I was not born for Courts or great affairs; Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead. Why am I afk'd what next shall see the light? Heav'ns! was 1 born for nothing but to write? Has Life no joys for me? or (to be grave) 270 Have I no friend to serve, no foul to fave? 274 "I found him close with Swift-Indeed? no doubt (Cries prating Balbus) something will come out. "Tis all in vain, deny it as I will. "No, fuch a Genius never can lie ftill; VARIATIONS. After 270. in the MS. Friendships from youth I fought, and seek them ftill: a By not making the World his School he means, he did not form his fyftem of morality, on the principles or practice of men in business. NOTES. conduct in life was governed only on principles of policy: for of what minifters he speaks, may be feen by the character he gives, in the next line, of the Courts they belong to. VER. 271. Why am I afk'd &c.] This is intended as a reproof of those impertinent complaints, which were perpetually made to him by those who called themselves his friends, for not entertaining the Town as often as it wanted amusement.-A French writer says well on this occafionDès qu'on eft auteur, il femble qu'on foit aux gages d'un tas de fainéans, pour leur fournir de quoi amuser leur oifiveté. And then for mine obligingly mistakes The first Lampoon Sir Will. or Bubo makes. 280 285 290 That Fop, whose pride affects a patron's name, VARIATIONS. After 282. in the MS. P. What if I fing Auguftus, great and good? P. Be nice no more, but, with a mouth profound, The Town, the Court, the Wits, the Dunces weep. Who can your merit felfifbly approve, And fhow the fenfe of it without the love; NOTES. 295 300 VER. 293.-felfifhly approve,] Because to deny, or pretend not to fee, a well establifhed merit, would impeach his own heart or understanding. VER. 294. And show the sense of it without the love ;] i. e. will never fuffer the admiration of an excellence to produce any esteem for him, to whom it belongs. VER. 295. 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 falsely accused, it is natural to think, that a fenfe of gratitude for fo agreeable an obligation, or a fenfe of that honour refulting to our Country from fuch a Writer, fhould 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 selfish indifference. 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 circumftances ridiculed in the Epiftle on Tafte. See Mr. Pope's Letter to the Earl of Burlington concerning this matter. Who reads, but with a luft to mifapply, 306 Let Sporus tremble-A. What? that thing of filk, P. Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, Yet wit ne'er taftes, and beauty ne'er enjoys: In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. 315 As fhallow ftreams run dimpling all the way. And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet fqueaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar Toad, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, Or fpite, or smut, or rhymes, or blafphemies. NOTES. VER. 319. See Milton, Book iv. P. 320 VER. 320. Half froth,] Alluding to thofe frothy excretions, called by the people, Toad fpits, feen in fummertime hanging upon plants, and emitted by young infects which he hid in the midit of them, for their prefervation, whole in their helplefs state. His wit all fee-faw, between that and this, Now high, now low, now mafter up, now mifs, Amphibious thing! that acting either part, Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will truft, VER. NOTES. } 326 330 335 R. 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 prefent of all the world. I hope you are ac quainted enough with the English tongue, to be sensi"ble of all the charms of his works. For my part, I "look upon his poem called the Essay on Criticism as fu"perior to the Art of poetry of Horace; and his Rape of the Lock is, in my opinion, above the Lutrin of Def |