Time, that on all things lays his lenient hand, 2 As weak, as earnest, and as gravely out, 4 Behold a rev'rend sire, whom want of grace Has made the father of a nameless race, Shoved from the wall perhaps, or rudely pressed By his own son, that passes by unblessed :" "It is no less worthy to observe how little alteration in good spirits the approaches of death make, for they appear to be the same men till the last instant. Augustus Cæsar died in a compliment; Livia, conjugii nostri memor, vive et vale. Tiberius, in dissimulation; as Tacitus saith of him, Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, nondum dissimulatio deserebat. Vespasian in a jest ; Ut puto deus fio. Galba, with a sentence; Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani, holding forth his neck. Septimius Severus in a despatch; Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum."-BACON. 2 In the earlier editions, "blunder." 3 An ancient nobleman, who continued this practice long after his legs were disabled by the gout. Upon the death of Prince George of Denmark, he demanded an audience of the Queen, to advise her to preserve her health and dispel her grief by dancing. -POPE. Sir George Lane, Bart., created Viscount Lanesborough, Secretary of State to Charles II., died in 1683, leaving two sons, James, born 1646, and Brabazon, 1648, one of whom was Pope's "sober Lanesborow."CROKER. 4 Pope is said by Horace Walpole 5 225 230 235 in these lines to have had in view Lancelot Blackburne, Archbishop of York, whom he satirises again in his Sober Advice, v. 44. Noble, in his Continuation of Granger's Biographies, says of Blackburne: "He was translated to York, November 28, 1724, as a reward, according to Court scandal, for uniting George I. to the Duchess of Munster. This, however, appears to have been an unfounded calumny. Rumour whispered he retained the vices of his youth, and that a passion for the fair sex formed an item in the list of his weaknesses; but so far from being convicted by seventy witnesses, he does not appear to have been directly criminated by one. In short I look upon these aspersions as the effects of mere malice."-Vol. iii. p. 68 Pope alludes to him ironically, in "1740," as "moral Ebor." "The drainage was so bad that in rainy weather the gutters became torrents. Several facetious poets have commemorated the fury with which these black rivulets roared down Snow Hill and Ludgate Hill, bearing to Fleet Ditch a vast tribute of animal and vegetable filth from the stalls of butchers and greengrocers. This flood was profusely thrown to ight and Still to his wench he crawls on knocking knees, And envies every sparrow that he sees.' A salmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate; The doctor called, declares all help too late: 'Mercy!' cries Helluo, 'mercy on my soul! Is there no hope?—Alas!—Then bring the jowl.' The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend, Still tries to save the hallow'd taper's end; Collects her breath, as ebbing life retires, For one puff more, and in that puff expires.' left by coaches and carts. To keep as far as possible from the carriage. road was therefore the wish of every pedestrian. The mild and timid gave the wall; the bold and athletic took it. If two roisterers met, they cocked hats in each other's faces, and pushed each other about till the weaker was shoved towards the kennel."MACAULAY, History of England, vol. i. c. 3. 1 This character appears originally to have been considerably longer. Lord Cobham writes to Pope, Nov. 1, 1733 "Don't you think you have bestowed too many lines on the old lecher? The instance itself is but ordinary, and I think should be shortened or changed." Pope seems to have acted on the suggestion, for in his next letter, Lord Cobham says, "I like your lecher better now 'tis shorter." 2 It is remarkable that a similar story may be found in the eighth book of Athenæus concerning the poet Philoxenus, a writer of dithyrambics, who grew sick by eating a whole polypus except the head; and when his physician told him he would never recover from the surfeit, called out" Bring me then the head of the polypus." It is not here insinuated that Pope was a reader of Athenæus; but he evidently copied 240 245 this ludicrous instance of gluttony from La Fontaine : Puis qu'il faut que je meure WARTON. 