Pope.

Gay

Arbuthnot.

Would wish his rivals all in hell?

Her end when Emulation misses,
She turns to Envy, stings and hisses:
The strongest friendship yields to pride,
Unless the odds be on our side.
Vain human kind! fantastic race!
Thy various follies who can trace?
Self-love, ambition, envy, pride,
Their empire in our hearts divide.
Give others riches, power, and station,
'Tis all on me a usurpation.

I have no title to aspire;

Yet, when you sink, I seem the higher
In Pope I cannot read a line,
But with a sigh I wish it mine;
When he can in one couplet fix
More sense than I can do in six ;
It gives me such a jealous fit,

I cry,
"Pox take him and his wit!"
I grieve to be outdone by Gay
In my own humorous biting way.
Arbuthnot is no more my friend,
Who dares to irony pretend,
Which I was born to introduce,
Refined it first and show'd its use.
St. John, as well as Pulteney, knows
That I had some repute for prose;
And, till they drove me out of date,
Could maul a minister of state.
If they have mortified my pride,
And made me throw my pen aside;

If with such talents Heaven has bless'd 'em,
Have I not reason to detest 'em?

SUPPOSE me dead; and then suppose
A club assembled at the Rose;
Where, from discourse of this or that,
I grow the subject of their chat.
And while they toss my name about,
With favour some, and some without,
One, quite indifferent in the cause,
My character impartial draws :

"The Dean, if we believe report,
Was never ill-received at court.
As for his works in verse and prose,
I own myself no judge of those ;
Nor can I tell what critics thought 'em:
But this I know, all people bought 'em.
As with a moral view design'd

To cure the vices of mankind :
His vein, ironically grave,

Exposed the fool, and lash'd the knave.
To steal a hint was never known,
But what he writ was all his own.

And seem'd determined not to starve it,
Because no age could more deserve it.
Yet malice never was his aim;

He lash'd the vice, but spared the name;
No individual could resent,

Where thousands equally were meant ;
His satire points at no defect,
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorr'd that senseless tribe
Who call it humour when they gibe:

Swift.

144

He spared a hump, or crooked nose,
Whose owners set not up for beaux.
True genuine dulness moved his pity,
Unless it offer'd to be witty.

Those who their ignorance confest,
He ne'er offended with a jest ;

But laugh'd to hear an idiot quote

A verse from Horace learn'd by rote."

[1729

Pope.

From A Libel on the Reverend Dr. Delany
and His Excellency John Lord Carteret.

HAIL, happy Pope! whose generous mind
Detesting all the statesman kind,
Contemning courts, at courts unseen,
Refused the visits of a queen.

A soul with every virtue fraught,
By sages, priests, or poets taught ;
Whose filial piety excels
Whatever Grecian story tells;
A genius for all stations fit,
Whose meanest talent is his wit:

His heart too great, though fortune little,
To lick a rascal statesman's spittle;
Appealing to the nation's taste,

Above the reach of want is placed :
By Homer dead was taught to thrive,
Which Homer never could alive;
And sits aloft on Pindus' head,
Despising slaves that cringe for bread.

PERIOD V.

POETS OF THE

XVIIITH CENTURY,

JOHNSON TO BURNS.

L