F. I'd write no more. P. Not write? but then I think, *And for my foul I cannot fleep a wink, I nod in company, I wake at night, Fools rush into my head, and fo I write. F. You could not do a worse thing for your life. Why, if the nights feem tedious-take a Wife: Hartshorn, or fomething that shall clofe your eyes. NOTES. 14 19 Or, of the world, the feat of arts, empire, and glory, now lies funk in floth, ignorance, and poverty; enflaved to the most cruel, as well as to the most contemptible of tyrants, fuperftition and reli gious impofture: while this remote country, antiently the jeft and contempt of the polite Romans, is become the happy feat of liberty, plenty, and letters; flourishing in all the arts and refinements of civil life; yet running, perhaps, the same course which Rome itself had run before it; from virtuous industry to wealth; from wealth to luxury; from luxury to an impatience of difcipline and corruption of morals; till, by a total degeneracy and lofs of virtue, being grown ripe for destruction, it falls a prey at last to fome hardy oppreffor, and, with the lofs of liberty losing every thing else that is valuable, finks gradually again into its original barbarifm." WARTON. VER. 11, Not write? &c.] He has omitted the most humor. ous part of the answer, Peream male, fi non Optimum erat: and has loft the grace, by not imitating the concifenefs, of For concifenefs, when it is clear, (as in this place,) gives the highest grace to elegance of expreffion.-But what follows is as much above the Original, as this falls fhort of it. WARBURTON. h Aut, si tantus amor fcribendi te rapit, aude CÆSARIS invecti res dicere, 1 multa laborum Præmia laturus. H. Cupidum, pater optime, vires Deficiunt: neque enim quivis horrentia pilis Agmina, nec fracta pereuntes cufpide Gallos, Aut labentis equo defcribat vulnera Parthi. k T. Attamen et juftum poteras, et fcribere fortem ; Scipiadam ut fapiens Lucilius. VER. 23. What? like Sir Richard, &c.] Mr. Molyneux, a great Mathematician and Philofopher, had a high opinion of Sir Richard Blackmore's poetic vein. All our English poets, except Milton, (fays he, in a Letter to Mr. Locke,) have been mere balladmakers in comparison of him. And Mr. Locke, in answer to this obfervation, replies, I find, with pleasure, a frange harmony throughout, between your thoughts and mine. Juft fo, a Roman Lawyer, and a Greek Hiftorian, thought of the poetry of Cicero. But thefe being judgments made by men out of their own profeffion, are little regarded. And Pope and Juvenal will make Blackmore and Tully pafs for Poetafters to the world's end. WARBURTON. Pope has turned the compliment to Auguftus into a fevere farcafm. All the wits feem to have leagued against Sir Richard Blackmore. In a letter now lying before me from Elijah Fenton to my father, dated Jan. 24, 1707, he fays, "I am glad to hear Mr. Phillips will publifh his Pomona: Who prints it? I fhall be mightily obliged to you if you could get me a copy of his verfes againft Blackmore.” As the letter contains one or two literary particulars, I will tranferibe the reft. As "to what you write about making a collection, I can only advife you to buy what poems you can, that Tonfon has printed, except the Ode to the Sun; unlefs you will take it in, because I writ it; which I am freer to own, that Mat. Prior may not fuffer in his reputation by having it afcribed to him. My humble fervice to Mr. Sacheverell, and • Or, if you needs muft write, write CAESAR'S Praife, You'll gain at least a Knighthood, or the Bays. P. What? like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce, i With ARMS, and GEORGE, and BRUNSWICK Crowd the verse, Rend with tremendous found your ears afunder, 25 With Gun, Drum, Trumpet, Blunderbuss, and Thunder? Or nobly wild, with Budgel's fire and force, Paint Angels trembling round his falling Horse? k F. Then all your Mufe's fofter art display, NOTES. 