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IMITATIONS OF HORACE.

[OF the following Imitations of Horace the first two are rather imitations of Swift, Horace merely supplying the text for the travesty. For (as previous editors have not failed to point out), no styles could be found less alike one another than the bland and polite style of Horace and the downright, and often cynically plain, manner of Swift. With Pope the attempt to write in Swift's style was a mere tour de force, which he could indeed carry out with success through a few lines, but not further, without relapsing into his own more elaborate manner. Swift's marvellous precision and netteté of expression are something very different from Pope's pointed and rhetorical elegance. The latter was as ill suited by the Hudibrastic metre patronised by Swift, as was the comic genius of Butler himself by the wider, but nowise easier, garment of the heroic couplet. As it was Swift, and not Horace, whom Pope imitated in the first two of the following pieces, it is needless to follow Warton into a comparison between them and previous attempts at a real version of Horace. The Ode to Venus, which was first published in 1737, more nearly approaches the character of a translation.]

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BOOK I. EPISTLE VII.1

Imitated in the Manner of Dr SWIFT.

IS true, my Lord, I gave my word,
I would be with you, June the
third;

Chang'd it to August, and (in short)
Have kept it as you do at Court.
You humour me when I am sick,
Why not when I am splenetic?
In town, what Objects could I meet?
The shops shut up in ev'ry street,
And Fun'rals black'ning all the Doors,
And yet more melancholy Whores:
And what a dust in every place!
And a thin Court that wants your Face,
And Fevers raging up and down,
And W✶ and H** both in town?!

"The Dog-days are no more the case. 'Tis true; but Winter comes apace: Then southward let your Bard retire,

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My Lord, your Favours well I know; 5 "Tis with Distinction you bestow; And not to ev'ry one that comes, Just as a Scotsınan does his Plums. Pray take them, Sir,-Enough's a Feast: 25

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[Horace's Epistle, which serves as the groundwork of the above, is addressed to Mæcenas, and intended as an excuse and a justification for his protracted absence from Rome.

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Now this I'll say you'll find in me
A safe Companion, and a free;
But if you'd have me always near-
A word, pray, in your Honour's ear.
I hope it is your Resolution
To give me back my Constitution!
The sprightly Wit, the lively Eye1,
Th' engaging Smile, the Gaiety,
That laugh'd down many a Summer Sun,
And kept you up so oft till one:
And all that voluntary Vein,
As when Belinda rais'd my Strain.

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So bought an Annual Rent or two,
And liv'd-just as you see I do;
Near fifty, and without a Wife,
I trust that sinking Fund, my Life.
Can I retrench? Yes, mighty well,
Shrink back to my Paternal Cell4,
A little House, with Trees a-row,
50 And, like its Master, very low.
There died my Father, no man's Debtor,
And there I'll die, nor worse nor better.
To set this matter full before ye, 81
Our old Friend Swift will tell his Story.
'Harley, the Nation's great Sup-
port,

A Weasel once made shift to slink
In at a Corn-loft thro' a Chink;
But having amply stuff'd his skin,
Could not get out as he got in:
Which one belonging to the House
('Twas not a Man, it was a Mouse)
Observing, cry'd, "You 'scape not so,
"Lean as you came, Sir, you must go."

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But you may read it; I stop short.

BOOK II. SATIRE VI.6

The first Part imitated in the Year 1714, by Dr SWIFT; the latter Part added

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And not like forty other Fools:
As thus, "Vouchsafe, oh gracious Ma-
ker!

"To grant me this and t' other Acre:

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'Or, if it be thy Will and Pleasure,

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Direct my Plough to find a Treasure:"
But only what my Station fits,
And to be kept in my right wits1.
Preserve, Almighty Providence,
Just what you gave me, Competence:
And let me in these shades compose
Something in Verse as true as Prose;
Remov'd from all th' Ambitious Scene,
Nor puff'd by Pride, nor sunk by Spleen.
In short, I'm perfectly content,
Let me but live on this side Trent;
Nor cross the Channel twice a year,
To spend six months with Statesmen
here 2.

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I must by all means come to town, 'Tis for the service of the Crown. "Lewis, the Dean will be of use, "Send for him up, take no excuse. The toil, the danger of the Seas; Great Ministers ne'er think of these; Or let it cost five hundred pound, No matter where the money's found, It is but so much more in debt, And that they ne'er consider'd yet. "Good Mr Dean, go change your gown,

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"The Duke expects my Lord and you,
"About some great Affair, at Two-"
"Put my Lord Bolingbroke in mind, 75
"To get my Warrant quickly sign'd:

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Consider, 'tis my first request.' 'Be satisfied, I'll do my best :'Then presently he falls to tease, 40 “You may for certain, if you please; 80 "I doubt not, if his Lordship knew— "And, Mr Dean, one word from you' 'Tis (let me see) three years and more, (October next it will be four) 4 Since HARLEY bid me first attend, And chose me for an humble friend; Would take me in his Coach to chat, And question me of this and that; As, "What's o'clock?" And, "How's the Wind?"

"Let my Lord know you're come to town."

