EPISTLE TO ROBERT EARL OF OXFORD, AND EARL OF MORTIMER. SUCH were the notes thy once-lov'd Poet sung, NOTES. Bleft Epiftle to Robert Earl of Oxford. This Epittle was sent to the Earl of Oxford with Dr. Parnelle's Poems published by our Author, after the faid Earl's imprisonment in the Tower, and retreat into the country, in the Year 1721. POPE. VER. 1. Such were the notes] The notes were charming indeed! We have few pieces of Poetry superior to Parnelle's Rife of Woman; the Fairy Tale; the Hymn to Contentment, Health, an Eclogue; the Vigil of Venus; the Night piece on Death; the Allegory on Man; and the Hermit. The best account of the original of this last exquisite poem is given in the third volume of the History of English Poetry, p. 31.; from whence it appears that it was taken from the eightieth chapter of that curious repofitory of ancient tales, the Gesta Romanorum. The story is related in the fourth volume of Howel's Letters, who says he found it in Sir Philip Herbert's Conceptions; but this fine Apologue was much better related in the Divine Dialogues of Dr. Henry More, Dial. ii. part 1.; and Parnelle seems to have copied it chiefly from this Platonic Theologist, who had not less imagination than learning. Pope used to say that it was originally written in Spanish : from Bleft in each science, blest in ev'ry strain! For him, thou oft haft bid the World attend, And fure, if aught below the feats divine NOTES. 5 10 15 20 A Soul from the early connection between the Spaniards and Arabians, it may be suspected that it was an Oriental tale. Voltaire has in. ferted it in his Zadig, without mentioning a syllable of the place whence he borrowed it. WARTON. VER. 21. And fure, if aught] Strength of mind appears to have been the predominant characteriftic of Lord Oxford; of which he gave the most striking proofs when he was stabbed, displaced, imprisoned. These noble and nervous lines allude to these circumstances; of his fortitude and firmness another striking proof remains, in a letter which the Earl wrote from the Tower to a friend, who advised him to meditate an escape, and which is worthy of the greatest hero of antiquity. This extraordinary letter I had the A Soul fupreme, in each hard instance try'd, NOTES. 25 30 She the pleasure of reading, by the favour of the Earl's excellent grand-daughter, the late Dutchess Dowager of Portland, who inherited that love of literature and science, so peculiar to her ancestors and family. I am well informed that Bolingbroke was greatly mortified at Pope's bestowing these praises on his old antagonist, whom he mortally hated; yet I have seen two original letters in the hands of the fame Dutchess of Portland, of Lord Bolingbroke to Lord Oxford, full of the most fulsome flattery of the man whom he affected to despise, and of very idle and profane applications of Scripture. The Vifions of Parnelle, at the end of his Poems, published in the Guardian, are in a rugged inharmonious style; as indeed is the Life of Zoilus, printed 1717; and also the Essay on the Life of Homer, prefixed to our Author's translation: and his Essay on the Different Styles in Poetry is rather a mean performance. WARTON. VER. 24. Above all Pain, &c.] This alludes to the excruciating pains he suffered from the stone; "all Paffion," means his general equanimity. VER. 24. all pride,] He was so amiable and condescending, that one of the accufations against him by the Whigs was, that he treated the black-coats (clergy) like gentlemen! VOL. II. Y ; |