f

1740.

A POEM.

What God, what mortal, fhall prevent thy fall? Turn, turn thy eyes from wicked men in place, And see what fuccour from the Patriot Race. C-, his own proud dupe, thinks Monarchs things Made juft for him, as other fools for Kings; Controls, decides, infults thee every hour, And antedates the hatred due to Pow'r.

Thro' Clouds of Paffion P --'s views are clear,

He foams a Patriot to fubfide a Peer;

Impatient fees his country bought and fold,

And damns the market where he takes no gold.

NOTES.

6

10

Grave,

VER. 1. O wretched B. ,] There is no doubt but that this interefting fragment was the beginning of the very Satire to which Warburton alludes in the laft Poem.

Pope was afraid to go on in his career of perfonal acrimony, Paul Whitehead, having thrown out an indecent sarcasm against Dr. Sherlock, was threatened with a profecution. This was meant as a hint to Pope; and it is very plain his fatiric progress was interrupted, for his alarm evidently appears. In this Poem, (which certainly was part of his plan, as a continuation of the Epilogue,}

he feems,

"Willing to wound, and yet afraid to frike." I have added some explanatory names.

Grave, righteous S - joggs on till, past belief, He finds himself companion with a thief.

To purge and let thee blood, with fire and sword, Is all the help stern S wou'd afford.

16

That those who bind and rob thee, would not kill,

Whose names once up, they thought it was not wrong To lie in bed, but fure they lay too long.

h

Gr, C-m, B - t, pay thee due regards, Unless the ladies bid them mind their cards.

i

with wit that must

And Cd who speaks fo well and writes,
Whom (faving W.) every S. harper bites,

muft needs

25

Whose wit and

equally provoke one,

Finds thee, at best, the butt to crack his joke on.
As for the reft, each winter up they run,

And all are clear, that something must be done. 30
Then urg'd by Ct, or by C-t stopt,

k

Р

Inflam'd by 'P - -, and by P-- dropt;

They follow rev'rently each wond'rous wight,
Amaz'd that one can read, that one can write :

So

a Shippen. C

Perhaps the Earl of Carlisle,

• Sandys.
f Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.

* Sir Henry Oxenden and Sir Paul Methuen.

h Lords Gower, Cobham, and Bathurst.

i Lord Chesterfield,

k Lord Carteret.

1 William Pulteney, created in 1742 Earl of Bath.

So geefe to gander prone obedience keep,
Hifs if he hiss, and if he slumber, sleep.
Till having done whate'er was fit or fine,

Utter'd a speech, and ask'd their friends to dine;
Each hurries back to his paternal ground,

Content but for five fhillings in the pound,
Yearly defeated, yearly hopes they give,
And all agree, Sir Robert cannot live.
Rife, rife, great 'W - -, fated to appear,
Spite of thyself a glorious minister!

Speak the loud language Princes. . . .
And treat with half the .

Tho' still he travels on no bad pretence,

Or those foul copies of thy face and tongue,
Veracious" W --- and frontlefs Young;
Sagacious Bub, fo late a friend, and there
So late a foe, yet more fagacious H - - - ?

1 Walpole.

35

40

45

50

55

Hervey

m Either Sir Robert's brother Horace, who had just quitted his embaffy at the Hague, or his fon Horace, who was then on his travels.

n W. Winnington. P Dodington.

• Sir William Young.
4 Probably Hare, bishop of Chichester.

Hervey and Hervey's fchool, 'F -, H - - y, ' H - - n, Yea, moral Ebor, or religious Winton.

60

The wifdom of the one and other chair,

"N - - laugh, or * D - - s fager,

Or thy dread truncheon M.'s mighty peer?

What help from * J - - s opiates canft thou draw,

a

Or H-k's quibbles voted into law?

C. that Roman in his nofe alone,

с

Who hears all caufes, B - -, but thy own,

Or those proud fools whom nature, rank, and fate
Made fit companions for the Sword of State.

Can the light packhorse, or the heavy steer,
The fowzing Prelate, or the sweating Peer,
Drag out with all its dirt and all its weight,
The lumb'ring carriage of thy broken State?
Alas! the people curfe, the carman fwears,
The drivers quarrel, and the master stares.

65

༡༠

The plague is on thee, Britain, and who tries 75 To fave thee in th' infectious office dies.

Fox and Henley,

r Hinton.

The

3

Blackburn, Archbishop of York, and Hoadley, bishop of Winchefter.

'Onflow, Speaker of the House of Commons, and the Earl of Delawar, Chairman of the Committees of the Houfe of Lords. ■ Newcastle.

* Dorfet; perhaps the laft word fhould be fneer.

y Duke of Marlborough.

b Probably Sir John Cummins, Lord Chief Juftice of the Common Pleas.

c Britain.