P. But bribes a Senate, and the Land's betray'd. Gold imp'd by thee, can compass hardest things, Our fates and fortunes, as the winds shall blow: Oh! that such bulky Bribes as all might see, Could France or Rome divert our brave designs, 35 40 45 50 What could they more than Knights and Squires confound, If secret Gold sap on from knave to knave.] The expression is fine, and gives us the image of a place invested, where the approaches are made by communications which support each other; as the connexions amongst knaves, after they have been taken in by a state engineer, serve to screen and encourage one another's private corruptions. 2-beneath the Patriot's cloak,] This is a true story, which happened in the reign of William III. to an unsuspected old Patriot, who coming out at the back-door from having been closeted by the King, where he had receiv'd a large bag of Guineas, the bursting of the bag discovered his business there. P. [According to Warburton, quoting Burnet, this was Sir Christopher Musgrave, who as a leader of opposition was induced by King William III. to give up many points of importance at the critical minute, in return for payments amounting in the total to £12,000.] 3 paper-credit. [In 1733 the privileges of the Bank of England were renewed. In the same year, in spite of the opposition of Barnard and others, Walpole openly availed himself of the Sinking Fund, and before 1737 had mortgaged and alienated its entire produce.] 4 Imp'd [i.e. fresh-winged. To imp is a term of falconry, used of the repairing of the falcon's wings by new feathers. (Cf. the German impfen, to engraft.)] 5-fetch or carry Kings;] In our author's time, many Princes had been sent about the world, and great changes of Kings projected in Europe. The partition-treaty had disposed of Spain; France had set up a King for England, who was sent to Scotland, and back again; King Stanislaus was sent to Poland, and back again; the Duke of Anjou was sent to Spain, and Don Carlos to Italy. P. Or ship off Senates to a distant Shore ;] Alludes to several Ministers, Counsellors, and Patriots banished in our times to Siberia, and to that MORE GLORIOUS FATE of the PARLIAMENT OF PARIS, banished to Pontoise in the year 1720. P. 7 [The allusion seems to be to the Pretender 'King James III.' and to Queen Caroline. There are no grounds for such an imputation upon the latter; but the taunt might be applied with much force to her unhappy later namesake.] 8 After v. 50, in the MS. 'To break a trust were Peter brib'd with wine, Peter! 'twould pose as wise a head as thine.' Or water all the Quorum1 ten miles round? A Statesman's slumbers how this speech would spoil! "Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil; 55 66 "A hundred oxen at your levee roar." Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door; Poor Avarice one torment more would find; 60 65 Fair Coursers, Vases, and alluring Dames. 70 Bear home six Whores, and make his Lady weep? 75 To spoil the nation's last great trade, Quadrille ® ! Since then, my Lord, on such a World we fall, What say you? B. Say? Why take it, Gold and all. Meat, Fire, and Clothes. B. What more? P. Meat, Clothes, and Fire. 80 Is this too little? would you more than live? [i. e. every justice of peace.] 2 [As a Welshman attached to a cheap national delicacy.] 3 Some Misers of great wealth, proprietors of the coal-mines, had entered at this time into an association to keep up coals to an extravagant price, whereby the poor were reduced almost to starve, till one of them taking the advantage of underselling the rest, defeated the design. One of these Misers was worth ten thousand, another seven thousand a year. P. Colepepper] Sir William Colepepper, Bart. a person of an ancient family, and ample fortune, without one other quality of a Gentleman, who, after ruining himself at the Gaming-table, past the rest of his days in sitting there to see the ruin of others; preferring to subsist upon borrowing and begging, rather than to enter into any reputable method of life, and refusing a post in the army which was offered him. P. [The famous Club-house in St James' Street, where games of chance were played for the highest stakes.] 85 6[The game of Quadrille, which is a species of Ombre, soon came to surpass the latter in popularity.] 