The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape, NOTES. 355 shamelessly repeated in the Libels, and even in that called the Nobleman's Epistle. P. Ver. 351. Th' imputed trash,] Such as profane Psalms, Court Poems, and other scandalous things, printed in his name by Curl and others. W. Ver. 353. the pictur'd shape ;] Hay, in his essay on Deformity, has remarked, that Pope was so hurt by the caricatura of his figure, as to rank it among the most atrocious injuries he received from his enemies. Hay, with much pleasantry, jesting on his own deformity, has added, "In person I resemble Æsop, the Prince of Orange, Marshal Luxemburg, Lord Treasurer Salisbury, Scarron, and Mr. Pope; not to mention Thersites and Richard the Third, whom I do not claim as members of our society; the first being a child of the poet's fancy; the last, misrepresented by historians. Let me not be unthankful that I was not born in Sparta! where I had no sooner seen the light but I should have been deprived of it, and have been thrown, as a useless thing, into a cavern by Mount Taygetus." Ver. 354. Abuse, on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread,] Namely, on the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Burlington, Lord Bathurst, Lord Bolingbroke, Bishop Atterbury, Dr. Swift, Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Gay, his Friends, his Parents, and his very Nurse, aspersed in printed papers, by James Moore, G. Ducket, L. Welsted, Tho. Bentley, and cther obscure persons. P. Ver. 356. The whisper, that to Greatness still too near,] By the whisper is meant calumniating honest characters. Shakspeare has finely expressed this office of the sycophant of Greatness in the following line; "Rain sacrificial whisp'rings in his ear." By which is meant the immolating men's reputations to the vice or vanity of his Patron. W.-Did Shakspeare mean this? Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past: A. But why insult the poor, affront the great ? . If on a Pillory, or near a throne, 361 365 He gain his Prince's ear, or lose his own. 370 Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit, Sappho can tell you how this man was bit: This dreaded Sat'rist Dennis will confess Foe to his pride, but Friend to his distress: So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door, Has drunk with Cibber, nay has rhym'd for Moore, Full ten years slander'd, did he once reply? Three thousand suns went down on Welsted's lie, VARIATIONS. Ver. 368 in the MS. Once, and but once, his heedless Youth was bit, He writ no Libels, but my Lady did: Great odds in am'rous or poetic game, Where Woman's is the sin, and Man's the shame. NOTES. Ver. 359. For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev'n the last!] This line is remarkable for presenting us with the most amiable image of steady Virtue, mixed with a modest concern for his being forced to undergo the severest proofs of his love for it; which was the being thought hardly of by his SOVEREIGN. W. Ver. 363. Sporus at court,] In former editions, Glencus at court. To please his Mistress, one aspers'd his life; 376 NOTES. 380 the Author of the Dunciad published that poem, till when, he never writ a word in answer to the many scurrilities and falsehoods concerning him. P. Ver. 375. Welsted's lie,] This man had the impudence to tell in print, that Mr. P. had occasioned a Lady's death, and to name a person he never heard of. He also published that he libelled the Duke of Chandos; with whom (it was added) that he had lived in familiarity, and received from him a present of five hundred pounds: the falsehood of both which is known to his Grace. Mr. P. never received any present, farther than the subscription for Homer, from him, or from any great Man whatsoever. P. Ver. 378. Let Budgel] Budgel, in a weekly pamphlet called the Bee, bestowed much abuse on him, in the imagination that he writ some things about the Last Will of Mr. Tindal, in the Grubstreet Journal; a Paper wherein he never had the least hand, direction, or supervisal, nor the least knowledge of its Author. P. Ver. 379. except his Will ;] Alluding to Tindal's Will: by which, and other indirect practices, Budgel, to the exclusion of the next heir, a nephew, got to himself almost the whole fortune of a man entirely unrelated to him. P. Ver. 381. His father, mother, &c.] In some of Curl's and other pamphlets, Mr. Pope's Father was said to be a Mechanic, a Hatter, a Farmer, nay a Bankrupt. But, what is stranger, a Nobleman (if such a reflection could be thought to come from a Nobleman) had dropped an allusion to that pitiful untruth, in a paper called an Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity: and the following line, "Hard as thy Heart, and as thy Birth obscure," had fallen from a like Courtly pen, in certain Verses to the Imitator of Horace. Mr. Pope's Father was of a Gentleman's Family in Oxfordshire, the head of which was the Earl of Downe, whose Yet why? That Father held it for a rule, Of gentle blood (part shed in Honour's cause 386 NOTES. sole Heiress married the Earl of Lindsay.-His Mother was the daughter of William Turner, Esq. of York: she had three brothers, one of whom was killed, another died in the service of King Charles; the eldest following his fortunes, and becoming a general officer in Spain, left her what estate remained after the sequestrations and forfeitures of her family.-Mr. Pope died in 1717, aged 75; she in 1733, aged 93, a very few weeks after this Poem was finished. The following inscription was placed by their son on their Monument in the parish of Twickenham in Middlesex: D. O. M. ALEXANDRO. POPE. VIRO. INNOCVO. PROBO. PIO. QUI. VIXIT. ANNOS. LXXV. OB. MDCCXVII. Ver. 388. Of gentle blood] When Mr. Pope published the notes on the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, giving an account of his family, Mr. Pottinger, a relation of his, observed, that his cousin Pope had made himself out a fine pedigree, but he wondered where he got it; that he had never heard any thing himself of their being descended from the Earls of Downe; and, what is more, he had an old maiden aunt, equally related, a great genealogist, who was always talking of her family, but never mentioned this circumstance; on which she certainly would not have been silent, had she known any thing of it. Mr. Pope's grandfather was a clergyman of the church of England in Hampshire. 52 Each parent sprung-A. What fortune, pray?---- P. Their own, And better got, than Bestia's from the throne. 390 396 The good man walk'd innoxious through his age. 400 His life, tho' long, to sickness past unknown, VARIATIONS. After Ver. 405 in the MS. And of myself, too, something must I say? And if it live, it lives but to commend The man whose heart has ne'er forgot a Friend, Or head, an Author; Critic, yet polite, And friend to Learning, yet too wise to write. NOTES. 404 He placed his son, Mr. Pope's father, with a merchant at Lisbon, where he became a convert to Popery. (Thus far Dr. Bolton, late Dean of Carlisle, a friend of Pope; from Mr. Pottinger.) The burying-place and monuments of the family of the Popes, Earls of Downe, is at Wroxton, Oxfordshire. The Earl of Guildford says, that he has seen and examined the pedigrees and descents of that family, and is sure that there were then none of the name of Pope left, who could be descended from that family.(From John Loveday, of Caversham, Esquire.) |