Fortune not much of humbling me can boast; My lands are sold, my father's house is gone; 155 And yours, my friends? thro' whose free-opening gate None comes too early, none departs too late; (For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best, Welcome the coming, speed the going guest2.) 160 Pray heav'n it last!" (cries SWIFT!) "as you go on; "I wish to God this house had been your own: "Pity! to build, without a son or wife: "Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life." Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one3, Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon? What's Property? dear Swift! you see it alter From you to me, from me to Peter Walter; Or, in a mortgage, prove a Lawyer's share; Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir1; Or in pure equity (the case not clear) 165 170 The Chanc'ry takes your rents for twenty year: At best, it falls to some ungracious son, Who cries, "My father's damn'd, and all's my own." Shades, that to BACON could retreat afford, 175 Become the portion of a booby Lord; And Hemsley, once proud Buckingham's delight®, Let lands and houses have what Lords they will, fends Dr Johnson, himself in general no enemy of more liberal potations: When he had two guests in his house he would set at supper a single pint of wine upon the table, and having taken himself two small glasses would retire and sayi 'Gentlemen, I leave you to your wine.""] [Practically, England has had a standing army since the time of Charles II.; legally, the existence of the army depends on the annual Mutiny-bills, of which the first was passed in 1689. From the first years of Walpole's administration, the army (independently of the Irish establishment) continued in ordinary times to number about 17,000 men; but even its virtual perpetuity was not acknowledged; and as late as 1732 Pulteney declared that he always had been, and always would be, against a standing army of any kind.' See Hallam, Const. History, chap. xvI.] 2 From Hom. Od. Bk. xv. v. 74. Warton. 3 Well, if the use be mine, etc.] In a letter to this Mr Bethel, of March 20, 1743, he says, "My Landlady, Mrs Vernon, being dead, this "Garden and House are offered me in sale; and, "I believe (together with the cottages on each "side my grass-plot next the Thames) will come at about a thousand pounds. If I thought any very particular friend would be pleased to live 180 "in it after my death (for, as it is, it serves all my purposes as well during life) I would pur"chase it," &c. Warburton. [Pope never carried out this intention.] Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;] The expression well describes the surprise an heir must be in, to find himself excluded by that Instrument which was made to secure his succession. For Butler humorously defines a Jointure to be the act whereby Parents 'turn Their Children's Tenants, ere they're born." Warburton. [Gorhambury, near St Alban's, the seat of Lord Bacon, was at the time of his disgrace conveyed by him to his quondam secretary, Sir J. Meantys, whose heir sold it to Sir Harbottle Grimston, whose grandson left it to his nephew (Wm. Lucklyn, who took the name of Grimston), whose second son was in 1719 created Viscount Grimston. This is the 'booby lord' to whom Pope refers.] proud Buckingham's etc.] Villiers Duke of Buckingham. P. The estate of Helmsley was purchased by Sir Charles Duncombe, Lord Mayor in 1709, who changed its name to Dun-: combe Park. Carruthers." THE FIRST EPISTLE OF THE FIRST BOOK OF HORACE. EPISTLE I. TO LORD BOLINGBROKE1. [HORACE'S Epistle is addressed to Maecenas; and explains the causes why he had relinquished lyrical poetry in order to study philosophy as an eclectic after the fashion of Aristippus. It then proceeds to show that true happiness depends upon virtue and wisdom, to which that study leads, and not upon the external comforts of life.] ST T. JOHN, whose love indulg'd my labours past, Why will you break the Sabbath of my days 2? Public too long, ah let me hide my Age! "Lest stiff, and stately, void of fire or force, "You limp, like Blackmore on a Lord Mayor's horse "." The Rhymes and Rattles of the Man or Boy; [Cf. note to Essay on Man, Ep. 1.] Sabbath of my days?] i.e. The 49th year, the age of the Author. Warburton. 3 [Colley Cibber retired from the stage after a histrionic career of more than 40 years in 1733; but returned in 1734 and did not make his 'positively last appearance' till 1745.] [Warburton compares Moral Essays, Ep. IV. V. 30. Pope is said by Warton to allude to the entrance of Lord Peterborough's Lawn at Bevismount near Southampton.] 