EPISTLE IV.

OF THE USE OF RICHES.

'Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy :
Is it less strange, the prodigal should waste
His wealth, to purchase what he ne'er can taste?
Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats:
Artists must choose his pictures, music, meats:
He buys for Topham drawings and designs;
For Pembroke, statues, dirty gods, and coins;
Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone,
And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane.
Think we all these are for himself? no more
Than his fine wife, alas! or finer whore.

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7 Topham. A gentleman famous for a judicious collection of drawings.

8 For Pembroke, statues. Henry, earl of Pembroke. His house at Wilton, which Holbein, Jones, and Vandyck had decorated, still contains some of the finest specimens of the arts in Europe.

9 Hearne. The antiquarian.

10 And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane. Two eminent physicians: the one had an excellent library, the other the finest collection in Europe of natural curiosities; both men of great learning and humanity.-Pope.

POPE.

II.

L

For what has Virro painted, built, and planted? Only to show how many tastes he wanted. What brought sir Visto's ill-got wealth to waste? 15 Some demon whisper'd, Visto! have a taste.' Heaven visits with a taste the wealthy fool, And needs no rod but Ripley with a rule. See, sportive fate, to punish awkward pride, Bids Bubo build, and sends him such a guide: 20 A standing sermon, at each year's expense, That never coxcomb reach'd magnificence!

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You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse; And pompous buildings once were things of use. Yet shall, my lord! your just, your noble rules, Fill half the land with imitating fools; Who random drawings from your sheets shall take, And of one beauty many blunders make; Load some vain church with old theatric state; Turn arcs of triumph to a garden gate; Reverse your ornaments, and hang them all On some patch'd dog-hole eked with ends of wall;

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18 Ripley. This man was a carpenter, employed by a first minister, who raised him to an architect, without any genius in the art; and after some wretched proofs of his insufficiency in public buildings, made him comptroller of the Board of Works.-Pope.

20 Bubo. Bubb Doddington, who had just built a fine house at Eastbury, near Blandford.

After ver. 22. in the Ms.

Must bishops, lawyers, statesmen have the skill

To build, to plant, judge paintings, what you will?
Then why not Kent as well our treaties draw,

Bridgman explain the gospel, Gibbs the law?

23 The earl of Burlington was then publishing the designs of Inigo Jones, and the antiquities of Rome by Palladio.Pope.

Then clap four slices of pilaster on 't,

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40

That, laced with bits of rustic, makes a front;
Shall call the winds through long arcades to roar,
Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door;
Conscious they act a true Palladian part;
And, if they starve, they starve by rules of art.
Oft have you hinted to your brother peer
A certain truth, which many buy too dear:
Something there is more needful than expense,
And something previous ev'n to taste ;--'tis sense:
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,
And, though no science, fairly worth the seven :
A light, which in yourself you must perceive; 45
Jones and Le Nôtre have it not to give.
To build, to plant, whatever you intend,
To rear the column, or the arch to bend;
To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot;—
In all, let Nature never be forgot:
But treat the goddess like a modest fair;
Nor over-dress, nor leave her wholly bare:
Let not each beauty everywhere be spied,
Where half the skill is decently to hide.
He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds, 55
Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds.

Consult the genius of the place in all;
That tells the waters, or to rise or fall;
Or helps the ambitious hill the heavens to scale;
Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;

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Calls in the country, catches opening glades, Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades;

46 Le Nôtre. The architect of the groves and grotos of Versailles he came hither on a mission to improve our taste. He planted St. James's and Greenwich-parks.-Pope.

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Now breaks, or now directs, the intending lines;
Paints as you plant, and as you work designs.
Still follow sense, of every art the soul;
Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole,
Spontaneous beauties all around advance,
Start ev'n from difficulty, strike from chance:
Nature shall join you; time shall make it grow
A work to wonder at-perhaps a Stowe.

Without it, proud Versailles! thy glory falls, And Nero's terraces desert their walls :

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67 Spontaneous beauties. The true theory of landscape is laid down by Pope in these few lines. All landscape decoration that deserves the praise of taste must have some connexion with utility: yet this principle, rational and obvious as it is, is violated in the whole practice of those modern decorators who labor to ambush' houses in unnecessary groups of ve getation, for the sake of the picturesque; dig lakes where water is useless, and raise mounts where utility and nature would have left a plain. All changes, whose purpose is merely effect, are offensive to taste. The ancients, fond as they were of pomp, and vast as the means of their chief men were, often protested against this lavishness of rural decoration. Cic. de Leg.

70 The seat and gardens of the marquis of Buckingham.

71 Proud Versailles. Yet the sarcasms levelled against the formal magnificence of the French palaces forget one highly important circumstance, which would justify a much worse style. Versailles and its compeers were built as much for the people as the prince: they were clearly intended for a pleasing popular show, a source of popular indulgence, and a perpetual gratification for the national pride of the multitude. Their profusion of ornament was expressly adapted for the eyes of the Parisians: even the stiff regularity of their gardens rendered them only the fitter for their original purpose, the promenade of the citizens. English palaces are not intended for those objects, and they thus have not the French excuse but they also undoubtedly throw away, what was long felt in France to be a natural, innocent, and yet powerful source of royal popularity.