OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE SATIRE I. TO MR FORTESCUE1 [FIRST published in 1733 under the title of Dialogue between Alexander Pope, of Twickenham, on the one part, and the learned counsel on the other. In Horace's Satire the interlocutors are the poet and G. Trebatius Testa, the friend of Caesar and of Cicero (among whose correspondents he appears). It forms a kind of introduction to Horace's Second Book of Satires.] P. TH HERE are, (I scarce can think it, but am told,) There are, to whom my Satire seems too bold: Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough, And something said of Chartres much too rough. 2 Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day. I come to Counsel learned in the Law: F. I'd write no more. сл 5 IO P. Not write? but then I think, F. You could not do a worse thing for your life. Why, if the nights seem tedious,-take a Wife: Hartshorn, or something that shall close your eyes. 15 20 P. What? like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce3, With ARMS, and GEORGE, and BRUNSWICK crowd the verse, Rend with tremendous sound your ears asunder, 25 With Gun, Drum, Trumpet, Blunderbuss, and Thunder? Or nobly wild, with Budgel's fire and force 6, [The Hon. W. Fortescue, an intimate friend and a frequent associate and correspondent of the poet's, and a schoolfellow of Gay's. He afterwards became one of the Barons of the Exchequer, and ultimately Master of the Rolls.] 2 [Lord Hervey.] [i. e. any physician of note.] 30 6 [Budgel; see Epistle to Arbuthnot, v. 378;] 7falling Horse?] The Horse on which his Majesty charged at the battle of Oudenarde: when the Pretender, and the Princes of the blood of France, fled before him. Warburton. 8 [Caroline of Brandenburg-Anspach, the 3 Hartshorn] This was intended as a plea- Queen of George II. She became a frequent santry on the novelty of the prescription. Warburton. 5 [Sir Richard Blackmore.] object of Pope's sarcasms, after George II. on his accession had retained Walpole and the Whigs in office.] Lull with AMELIA'S1 liquid name the Nine, P. Alas! few verses touch their nicer ear; They scarce can bear their Laureate twice a year2; F. Better be Cibber, I'll maintain it still, his brother, P. What should ail them 4? [Princess Amelia, the second daughter of George II. She died unmarried in 1759.] 2 [Colley Cibber; see Introductory Remarks to Dunciad.] 3 [The House of Brunswick was however particularly unfortunate in this respect.] 4 What should ail them?] Horace hints at one reason, that each fears his own turn may be next; his imitator gives another, and with more art, a reason which insinuates, that his very lenity, in using feigned names, increases the number of his Enemies. 5 [See Moral Essays, Ep. IV. vv. 99-176, and Ep. II. vv. 339-402.] 6 Darty his Ham-pie;] This Lover of Hampie own'd the fidelity of the poet's pencil; and said, he had done justice to his taste; but that if, instead of Ham-pie, he had given him Sweet-pie, he never could have pardoned him. Warburton. Lyttelton in his Dialogues of the Dead, has introduced Darteneuf, bitterly lamenting his illfortune in having died before turtle-feasts were known in England. Warton. [Lord Scarsdale ; 35 40 45 50 55 60 and Charles Dartiquenave, or Dartineuf, were Carruthers cites a paper 7 [Ridotta; from Ridotto, the fashionable Italian term for an assembly.] 8 Most likely Henry Fox, first Lord Holland, alluded to in Epil. to Satires, Dial. I. v. 71. The 'brother' is Stephen Fox, afterwards Lord Ilchester. Carruthers. 9 [The bear-garden at Hockley-in-the-Hole is described in the Spectator, No. 436. Cf. Dunciad, Bk. I. v. 326.] 