In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power, See all our nobles begging to be slaves! Yet may 165 170 162 'Tis avarice all. Warton quotes Bolingbroke's antithetical expression,- So far from having the virtues, we have not even the vices of our ancestors.' Bolingbroke himself the living example of specious degeneracy! EPILOGUE ΤΟ THE SATIRES. 1 DIALOGUE II. F. 'Tis all a libel-Paxton, sir, will say. may; And for that very cause I print to-day. In reverence to the sins of thirty-nine! Vice with such giant strides comes on amain, F. Yet none but you by name the guilty lash; Paxton. Solicitor to the treasury, whose office was to denounce attacks on the government. 11 Ev'n Guthrie. The ordinary of Newgate, who publishes the Memoirs of the Malefactors,' and is often prevailed on to be so tender of their reputation, as to set down no more than the initials of their names.-Pope. Spare then the person, and expose the vice. P. How, sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice? Come on then, Satire! general, unconfined, Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind. Ye statesmen, priests, of one religion all! Ye tradesmen, vile, in army, court, or hall! 15 Ye reverend atheists! F. Scandal! name them! Who? P. Why that's the thing you bid me not to do. Who starved a sister, who forswore a debt, 20 I never named; the town's inquiring yet. P. See, now I keep the secret, and not you! The bribing statesman-F. Hold, too high you go. P. The bribed elector-F. There you stoop too low. 25 P. I fain would please you, if I knew with what: Tell me, which knave is lawful game, which not? 21 The town's inquiring yet. Swift says, I have long observed, that twenty miles from London nobody understands hints, initial letters, or town-facts and passages:' but this was written a hundred years ago. The communication of intelligence of this order is more extensive in the nineteenth century. F. A dean, sir? No: his fortune is not made; You hurt a man that's rising in the trade. 35 P. If not the tradesman who set up to-day, Much less the 'prentice who to-morrow may. Down, down, proud Satire! though a realm be spoil'd, Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild; To tax directors, who, thank God! have plums; 40 46 50 P. Must satire, then, not rise nor fall? Speak out, and bid me blame no rogues at all. F. Yes, strike that Wild; I'll justify the blow. P. Strike? why the man was hang'd ten years ago: Who now that obsolete example fears? 55 F. What, always Peter? Peter thinks you mad; You make men desperate if they once are bad: 39 Wretched Wild. Jonathan Wild, a famous thief, and thiefimpeacher, who was at last caught in his own train, and hanged.-Pope. Else might he take to virtue some years hence— P. As S-k, if he lives, will love the prince. 61 F. Strange spleen to S-k! P. Do I wrong the man? God knows, I praise a courtier where I can. When I confess, there is who feels for fame, And melts to goodness, need I Scarborough name? Ev'n in a bishop I can spy desert: 70 65 Scarborough. Earl of, and knight of the garter, whose personal attachments to the king appeared from his steady adherence to the royal interest, after his resignation of his great employment of master of the horse; and whose known honor and virtue made him esteemed by all parties.-Pope. 66 Esher's peaceful grove. The house and gardens of Esher, in Surrey, belonging to the honorable Mr. Pelham, brother of the duke of Newcastle. 71 Secker is decent. A great deal of Pope's unhappy style of alluding to the heads of the establishment must be referred to his own prejudices; some to the pert freethinking fashion of the day. Secker, the archbishop, was an honest, learned, and useful divine. Benson was a man in general esteem, and who would probably have been a bishop, but for the interference of Gibson, the bishop of London, who charged him with unscriptural notions on the subject of sacrifice,-an objection perfectly sufficient; for what can be more pernicious than error armed with authority? 73 To Berkley, every virtue. The bishop of Cloyne, memorable for his zeal, his learning, and his metaphysical fancies. He mounted a paradox, and rode it, till he left common sense out of sight, and was flung: the common fate of all who hope |