MISCELLANEOUS.

A PARAPHRASE

(ON THOMAS À KEMPIS, 1. III. c. 2).

[Done by the Author at twelve years old; and first published from the Caryll Papers in the Athenæum, July 15th, 1854.]

SPE

PEAK, Gracious Lord, oh, speak; thy Servant hears:
For I'm thy Servant and I'll still be so:

Speak words of Comfort in my willing Ears;

And since my Tongue is in thy praises slow,
And since that thine all Rhetoric exceeds:

Speak thou in words, but let me speak in deeds!

Nor speak alone, but give me grace to hear
What thy celestial Sweetness does impart ;

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Let it not stop when entered at the Ear,

But sink, and take deep rooting in my heart.

IO

As the parch'd Earth drinks Rain (but grace afford)

With such a Gust1 will I receive thy word.

Nor with the Israelites shall I desire

Thy heav'nly word by Moses to receive,

Lest I should die: but Thou who didst inspire
Moses himself, speak Thou, that I may live.

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Rather with Samuel I beseech with tears,

Speak, gracious Lord, oh, speak, thy servant hears.

Moses, indeed, may say the words, but Thou
Must give the Spirit, and the Life inspire;
Our Love to thee his fervent Breath may blow,
But 'tis thyself alone can give the fire:
Thou without them may'st speak and profit too;
But without thee what could the Prophets do?

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They preach the Doctrine, but thou mak'st us do't;
They teach the mysteries thou dost open lay;
The trees they water, but thou giv'st the fruit;
They to Salvation show the arduous way,
But none but you can give us Strength to walk;
You give the Practice, they but give the Talk.

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Let them be Silent then; and thou alone,

My God! speak comfort to my ravish'd ears;

Light of my eyes, my Consolation,

Speak when thou wilt, for still thy Servant hears.

Whate'er thou speak'st, let this be understood:

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Thy greater Glory, and my greater Good!

1 [i. e. taste.]

TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM

ENTITLED

SUCCESSIO.

[FIRST published in Lintot's Miscellanies; avowed by Pope as written by him ' when fourteen years of age, in note to Dunciad, Bk. I. v. 181. Elkanah Settle, the city poet, and the Doeg of Absalom and Achitophel, had written a poem in celebration of the settlement of the crown on the house of Brunswick. Of this poem vv. 4 and 17-18 were afterwards, with slight alterations, inserted in the Dunciad as vv. 183-4 and 181-2 of Bk. 1.]

BEC

QEGONE, ye Critics, and restrain your spite,
CODRUS writes on, and will for ever write.
The heaviest Muse the swiftest course has gone,
As clocks run fastest when most lead is on;
What tho' no bees around your cradle flew,
Nor on your lips distill'd their golden dew;
Yet have we oft discover'd in their stead

A swarm of drones that buzz'd about your head.
When you, like Orpheus, strike the warbling lyre,
Attentive blocks stand round you and admire.
Wit pass'd through thee no longer is the same,
As meat digested takes a diff'rent name;
But sense must sure thy safest plunder be,
Since no reprisals can be made on thee.
Thus thou may'st rise, and in thy daring flight
(Though ne'er so weighty) reach a wondrous height.
So, forced from engines, lead itself can fly,

And pond'rous slugs move nimbly through the sky.
Sure BAVIUS copied MAVIUS to the full,
And CHERILUS taught CODRUS to be dull;
Therefore, dear friend, at my advice give o'er
This needless labour; and contend no more
To prove a dull succession to be true,
Since 'tis enough we find it so in you.

ARGUS.

'HOMER'S account of Ulysses's dog Argus is the most pathetic imaginable, all the circumstances consider'd, and an excellent proof of the old bard's goodnature. Ulysses had left him at Ithaca when he embark'd for Troy, and found him at his return after twenty years (which by the way is not unnatural, as some critics have said, since I remember the dam of my dog was twenty-two years old when she died. May the omen of longevity prove fortunate to her successors!). ! You shall have it in verse.' Pope to H. Cromwell, Oct. 19, 1709.

WHEN wise Ulysses, from his native coast

Long kept by wars, and long by tempests toss'd,

Perhaps by Charilus, the juvenile satirist designed Flecknoe or Shadwell, who had received their immortality of Dulness from his

master Catholic in poetry and opinions: Dryden. D'Israeli, cited by Roscoe.

Arriv'd at last, poor, old, disguis'd, alone,

To all his friends and ev'n his Queen unknown;
Chang'd as he was, with age, and toils, and cares,
Furrow'd his rev'rend face, and white his hairs,
In his own palace forc'd to ask his bread,
Scorn'd by those slaves his former bounty fed,
Forgot of all his own domestic crew:

The faithful dog alone his rightful master knew!
Unfed, unhous'd, neglected, on the clay,

Like an old servant, now cashier'd, he lay;
Touch'd with resentment of ungrateful man,

And longing to behold his ancient Lord again.

