In all the courts of Pindus guiltless quite; Ask you what provocation I have had? Th' affront is mine, my friend, and should be yours. Who think a coxcomb's honour like his sense; 190 201 P. So proud, I am no slave. O sacred weapon! left for truth's defence, 210 The Muse may give thee, but the Gods must guide: Rev'rent I touch thee! but with honest zeal; To rouse the watchmen of the public weal, To virtue's work provoke the tardy Hall, When black ambition stains a public cause, Not so, when diadem'd with rays divine, 220 230 Touch'd with the flame that breaks from virtue's shrine, Her priestess Muse forbids the good to die, And opes the temple of eternity. There, other trophies deck the truly brave, 240 Here, last of Britons! let your names be read; F. Alas! alas! pray end what you began, 250 NOTES. PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES AND EPISTLES. 1735. An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. In Warburton's ed. (1751) entitled, An Apology for Himself and his Writings. John Arbuthnot, M.D., Fellow of the College of Physicians, and Physician in Ordinary to Queen Anne. He had wit, and not only literature, but even learning. His 'Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures' (1727) was for a long time the standard work on the subject. He lived with the wits of the Tory party, and formed one of the Scriblerus Club (1714), of which Harley, Atterbury, Pope, Congreve, Gay, and Swift were members. At the date of this Epistle he had retired to Hampstead, 'so reduced by a dropsy and an asthma, that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat, or move.' Letter to Swift, Oct. 4, 1734. He died Feb. 27, 1735. The Epistle was published in January of that year. Cowper (Letters, March 21, 1784) says of Johnson's Poets: I know not but one might search these eight volumes with a candle to find a man, and not find one, unless, perhaps, Arbuthnot were he.' The line of argument by which satire is defended in this Epistle is sketched in a letter actually written by Pope to Arbuthnot, July 26, 1734. It is a reply to a letter in which Arbuthnot exhorts the poet to continue to satirize vice and folly, but with a due regard to your own safety.' Johnson, Life of Pope: The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot seems to be derived in its first design from Boileau's address "à son esprit," Satire 9. They are both an apology by the poet for satire.' A remote resemblance may be traced to Young's Two Epistles to Mr. Pope, concerning the Authors of the Age, (1730). 1. 1. good John. Pope's Will, Carruther's Life, p. 453: To my servant, John Searle, who has faithfully and ably served me many years, I give the sum of £100.' He is called 'the gardener' in the Plan of Mr. Pope's Garden, 1745. In 1735 he had been with Pope eleven years. |