Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease;
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,

Bear like the Turk no brother near the throne ;
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserv'd to blame, or to commend,
A timorous foe and a suspicious friend;
Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieg'd,
And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged ;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause;
While wits and templars every sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise-
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ?13

11-Each man's secret standard in his mind
(That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness)
This, who can gratify? for who can guess?

Exquisite discernment, as exquisitely expressed. This is the whole secret of arrogance, and (in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred) of ordinary sullenness and exaction. The standard is invisible, and no arbiter is allowed.

12 The bard whom pilfer'd pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half-a-crown.

This was Ambrose Philips, a man of genius, whose half-jesting, half-serious poems in short verses were of a delicacy not sufficiently appreciated; and whose mistake in pastoral writing was, at all events, not so bad as Pope's, who never forgave the superiority awarded to him in that direction by Steele and others. What is meant by the pastorals being "pilfered," I forget; if that they were imitated from Spenser and others, Pope's may be said to have been all pilfered from classical common-places. The accusation of the half-crown is, of course, not true; and if it were, would be no disgrace but to the accuser and the bookseller. Suppose Philips had described Pope as the man

Who turns a page of Greek for eighteen-pence!

The tales here alluded to were the delightful Persian Tales, translated from the French of Petit de la Croix. They are of genuine Eastern origin, and worthy brothers of the enchanting Arabian Nights.

13 Who would not weep, if Atticus were he.-It is well known and obvious that this character of Atticus was meant for Addison. A doubt has existed whether Pope was right in supposing Addison to have been jealous; and perhaps he was not: but the coldness, reserve, and management, in the disposition of the lord of Button's Coffee-house, not unnaturally gave rise to the suspicion and the exquisite expression of the language in which it is conveyed has all the eloquence of belief.

:

CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

Behold what blessings wealth to life can lend,

And see what comfort it affords our end.

In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung,14
The floor of plaster, and the walls of dung,
On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw,
With tape-ty'd curtains never meant to draw,
The George and Garter dangling from that bed
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies-alas! how chang'd from him,
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!
Gallant and gay, in Cliveden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
Or just as gay at council, in a ring

Of mimick'd statesmen, and their merry king.
No wit to flatter, left of all his store!
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more.
There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.

14 In the worst inn's worst roum, &c.-It is a pity that Pope wrote this character of Buckingham after Dryden's; for, though celebrated and worth repeating, it is very inferior, and, in the details, of very questionable truth. In fact, the superlative way of talking throughout it (the "worst inn's worst room," the introduction

of the "George and Garter," &c.) is in a manifest spirit of exaggeration, and defeats the writer's object. A gentleman of the Fairfax connexion, who was a retainer of the Duke's, and wrote a memoir of him, says that he died in his own house.

CHARACTER OF THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH,

But what are these to great Atossa's mind ?15
Scarce once herself, by turns all womankind!
Who with herself, or others, from her birth
Finds all her life one warfare upon earth;
Shines in exposing knaves, and painting fools,
Yet is, whate'er she hates and ridicules:
No thought advances, but her eddy brain
Whisks it about, and down it goes again.
Full sixty years the world has been her trade;
The wisest fool much time has ever made:
From loveless youth to unrespected age,
No passion gratify'd, except her rage:
So much the fury still outran the wit,

The pleasure miss'd her, and the scandal hit.

Who breaks with her, provokes revenge from hell,
But he's a bolder man who dares be well.

Her every turn with violence pursued,
Nor more a storm her hate than gratitude:
To that each passion turns, or soon, or late;
Love, if it makes her yield, must make her hate.
Superiors? death! and equals? what a curse!
But an inferior not dependant? worse.
Offend her, and she knows not to forgive;
Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live:
But die, and she'll adore you—then the bust
And temple rise-then fall again to dust.
Last night her lord was all that's good and great;
A knave this morning, and his will a cheat.
Strange! by the means defeated of the ends,
By spirit robb'd of power, by warmth of friends,
By wealth of followers! without one distress
Sick of herself, through very selfishness!
Atossa, curs'd with every granted prayer;
Childless with all her children, wants an heir.
To heirs unknown descends th' unguarded store,
Or wanders, heaven-directed, to the poor.

15 Great Atossa's mind.-The Duchess of Marlborough, widow of the great Duke,-famous for her ambition and arbitrary temper, and the ascendency which she lost over Queen Anne.

CHARACTER OF THE DUKE OF CHANDOS,

AND DESCRIPTION OF HIS VILLA.

At Timon's villa let us pass a day;16

Where all cry out, "What sums are thrown away!"
So proud, so grand; of that stupendous air,
Soft and agreeable come never there.

Greatness with Timon dwells, in such a draught
As brings all Brobdignag before your thought.
To compass this, his building is a town,
His pond an ocean, his parterre a down.
Who but must laugh, the master when he sees,
A puny insect, shivering at a breeze!
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!
The whole a labor'd quarry above ground.
Two Cupids squirt before: a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the northern wind.
His gardens next your admiration call:
On every side you look, behold the wall!
No pleasing intricacies intervene,

No artful wildness to perplex the scene;

Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other
The suffering eye inverted nature sees,
Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees;

With here a fountain never to be play'd;

And there a summer-house that knows no shade;
Here Amphitrite sails through myrtle bowers,
There gladiators fight or die in flowers;
Unwater'd see the drooping sea-horse mourn,
And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn.

My lord advances with majestic mien,
Smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen:
But soft-by regular approach—not yet-

First through the length of yon hot terrace sweat;

And when up ten steep slopes you 've dragg'd your thighs,

Just at his study-door he'll bless your eyes.

His study with what authors is it stor❜d?
In books, not authors, curious is my lord:
To all their dated backs he turns you round;
These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound.
Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good
For all his lordship knows, but they are wood!
For Locke or Milton 't is in vain to look;
These shelves admit not any modern book.

And now the chapel's silver bell you hear,
That summons you to all the pride of prayer:
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven.
On painted ceilings you devoutly stare,
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre,
Or gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,
And bring all paradise before your eye.
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions hell to ears polite.

But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call;
A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall:
The rich buffet well-colored serpents grace,
And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face.
Is this a dinner? this a genial room?
No, 't is a temple, and a hecatomb.
A solemn sacrifice perform'd in state,
You drink by measure, and to minutes eat.
So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear
Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there.
Between each act the trembling salvers ring,
From soup to sweet-wine, and God bless the King.
In plenty starving, tantaliz'd in state,
And complaisantly help'd to all I hate,
Treated, caress'd, and tir'd, I take my leave
Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve;
I curse such lavish cost, and little skill,
And swear no day was ever pass'd so ill.

Yet hence the poor are cloth'd, the hungry fed;
Health to himself, and to his infants bread
The laborer bears. What his hard heart denies,
His charitable vanity supplies.

Another age shall see the golden ear

Imbrown the slope, and nod on the parterre,
Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd,
And laughing Ceres re-assume the land.

18 "At Timon's villa let us pass a day.-The character of Timon