Or should one pound of powder less bespread Those monkey-tails that wag ag behind their head! Thus finish'd, and corrected to a hair, 251 They march to prate their hour before the fair. you, 256 If once he catch you at your 'Jesu! Jesu!' oath: 261 The captain's honest, sirs, and that's enough, Frighted, I quit the room, but leave it so 270 256 Or Gonson. A well-known police magistrate, the sir John Fielding of his day. Go through the great chamber (why is it hung * A giant famous in romances. For hung with deadly sins I see the wall, 279 Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine: Charge them with heaven's artillery, bold divine! From such alone the great rebukes endure, Whose satire 's sacred, and whose rage secure : 'Tis mine to wash a few light stains, but theirs To deluge sin, and drown a court in tears. Howe'er what's now Apocrypha, my wit, 285 In time to come, may pass for holy writ. THE first part of this poem was named from the year in which it was published-One thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight: a dialogue something like Horace: printed for Cooper.' The second part was printed in the same year, for Dodsley, Pall Mall. The Epilogue is one of the most powerful productions which Pope ever gave to the world: it is, throughout, a vivid and rapid declamation on the degeneracy of England, which he pronounces to be rushing to her ruin. The picture is overcharged; but some grounds were discoverable for the fear, in the violent factions, the court intrigues, the popular tumults, and the growing irreligion of the time. The jacobite principles still fermented through the country; and, though Pope's religious and political feelings were alike enlisted for the Stuarts; yet, even in the poet himself, strong natural alarm must have been excited by the direct prospect of a collision between the restored despotism and the newlyasserted liberty, the religion of Rome and the Reformation. Warton speaks of this poem as exercising more than Pope's habitual care :- I have often heard Dodsley say, that he was employed by the author to copy both the Dia logues fairly: every line was then written twice, over; a clear transcript was delivered to Pope; and when he afterwards sent it to Dodsley to be printed, he found that every line had been written twice over a second time!' The name of Epilogue to the Satires was given probably in contrast to the Epistle to Arbuthnot, named the Prologue. The first part was published on the same morning with Johnson's celebrated London: Pope gave high praise to the anonymous work, and predicted that its author would soon be déterré;-a prediction, which, however, was not accomplished for thirty unhappy years. DIALOGUE I. F. Nor twice a twelvemonth you appear in print; After ver. 2 in the Ms. You don't, I hope, pretend to quit the trade, 5 |