3 A fact told him by Lady Bolingbroke of an old Countess in Paris.WARBURTON. Richardson the younger says in his Richardsoniana, p. 221: "I remember Mr. Pope repeating to my father and me, in his library at Twickenham, four verses designed for his Epistle on Riches, which were an exquisite description of an old lady dying, and just raising herself up, and blowing out a little end of a candle that stood by her bed-side with her last breath." According to this account these verses were originally designed to stand in another context. But Richardson writes as if he were unaware that they had ever been published. He observes that they are not inserted in the Third Moral Essay, but he says nothing about their appearance in this place. It may be that having heard Pope repeat the verses, and having been informed in which of the Epistles they were to appear, he retained an imperfect recollection of the incident, and afterwards looking for the lines in the Third 'Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke!' (Were the last words that poor Narcissa' spoke :) 'No, let a charming chintz, and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face:" One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead : And,—Betty,—give this cheek a little red.' The courtier smooth, who forty years had shined A humble servant to all human kind, Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir: 'If, where I'm going,-I could serve you, sir?' 'I give and I devise' (old Euclio' said, And sighed,) 'my lands and tenements to Ned.' Your money, sir ?- My money, sir! what, all? Why,—if I must '—(then wept)—'I give it Paul.' The manor, sir ?—The manor! hold,' he cried; 'Not that, I cannot part with that!'—and died. Moral Essay, and not finding them there, concluded that the poet had suppressed them. This story, as well as the others, is founded on fact, though the author had the goodness not to mention the names. Several attribute this in particular to a very celebrated actress, who in detestation of the thought of being buried in woollen, gave these her last orders with her dying breath. -POPE. Mrs. Oldfield, who is called Narcissa, I have no doubt from her excellence in the character of Narcissa in Cibber's Love's Last Shift.CROKER. Pope's dislike of Mrs. Oldfield probably arose partly from her friendship with Cibber, partly from his own general resentment against the stage after the failure of Three Hours after Marriage. The Act obliging the dead to be buried in woollen was passed in 1678. Its object was to protect homespun goods against foreign linen. 250 255 260 buried in 2 Mrs. Oldfield was Westminster Abbey, between the monuments to Craggs and Congreve, the corpse being decorated with "a Brussels lace head-dress, a Holland shift, with tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, and a pair of new kid gloves."-CARRUTHERS. 3 The Betty here mentioned was Mrs. Saunders, Mrs. Oldfield's friend and confidante; a good actress in parts of decayed widows and old maids.-WARTON. 4 The name of the miser in Plautus's Aulularia.-CROKER. 5 Pope forgot that even a jest book must govern its jokes by some regard to the realities of life, and that amongst those realities is the very nature and operation of a will. A miser is not, therefore, a fool; and he knows that no possible testamentary abdication of an estate disturbs his own absolute command over it so long as he lives, or bars his power of If the old revoking the bequest. miser was delirious, there is an end And you, brave Cobham! to the latest breath, Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death: Such in those moments as in all the past, 'O, save my country, Heav'n!' shall be your last.' of his responsibilities, and nobody has a right to draw upon him for moral lessons or warnings. If he was not delirious, the case could not have happened.-DE QUINCEY. The The elaborate absurdity of this criticism is only exceeded in the remarks of the same writer on the character of Atticus. A man who makes a will naturally thinks of his heirs enjoying his property. Euclio is so passionately attached to his manor that he cannot bear to think of it as being enjoyed by others, even in prospect. intensity of his ruling passion is admirably and ironically represented in the occurrence of his death immediately after he had declared himself unable to part with his possessions. It seems almost inconceivable that any one could so completely overlook the point, but De Quincey's love of display not unfrequently led him into similar blunders. 265 Dr. Bennet asserts that Euclio was Sir Charles Duncombe. Warton, following Jonathan Richardson, says he was Sir William Bateman; and Lord Hailes, in his letter to Malone, thinks that he may have been meant for Sir Godfrey Kneller. But it is unlikely that Pope, in spite of what he says, had any particular person in view. The character is marked by a poetic exaggeration, though in substance it is true to nature. "Your last," i.e. the expression of your last passion. This prophecy appears not to have been fulfilled. Hannah More says (according to Mr. Carruthers) that Cobham, when dying, being unable to carry a glass of jelly to his mouth, threw it in the face of his niece, Hester Grenville, who was by his bed-side. |