inevitably remind us, that his own fortune and position had been secured by a translation of Homer, which he had sublet to 'several hands.'

11. 193-214. These celebrated lines are at once a masterpiece of Pope's skill as a poet, and his base disposition as a man. They unite the most exquisite finish of sarcastic expression with the venemous malignity of personal rancour. They have less of antithesis and epigram than the character of Wharton, or the Duchess of Marlborough, and therefore more reality. Pope felt every stab, and gratified his temper by the pain he inflicted. The lines were not published till Addison had been dead eight years. They appeared first as a fragment in the Miscellanies of 1727; but they were finished as early as 1716, when, according to Spence, they had been sent by Pope to Addison himself. Pope had meditated each point for years, as the germs of some of them appear in a prose letter to Craggs in 1715. In the first copy, in 1727, the name was given-Addison. The substitution of Atticus in 1735 may perhaps be an indication that Pope was not without some sense of the outrage he was committing. The supposed provocation was a project for a rival-Whig-translation of Homer, the suggestion of which Pope attributed to Addison. For an account of the misunderstanding, see Carruthers, Life, p. 117; Macaulay, Essays, vol. 2; Life and Writings of Addison.

1. 198. Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne. Taken by Pope from Denham, On Fletcher's Works:

'Nor needs thy juster title the foul gilt

Of eastern kings, who to secure their reign,

Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain;'

but originally Lord Bacon's. He applied it to Aristotle's treatment of preceding philosophers. De Augment. 3. 4: Aristoteles, more Ottomannorum, regnare se haud tuto posse putabat, nisi fratres suos omnes contrucidasset.'

1. 201. assent with civil leer. Macaulay, Essays, 2. 33: 'Addison had one habit which both Swift and Stella applauded, and which we hardly know how to blame. If his first attempts to set a presuming dunce right were ill-received, he changed his tone, "assented with civil leer," and lured the flattered coxcomb deeper and deeper into absurdity.'

1. 208. and so obliging, that he ne'er oblig'd. Macaulay, 1. c.: 'One charge which Pope has enforced with great skill is probably not without foundation. Addison was too fond of presiding over a circle of humble friends. Of the other imputations which these famous lines convey, scarcely one has ever been proved to be just, and some are certainly false. That Addison was not in the habit of damning with faint praise appears from innumerable passages in his writings, and from none more than from those in which he mentions Pope. And it is not merely unjust, but ridiculous, to

describe a man who made the fortune of every one of his intimate friends, as so obliging that he ne'er oblig'd.'

211. wits and Templars. Stanhope, Reign of Queen Anne, p. 536: 'Into the pit (when Cato was brought out) there was poured by Steele a band of friendly and intelligent listeners from the Inns of Court. Another such band came from Will's Coffee-house, which was then to men of letters what the Athenæum is now.' It is to these that Pope referred, when he said that whenever Addison held forth

Wits and Templars ev'ry sentence raise. raise applaud. See Essay on Man, 3. 97, note.

1. 213.

=

Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he!

C. J. Fox, in Rogers's Recollections, p. 10: 'The last couplet is very faulty. Why laugh if there be such a man? Why weep if it be Atticus? The name cannot add anything to our regret.'

1. 215. What tho' my name stood rubric on the walls. Lintot usually adorned his shop, which was between the Temple gates and bore the sign of The Cross Keys, with titles of books in red letters. Cf. Dunciad, 1. 40: Hence Miscellanies spring, the weekly boast

Of Curll's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post.'

Gay, Trivia, 3, fin.:

High rais'd on Fleet-street posts consigned to fame
This work shall shine.'

Boileau, Sat. 9. 229:

'Que Billaine l'étale au deuxième pilier.'

The practice dated from a much earlier period of bookselling. Hall,
Satire 5. 2:

'When Mævio's first page of his poesy
Nail'd to a hundred postes for novelty.'