10 William Shippen, an outspoken politician and a Jacobite, who was sent to the Tower in 1718. According to Coxe, he used to say of himself and Sir Robert Walpole: Robin and I are two honest men; though he is for King George, and I for King James.'] My head and heart thus flowing thro' my quill, Like good Erasmus in an honest Mean, While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory. To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet; And the sad burthen of some merry song. Slander or Poison dread from Delia's rage4, Hard words or hanging, if your Judge be Page5. From furious Sappho scarce a milder fate, 83 Bulls aim their horns, and Asses lift their heels; Then, learned Sir! (to cut the matter short) [As Warburton points out, a great improvement on Horace's 'Lucanus an Appulus, anceps,' &c. As to Pope's religious standpoint see Introductory Memoir, p. xxxiii.] 2 [Cardinal Fleury, formerly tutor of King Lous XV., became Prime Minister of France in 1726, and held power till his death in 1743. He was able to maintain the pacific policy which he advocated till two years before that event.] 3 Closely copied from Boileau. Warton. [A Miss Mackenzie died about this time, and was supposed to have been poisoned from jealousy.] The person alluded to was Lady D-ne. Bowles. [Mary Howard Countess of Deloraine, who died in 1744. See note to Lord Hervey's Memoirs by Croker, who has not discovered the grounds of the suspicion, but it was very pre valent.'] 5 [Judge Page; cf. Epil. to Sat. Dial. II. v. 156.] Quisquis erit vitæ, scribam, color. 9 [Nathaniel Lee (born 1657, died 1692). This gifted but extravagant tragic poet, the author of the Rival Queens, went mad in 1684, but recovered his sanity. Some critics have discovered in his most famous tragedy signs of his malady; another has well remarked on this that if ‘it be 75 སྐྱ 65 F. Alas young man! your days can ne'er be long, P. What? arm'd for Virtue when I point the pen, Unplac'd, unpension'd3, no man's heir, or slave? I will, or perish in the gen'rous cause: Hear this, and tremble! you, who 'scape the Laws. madness, there's method in it.' There is real fire in Lee, besides a great deal of smoke.] 1 Boileau acted with much caution when he first published his Lutrin here alluded to, and endeavoured to cover and conceal his subject by a preface laying the scene at Bourges, not at Paris, for which it was intended. When in 1683 he threw off the mask, no offence was taken by the Canons whom he had ridiculed. From Warton's note. [Moreover, the ascendancy of bigotry and Mad, de Maintenon had not begun when Boileau wrote his famous satire; when they fully prevailed he retired from Court.] [In his Spanish Friar. But he soon atoned for that piece by Absalom and Achitophel.] 3 [Pope declined the pension offered him by Lord Halifax early in George I.'s reign.] And HE, whose lightning, etc.] Charles Mordaunt Earl of Peterborough, who in the year 105 IIO 115 120 125 130 135 1705 took Barcelona, and in the winter following with only 280 horse and 900 foot enterprized and accomplished the Conquest of Valentia. P. [See Macaulay's captivating account of Peterborough in his Essay on the War of Succession in Spain.] 5 Envy must own, &c.] Horace makes the point of honour to consist simply in his living familiarly with the Great, Cum magnis vixisse invita fatebitur usque Our poet, more nobly, in his living with them on To help who want, to forward who excel; F. Your Plea is good; but still I say, beware! 140 145 150 F. Indeed? 155 The Case is alter'd-you may then proceed; THE SECOND SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE. SATIRE II. To Mr BETHEL1. [IN Horace's Satire the praise of temperance is laid in the mouth of Ofellus, a simple farmer with whom the poet had been acquainted from his boyhood.] THAT, and how great, the Virtue and the Art WHA To live on little with a cheerful heart, (A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine,) Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine. Not when from plate to plate your eyeballs roll, [Bowles reminds the reader of the mob in Julius Caesar (Act III. Sc. 3), demanding that Cinna the poet should be torn for his bad verses.] 2 [Walpole.] 3 Solventur risu tabulae: tu missus abibis. Hor. 5 4 [Hugh Bethel, the 'blameless Bethel' of Moral Essays, Ep. v., a Yorkshire gentleman with whom Pope was intimate, and frequently corresponded. He was a close friend of Pope's dearest friends, the Blounts of Mapledurham. He died in 1748.] |