In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power,
"Tis avarice all; ambition is no more.

See all our nobles begging to be slaves!
See all our fools aspiring to be knaves!
The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore,
Are what ten thousand envy and adore:
All, all look up, with reverential awe,
At crimes that 'scape or triumph o'er the law;
While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry :
'Nothing is sacred now but villany.'

Yet may
this verse, if such a verse remain,
Show there was one who held it in disdain.

165

170

162 'Tis avarice all. Warton quotes Bolingbroke's antithetical expression,- So far from having the virtues, we have not even the vices of our ancestors.' Bolingbroke himself the living example of specious degeneracy!

EPILOGUE

ΤΟ

THE SATIRES.

1

DIALOGUE II.

F. 'Tis all a libel-Paxton, sir, will say.
P. Not yet, my friend! to-morrow, faith, it

may;

And for that very cause I print to-day.
How should I fret to mangle every line,

In reverence to the sins of thirty-nine!

Vice with such giant strides comes on amain,
Invention strives to be before in vain :
Feign what I will, and paint it e'er so strong,
Some rising genius sins up to my song.

F. Yet none but you by name the guilty lash;
Ev'n Guthrie saves half Newgate by a dash : 11

Paxton. Solicitor to the treasury, whose office was to denounce attacks on the government.

11 Ev'n Guthrie. The ordinary of Newgate, who publishes the Memoirs of the Malefactors,' and is often prevailed on to be so tender of their reputation, as to set down no more than the initials of their names.-Pope.

Spare then the person, and expose the vice.

P. How, sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice?

Come on then, Satire! general, unconfined,

Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind.

Ye statesmen, priests, of one religion all!

Ye tradesmen, vile, in army, court, or hall!

15

Ye reverend atheists! F. Scandal! name them!

Who?

P. Why that's the thing you bid me not to do. Who starved a sister, who forswore a debt,

20

I never named; the town's inquiring yet.
The poisoning dame-F. You mean-P. I don't.
F. You do.

P. See, now I keep the secret, and not you! The bribing statesman-F. Hold, too high you go. P. The bribed elector-F. There you stoop too

low.

25

P. I fain would please you, if I knew with

what:

Tell me, which knave is lawful game, which not?
Must great offenders, once escaped the crown,
Like royal harts, be never more run down?
Admit your law to spare the knight requires, 30
As beasts of nature may we hunt the squires?
Suppose I censure—you know what I mean-
To save a bishop, may I name a dean?

21 The town's inquiring yet. Swift says, I have long observed, that twenty miles from London nobody understands hints, initial letters, or town-facts and passages:' but this was written a hundred years ago. The communication of intelligence of this order is more extensive in the nineteenth century.

F. A dean, sir? No: his fortune is not made; You hurt a man that's rising in the trade.

35

P. If not the tradesman who set up to-day, Much less the 'prentice who to-morrow may. Down, down, proud Satire! though a realm be spoil'd,

Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild;
Or, if a court or country's made a job,
Go, drench a pickpocket, and join the mob.
But, sir, I beg you, for the love of vice!
The matter's weighty; pray, consider twice:
Have you less pity for the needy cheat,
The poor and friendless villain, than the great?
Alas! the small discredit of a bribe
Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.
Then better sure it charity becomes

To tax directors, who, thank God! have plums;
Still better, ministers; or if the thing
May pinch ev'n there,-why, lay it on a king.
F. Stop! stop!

40

46

50

P. Must satire, then, not rise nor fall? Speak out, and bid me blame no rogues at all. F. Yes, strike that Wild; I'll justify the blow. P. Strike? why the man was hang'd ten years

ago:

Who now that obsolete example fears?
Ev'n Peter trembles only for his ears.

55

F. What, always Peter? Peter thinks you

mad;

You make men desperate if they once are bad:

39 Wretched Wild. Jonathan Wild, a famous thief, and thiefimpeacher, who was at last caught in his own train, and hanged.-Pope.

Else might he take to virtue some years hence— P. As S-k, if he lives, will love the prince. 61 F. Strange spleen to S-k!

P. Do I wrong the man? God knows, I praise a courtier where I can. When I confess, there is who feels for fame,

And melts to goodness, need I Scarborough name?
Pleased let me own, in Esher's peaceful grove, 66
Where Kent and nature vie for Pelham's love,
The scene, the master opening to my view,
I sit and dream I see my Craggs anew!

Ev'n in a bishop I can spy desert:
Secker is decent, Rundel has a heart;
Manners with candor are to Benson given;
To Berkley, every virtue under heaven.

70

65 Scarborough. Earl of, and knight of the garter, whose personal attachments to the king appeared from his steady adherence to the royal interest, after his resignation of his great employment of master of the horse; and whose known honor and virtue made him esteemed by all parties.-Pope.

66 Esher's peaceful grove. The house and gardens of Esher, in Surrey, belonging to the honorable Mr. Pelham, brother of the duke of Newcastle.

71 Secker is decent. A great deal of Pope's unhappy style of alluding to the heads of the establishment must be referred to his own prejudices; some to the pert freethinking fashion of the day. Secker, the archbishop, was an honest, learned, and useful divine. Benson was a man in general esteem, and who would probably have been a bishop, but for the interference of Gibson, the bishop of London, who charged him with unscriptural notions on the subject of sacrifice,-an objection perfectly sufficient; for what can be more pernicious than error armed with authority?

73 To Berkley, every virtue. The bishop of Cloyne, memorable for his zeal, his learning, and his metaphysical fancies. He mounted a paradox, and rode it, till he left common sense out of sight, and was flung: the common fate of all who hope