And Ben Jonson's Epigrams, ep. 3:

Nor have my title-leaf on posts or walls,
Or in cleft sticks advanced to make calls
For termers.'

1. 218. On wings of winds came flying all abroad. Hopkins's version of Psalm 104.

A verse of

1. 222. No more than thou, great George! a birth-day song. A sarcasm on the King's well-known contempt for literature. He, like his father, hated all boets and bainters.' Cf. Sat. and Ep. 5. 404:

'But verse, alas, your Majesty disdains!'

Swift, Works, 14. 439: Directions for Making a Birth-day Song.

1. 225. Nor like a puppy, daggl'd through the town. Thomas Cooke applied these lines to Savage, who was said to have lived in convivial

I

familiarity with the town authors, and to have secretly supplied Pope with scandalous anecdotes about them. See Gent. Mag., 1791, December, p. 1093. Pope employs the simile again, Sandys' Ghost; Works, Roscoe, 6. 458: Like puppy tame, that uses

To fetch and carry, in his mouth,

The works of all the Muses.'

1. 230. There is no reason for doubting the tradition, not doubted by H. Walpole (Royal and Noble Authors, 4) or Johnson (Lives of the Poets), that Bufo was meant for Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax. Roscoe's reasoning against it will not bear examination. Pope after having drawn him as Bufo in 1735, wrote of him in 1738, that he was a peer no less distinguished by his love of letters, than by his abilities in parliament,' a statement not inconsistent with the present character, perhaps even a stratagem of concealment. Until some other personage can be pointed out, to whom the lines on Bufo, including the last,

He help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve, can possibly apply, all answer to objections is unnecessary.

The character of Montagu, and his patronage of letters, is sketched in firm lines by Macaulay, Hist. vol. 5. p. 156, seq. He explains the seeming puzzle that a man who loved literature passionately, and rewarded literary merit munificently, should have been more savagely reviled both in prose and verse than almost any other politician in our history. In Faction Displayed (1706), Halifax figures as 'Bathillo.'

1. 233. Fed with soft dedication all day long, e. g. Addison's Epistle; Steele, Tatler, Dedication of vol. 4.

1. 236. And a true Pindar stood without a head. Cf. Juvenal, Sat. 8. 4. 1. 244. And others, harder still, he paid in kind. Gifford thought that Pope shadowed his Bufo in part from Juvenal, Sat. 7. 38 seq. But the resemblance, though marked in Gifford's translation, is faint in the original.

1. 245. what wonder! This interjection is intended to convey that the great poet disdained to join the throng of poetasters in toadying the Mecenas. But Dryden belonged, in politics and religion, to the opposite party to that to which Montagu Earl of Halifax belonged. The best of the answers to Dryden's controversial poem, The Hind and Panther,' was written by Montagu in conjunction with Prior, The Hind and Panther transvers'd to the Story of the Country-mouse and the City-mouse,' 1687. 1. 246. judging eye. Imitated by Gray, Ode for Music, 71: Thy liberal heart, thy judging eye,

The flower unheeded shall descry.'

1. 247. But still the great have kindness in reserve. Scott, Life of Dryden, P. 471: It is seldom the extent of such a deprivation is understood, till

it has taken place; as the size of an object

best estimated, when we see

the space void which it had long occupied. The men of literature, starting, as it were, from a dream, began to heap commemorations, panegyrics and elegies; the great were as much astonished at their own neglect of such an object of bounty, as if the same had never been practised before; and expressed as much compunction as if it were never to occur again.'

1. 248. He help'd to bury. Stanley, Memorials of Westminster, p. 303: 'Lord Halifax offered to pay the expenses of the funeral, with £500 for a monument.'

help'd to starve. Inasmuch as he had not relieved his wants. Halifax may have not unreasonably thought that a Tory poet, and Catholic convert, a political convert too, might have had his wants supplied by his own party.