7 Turner] One, who, being possessed of three hundred thousand pounds, laid down his Coach, because Interest was reduced from five to four per cent, and then put seventy thousand into the Charitable Corporation for better interest; which sum having lost, he took it so much to heart, that he kept his chamber ever after. It is thought he would not have outlived it, but that he was heir to another considerable estate, which he daily expected, and that by this course of life he saved both cloaths and all other expences. P. 8 Unhappy Wharton,] A Nobleman of great qualities, but as unfortunate in the application of them, as if they had been vices and follies. See his Character in the first Epistle. P. [v. 179.] 9 Hopkins,] A Citizen, whose rapacity obtained him the name of Vulture Hopkins. He lived worthless, but died worth three hundred thousand pounds, which he would give to no person living, but left it so as not to be inherited To Chartres, Vigour; Japhet, Nose and Ears1? Or find some Doctor that would save the life To some indeed, Heav'n grants the happier fate, 90 95 Perhaps you think the Poor might have their part? Bond damns the Poor, and hates them from his heart 3: 100 The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule, That "ev'ry man in want is knave or fool: "God cannot love (says Blunt, with tearless eyes) "The wretch he starves"-and piously denies: 105 But the good Bishop5, with a meeker air, till after the second generation. His counsel representing to him how many years it must be, before this could take effect, and that his money could only lie at interest all that time, he expressed great joy thereat, and said, “They would then be as long in spending, as he had been in getting it.' But the Chancery afterwards set aside the will, and gave it to the heir at law. P. Japhet, Nose and Ears?] Japhet Crook, alias Sir Peter Stranger, was punished with the loss of those parts, for having forged a conveyance of an Estate to himself, upon which he took up several thousand pounds. He was at the same time sued in Chancery for having fraudulently obtained a Will, by which he possessed another considerable Estate, in wrong of the brother of the deceased. By these means he was worth a great sum, which (in reward for the small loss of his ears) he enjoyed in prison till his death, and quietly left to his executor. P. 2 Die, and endow a College, or a Cat.] A famous Dutchess of Richmond in her last will left considerable legacies and annuities to her Cats. P. [Warton more than vindicates the memory of this famous beauty of Charles II.'s court from Pope's taunt by stating that she left annuities to certain poor ladies of her acquaintance, with the burden of maintaining some of her cats; this proviso being intended to disguise the charitable character of the bequests. In Hamburgh, an annuity was not long ago left to the Swans which adorn the famous Alster-lake in that city.] 3 Bond damns the Poor, &c.] This epistle was written in the year 1730, when a corporation was established to lend money to the poor upon pledges, by the name of the Charitable Corporation; but the whole was turned only to an iniquitous method of enriching particular people, to the ruin of such numbers, that it became a parliamentary concern to endeavour the relief of those unhappy sufferers, and three of the managers, who were members of the house, were expell'd. By the report of the committee, appointed to enquire into that iniquitous affair, it appears, that when it was objected to the intended removal of the office, that the Poor, for whose use it was erected, would be hurt by it, Bond, one of the Directors, replied, Damn the Poor. That "God hates the poor," and, "That every man in want is knave or fool," &c. were the genuine apothegms of some of the persons here mentioned. P. [Dennis Bond, a member of Parliament, died in 1747. Carruthers.] 4 [Sir Gilbert Heathcote, director of the Bank of England, and one of the richest men of his day.] 5 [The imaginary Bishop was at Warburton's request substituted for the name of a real person of whose virtual innocence in the matter Warburton felt convinced.] P. Some War, some Plague, or Famine they foresee, Why Shylock wants a meal, the cause is found, 115 Why she and Sappho raise that monstrous sum? Wise Peter sees the World's respect for Gold, Much injur'd Blunt 10! why bears he Britain's hate? [South-sea year: 1720; in August the stock of the South Sea Company had risen to 1000; by the end of September it had fallen to 300; and the news of the failure of Law's Mississippi