Him when he saw-he rose, and crawl'd to meet,

('Twas all he could) and fawn'd, and kiss'd his feet,
Seiz'd with dumb joy-then falling by his side,
Own'd his returning lord, look'd up, and died!

IO

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IMITATION OF MARTIAL.

[LIB. X. Epigr. XXIII. Mentioned as Pope's 'imitation of Martin's epigram on Antonius Primus,' by Sir William Trumball, in a letter to Pope, Jan. 19,a 1716.]

AT

T length, my Friend, (while Time, with still career,
Wafts on his gentle wing his eightieth year',)
Sees his past days safe out of Fortune's pow'r,
Nor dreads approaching Fate's uncertain hour;
Reviews his life, and in the strict survey
Finds not one moment he could wish away,
Pleas'd with the series of each happy day.
Such, such a man extends his life's short space,
And from the goal again renews the race;
For he lives twice, who can at once employ
The present well, and ev'n the past enjoy.

}

OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE
THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM2.

MUSE, 'tis enough; at length thy labour ends,

And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends.

Let Crowds of Critics now my verse assail,
Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail:

This more than pays whole years of thankless pain;
Time, health, and fortune are not lost in vain.
Sheffield approves, consenting Phoebus bends,
And I and Malice from this hour are friends.

1 How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! Milton's Sonnets. Carruthers.

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2 The verses referred to are the commendatory lines prefixed to Pope's poem by B. Roscoe. [As to Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, see note to Essay on Criticism, v. 724.]

ON MRS TOFTS,

A CELEBRATED OPERA-SINGER'.

O bright is thy Beauty, so charming thy Song,

As had drawn both the Beasts and their Orpheus along;

But such is thy Av'rice, and such is thy Pride,

That the Beasts must have starv'd, and the Poet have died.

EPIGRAM ON THE FEUDS ABOUT HANDEL
AND BONONCINI2.

[SOMETIMES, but incorrectly, attributed to Swift.]

EPIGRAM.

YOU beat your Pate, and fancy Wit will come:
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.

EPITAPH.

[IMITATED by Goldsmith in his Epitaph on Edward Purdon, 'a bookseller's

hack.']

TELL then, poor G lies under Ground!

So there's an End of honest Jack.

So little Justice here he found,

'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.

ЕРІТАРН.

[FROM the Latin on Joannes Mirandula. The lines were afterwards applied by Pope to Lord Coningsby; as to whom cf. Moral Essays, Ep. 111. v. 397.]

TO A LADY WITH

"THE TEMPLE OF FAME."

["I send you my Temple of Fame, which is just come out; but my sentiments about it you will see better by this epigram."-Pope to Martha Blount, 1714.]

W1

THAT'S Fame with Men, by Custom of the Nation,
Is call'd in Women only Reputation;

About them both why keep we such a pother?
'Part you with one, and I'll renounce the other.

IMPROMPTU TO LADY WINCHILSEA.

OCCASIONED BY FOUR SATIRICAL VERSES ON WOMEN-WITS, IN THE
RAPE OF THE LOCK.

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[THE four verses are apparently Canto IV. vv. 59-62. The Countess of Winchilsea, a poetess whom Rowe hailed as inspired by 'more than Delphic ardour,' replied by some pretty lines, where she declares that, 'disarmed with so genteel an air,' she gives over the contest. Her reply will be found in Roscoe's Supplement, pp. 183-6.]

N vain you boast Poetic Names of yore,

IN

And cite those Sapphos we admire no more:
Fate doom'd the Fall of every Female Wit;
But doom'd it then, when first Ardelia writ.
Of all Examples by the World confess'd,
I knew Ardelia could not quote the best;
Who, like her Mistress on Britannia's Throne1,
Fights and subdues in Quarrels not her own.
To write their Praise you but in vain essay;
E'en while you write, you take that Praise away:
Light to the Stars the Sun does thus restore,
But shines himself till they are seen no more.

EPIGRAM

ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB, ANNO 1716.

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[THE Kit-Cat Club was so named from Christopher Katt, a famous pastrycook. Steele, Addison, and many other wits were members, and Tonson secretary. It was customary to write verses in honour of the "Toasts,' and engrave them upon the glasses. Each member gave his picture to the club.]

WH

WHENCE deathless Kit-Cat took its Name,
Few Critics can unriddle;
Some say from Pastry-cook it came,
And some from Cat and Fiddle.

the origin belongs to the times of Henry IV. of France. Pope's epigram refers to the state of Europe after the peace of Utrecht in 1715, as a peace resulting (which was not in truth the case)

from general exhaustion.]

[Alluding to the wars concerning the Spanish succession, in which England certainly had no direct interest, under Queen Anne.]