May some choice patron bless each gray goose quill! May ev'ry Bavius have his Bufo still! 250 So when a Statesman wants a day's defence, NOTES. When he not relish the pathos and simplicity of Euripides. published his Fables, Tonson agreed to give him two hundred and sixty-eight pounds for ten thousand verses. And, to complete the full number of lines stipulated for, he gave the bookseller the epistle to his cousin, and the celebrated Music Ode. "Old Jacob Tonson used to say, that Dryden was a little jealous of rivals. He would compliment Crown when a play of his failed, but was very cold to him if he met with success. He sometimes used to say that Crown had some genius but then he added always, that his father and Crown's mother were very well acquainted." Mr. Pope to Mr. Spence. : Ver. 251. So when a Statesman, &c.] Notwithstanding this ridicule on the public necessities of the Great, our Poet was 'candid enough to confess, that they are not always to be imputed to them, as their private distresses generally may. For (when uninfected by the neighbour of Party) he speaks of those necessities much more dispassionately. W.-In fact, neither great ministers, nor great princes, are either so good or so bad, as their flatterers and censurers represent them to be. This, however, ought not to prevent our keeping a jealous eye over every man in power. Ver. 256. left me GAY;] The sweetness and simplicity of Gay's temper and manners much endeared him to all his acquaintance, and made them always speak of him with particular fondness and attachment. He wrote with neatness and terseness, tequali quadam mediocritate, but certainly without any elevation; frequently without any spirit. Trivia appears to be the Left me to see neglected Genius bloom, NOTES. best of his poems, in which are many strokes of genuine humour and pictures of London-life, which are now become curious, because our manners, as well as our dresses, have been so much altered and changed within a few years. His Fables, the most popular of all his works, have the fault of many modern fablewriters, the ascribing, to the different animals and objects introduced, speeches and actions inconsistent with their several natures. An elephant can have nothing to do in a bookseller's shop. They are greatly inferior to the Fables of La Fontaine, which is perhaps the most unrivalled work in the whole French language. The Beggars' Opera has surely been extolled beyond its merits. I could never perceive that fine vein of concealed satire supposed to run through it: and though I should not join with a bench of Westminister Justices in forbidding it to be represented on the stage, yet I think pickpockets, strumpets, and highwaymen, may be hardened in their vices by this piece and that Pope and Swift talked too highly of its moral good effects. One undesigned and accidental mischief attended its success: it was the parent of that most monstrous of all dramatic absurdities, the Comic Opera. The friendship of two such excellent personages as the Duke and Dutchess of Queensberry, did, in truth, compensate poor Gay's want of pension and preferment. They behaved to him constantly with that delicacy and sense of seeming equality, as never to suffer him for a moment to feel his state of dependance. Let every man of letters, who wishes for patronage, read D'Alembert's Essay on living with the Great, before he enters the house of a patron: and let him always remember the fate of Racine, who having drawn up, at Madame Maintenon's secret request, a memorial that strongly painted the distresses of the French nation, the weight of their taxes, and the expenses of the court, she could not resist the importunity of Lewis XIV. but shewed him her friend's paper, against whom the king immediately conceived a violent indignation, because a poet should dare to busy himself with politics. Racine had the weakness to take this anger so much to heart, that it brought on a low fever which hastened his death. The Dutchess of Queensberry would not so have betrayed her poetical friend Gay. I was informed by Mr. Spence, that Mr. Ad Of all thy blameless life the sole return My Verse, and QUEENSB'RY Weeping o'er thy urn! Oh let me live my own, and die so too! (To live and die is all I have to do :) Maintain a Poet's dignity and ease, 261 And see what friends, and read what books, I please: Above a Patron, tho' I condescend Sometimes to call a Minister my friend. I was not born for Courts or great affairs; I pay my debts, believe, and say my pray'rs ; Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead. 265 270 VARIATIONS. After Ver. 270 in the MS. Friendships from youth I sought, and seek them still: By not making the World his School, he means, he did not form his system of morality on the principles or practice of men in business. NOTES. dison, in his last illness, sent to speak with Mr. Gay, and told him he had injured him; probably with respect to his gaining some employment at court; "but," said he, "if I recover I will endeavour to recompense you." Ver. 261. Oh let me live] In the first edition; Give me on Thames's banks, in honest ease, To see what friends, or read what books I please. Ver. 265. tho' I condescend, &c.] He thought it, and he justly thought it, a condescension in an honest man to accept the friendship of any one, how high soever, whose conduct in life was governed only on principles of policy: for of what Ministers he speaks, may be seen by the character he gives, in the next line, of the Courts they belong to. W. Why am I ask'd what next shall see the light? Heav'ns! was I born for nothing but to write? Has Life no joys for me? or (to be grave) 274 Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save? "No, such a Genius never can lie still;" 280 VARIATIONS. After Ver. 282 in the MS. P. What if I sing Augustus, great and good? P. Be nice no more, but, with a mouth profound, NOTES. Ver. 271. Why am I ask'd, &c.] This is intended as a reproof of those impertinent complaints, which were continually 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 occasion-Dès qu'on est auteur, il semble qu'on soit aux gages d'un tas de fainéans, pour leur fournir de quoi amuser leur oisiveté. W. Ver. 282. When ev'ry Coxcomb knows me by my Style?] The discovery of a concealed author by his Style, not only requires Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow, 285 290 a perfect intimacy with ture of composition. NOTES. his writings, but great skill in the naBut, in the practice of these Critics, knowing an Author by style, is like judging of a man's whole person from the view of one of his moles. When Mr. Pope wrote the Advertisement to the first edition of the new Dunciad, intimating, that, "it was by a different hand from the other, and found in detached pieces, incorrect and unfinished," I objected to him the affectation of using so unpromising an attempt to mislead his Reader. He replied, that I thought too highly of the public taste; that, most commonly, it was formed on that of half a dozen people in fashion; who took the lead, and who sometimes have intruded on Town the dullest performances for works of wit: while, at the same time, some true effort of genius, without name or recommendation, hath passed by the public eye unobserved or neglected: that he once before made the trial I now objected to with success in the Essay on Man: which was at first given (as he told me) to Dr. Young, to Dr. Desaguliers, to Lord Bolingbroke, to Lord Paget, and, in short, to every body but to him who was capable of writing it. However, to make him amends, this same Public, when let into the secret, would, for some time after, suffer no poem with a moral title, to pass for any man's but his. So the Essay on Human Life, the Essay on Reason, and many others of a worse tendency, were very liberally bestowed upon him. W.There are many admirable passages in Harte's Essay on Human Reason, which was much praised on its first publication and is said to have been corrected by Pope. |