5 Ev'n in Brunswick's cause.] In the former 5 ΤΟ 15 20 As drives the storm, at any door I knock: 25 And house with Montaigne now, or now with Locke'. Mix with the World, and battle for the State, Free as young Lyttelton, her Cause pursue, Long, as to him who works for debt, the day, And house with Montaigne now, and now with Locke.] i.e. Choose either an active or a contemplative life, as is most fitted to the season and circumstances. For he regarded these Writers as the best Schools to form a man for the world; or to give him a knowledge of himself: Montaigne excelling in his observations on social and civil life; and Locke, in developing the faculties, and explaining the operations of the human mind. Warburton. [Pope appears to have read Locke at an early age; and to have recurred to him in his later and equally desultory philosophical studies.] 2 [George Lord Lyttelton, author of the Dialogues of the Dead, besides poems (Pastorals) and theological and historical works, was a correspondent of Pope's.] 3 Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res. P. There is an impropriety and indecorum, in joining the name of the most profligate parasite of the Court of Dionysius with that of an apostle. In a few lines before, the name of Montaigne is not sufficiently contrasted by the name of Locke. Warton. 4 can no wants endure;] i.e. Can want nothing. Badly expressed. Warburton. 5 [Mead: v. Moral Essays, Ep. IV. v. 10.] 6 [In answer to Swift's enquiry who 'this Cheselden was, Pope informed him that C. was the most noted and most deserving man in the whole profession of chirurgery and had saved the lives of thousands' by his skill. There is an amusing letter from Pope to Cheselden in Roscoe's Life ad ann. 1737; speaking of the cataract to which v. 52 appears to allude.] Be furious, envious, slothful, mad, or drunk, A Switz, a High-dutch, or a Low-dutch Bear; 'Tis the first Virtue, Vices to abhor; And the first Wisdom, to be Fool no more. But to the world no bugbear is so great, To either India see the Merchant fly, 65 Scar'd at the spectre of pale Poverty! 70 See him, with pains of body, pangs of soul, Burn through the Tropic, freeze beneath the Pole! 75 Here, Wisdom calls: "Seek Virtue first, be bold! 80 From him whose quills stand quiver'd at his ear3, To him who notches sticks at Westminster". 85 "Pray then, what wants he?" Fourscore thousand pounds; As Bug now has, and Dorimant would have. Barnard, thou art a Cit, with all thy worth; But Bug and D*1, Their Honours, and so forth. 90 "Virtue, brave boys! 'tis Virtue makes a King." Be this thy Screen, and this thy wall of Brass"; 95 And say, to which shall our applause belong, 1 [Warburton points that this line gives the meaning neither of Pope nor of the Horatian: 'Vilius est auro argentum, virtutibus aurum.'] 2 [Referring to the opposite schools of theology in favour at court and in the metropolitan Chapter.] 3 [i.e. a scrivener with his pen in his ear.] 4 [i.e. Exchequer tallies. Warburton.] 100 5 [Sir John Barnard, a quaker who joined the Church of England, member for the City and a great financial authority in Walpole's era. He was Lord Mayor in 1738. Cf. Epil. to Sat. Dial. 11. v. 99.] 6 [These allusions here and in v. 112 remain unexplained.] • Hic murus aheneus esto. Hor. For what? to have a Box where Eunuchs sing1, } Or he, who bids thee face with steady view "Full many a Beast goes in, but none come out." The rest, some farm the Poor-box5, some the Pews; 130 135 "No place on earth (he cry'd) like Greenwich hill!" } 140 145 Slopes at its foot, the woods its sides embrace, Which guides all those who know not what they mean, 66 Away, away! take all your scaffolds down, "For Snug's the word: My dear! we'll live in Town.” 1 [The Italian Opera, with singers like Senesino and Farinelli, and Cuzzoni and Faustina, was at the zenith of its reputation in London in the reign of George II.] 2 [Augustus Schutz, who held court offices near the person of George II. both before and after his accession to the throne. Carruthers.] 3 Quia me vestigia terrent Omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum. Hor. [from Aesop's well-known fable.] A Their Country's wealth our mightier Misers drain,] The undertakers for advancing Loans to the Public on the funds. Warburton. 5 Alluding most probably to a Society calling itself the 'Charitable Corporation;' by which thousands were cheated and ruined. Bowles. [V. Pope's note to Moral Essays, Ep. 11. v. 100.] |