And not like forty other Fools: ker! 21 25 "To grant me this and t' other Acre: I must by all means come to town, 'Tis for the service of the Crown. 30 35 Lewis, the Dean will be of use, "Send for him up, take no excuse. The toil, the danger of the Seas; Great Ministers ne'er think of these; Or let it cost five hundred pound, No matter where the money's found, It is but so much more in debt, And that they ne'er consider'd yet. "Good Mr Dean, go change your gown, "The Duke expects my Lord and you, 40 " You may for certain, if you please; 80 "I doubt not, if his Lordship knew "Let my Lord know you're come to town." 66 85 And, Mr Dean, one word from you 'Tis (let me see) three years and more, (October next it will be four)* Since HARLEY bid me first attend, And chose me for an humble friend; 45 Would take me in his Coach to chat, And question me of this and that; As, "What's o'clock?" And, "How's I hurry me in haste away, "To jostle here among a crowd." 52 [Swift's apprehension of idiotcy, to be so terribly justified at the close of his life, haunted him from an early period. Its most terrible expression is the description of the Struldbrugs in Gulliver's voyage to the Houyhnhms.] [Swift appears never to have absolutely relinquished the hope of English preferment till his last visit to England in 1727. But he never condescended to ask it either of friend or foe.] the Wind?" My Lord and me as far as Staines, "I wonder what some people mean; 66 66 66 My Lord and he are grown so great, Always together, tête à tête; 99 the 106 What, they admire him for his jokes"See but the fortune of some Folks!" There flies about a strange report Of some Express arriv'd at Court; I'm stopp'd by all the Fools I meet, And catechis'd in ev'ry street. "You, Mr Dean, frequent the Great; "Inform us, will the Emp'ror treat? "Or do the Prints and Papers lie?" 115 'Faith, Sir, you know as much as I.' "Ah Doctor, how you love to jest? "'Tis now no secret"-"I protest ''Tis one to me'-"Then tell us, pray, "When are the Troops to have their pay?" And, tho' I solemnly declare 120 I know no more than my Lord Mayor, They stand amaz'd, and think me grown The closest mortal ever known. over, like Swift, from the Whigs to the Tories, and was one of the members of the Scriblerus Club. He died in 1717; and Pope published his poems in 1722, with a dedication to the Earl of Oxford (v. infra, p. 441). Parnell wrote the Life of Homer for Pope's Iliad, and translated the Batrachomyomachia. His biography was afterwards written by Goldsmith.] [Charles Fox, on a summer's day at St Ann's, declared it the right time for lying in the shade with a book. 'Why with a book?' asked Sheridan.] 2 ['(For one whole day) we have had nothing for dinner but mutton-broth, beans and bacon, and a barn-door fowl.' Pope to Swift (from Dawley), June 28, 1728.] 3 [The City Mouse and Country Mouse was written by Prior and Charles Montagu (afterwards Earl of Halifax) in 1688, in ridicule of Dryden's Hind and Panther. The reason why Pope was so sparing in his praise of Prior, is found by Warton in the satirical epige ten by Prior on Atterbury. 'Dar familiar abbreviation for don speaks of 'Dan Chaucer;' and his Alma, facetiously mention it 66 204 210 Was ever such a happy Swain? 215 BOOK IV. ODE I. TO VENUS1. GAIN? new Tumults in my breast? AG Ah spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest! am not now, alas! the man As in the gentle Reign of My Queen Anne. Ah sound no more thy soft alarms, Nor circle sober fifty with thy Charms. Mother too fierce of dear Desires! Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires. To Number five direct your Doves, There spread round MURRAY all your blooming Loves; Noble and young, who strikes the heart With ev'ry sprightly, ev'ry decent part; Equal, the injur'd to defend, To charm the Mistress, or to fix the Friend. 1 It may be worth observing, that the measure Pope has here chosen is precisely the same that Ben Jonson used in a translation of this very Ode. Warton. 5 IO 2 The number of Murray's lodgings in King's Bench Walks. Bowles. [See Imitations of Horace, Bk. 1. Ep. vi. 49, note.] He, with a hundred Arts refin'd, Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind: Make but his Riches equal to his Wit1. 15 Then shall thy Form the Marble grace, (Thy Grecian Form) and Chloe lend the Face: 20 Thither, the silver-sounding lyres 25 Shall call the smiling Loves, and young Desires; There, ev'ry Grace and Muse shall throng, Exalt the dance, or animate the song; There Youths and Nymphs, in concert gay, Shall hail the rising, close the parting day. 30 PART OF THE NINTH ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK. EST you should think that verse should die, Taught, on the wings of Truth to fly Tho' daring Milton sits sublime, 1 [Lord Mansfield is reported to have been in embarrassed circumstances during the early part of his career.] This alludes to Mr Murray's intention at one time of taking the lease of Pope's house and grounds at Twickenham. Bowles. Sages and Chiefs long since had birth And Those, new Heav'ns and Systems fram'd. Vain was the Chief's, the Sage's pride! They had no Poet, and they died. EPISTLES. EPISTLE ΤΟ ROBERT EARL OF OXFORD, AND EARL MORTIMER1. UCH were the notes thy once-lov'd Poet sung, Oh just beheld, and lost! admir'd and mourn'd! For him, thou oft hast bid the World attend, Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear |