Give Virtue fcandal, Innocence a fear, 285 Or from the foft-ey'd Virgin steal a tear! And how the fenfe of it without the love; NOTES. 290 This, and a great deal more he added on the fame occa fion, and affured me, that his new Dunciad would be full as well understood. He was not mistaken. This fourth book, the most studied and highly finished of all his Poems, was efteemed obfcure, (a name which, in excefs of modefty, the reader gives to what he does not under ftand) and but a faint imitation, by fome common hand, of the other three. He had himself the malicious pleasure to hear this judgment paffed on his favourite work, by feveral, of his acquaintance; a pleafure more to his taste than the flatteries they used to entertain him with, and were then intentionally paying him. Of which he gave me another inftance, that afforded him much diverfion. While these acquaintance read the Essay on Man as the work of an unknown Author, they fairly owned they did not understand it but when the reputation of the poem became fecured by the knowledge of the Writer, it foon grew fo clear and intelligible, that, on the appearance of the Comment on it, they told him, they wondered the Editor fhould think a large and minute interpretation neceffary. VER. 293.-felfifhly approve,] Because to deny, or pretend not to fec, a well eftablished merit, would impeach his own heart or understanding. VER. 294. And show the sense of it without the love;] i. e. wil never fuffer the admiration of an excellence to produce any feem for him to whom it belongs. Who has the vanity to call you friend, 295 Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend ; NOTES. VER. 295, 296. Who has the vanity to call you friend, Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend ;] When a great Genius, whose writings have afforded the world much pleasure and inftruction, happens to be enviously attacked, or falfly accufed, it is natural to think that a sense of gratitude for fo agreeable an obligation, or a fenfe of that honour refulting to our country from fuch a Writer, should raise amongst those who call themselves his friends, a pretty general indignation. But every day's experience fhews us the very contrary. Some take a malignant fatisfaction in the attack; others a foolish pleasure in a literary conflict; and the far greater part look on with a felfifh indifference. Horace warned his friend against this exceffive selfishness, not to fay, bafeness of mind; “At penitùs notum fi tentent crimina, ferves, "Tuterifque tuo fidenter tuo præfidio: qui "Dente Theonino cum circumroditur, ecquid "Ad te poft paulo ventura pericula fentis." A late Imitator of Horace, in the manner of Mr. Pope, has turned this with great elegance and fpirit: which, because it fo well fuits the occafion, I fhall here transcribe. "But should the man in whom (rare union!) fhine "Wit's glowing graces, Reafon's fpark divine, "Whofe modeft manners virtue's felf approves, "Whom Wisdom leads thro' Learning's inmost groves, "Stand the fierce rage of envy's motley train, "The proud, the bigotted, the dull, the vain, "Arife! and nobly feeling for your Friend, "His morals vindicate, his fame defend, "Till bursting thro' the cloud, with bright'ning ray "Truth bids his worth blaze forth in open day." 18 E. 1. L. imitated by Mr. Neville Who to the Dean, and filver bell can fwear, In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. 315 As fhallow streams run dimpling all the way. Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; NOTES. VER. 299. Who to the Dean, and filver bell, &c.] Meaning the man who would have perfuaded the Duke of Chandos that Mr. P. meant him in those circumstances ridiculed in the Epiftle on Tafte. See Mr. Pope's letter to the Earl of Burlington concerning this matter. Or at the ear of Eve, familiar Toad, Half froth, half venom, fpits himself abroad, 320 In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, Or fpite, or smut, or rhymes, or blafphemies. His wit all fee-faw, between that and this, Now high, now low, now master up, now mifs, And he himself one vile Antithefis. 325 Amphibious thing! that acting either part, The trifling head, or the corrupted heart, Fop at the toilet, flatt'rer at the board, Now trips a Lady, and now struts a Lord. Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have expreft, 330 A Cherub's face, a reptile all the rest, Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust, Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the duft. Not Fortune's worshipper, nor Fashion's fool, Not Lucre's madman, nor Ambition's tool, 335 Not proud, nor fervile; Be one Poet's praise, That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways: That Flatt'ry, ev'n to Kings, he held a shame, And thought a Lye in verfe or profe the fame. NOTES. VER. 319. See Milton, Book iv. P. VER. 320. Half froth,] Alluding to thofe frothy excretions, called by the people, Toad-fpits, feen in fummer-time hanging upon plants, and emitted by young infects which lie hid in the midst of them for their prefervation, while in their-helplefs ftate. That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long, 340 But stoop'd to Truth, and moraliz'd his song: NOTES. VER. 340. That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long,] His merit in this will appear very great, if we confider, that in this walk he had all the advantages which the most poetic Imagination could give to a great Genius. M. Voltaire, in a MS. letter now before me, writes thus from England to a friend in Paris. "I intend to fend you two or three poems "of Mr. Pope, the best Poet of England, and at present of "all the world. I hope you are acquainted enough with the English tongue, to be fenfible of all the charms of his "works. For my part, I look upon his poem called the Efay on Criticism as fuperior to the Art of Poetry of Ho"race; and his Rape of the Locke is, in my opinion, above "the Lutrin of Defpreaux. I never faw fo amiable an ima gination, fo gentle graces, fo great variety, fo much wit, "and fo refined knowledge of the world, as in this little "performance." MS. Lett. Oct. 15, 1726. VER. 341. But floop'd to Truth, and moraliz'd his fong:] This may be faid no lefs in commendation of his literary, than of his moral character. And his fuperior excellence in poetry is owing to it. He foon difcovered in what his force lay; and he made the best of that advantage, by a fedulous cultivation of his proper talent. For having read Quintilian early, this precept did not efcape him, Sunt bac duo vitanda pror fus: unum ne tentes quod effici non poffit; alterum, ne ab eo, quod quis optime 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 mafter, Dryden; who, by his Mac-Flecno, his Abfolom and Achitophel, but chiefly by his Prologues and Epilogues, appears to have had great talents for this fpecies of moral poetry; but, unluckily, he feemed neither to understand nor attend to it. Ibid. But ftcop'd to Truth,] The term is from falconry; and the allufion to one of thofe untam'd birds of fpirit, which, fometimes wantons at large in airy circles before it regards, or flots to, its prey. |