'What well? what weapons?' (Flavia cries,)

'A standish, steel and golden pen! It came from Bertrand's, not the skies; I gave it you to write again.

'But, Friend, take heed whom you attack;

You'll bring a House (I mean of Peers) Red, blue, and green, nay white and black,

L[ambeth] and all about your ears.

You'd write as smooth again on glass,
And run, on ivory, so glib,
As not to stick at Fool or Ass,
Nor stop at Flattery or Fib.

'Athenian Queen! and sober charms!
I tell ye, fool, there's nothing in 't:
'Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms;
In Dryden's Virgil see the print.

'Come, if you'll be a quiet soul,

That dares tell neither Truth nor Lies, I'll lift you in the harmless roll Of those that sing of these poor eyes.'

ON BEAUFORT HOUSE GATE AT CHISWICK

The Lord Treasurer Middlesex's house at Chelsea, after passing to the Duke of Beaufort, was called Beaufort House. It was afterwards sold to Sir Hans Sloane. When the house was taken down in 1740, its gateway, built by Inigo Jones, was given by Sir Hans Sloane to the Earl of Burlington, who removed it with the greatest care to his garden at Chiswick, where it may be still seen. (Ward.)

I WAS brought from Chelsea last year,
Batter'd with wind and weather;
Inigo Jones put me together;
Sir Hans Sloane let me alone;
Burlington brought me hither.

TO MR. THOMAS SOUTHERN

ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 1742

Southern was invited to dine on his birthday with Lord Orrery, who had prepared the entertainment, of which the bill of fare is here set down.

RESIGN'D to live, prepared to die,
With not one sin but poetry,
This day Tom's fair account has run
(Without a blot) to eighty-one.
Kind Boyle before his poet lays
A table with a cloth of bays;
And Ireland, mother of sweet singers,
Presents her harp still to his fingers.
The feast, his tow'ring Genius marks
In yonder wild goose and the larks!
The mushrooms show his Wit was sudden !
And for his Judgment, lo, a pudden !
Roast beef, tho' old, proclaims him stout,
And grace, although a bard, devout.
May Tom, whom Heav'n sent down to
raise

The price of Prologues and of Plays,
Be ev'ry birthday more a winner,
Digest his thirty-thousandth dinner,
Walk to his grave without reproach,
And scorn a Rascal and a Coach.

But when I saw such charity remain,

I half could wish this people should be saved.

Faith lost, and Hope, our Charity begins;
And 't is a wise design in pitying Heav'n,
If this can cover multitude of sins,
To take the only way to be forgiv'n.

1740: A POEM

'I shall here,' says Dr. Warton, 'present the reader with a valuable literary curiosity, a Fragment of an unpublished Satire of Pope, entitled, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty; communicated to me by the kindness of the learned and worthy Dr. Wilson, formerly fellow and librarian of Trinity College, Dublin; who speaks of the Fragment in the following

terms:

"This poem I transcribed from a rough draft in Pope's own hand. He left many blanks for fear of the Argus eye of those who, if they cannot find, can fabricate treason; yet, spite of his precaution, it fell into the hands of his enemies. To the hieroglyphics there are direct allusions, I think, in some of the notes on the Dunciad. It was lent me by a grandson of Lord Chetwynd, an intimate friend of the famous Lord Bolingbroke, who gratified his curiosity by a boxful of the rubbish and sweepings of Pope's study, whose executor he was, in conjunction with Lord Marchmont."

30

Then urged by C[artere]t, or by C[artere]t stopp'd,

Inflamed by Pultene]y, and by P[ultene]y dropp'd;

They follow rev'rently each wondrous wight,

Amazed that one can read, that one can write

(So geese to gander prone obedience keep, Hiss if he hiss, and if he slumber, sleep); Till having done whate'er was fit or fine, Utter'd a speech, and ask'd their friends to dine,

Each hurries back to his paternal ground, Content but for five shillings in the pound, 40 Yearly defeated, yearly hopes they give, And all agree Sir Robert cannot live.

Rise, rise, great W[alpole], fated to ap-
pear,

Spite of thyself a glorious minister !
Speak the loud language princes
And treat with half the .

Or those foul copies of thy face and tongue,

Veracious W[innington] and frontless Yonge;

Sagacious Bub, so late a friend, and there So late a foe, yet more sagacious H[are] ? Hervey and Hervey's school, F[ox], H[enle]y, H[into]n,

Yea, moral Ebor, or religious Winton. How! what can O[nslo]w, what can D[elaware],

The wisdom of the one and other chair, 60 N[ewcastle] laugh, or D[orset]'s sager [sneer],

Or thy dread truncheon Marlboro]'s mighty Peer?

What help from J[ekyl]l's opiates canst thou draw

Or Hardwick's quibbles voted into law? Cummins], that Roman in his nose alone, Who hears all causes, B[ritain], but thy

Thy clergy perjured, thy whole people

sold,

An atheist, a ""'s ad.

Blotch thee all o'er, and sink.

Alas! on one alone our all relies,

Let him be honest, and he must be wise. Let him no trifler from his school, Nor like his.

. . . still a.