novus incola venit?

NOTES.

VER.150. And, what's more rare, a Poet shall say Grace.] The pleafantry of this line confists in the fuppofed rarity of a Poet's having a table of his own; or a fense of gratitude for the blef

own:

140

But ancient friends (tho' poor, or out of play)
That touch my bell, I cannot turn away.
"Tis true, no Turbots dignify my boards,
But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords:
To Hounslow-heath I point and Bansted-down,
Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my
144
a From
yon old walnut-tree a fhow'r fhall fall;
And grapes, long ling'ring on my only wall,
And figs from standard and efpalier join;
The dev'l is in you if you cannot dine:
Then chearfulhealths(your Mistressshall haveplace)
And, what's more rare, a Poet shall say Grace. 150
Fortune not much of humbling me can boast:
Tho' double tax'd, how little have I loft?

My Life's amusements have been just the same,
Before, and after Standing Armies came.

C

My lands are fold, my father's house is gone; 155 I'll hire another's; is not that my own,

And yours, myfriends? thro'whose free-op'ning gate None comes too early, none departs too late;

NOTES.

fings he receives. But it contains, too, a fober reproof of People of Condition, for their unmanly and brutal disuse of so natural a duty.

Nam propriae telluris herum natura neque illum,

Nec me, nec quemquam ftatuit. nos expulit ille;

e

Illum aut nequities aut f vafri infcitia juris,

Poftremum expellet certe vivacior heres.

h Nunc ager Umbreni fub nomine, nuper Ofelli

Dictus erat: nulli proprius; fed cedit in usum

NOTES.

VER. 165. Well, if the ufe be mine, etc.] In a letter to this Mr. Bethel, of March 20, 1743, he fays, "My Landlady, Mrs. "Vernon, being dead, this Garden and Houfe are offered me "in fale; and, I believe (together with the cottages on each "fide my grafs-plot next the Thames) will come at about a "thoufand pounds. If I thought any very particular friend "would be pleased to live in it after my death (for, as it is, it "ferves all my purposes as well during life) I would purchase "it; and more particularly could I hope two Things, That

(For I, who hold fage Homer's rule the best,

Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.) 160 Pray heav'n it last! (cries SwIFT!) as you go on ; "I wish to God this house had been

your own:

Pity to build, without a fon or wife:

Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life."

Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one, 165 Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon? What's & Property? dear Swift! you see it alter

d

e

From
you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
Or, in a mortgage, prove a Lawyer's share;
Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;

Or in pure fequity (the case not clear)

170

The Chanc'ry takes your rents for twenty year: At best, it falls to fomes ungracious fon,

Who cries," My father's damn'd, and all's my own.

h

Shades, that to BACON could retreat afford, 175 Become the portion of a booby Lord;

NOTES,

"the Friend who fhould like it, was fo much younger and "healthier than myself, as to have a profpect of its continuing "his fome years longer than I can of its continuing mine. "But most of those I love are travelling out of the world, not " into it; and unless I have fuch a view given me, I have no "vanity nor pleasure that does not stop short of the Grave."So that we fee, what some of his Friends would not believe, his thoughts in profe and verfe were the fame.

VER. 170. Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;] The ex