But hark! the chiming Clocks to dinner call; A hundred footsteps scrape the marble Hall: The rich Buffet well-colour'd Serpents grace, And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face. NOTES. fition of the picture, and the too natural poftures of its female figures. Ibid. Verrio or Laguerre.] Verrio (Antonio) painted many cielings, &c. at Windfor, Hampton-court, &c. and Laguerre at Blenheim-castle, and other places. P. VER. 150. Who never mentions Hell to ears polite.] This is a fact; a reverend Dean preaching at Court, threatned the finner with punishment in "a place which he thought it "not decent to name in fo "polite an affembly." P. ftance of falfe Tafte, viz. an injudicious choice in imitation, he gives (in the epithet employ'd) the fuggeftion of another, which is an injudicious manner of it. For those difagreeable objects which, when painted, give pleasure; if coloured after nature, in relief, become shocking, as a toad, or dead carcafe in wax-work: yet these things are the delight of all people of bad Taste. However, the Ornament itself pretends to fcience, and would justify its ufe by antiquity, tho' it betrays the most miferable ignorance of it. ignorance of it. The Serpent amongst the ancients, was facred, and full of venerable myfteries. Now things do not excite ideas fo much according to their own natural impreffions, as by fictitious ones, ari VER. 153. Taxes the incongruity of Ornaments (tho' fometimes practised by the ancients) where an open mouth ejects the water into a fountain, or where the shocking images of ferpents, &c. are introduced in Grotto's or Buffing from foreign and acciden fets. P. VER. 153. The rich Buffet well colour'd Serpents grace,] The circumftance of being wellcolour'd fhews this ornament not only to be very abfurd, but very odious too; and has a peculiar beauty, as, in one in tal combinations; confequently the view of this animal raised in them nothing of that abhorrence which it is wont to do in us; but, on the contrary, very agreeable sensations, correfpondent to thofe foreign affociations. Hence, and more e 155 Is this a dinner? this a Genial room? NOTES. fpecially, because the Serpent | was the peculiar Symbol of health, it became an extreme proper ornament to the genial rooms of the ancients. In the mean time, we who are ftrangers to all this fuperftition, yet make ourselves liable to one much more abfurd, which is, idolizing the very fashions that arofe from it. But if thefe pretenders to Taste can fo widely mistake, it is no wonder that those who pretend to none, I mean the verbal Critics, fhould a little hallucinate in this matter. remember, when the fhort Latin infcription on Shakespear's monument was first set up, and in the very style of elegant and fimple antiquity, the Newspapers were full of these small critics; in which the only ob fervation that looked like learning, was founded in this ignorance of Tafte and Antiquity. One of thefe Critics objected to the word Mors (in the in- I I i fcription) because the Roman writers of the purest times fcrupled to employ it; but, in its ftead, ufed an improper, that is, a figurative word, or otherwife a circumlocution. But had he confidered that it was their Superftition of lucky and unlucky words which occafion'd this delicacy, he must have seen that a Chriftian writer, in a Chriftian infcription, acted with great judgment in avoiding fo fenfelefs an affectation of, what he mifcalls, claffical expreffion. VER. 155. Is this a dinner, &c.] The proud Festivals of fome men are here fet forth to ridicule, where pride destroys the ease, and formal regularity all the pleasurable enjoyment of the entertainment. P. Between each Act the trembling falvers ring, 161 ; Yet hence the Poor are cloath'd, the Hungry fed; Health to himself, and to his Infants bread B 170 The Lab'rer bears: What his hard Heart denies, His charitable Vanity supplies. Another age fhall fee the golden Ear Imbrown the Slope, and nod on the Parterre, COMMENTARY. VER. 173. Another age, &c.] But now a difficulty sticks with me, (anfwers an objector) this load of evil ftill remains a monument of folly to future ages; an incumbrance to the plain on which it ftands; and a nuifance to the neighbourhood round about, filling it with imitating fools. NOTES. VER. 169. Yet hence the Peor &c.] The Moral of the whole, where PROVIDENCE is juftified in giving Wealth to those who squander it in this manner. A bad Taste employs more hands, and diffufes Ex pence more than a good one. This recurs to what is laid down in Book i. Epift. II. 230-7, and in the Epiftle preceding this, 161, &c. P. VER. 173. Another age &c.] Had the Poet lived but Deep Harvests bury all his pride has plann'd, 175 And laughing Ceres re-affume the land. Who then shall grace, or who improve the Soil? Who plants like BATHURST, or who builds like BOYLE. COMMENTARY. For men are apt to take the example next at hand; and apteft of all to take a bad one. No fear of that, replies the poet, (from 172 to 177.) Nothing abfurd or wrong is exempt from the jurifdiction of Time, which is always fure to do full justice on it; Another age fhall fee the golden Ear Imbrown the Slope, and nod on the Parterre, For the prerogative of Time fhall make it grow, is only due to the designs of true Taste joined to Use: `And 'Tis Ufe alone that fanctifies Expence; and nothing but the fanctity of that can arreft the juftice of Time. And thus the fecond part concludes; which confifting of an example of false Taste in every attempt to Magnificence, is full of concealed precepts for the true : As the first part, which contains precepts for true Tafte, is full of examples of the falfe. III. VER. 177: Who then fhall grace, &c.] We come now to the third and last part, (from ✯ 176 to the end) and, as in the first, the poet had given examples of wrong judged Magnificence, in NOTES. three Years longer, he had feen this prophecy fulfilled. VER. 176. And laughing Ceres re-affume the land.] The great beauty of this line is an inftance of the art peculiar to our poet; by which he has fo difpofed a trite claffical figure, 'Tis Use alone that fanctifies Expence, And Splendor borrows all her rays from Sense. 180 His Father's Acres who enjoys in peace, Or makes his Neighbours glad, if he encrease: Whofe chearful Tenants bless their yearly toil, Yet to their Lord owe more than to the foil COMMENTARY. things of Tafte without Senfe; and, in the fecond, an example of others without either Senfe or Tafte; fo the third is employed in two examples of Magnificence in Planting and Building; where both Senfe and Tafte highly prevail : The one in him, to whom this Epiftle is addreffed; and the other, in the truly noble person whose amiable Character bore fo confpicuous a part in the foregoing. Who then fhall grace, or who improve the Soil? Who plants like BATHURST, or who builds like BOYLE. Where in the fine defcription he gives of these two fpecies of Magnificence, he artfully infinuates, that tho', when executed in a true Tafte, the great end and aim of both be the same. viz. the general good, in ufe or ornament; yet that their progress to this end is carried on in direct contrary courfes; that, in |