Yet should the Graces all thy figures place, 75 And these be sung 'till Granville's Mira die1; Thou but preserv'st a Face, and I a Name. EPISTLE TO MISS BLOUNT 2, WITH THE WORKS OF VOITURE3. N these gay thoughts the Loves and Graces shine, IN And all the Writer lives in ev'ry line; His easy Art may happy Nature seem, Trifles themselves are elegant in him. Who without flatt'ry pleas'd the fair and great; And the gay mourn'd who never mourn'd before; 5 ΙΟ 15 The Smiles and Loves had died in Voiture's death, 20 A long, exact, and serious Comedy; In ev'ry scene some Moral let it teach, And, if it can, at once both please and preach. 25 30 [See Windsor Forest, v. 298.] 2 [Miss Teresa Blount. See Introductory Memoir, p. xxx. This Epistle was first published in Lintot's Miscellany in 1712; so that Pope's note (ante, p. 443) is not accurate.] 3 Vincent Voiture (1598-1648), one of the chief ornaments of the Hotel Rambouillet (the centre of the society of the so-called précieux and précieuses at Paris under the regency of Mary de' Medici). 'His great merit,' says a modern French critic (M. Masson), 'consists in the inexhaustible variety of forms which he applies to a monotonous sterility of ideas.'] 4 [Antonio. I hold the world but as the world, A stage where every man must play a part, Gratiano. Let me play the fool, &c. Custom, grown blind with Age, must be your guide; 35 40 45 50 Pride, Pomp, and State but reach her outward part; 55 She sighs, and is no Duchess at her heart. But, Madam, if the fates withstand, and you Are destin'd Hymen's willing Victim too; Trust not too much your now resistless charms, 60 Still makes new conquests, and maintains the past; Our hearts may bear its slender chain a day; As flow'ry bands in wantonness are worn, 65 A morning's pleasure, and at evening torn; Thus Voiture's early care still shone the same, And Montausier was only chang'd in name: 70 By this, ev'n now they live, ev'n now they charm, Amid those Lovers, joys his gentle Ghost: Pleas'd, while with smiles his happy lines you view, 75 The brightest eyes of France inspir'd his Muse; 80 1 Mademoiselle Paulet. P. 2 [The Duke of Montausier, governor to the Dauphin son of Louis XIV., married Mdlle. de Rambouillet. He was believed to have been the original of Molière's Misanthrope.] EPISTLE' TO THE SAME, ON HER LEAVING THE TOWN As Dongs from the Town to wholesome Country air, some fond Virgin, whom her mother's care Just when she learns to roll a melting eye, Or o'er cold coffee trifle with the spoon, Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon; There starve and pray, for that's the way to heav'n. Before you pass th' imaginary sights Of Lords, and Earls, and Dukes, and garter'd Knights, [This Epistle is cited by M. Taine (Lit. Angl. IV. c. 7) to exemplify the realistic element which, according to his theory, was no more absent from Pope than from any of the contemporary English poets.] 2 Coronation.] Of King George the first, 1715. P. The assumed name of Teresa Blount, under which she corresponded for many years with a Mr Moore, under the feigned name of Alexis. 5 ΤΟ 15 20 25 30 35 40 Bowles. [James Moore Smythe.] Originally, according to Warburton (cited from Ruffhead by Carruthers): 'So fair Teresa gave the town a view.' [Sheridan may have remembered this passage, when writing the famous scene between Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, School for Scandal, Act II. Sc. 1.] 5 [According to Dr Johnson, the word whist was vulgarly pronounced whisk.] So when your Slave, at some dear idle time, Or sees the blush of soft Parthenia1 rise, 45 Look sour, and hum a Tune, as you may now. Streets, Chairs, and Coxcombs, rush upon my sight; 50 ON RECEIVING FROM THE RIGHT HON. THE LADY FRANCES SHIRLEY VES, I beheld th' Athenian Queen3 "Secure the radiant weapons wield; "This golden lance shall guard Desert, "And if a Vice dares keep the field, "This steel shall stab it to the heart." Aw'd, on my bended knees I fell, 'What well? what weapons?' (Flavia cries,) In the first edition it is 'the blush of Parthenissa,' which was the principal designation of Martha Blount in the correspondence of the sisters with James Moore. Carruthers. 2 To enter into the spirit of this address, it is necessary to premise, that the Poet was threatened with a prosecution in the House of Lords, for the two poems entitled the Epilogue to the Satires. On which with great resentment against his enemies, for not being willing to distinguish between 'Grave epistles bringing vice to light' and licentious libels, he began a Third Dialogue, more severe and sublime than the first and second; which being no secret, matters were soon compromised. His enemies agreed to drop the pro 5 IO 15 secution, and he promised to leave the third Dialogue unfinished and suppressed. This affair occasioned this little beautiful poem, to which it alludes throughout, but more especially in the four last stanzas. Warburton. Lady Frances Shirley was fourth daughter of Earl Ferrers, who had at that time a house at Twickenham. Notwithstanding her numerous admirers, she died at Bath, unmarried, in the year 1762. Bowles. [Bowles thinks the Third Dialogue alluded to by Warburton to be the fragment 1740' discovered after Pope's death among his papers by Bolingbroke; but there is no evidence to support this plausible conjecture.] 3 [Pallas Athene.] 4 A famous toy-shop at Bath. Warburton. 'But, Friend, take heed whom you attack; 'You'd write as smooth again on glass, 'Athenian Queen! and sober charms! [No observations would be called for upon these Epitaphs, composed at different periods of Pope's life, were it not that they were subjected to a minute, and indeed a petty, criticism by Dr Johnson, in his Dissertation on the Epitaphs written by Pope, (contributed to a paper called the Universal Visitor in 1756, and afterwards thought worthy of republication in the Idler.) Johnson's criticisms, though occasionally just, are in this instance too thoroughly in the Ricardus Aristarchus style to need quotation. Perhaps the most pointed is that on the Epitaph on Rowe, concerning which Johnson remarks that its chief fault is that it belongs less to Rowe than to Dryden, and indeed gives very little information concerning either.' The Epitaph on Newton, (which he afterwards declared to Mrs Piozzi to be little less than profane, as designed for the tomb of a Christian in a Christian Church,) the Dissertation condemned because the thought is obvious, and the words night and light too nearly allied!' Johnson afterwards remembered (Hayward's Autobiography, &c. of Mrs Piozzi, II. p. 159) that something like this was said of Aristotle,' but he forgot by whom.' Pope's Epitaphs-with the exception of the charming lines on Gay—only rise above the ordinary level of this class of compo sition, because that level is so extremely low.] 1 Lambeth; alluding to the Scandal hinted at in Epil. to Satires, Dial. I. v. 120. Carru thers. 2 The Dunciad. Warburton. 3 The Epistle to Arbuthnot. Warburton. 4 i. e. If you have neither the courage to write Satire, nor the application to attempt an Epic poem. He was then meditating on such a work. Warburton. |