'Est mihi purgatam crebro qui personet aurem ; Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne Peccet ad extremum ridendus, et ilia ducat. Nunc itaque et 1versus et cætera ludicra pono : Quid verum atque decens, curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum:

*Condo, et compono, quæ mox depromere possim. Ac ne forte roges, 'quo me duce, quo Lare tuter: Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri, "Quo me cunque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes. Nunc agilis fio, et mersor "civilibus undis,

NOTES.

three; next, the Epodes, in his thirty-fourth and fifth year; next, the first book of his Odes, in three years, from his thirty-sixth to his thirty-eighth year; the second book in the two next years; then, the first book of the Epistles, in his forty-sixth and seventh year; next to that, the fourth book of his Odes, in his forty-ninth year: lastly, the Art of Poetry, and second book of the Epistles, to which an exact date cannot be assigned.

Ver. 10. Ev'n in BRUNSWICK's cause.] In the former Editions it was Britain's cause. But the terms are synonimous. W.

Ver. 15. Lest stiff,] He has excelled Boileau's imitation of these verses, Ep. 10. v. 44. And indeed Boileau himself is excelled by an old French Poet, whom he has frequently imitated, that is, Le Frasnaie Vauquelin, whose Poems were published 1612. Vauquelin says, that he profited much by reading the Satires of Ariosto; he also wrote an art of Poetry; one of his best pieces is an imitation of Horace's Trebatius, being a dialogue between himself and the Chancellor of France.

Ver. 16. You limp, like Blackmore on a Lord Mayor's horse.] The fame of this heavy Poet, however problematical elsewhere,

'A voice there is, that whispers in my ear,

11

(Tis Reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear,) "Friend Pope! be prudent, let your Muse take breath,

And never gallop Pegasus to death;

Lest stiff, and stately, void of fire or force,

15

You limp, like Blackmore on a Lord Mayor's horse."

Farewell then Verse, and Love, and ev'ry Toy, The Rhymes and Rattles of the Man or Boy; What 'right, what true, what fit, we justly call, Lest this be all my care-for this is All: To lay this harvest up and hoard with haste What ev'ry day will want, and most, the last.

But ask not, to what 'Doctors I apply? Sworn to no Master, of no Sect am I :

As drives the storm, at any door I knock:

And house with Montaigne now, or now with

Locke.

Sometimes a "Patriot, active in debate,

Mix with the World, and battle for the State,

NOTES.

20

25

was universally received in the City of London. His versification is here exactly described; stiff, and not strong; stately, and yet dull, like the sober and slow-paced animal generally employed to mount the Lord Mayor: and therefore here humorously opposed to Pegasus. P.

Ver. 26. And house with Montaigne now, or now with Locke.] i. e. Choose either an active or a contemplative life, as is most fitted to the season and circumstances. For he regarded these Writers as the best Schools to form a man for the world; or to give him a knowledge of himself: Montaigne excelling in his observations on social and civil life; and Locke, in developing the faculties, and explaining the operations of the human mind. W.

Virtutis veræ custos, rigidusque satelles :
Nunc in *Aristippi 'furtim præcepta relabor,
Et mihi res, non me rebus, subjungere conor.
"Ut nox longa, quibus mentitur amica; diesque
Lenta videtur opus debentibus: ut piger annus
Pupillis, quos dura premit custodia matrum :
Sic mihi tarda 'fluunt ingrataque tempora, quæ spem
Consiliumque morantur agendi gnaviter 'id, quod
Æque pauperibus prodest, locupletibus æque,
Æque neglectum pueris senibusque nocebit.

* Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res. P.

NOTES.

Ver. 29. Free as young Lyttleton,] A just, and not overcharged encomium, on an excellent man, who had always served his friends with warmth (witness his kindness to Thomson), and his country with activity and zeal. His Poems and Dialogues of the Dead are written with elegance and ease; his observations on the Conversion of St. Paul, with clearness and closeness of reasoning; and his History of Henry II. with accuracy and knowledge of those early times and of the English Constitution; and which was compiled from a laborious search into authentic documents, and the records lodged in the Tower and at the Rolls. A little before he died, he told me, that he had determined to throw out of the collection of all his works, which was then to be published, his first juvenile performance, the Persian Letters, written 1735, in imitation of those of his friend Montesquieu, whom he had known and admired in England, in which he said there were principles and remarks that he wished to retract and alter. I told him, that, notwithstanding his caution, the booksellers, as in fact they have done, would preserve and insert these letters. Another little piece, written also in his early youth, does him much honour; the Observations on the Life of Tully,

Free as young Lyttleton, her cause pursue,
Still true to Virtue, and as warm as true:
Sometimes with Aristippus, or St. Paul,
Indulge my candour, and grow all to all;
Back to my Pnative Moderation slide,
And win my way by yielding to the tide.

'Long, as to him who works for Debt, the day,
Long as the Night to her whose Love's away,
Long as the Year's dull circle seems to run,
When the brisk Minor pants for Twenty-one :
So slow th' 'unprofitable moments roll,
That lock up all the Functions of the soul;
That keep me from myself; and still delay
Life's instant business to a future day :
That 'task, which as we follow or despise,
The eldest is a fool, the youngest wise.
Which done the poorest can no wants endure;
And which not done, the richest must be

NOTES.

poor.

30

34

40

45

in which perhaps a more dispassionate and impartial character of Tully is exhibited than in the panegyrical volumes of Middleton.

Ver. 31. Aristippus, or St. Paul,] There is an impropriety and indecorum, in joining the name of the most profligate parasite of the court of Dionysius, with that of an Apostle. In a few lines before, the name of Montaigne is not sufficiently contrasted by the name of Locke; the place required that two philosophers, holding very different tenets, should have been introduced. Hobbes might have been opposed to Hutcheson. I know not why he omitted a strong sentiment that follows immediately.

"Et mihi res, non me rebus, subjungere conor;" Ver. 20. which line Corneille took for his motto.

Ver. 45. can no wants endure;] i. e. Can want nothing: badly expressed. W.

*Restat, ut his ego me ipse regam "solerque ele

mentis:

"Non possis oculo quantum contendere Lynceus;
Non tamen idcirco contemnas lippus inungi:
Nec, quia desperes invicti membra Glyconis,
Nodosa corpus nolis prohibere chiragra.
Est quadam prodire tenus, si non datur ultra.
› Fervet Avaritia, miseroque cupidine pectus ?
Sunt verba et voces, quibus hunc lenire dolorem.
Possis, et magnam morbi deponere partem.
Laudis amore tumes? Sunt certa piacula, quæ te
Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello.
'Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator;
Nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,
Si modo culturæ patientem commodet aurem.
Virtus est, vitium fugere; et sapientia prima,
Stultitia caruisse. vides, quæ 'maxima credis

a

NOTES.

Ver. 51. I'll do what Mead] Mr. Pope highly esteemed and loved this worthy man; whose unaffected humanity and benevolence have stifled much of that envy which his eminence in his profession would otherwise have drawn out. Speaking of his obligations to this great Physician and others of the Faculty, in a Letter to Mr. Allen, about a month before his death, he says, "There is no end of my kind treatment from the Faculty. They are in general the most amiable companions, and the best friends, as well as the most learned men I know." W.

The same may with strict justice be said of Heberden, Baker, and Warren.

Ver. 61. Be furious,] Horace, in his usual artful way, glanced at his own frailties and weaknesses, as he frequently does in the four last epithets of the 38th verse in the original. As to envy, he had not a grain of it in his nature: and in verse 100 of the original, he laughs at his own passion for building.