30 P. Alas! and tell him, I will never initate Milton more, till the author of Blenheim is forgotten." In vain was Blackmore extolled by Molyneux and Locke: but Locke, to his other fuperior talents, did not add good taste. He affected to despise poetry, and he depreciated the antients: which circumstance, as I was informed by the late Mr. James Harris, his relation, was the fource of perpetual difcontent and difpute betwixt him and his pupil Lord Shaftesbury; who, in many parts of his Characteristics, and Letters to a Clergyman, has ridiculed Locke's selfish philofophy, and has reprefented him as a difciple of Hobbes; from which writer it muft in truth be confeffed that Locke borrowed frequently and largely. Locke had not the fine taste of a greater philofopher, I mean Galileo, who wrote a comment on Ariosto full of just criticifm, and whose letter to Fr. Rinuccini on this fubject may be seen in Martinelli's Letters, p. 255. London, 1758. WARTON. VER. 28. falling Horfe?] The horse on which his Majefty charged at the battle of Oudenard; when the Pretender, and the Princes of the blood of France, fled before him. WARBURTON. Cum res ipfa feret: 'nifi dextro tempore, Flacci T. "Quanto rectius hoc, quam trifti lædere versu Pantolabum fcurram, Nomentanumve nepotem? Cum fibi quifque timet, quanquam eft intactus, et odit. 1 H. Quid faciam? faltat Milonius, ut femel icto Acceffit fervor capiti, numerufque lucernis. Caftor gaudet equis; ovo prognatus eodem, Pugnis. quot capitum vivunt, totidem ftudiorum NOTES. Millia VER. 39. Abuse the City's best good men in metre,] The best good Man, a City phrase for the richel. Metre -not used here purely to help the verse, but to fhew what it is a Citizen efteems the greatest aggravation of the offence. WARBURTON. VER. 42. What Should-ail 'em?] Horace hints at one reason, that each fears his own turn may be next; his imitator gives another, and with more art, a reafon which infinuates, that his very levity, in ufing feigned names, increases the number of his Enemies, who fufpect they may be included under that cover. WARBURTON. VER. 45. Each mortal] These words, indeed, open the sense of Horace; but the quid faciam is better, as it leaves it to the reader to discover, what is one of Horace's greatest beauties, his fecret and delicate tranfitions and connections, to which thofe who do not carefully attend, lofe half the pleasure of reading him. WARTON. VER. 46. Darty his Ham-pye;] This lover of Ham-pye owned the fidelity of the Poet's pencil; and faid, he had done juftice to his taste; but that if, instead of Ham pye, he had given him Sweetpye, he never could have pardoned him. WARBURTON. Lyttelton, in his Dialogues of the Dead, has introduced Darteneuf, in a pleasant discourse betwixt him and Apicius, bitterly la menting his ill-fortune in having lived before turtle-feafts were known in England. The ftory of the Ham-pye was confirmed by Mr. Dodfley, who knew Darteneuf, and, as he candidly owned, had waited on him at dinner. WARTON. P. Alas! few verses touch their nicer ear; They fcarce can bear their Laureat twice a year; It is to Hiftory he trusts for Praise. ום F. Better be Cibber, I'll maintain it still, Than ridicule all Tafte, blafpheme Quadrille, Abuse the City's best good men in metre, 35 And laugh at Peers that put their trust in Peter. 40 "Ev'n thofe you touch not hate you. P. What fhould ail 'em? F. A hundred smart in Timon and in Balaam : The fewer ftill you name, you wound the more; Bond is but one, but Harpax is a score. P. Each mortal has his pleasure: none deny 45 Scarfdale his bottle, Darty his Ham-pye; Ridotta fips and dances, till fhe fee The doubling Luftres dance as fast as she; F- loves the Senate, Hockley-hole his brother, Like in all elfe, as one Egg to another. NOTES. 50 I love VER. 50. Like in all elfe,] This parallel is not happy and exact: To fhew the variety of human paffions and purfuits, Caftor and Pollux were unlike, even though they came from one and the fame egg. This is far more extraordinary and marvellous than that two common brothers fhould have different inclinations. afterwards, Ver. 51. "I love to pour out all myself, as plain And As downright SHIPPEN, or as old MONTAGNE." "My chief pleasure is to write Satires like Lucilius," fays Horace. "My chief pleasure," fays Pope, "is-what? to speak my mind freely and openly." There should have been an inftanceof fome employment, and not a virtuous habit. WARBURTON. |