scheme in Paris completed the crash which reduced thousands of families to beggary. Pope himself told Atterbury that after the bursting of the bubble he remained with 'half what he imagined he had,' probably meaning half his gains, as there is every reason to believe that he sold out in time.] To live on Ven'son] In the extravagance and luxury of the South-sea year, the price of a haunch of Venison, was from three to five pounds. P. 4 3 [Sir Robert Walpole's scheme of the year 1733 for bringing the tobacco- and wine-duties under the laws of excise, was magnified by report into the design of a general excise upon all articles of consumption. The popular ferment which the proposal aroused led to its abandonment. See Lord Stanhope's History of England, Chap. xvi.] -general Excise] Many people about the year 1733, had a conceit that such a thing was intended, of which it is not improbable this lady might have some intimation. P. [In 1733 Walpole contemplated a comprehensive measure for adding to the excise-duties, and reforming the whole administration of the revenue: a cry was set up against the measure by the Opposition, and the country, terrified by the bugbear of a general excise. Pulteney headed the opposition in Parliament, while the prejudices of the public were worked upon in the Craftsman. Walpole was forced to withdraw his excellent proposal.] [Pope himself advised Lady M. W. Montagu to purchase South-sea stock in August 1720.] 120 125 130 6 Wise Peter] Peter Walter, a person not only eminent in the wisdom of his profession, as a dextrous attorney, but allowed to be a good, if not a safe conveyancer; extremely respected by the Nobility of this land, tho' free from all manner of luxury and ostentation: his Wealth was never seen, and his bounty never heard of, except to his own son, for whom he procured an employment of considerable profit, of which he gave him as much as was necessary. Therefore the taxing this gentleman with any Ambition, is certainly a great wrong to him. P. [The 'Waters' of v. 20.] 7 Rome's great Didius] A Roman Lawyer, so rich as to purchase the Empire when it was set to sale upon the death of Pertinax. P. [Didius Julianus A. D. 193 The vendors were the Prætorian Guards.] 8 The Crown of Poland, &c.] The two persons here mentioned were of Quality, each of whom in the Mississippi despis'd to realize above three hundred thousand pounds; the Gentleman with a view to the purchase of the Crown of Poland, the Lady on a vision of the like royal nature. They since retired into Spain, where they are still in search of gold in the mines of the Asturies. P. 9A Mr Gage, of the ancient Suffolk Catholic family of that name; and Lady Mary Herbert, daughter of the Marquess of Powis and of a natural daughter of James II.; whence the phrase hereditary realms.' Bowles. 10 Much injur'd Blunt!] Sir John Blunt, originally a scrivener, was one of the first projectors of the South-sea Company, and afterwards one of the directors and chief managers of the famous scheme in 1720. He was also one of those who suffer'd most severely by the bill of pains and penalties on the said directors. He was a Dis "At length Corruption, like a gen'ral flood, 66 135 (So long by watchful Ministers withstood) 140 "And Judges job, and Bishops bite the town, "And mighty Dukes pack Cards for half a crown. "See Britain sunk in lucre's sordid charms, "And France reveng'd of ANNE'S and EDWARD'S arms?' 'Twas no Court-badge, great Scriv'ner! fir'd thy brain, 145 Hear then the truth: "'Tis Heav'n each Passion sends, "And diff'rent men directs to diff'rent ends. 160 "Extremes in Nature equal good produce, "Extremes in Man concur to gen'ral use. Ask we what makes one keep, and one bestow? senter of a most religious deportment, and professed to be a greater believer. Whether he did really credit the prophecy here mentioned is not certain, but it was constantly in this very style he declaimed against the corruption and luxury of the age, the partiality of Parliaments, and the misery of party-spirit. He was particularly eloquent against Avarice in great and noble persons, of which he had indeed lived to see many miserable e2; 165 170 175 examples. He died in the year 1732. P. 3 [Supposed to be the Duke of Newcastle, who died in 1711; and his son, the well-known peer of that name, who afterwards became prime minister. Carruthers. [See Macaulay's portrait of the son in his Essay on Chatham.] |