And hail her passage to the realms of rest, All parts perform'd, and all her children bless'd! So-Satire is no more-I feel it die No gazetteer more innocent than I: 85 91 And let a-God's name, every fool and knave port, Lull'd with the sweet nepenthe of a court; 95 There, where no father's, brother's, friend's dis grace Once break their rest, or stir them from their place; But past the sense of human miseries, All tears are wiped for ever from all eyes; 100 told sir R. Walpole' she would have seen him with pleasure, but prudence forbade the interview, as it might embarrass and irritate the king.' This may be vindication; but it must be limited to the queen. Courtiership on the deathbed!-prudence preventing a mother from seeing her son at the last glance that she was to give to this world. The genius of etiquette was probably never so honored before. 92 Immortal S-k. Charles Hamilton, third son of the duke of Hamilton, who was created earl of Selkirk in 1687. No cheek is known to blush, no heart to throb, Save when they lose a question, or a job. P. Good Heaven forbid, that I should blast their glory, Who know how like whig ministers to tory; 105 And, when three sovereigns died, could scarce be vex'd, 110 Considering what a gracious prince' was next. Ye gods! shall Cibber's son, without rebuke, 115 A favorite's porter with his master vie? Be bribed as often, and as often lie? 120 Shall Ward draw contracts with a statesman's skill? To pay their debts, or keep their faith, like kings? 107 Three sovereigns died. Mary, William, and Anne: the gracious prince was George I. 111 Or peeress shall I fret. Bowles says, this alludes to lady M. Montague, who was reported to have suffered her sister, the countess of Mar, to sink into destitution in Paris. But he denies the destitution, chiefly on the ground that the earl's Scotch estate was given to his wife and daughter by George I. for their maintenance. Yet the Scotch estate might not be large; the rents paid to an exile are not always of the most punctual order; and lady Mary's personal profligacy was the natural school for hardness of heart. 115 Cibber's son-Rich. Two players: look for them in the Dunciad.-Pope. If Blount despatch'd himself, he play'd the man, 125 Learn, from their books, to hang himself and wife? This, this, my friend, I cannot, must not bear; Vice, thus abused, demands a nation's care: 123 If Blount despatch'd himself. He was the younger son of sir Henry Blount, who wrote an admirable account of a Voyage to the Levant, 1636; and younger brother of sir Thomas Pope Blount, who wrote the Censura Authorum ;' and this Charles Blount was not only the author of the Oracles of Reason,' but of an infidel treatise, intitled 'Anima Mundi,' and of the Life of Apollonius Tyanæus,' in folio, 1680; with notes said to be taken from the manuscript of lord Herbert of Cherbury. It was his sister-in-law with whom he was in love, when he destroyed himself. 124 Passeran. A Piedmontese nobleman, who wrote a Philosophical Discourse on Death,' in defence of suicide. He was banished from Piedmont for his excesses, and lived long in misery; but at length recanted his philosophical absurdities, and died in penitence. 125 But shall a printer. A fact that happened in London a few years past. The unhappy man left behind him a paper justifying his action by the reasonings of some of these authors.Pope. 126 Learn, from their books, to hang. The circumstance alluded to in the preceding note excited much commiseration at the time. It was the case of an unfortunate debtor of the name of Smith, a bookbinder, who with his wife was found hanging in his room in the King's Bench: they were within a few yards of each other, both dead; and their infant, two years old, lay, shot dead, in its cradle. The suicide had evidently been of the most deliberate kind: the husband and wife were dressed with peculiar neatness; a curtain was drawn between them, as if to conceal their dying struggles from each other; and a loaded pistol lay at the foot of the man, and a knife near the woman, apparently to complete the catastrophe if the ropes should fail. Two letters lay on the table, one to their landlord relative to his rent, and the other to a Mr. Brindley, attempting to justify their suicide. This calls the church to deprecate our sin, Let modest Foster, if he will, excel 130 135 She's still the same, beloved, contented thing. 140 129 This calls the church to deprecate our sin. Alluding to the forms of prayer composed in the times of public calamity and distress. 130 Gin. A spirituous liquor, the exorbitant use of which had almost destroyed the lowest rank of the people, till it was restrained by an act of parliament in 1736.-Pope. 131 Foster. A preacher of celebrity among the dissenters; he wrote a Defence of Christianity' against Toland. Warburton, angry for once with Pope, quotes Hobbes,' that there be very few bishops that can act a sermon so well as divers presbyterians and fanatic preachers can do.' 133 Quaker's wife. A Mrs. Drummond, a preacher. 134 Outdo Llandaff. A prelate of irreproachable character, who is said never to have offended Pope; and whose son is no small ornament to his profession, Dr. Harris, of Doctors' Commons.-Warton. 135 Humble Allen. Allen of Bath. Pope, in the first edition of this poem, had written 'low-born,' a depth, to which Allen's humility did not descend; the epithet was therefore changed, and an apologetical letter sent in explanation. It seems probable, that the rich man was not much more captivated by his new epithet than his old. The affair was obviously too delicate even for Pope's dexterity; and he found that there are virtues for which even their possessors are not too willing to be praised. Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth, bless; 146 150 In golden chains the willing world she draws; That 'not to be corrupted is the shame!' 160 144 Let greatness own her. Warburton, who, if not the depositary of Pope's secrets, was at least the instrument by which he conveyed his intentions to the public, affirms that all this bold and highly-wrought passage alluded only to Theodora, the profligate empress of Justinian. But a moral drawn from an oriental libertine, and drawn through the dreary lapse of a thousand years, is too unlike the author's keen sense of living incidents, to be taken as his object. The court in his day offered more than one Theodora; or if England were unproductive, France teemed. The last century, on the continent, was the reign of mistresses. 148 And hers the Gospel. An unbecoming phrase; but meant merely to signify that the disposal of honors in church as well as state rested in impure hands. |