1. 258. Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb. Stanley, Memorials of Westminster, p. 315: 'Gay died at the house of the Duke of Queensbury, and was buried in the Abbey, 1732. . . . Lord Chesterfield and Pope were among the mourners. He had, two months before his death, desired "My

dear Mr. Pope, whom I love as my own soul, place of my grave, see these words put upon it,

if a stone shall mark the

Life is a jest, and all things shew it,

I thought so once, and now I know it."'

The epitaph now inscribed on his monument was written by Pope.

1. 262. To live and die is all I have to do. This line is borrowed from Denham, Of Prudence:

1. 265.

Learn to live well, that thou may'st die so too;

To live and die is all we have to do.'

Above a patron, tho' I condescend
Sometimes to call a minister my friend.

These lines describe the relations which had been established between
the wits and the politicians in the reign of Queen Anne. The writers and
wits had raised themselves to equal consideration with the statesmen, in a
way which had never been seen in England before. But it was too unnatural
to last. The inauguration of Parliamentary government and systematic
corruption by Walpole destroyed the influence for which the wits had been
courted. At this time (1735) it was a thing of the past. Like so much
else in this Prologue, e. g. the characters of Bufo and Addison, Pope is draw-
ing upon his recollections, rather than describing the facts of the day. He
belongs already to the past, both in style and matter. See Introd. p. 10.
1. 268. believe, and say my prayers. Cf. Gray, of himself:

'No very great wit, he believed in a God.'

1. 280. Sir Will. Sir William Yonge, Bart., Secretary at War 17351746. Cf. Sat. and Ep., Epilog. 1. 68.

1. 280 Bubo. George Bubb Dodington, created, 1761, Lord Melcombe. The two are coupled again, Sat. and Ep., Epil. 1. 68:

The flow'rs of Bubo, and the flow of Yonge.'

Moral Essay, 4. 20. He is probably meant also, Moral Essay, 1. 59: 'When universal homage Umbra pays,

All see 'tis vice and itch of vulgar praise.'

1. 283. Curst be the verse, &c. For the sentiment cf. Skelton, Colin Cloute, 1091:

For I rebuke no man

That vertuous is, why than

Wreke ye your anger on me?

For those that vertuous be

Have no cause to say

That I speke out of the way.'

·

1. 299. Who to the Dean and silver bell can swear. Moral Essays, 4. 141: 'And now the chapel's silver bell you hear.' 4. 149: To rest the cushion and soft Dean invite.' The reference is to the description of Timon's Villa in the 4th Moral Essay. Pope wishes to insinuate that that description was imaginary. But it is impossible to doubt that by Timon's Villa he intended Canons. The denial was a part of his system, which is justly described by Mr. Carruthers, Life, p. 290: To equivocate genteelly, as he termed it, or to deny firmly, as circumstances might require, were expedients he never hesitated to adopt. Imaginary details being generally worked in to his pictures, he could always quibble, and deny part with truth.' Johnson, Life of Pope: From the reproach which an attack on a character so amiable brought on him, he tried all means of escaping. He was at last reduced to shelter his temerity behind dissimulation. He wrote an exculpatory letter to the Duke, which was answered with great magnanimity, as by a man who accepted his excuse without believing his professions.'

1. 300. And sees at Cannons what was never there. On the estate of Canons, near Harrow and Edgware, a magnificent mansion was built at a cost of £200,000, in 1712, by Mr. Brydges, created, in 1719, Duke of Chandos. He was the patron of art and learning in an age when they had ceased to be in repute, and when the great nobles were lavishing their wealth on electioneering contests. He contributed £200 towards the publication of Hudson's Josephus, and a like sum to Berkeley's Bermuda College. The place being too expensive for his successor, in 1747 Canons was pulled down. Cf. Gay, Epist. 4:

If Chandos with a liberal hand bestow,
Censure imputes it all to pomp and shew;
When if the motive right were understood,
His daily pleasure is in doing good.'