To reft, the Cushion and foft Dean invite, 150 But hark! the chiming Clocks to dinner call; A hundred footsteps fcrape the marble Hall: The rich Buffet well-colour'd Serpents grace, And gaping Tritons fpew to wash your face. NOTES. the genius of whose school was to debate de quolibet ente, and never come to a determination. Without the Circle, and behind the principal figures, are a number of young faces to denote the scholars and difciples of the feveral fects. These are all before the apoftle. Behind him are two other Figures : One regarding the Apoftle's action, with his face turned upwards; in which the paffions of malicious zeal and disappointed rage are so strongly marked that we needed not the red bonnet to fee he was a Jewish Rabbi. The other is a pagan priest full of anxiety for the danger of the established Religion. Thus has this great Master, in order to heighten the dignity of his fubject, brought in the heads of every sect of philofophy and religion which were moft averfe to the principles, and most opposed to the fuccefs of the Gofpel; fo that one may truly esteem this carton as the greatest effort of his divine genius. Ibid. Verrio or Laguerre.] Verrio (Antonio) painted many cielings, &c. at Windfor, Hampton-Court, &c. and Laguerre at Blenheim-castle, and other Places: P. VER. 150. Who never mentions Hell to ears polite.] This is a fact; a reverend Dean preaching at Court, threatned the finner with punishment in "a place which he thought it not "decent to name in fo polite an affembly." P. VER. 153. Taxes the incongruity of Úrnaments (tho' sometimes practifed by the ancients) where an open mouth ejects the water into a fountain, or where the fhocking images of ferpents, &c. are introduced in Grotto's or Buffets. P. VER. 153. The rich Buffet well colour'd Serpents grace,] The circumstances of being well-colour'd fhews this ornament Is this a dinner? this a Genial room? No, 'tis a Temple, and a Hecatomb. NOTES. 155 not only to be very abfurd, but very odious too; and has a peculiar beauty, as, in one inftance of falfe Tafte, viz. an injudicious choice in imitation, he gives (in the epithet employ'd) the fuggeftion of another, which is an injudicious manner of it. For those disagreeable objects which, when painted, give pleafure; if coloured after nature, in relief, become shocking, as a toad, or dead carcafe in wax-work: yet these things are the delight of all people of bad Tafte. However, the Ornament itfelf pretends to science, and would juftify its ufe by antiquity, tho' it betrays the most miferable ignorance of it. The Serpent amongst the ancients, was facred, and full of venerable myfteries. Now things do not excite ideas fo much according to their own natural impreffions, as by fictitious ones, arifing from foreign and accidental combinations; confequently the view of this animal raifed in them nothing of that abhorrence which it is wont to do in us; but, on the contrary, very agreeable fenfations, correfpondent to thofe foreign affociations. Hence, and more especially, because the Serpent was the peculiar Symbol of health, it became an extreme proper ornament to the genial rooms of the ancients. In the mean time, we who are ftrangers to all this fuperftition, yet make ourselves liable to one much more abfurd, which is, idolizing the very fashions that arofe from it. But if these pretenders to Tafte can fo widely mistake, it is no wonder that those who pretend to none, I mean the verbal Critics, fhould a little hallucinate in this matter. I remember, when the fhort Latin infcription on Shakefpear's monument was first set up, and in the very style of elegant and fimple antiquity, the News-papers were full of thefe fmall critics; in which the only obfervation that looked like learning, was founded in this ignorance of Tafte and Antiquity. One of thefe Critics objected to the word Mors (in the infcription) because the Roman writers of the pureft times fcrupled to employ it; but, in its ftead, used an improper, that is, a figurative word, or otherwife a circumlocution. But had he confidered that it was their Superftition of lucky and unlucky words which occafion'd this delicacy, he must have seen