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I hurry me in haste away,
Not thinking it is Levee-day;
And find his Honour in a Pound,
Hemm'd by a triple Circle round,
Chequer'd with Ribbons blue and green3:
How should I thrust myself between?
Some Wag observes me thus perplext,
And, smiling, whispers to the next,
"I thought the Dean had been too
proud,

"To jostle here among a crowd."

52

1 [Swift's apprehension of idiotcy, to be so terribly justified at the close of his life, haunted him from an early period. Its most terrible expression is the description of the Struldbrugs in Gulliver's voyage to the Houyhnhms.]

[Swift appears never to have absolutely relinquished the hope of English preferment till his last visit to England in 1727. But he never condescended to ask it either of friend or foe.]

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My Lord and me as far as Staines,
As once a week we travel down
To Windsor, and again to Town,
Where all that passes, inter nos,
Might be proclaim'd at Charing-Cross.
Yet some I know with envy swell,
Because they see me us'd so well:
"How think you of our Friend the
Dean?

"I wonder what some people mean;
"My Lord and he are grown so great,
Always together, tête à tête;

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106 "What, they admire him for his jokes"See but the fortune of some Folks!" There flies about a strange report Of some Express arriv'd at Court; I'm stopp'd by all the Fools I meet, And catechis'd in ev'ry street. "You, Mr Dean, frequent the Great; "Inform us, will the Emp'ror treat? "Or do the Prints and Papers lie?" 'Faith, Sir, you know as much as I.' "Ah Doctor, how you love to jest? "Tis now no secret "- 'I protest "'Tis one to me "Then tell us, pray, "When are the Troops to have their pay?" 120

And, tho' I solemnly declare

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I know no more than my Lord Mayor, They stand amaz'd, and think me grown

The closest mortal ever known.

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over, like Swift, from the Whigs to the Tories, and was one of the members of the Scriblerus Club. He died in 1717; and Pope published

his poems in 1722, with a dedication to the Earl of Oxford (v. infra, p. 441). Parnell wrote the Life of Homer for Pope's Iliad, and translated the Batrachomyomachia. His biography was afterwards written by Goldsmith.]

[Charles Fox, on a summer's day at St Ann's, declared it the right time for lying in the shade with a book. Why with a book?" asked Sheridan.]

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2 [(For one whole day) we have had nothing

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for dinner but mutton-broth, beans and bacon, and a barn-door fowl.' Pope to Swift (from Dawley), June 28, 1728.]

3 [The City Mouse and Country Mouse was written by Prior and Charles Montagu (afterwards Earl of Halifax) in 1688, in ridicule of Dryden's Hind and Panther. The reason why Pope was so sparing in his praise of Prior, is found by Warton in the satirical epigrams written by Prior on Atterbury. Dan is the old familiar abbreviation for dominus; Douglas speaks of 'Dan Chaucer;' and Prior himself, in his Alma, facetiously mentions 'Dan Pope.']

But show'd his Breeding and his Wit; He did his best to seem to eat, And cry'd, "I vow you're mighty neat. "But Lord, my Friend, this savage Scene! 175 "For God's sake, come, and live with Men:

"Consider, Mice, like Men, must die, "Both small and great, both you and I: "Then spend your life in Joy and Sport, "(This doctrine, Friend, I learnt at Court)." 180

The veriest Hermit in the Nation May yield, God knows, to strong temptation.

185

Away they come, thro' thick and thin,
To a tall house near Lincoln's-Inn;
('Twas on the night of a Debate,
When all their Lordships had sat late.)
Behold the place, where if a Poet
Shin'd in Description, he might show it;
Tell how the Moon-beam trembling falls,
And tips with Silver all the walls;
Palladian walls, Venetian doors,
Grotesco roofs, and Stucco floors:
But let it (in a word) be said,
The Moon was up, and Men a bed,
The Napkins white, the Carpet red:

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Was ever such a happy Swain? He stuffs and swills, and stuffs again. "I'm quite asham'd-'tis mighty rude "To eat so much-but all 's so good. "I have a thousand thanks to give— 'My Lord alone knows how to live." No sooner said, but from the Hall Rush Chaplain, Butler, Dogs and all: "A Rat, a Rat! clap to the door"— The Cat comes bouncing on the floor. O for the heart of Homer's Mice, Or Gods to save them in a trice! (It was by Providence they think, For your damn'd Stucco has no chink.) "An't please your Honour, quoth the Peasant,

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"This same Dessert is not so pleasant: "Give me again my hollow Tree, "A crust of Bread, and Liberty!"

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Mother too fierce of dear Desires!

Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires.

To Number five direct your Doves,

There spread round MURRAY all your blooming Loves; Noble and young, who strikes the heart

With ev'ry sprightly, ev'ry decent part;

Equal, the injur'd to defend,

To charm the Mistress, or to fix the Friend.

1 It may be worth observing, that the measure Pope has here chosen is precisely the same that Ben Jonson used in a translation of this very Ode. Warton.

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2 The number of Murray's lodgings in King's Bench Walks. Bowles. [See Imitations of Horace, Bk. 1. Ep. VI. 49, note.]

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