50 Weak though I am of limb, and short of sight, Between the fits, this fever of the soul: Know, there are rhymes, which fresh and fresh applied, Will cure the arrantest puppy of his pride. A Switz, a High-Dutch or a Low-Dutch bear; 60 65 70 And the first wisdom, to be fool no more: 75 51 I'll do what Mead. The celebrated physician. 51 Cheselden. The most adventurous, but the most successful surgical operator of his day: a friend of Pope. Here, Wisdom calls: Seek virtue first, be bold! As gold to silver, virtue is to gold.' There, London's voice :- Get money, money still! And then let virtue follow, if she will.' 80 Barnard in spirit, sense, and truth abounds; 85 'Pray, then, what wants he?' Fourscore thousand pounds; A pension, or such harness for a slave, As Bug now has, and Dorimant would have. Yet every 91 84 Who notches sticks at Westminster. Exchequer tallies. However obscure the existence of this ancient reckoning, its close was sufficiently conspicuous: in 1834, the tallies burned down the two houses of parliament. Some high-toned narrator of the times will yet tell us, that, like Sardanapalus, they set fire to their palace, and expired in the blaze. 65 Barnard. Sir John Barnard, knight, was born at Reading, and brought up at a school at Wandsworth in Surrey: his parents were quakers. In 1703, he quitted the society of quakers, was received into the church by Compton, bishop of London, and continued a member of it. He became a celebrated member of parliament, and an eminent merchant and magistrate of London. 68 As Bug now has, and Dorimant. The industry of the commentators has been unable to apply those names. Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of brass: 95 Compared to this, a minister's an ass. And say, to which shall our applause belong? This new court jargon, or the good old song? The modern language of corrupted peers, Or what was spoke at Cressy and Poitiers? Who counsels best? who whispers ;- Be but great; 6 100 With praise or infamy, leave that to fate; Or he, who bids thee face with steady view stare; If honest S**z take scandal at a spark, That less admires the palace than the park : The people are a many-headed beast. Who know themselves so little what to do? Just half the land would buy, and half be sold: 110 115 120 124 Their country's wealth our mightier misers drain; Or cross, to plunder provinces, the main; The rest, some farm the poor-box, some the pews; Some keep assemblies, and would keep the stews; Up starts a palace: lo, the obedient base 135 140 Slopes at its foot; the woods its sides embrace; mean, But give the knight, or give his lady, spleen; 145 Away, away! take all your scaffolds down; For snug's the word: my dear! we'll live in town.' At amorous Flavio is the stocking thrown? That very night he longs to lie alone. The fool, whose wife elopes some thrice a quarter, For matrimonial solace dies a martyr. 151 128 Some farm the poor-box. Perhaps referring to the Charitable Corporation;' a swindling scheme, by which multitudes were duped, and many beggared. 156 Did ever Proteus, Merlin, any witch, When (each opinion with the next at strife, I plant, root up; I build, and then confound; 164 171 Turn round to square, and square again to round; 175 164 Linen worthy lady Mary. Pope could never forgive lady Mary's at once laughing at his passion, and libelling his poetry. This celebrated woman, though a beauty, and vain of her charms, was supposed to be singularly negligent of her person. Walpole says, ' that when she left Florence, after a three weeks' stay in one of the archduke's palaces, they were obliged to fumigate the rooms.' And this in Italy! |