that a A folemn Sacrifice, perform'd in state, So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear And complaifantly help'd to all I hate, Yet hence the Poor are cloath'd, the Hungry fed; Health to himself, and to his Infants bread 170 NOTES. Chriftian writer, in a Chriftian inscription, acted with great judgment in avoiding fo fenfeless an affectation of, what he mifcalls, claffical expreffion. VER. 155. Is this a dinner, &c.] The proud Feftivals of fome men are here fet forth to ridicule, where pride destroys the ease, and formal regularity all the pleasurable enjoyment of the entertainment. P. VER. 156.a Hecatomb.] Alluding to the hundred footftets before. VER. 160. Sancho's dread Doctor] See Don Quixote, chap.' xlvii. P. VER. 169. Yet hence the Poor, &c.] The Moral of the whole, where PROVIDENCE is juftified in giving Wealth to thofe who fquander it in this manner. A bad Tafte employs more hands, and diffufes Expence more than a good one. This recurs to what is laid down in Book I. Ep. ii. ✯ 230---7, and in the Epiftle preceding this, 161, &c. P. VOL. III. X The Lab'rer bears: What his hard Heart denies, His charitable Vanity supplies. Another age shall see the golden Ear Imbrown the Slope, and nod on the Parterre, Deep Harvests bury all his pride has plann'd, 175 And laughing Ceres re-affume the land. COMMENTARY. VER. 173. Another age, &c.] But now a difficulty sticks with me, (anfwers an objector) this load of evil ftill remains a monument of folly to future ages; an incumbrance to the plain on which it ftands; and a nuisance to the neighbourhood round about, filling it with imitating fools. For men are apt to take the example next at hand; and aptest of all to take a bad one. No fear of that, replies the poet, (from y 172 to 177.) Nothing abfurd or wrong is exempt from the jurifdiction of Time, which is always fure to do full juftice on it; Another age fhall fee the golden Ear Imbrown the Slope, and nod on the Parterre, For the prerogative of Time fhall make it grow, is only due to the defigns of true Tafte joined to Use: And 'Tis Use alone that fanctifies Expence ; and nothing but the fanctity of that can arrest the justice of Time. And thus the fecond part concludes; which confift NOTES. VER. 173. Another age, &c.] Had the poet lived but three years longer, he had seen his general prophecy against all illjudged magnificence fulfilled in a particular inftance. VER. 176. And laughing Ceres re-affume the land.] The great beauty of this line is an inftance of the art peculiar to our poet; by which he has fo difpofed a trite claffical figure, Who then shall grace, or who improve the Soil? Who plants like BATHURST, or who builds like BOYLE. 'Tis Use alone that fanctifies Expence, And fplendor borrows all her rays from Sense. 180 COMMENTARY.. ing of an example of false Tafte in every attempt to Magnificence, is full of concealed precepts for the true: As the first part, which contains precepts for true Tafte, is full of examples of the falfe. III. VER. 177. Who then shall grace, &c.] We come now to the third and last part, (from 176 to the end) and, as in the first, the poet had given examples of wrong judged Magnificence, in things of Tafle witho: Senfe; and, in the fecond, an example of others without either Senfe or Tafte; fo the third is employed in two examples of Magnificence in Planting and Building; where both Senfe and Tafte highly prevail: The one in him, to whom this Epiftle is addreffed; and the other, in the truly noble person whose amiable Character bore so confpicuous a part in the foregoing. Who then fhall grace, or who improve the Soil? Who plants like BATHURST, or who builds like Boyle. Where, in the fine defcription he gives of these two fpecies of Magnificence, he artfully infinuates, that tho', when executed in NOTES. as not only to make it do its vulgar office, of representing a very plentiful harvest, but alfo to affume the Image of Nature, re-eftablitning herself in her rights, and mocking the vain efforts of falle magnificence, which would keep her out of them. VR. 179, 180. 'Tis Uje alone that fanctifies Expence, And Splendor Lorrows all her ras from Senfe.] Here the poet, to |