Content with little, I can piddle here

On brocoli and mutton, round the year;

X

But ' ancient friends (tho' poor, or out of play)

That touch my bell, I cannot turn away.

Z

'Tis true, no Turbots dignify my boards,

But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords: To Hounflow-heath I point, and Banfted-down,

My Life's amusements have been just the fame,
Before and after Standing Armies came.

Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own:

a

* From yon old walnut-tree a show'r fhall fall; 145 And grapes, long ling'ring on my only wall,

And figs from standard and efpalier join;

The Dev'l is in you if you cannot dine:

Then 'chearful healths, (your Mistress fhall have place,)
And, what's more rare, a Poet fhall fay Grace. 150
Fortune not much of humbling me can boast;
Tho' double tax'd, how little have I loft?

C

140

My lands are fold, my father's house is gone;
I'll hire another's; is not that my own,

And yours, my friends? through whofe free op'ning gate

None comes too early, none departs too late;
(For I, who hold fage Homer's rule the best,
Welcome the coming, fpeed the going Guest.)

155

160

‹ Pray

NOTES.

VER. 154. Standing Armies came.] A conftant topic of declamation against the court, at this time.

WARTON. The outcry was equally violent against the Excife, and no less unjustly. See Coxe's Memoirs, ch. 41.

Nam propria telluris herum natura neque illum,
Nec me, nec quemquam ftatuit. nos expulit ille;
Illum aut nequities aut 'vafri infcitia juris,
Poftremum expellet certe vivacior heres,
h Nunc ager Umbreni fub nomine, nuper Ofelli
Dictus erat: nulli proprius; fed cedit in ufum
Nunc mihi, nunc alii. quocirca vivite fortes,
Fortiaque adverfis opponite pectora rebus.

i

d

NOTES.

VER. 160. Welcome the coming,] From Homer, Cd. b. 15. v. 74• χρη ξεινον παρον]α φιλειν, εθελονία δε πέμπειν. Theocritus has finely touched this fubject in the fixteenth Idyllium. WARTON.

VER. 165 Wel, if the ufe be mine, &c.] In a letter to this Mr. Bethel, of March 2c, 1743, he fays, "My Landlady, Mrs. Vernon, being dead, this Garden and Houfe are offered me in fale; and, I believe, (together with the cottages on each fide my grafs plot next the Thames,) will come at about a thousand pounds. If I thought any very particular friend would be pleafed to live in it after my death, (for, as it is, it ferves all my purposes as well, during life,) I would purchase it; and more particularly could I hope two things; that the friend who fhould like it, was fo much younger and healthier than my self, as to have a profpect of its continuing his, fome years longer than I can of its continuing mine. But most of thofe I love are travelling out of the world, not into it; and unless I have fuch a view given me, I have no vanity nor pleasure that does not flop fhort of the Grave." So that we fee (what fome who call themselves his friends would not believe) his thoughts in profe and verse were the fame. WARBURTON.

VER. 171-2. Or in pure equity, (the cafe not clear,) The Chanc'ry takes your rents for twenty year :] A Proteftant Mifer's money in Chancery, and a Catholic Mifer's perfon in Purgatory, are never to be got out, till the Law and the Church have been well paid for their redemption. WARBURTON.

VER. 175 that to BACON could] Gorhambury, near St. Alban's, a fine and venerable old manfion. WARTON. Pope, with his ufual pronenefs to invective, alludes to a very refpectable nobleman, William, firft Lord Grimfione.

Pray Heav'n it laft! (cries SWIFT) as you go on "I wifh to God this house had been your own:

66

1

Pity! to build, without a fon or wife :
"Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life."
Well, if the ufe be mine, can it concern one,
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 fhare;
Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;
Or, in pure equity, (the cafe not clear,)

f

g

The Chanc'ry takes your rents for twenty year:
At beft, it falls to fome ungracious fon,
Who cries, "My father's damn'd, and all's my own.
h Shades, that to BACON could retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby Lord;
And Hemfley, once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a Scriv'ner or a city Knight.

175

Let lands and houses have what Lords they will, Let Us be fix'd, and our own masters still.

180

d

165

170

NOTES.

VER. 177. And Hemfley,] Helmsley, in Yorkshire. VER. 177. proud Buckingham's, &c.] Villiers Duke of Buckingham.

POPE.

་་

THIS imitation appears to me, the leaft fuccefsfully polished and pointed of any he has attempted. The observations, indeed, are not very ftriking in the original; and as to Pope, if Bethel always fpoke what he thought, and always thought as he ought," we cannot be impreffed with the fagenes of his remarks. The chief merit of Horace is the language, and in this refpect Pope has followed him with much lefs fuccefs than he has done in his other Imitations.

THE FIRST EPISTLE

OF THE

FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.