That not for Fame, but Virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit; 3.45
Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;
The tale reviv'd, the lye so oft o’erthrown, 350
Th'imputed trash, and dulness not his own;

Notes. may be said no less in commendation of his literary, than of his moral character. And his superior excellence in poetry is owing to it. He soon discovered in what his force lay; and he made the best of that advantage, by a sedulous cultivation of his proper talent. For having read Quintilian early, this precept did not escape him, Sunt hæc duo vitanda prorfus : unum ne tentes quod effici non possit ; alterum, ne ab eo, quod quis oprime facit, in aliud, cui minus eft idoneus, transferas. It was in this knowledge and cultivation of his genius that he had principally the advantage of his great master, Dryden ; who, by his MacFlecno, his Absolom and Achitophel, but chiefly by his Prologues and Epilogues, appears to have had great talents for this species of moral poetry; but, unluckily, he seem'd neither to understand nor attend to it.

Ibid. But floop'd to Truth] The term is from falconry; and the allusion to one of those untamed birds of spirit, which fomnetimes wantons at large in airy circles before it regards, or floops to, its prey.

Ver. 350. the lye fo oft o'erthrown] As, that he received subscriptions for Shakespear, that he fet his name to Mr. Broome's verses, &c. which, tho' publicly disproved, were neverth.cis thamelessly repeated in the Libels, and even in that called the Nobleman's Epiftle.

The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape,
The libeld person, and the pictur'd shape ;
Abuse, on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father, dead; 355
The whisper, that to greatness still too near,
Perhaps, yet vibrates on his Sov'Reign's ear ---
Welcome for thee, fair Virtue ! all the past:
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev’n the last!

A. But why insult the poor, affront the great ?360
P, Aknave's a knave, to me, in ev'ry state:

NOTES.
VER. 351, TH imputed traß] Such as profane Psalms,
Court. Poems, and other scandalous things, printed in his Name
by Curl and others.

P.
VER. 354, Abuse, on all be lovd, or loved him, spread.] Name-
ly on the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Burlington, Lord
Bathurst, Lord Bolingbroke, Bishop Atterbury, Dr. Swift, Dr,
Arbuthnot, Mr. Gay, his Friends, his Parents, and his very
Nurse, aspersed in printed papers, by James Moore, G. Ducket,
L. Welsted, Tho. Bentley, and other obscure persons. P,

VER. 356. The whisper, that to greatness slill too near,] By the whisper is meant calumniating honest Characters. Shake, spear has finely expressed this office of the sycophant of great, ness in the following line:

Rain facrificial whisperings in his car. By which is meant the immolating mens reputations to the vice or vanity of his Patron,

VER. 357. Perhaps, vet vibrates] What force and eleganco of expreslion! which, in one word, conveys to us the physical effects of sound, and the moral effects of an often repeated scandal,

Ver. 359. For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev'n the last !] This line is remarkable for presenting us with the most amiable image of steddy Virtue, mixed with a modest concern for his

Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail,
Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail,
A hireling fcribler, or a hireling peer,
Knight of the post corrupt, or of the thire; 365
If on a Pillory, or near a Throne,
He gain his Prince's ear, or lose his own.

Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit,
Sappho can tell you how this man was bit:
This dreaded Sat’rist Dennis will confess 370
Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress:
So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door,.
Has drunk with Cibber, nay has rhym'd for Moor.
Full ten years Nander'd, did he once reply? '
Three thousand funs went down on Welfted's lye.

VARIATIONS.
Ver. 368. in the MS.

Once, and but once, his heedless youth was bit,
And lik’d that dang’rous thing, a female wit:
Safe as he thought, tho' all the prudent chid ;
He writ no Libels, but my Lady did :
Great cdds in am'rous or poetic game,
Where Woman's is the fin, and Man's the fhame.

NOTES,

being forced to undergo the feverest proofs of his love for it, which was the being thought hardly of by his SOVEREIGN.

Ver. 374. ten years) It was so long after many libels before the Author of the Dunciad published that poem, till when, he never writ a word in answer to the many scurrilities and falsehoods concerning him,

P.

To please a Mistress one aspers'd his life; 376
He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife:
Let Budgel charge low Grubstreet on his quill,
And write whate’er he pleas'd, except his Will;
Let the two Curls of Town and Court, abuse 380
His father, mother, body, foul, and muse.

NOTES. Ver. 375. Welfted's lye.) This man had the impudence to tell in print, that Mr. P. had occasioned a Lady's death, and to name a person he never heard of. He also publish'd that he libell’d the Duke of Chandos; with whom (it was added) that he had lived in fámiliarity, and received from him a present of five hundred pounds: the falsehood of both which is known to his Grace. Mr. P. never received any present, farther than the subscription for Homer, from him, or from Any great Man whatsoever.

P. Ver. 378. Let Budgel] Budgcl, in a weekly pamphlet called the Bee, bestowed much abuse on him, in the imagination that he writ some things about the Last Will of Dr. Tindal, in the GrubStreet Journal; a Paper wherein he never had the least hand, direction, or supervisal, nor the least knowledge of its Author. P.

VER: 379. except his Will;] Alluding to Tyndall's Will: by which, and other indirect practices, Budgell, to the exclusion of the next heir, a nephew, got to himself almost the whole fortune of a man entirely unrelated to him.

Ver. 381. His father, mother, &c.] In some of Curl's and other pamphlets, Mr. Pope's father was said to be a Mechanic, a Hatter, a Farmer, nay a Bankrupt. But, what is stranger, a Nobleman (if such a reflection could be thought to come from a Nobleman) had dropt an allusion to that pitiful untruth, in a paper called an Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity: And the following line,

Hard as thy Heart, and as thy Birth obscure, had fallen from a like Courtl; pen, in certain Verses to the Imitai ir of Horace. Mr. Pope's Father was of a Gentleman's Family in Oxford hire, the head of which was the Earl of Downe, whose sole Heiress married the Earl of Lindsey - His mother

a

Yet why? that Father held it for a rule,
It was a fin to call our neighbour fool:
That harmless Mother thought no wife a whore:
Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore !385
Unspotted names, and memorable long!
If there be force in Virtue, or in Song.

Of gentle blood (part shed in Honour's cause,
While yet in Britain Honour had applause)
Each parent sprung ---A. What fortune, pray?---
P. Their own,

390 And better got, than Bestia's from the throne.

Notes. was the daughter of William Turnor, Esq. of York: She had three brothers, one of whom was killed, another died in the service of King Charles ; the eldest following his fortunes, and becoming a general officer in Spain, left her what estate remained after the sequestrations and forfeitures of her family Mr. Pope died in 1717, aged 75; She in 1733, aged 93, a very few weeks after this poem was finished. The following inscription was placed by their son on their Monument in the parish of Twickenham, in Middlesex.

D. O. M.
ALEXANDRO. POPE. VIRO. INNOC VO. PROBO. PIO.

QVI. VIXIT. ANNOS. LXXV, OB. MDCCXVII.
ET. EDITHAE. CONIVGI. INCVLPABILI.
PIENTISSIMAE. QVAE. VIXIT. ANNOS.

XCIII. OB. MDCCXXXIII.
PARENTIBVS. BENEMERENTIBVS. FILIVS. FECIT.
ET. SIBI.

P. Ver. 390. A. What fortune, pray?] His friend's personating the Town in this place, and assuming its impertinent curiosity, gives great spirit to the ridicule of the question.--- Julian has a para!lci stroke, in his farcastic discourse to the people of An