ONE OP THE PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE TO

CELEBRATED

A FRAGMENT.

Blest courtier! who could king and country please,

Yet sacred keep his friendships, and his ease. What are the falling rills, the pendant shades,

Blest peer! his great forefathers' every grace The morning bowers, the evening colonades,

Reflecting, and reflected in his cace ; But soft recesses for th' uneasy mind

Where other Buckbursts, other Dorsets shine, To sigh unheard in, to the passing wind !

And patrons still, or poets, deck the line.
So the struck deer, in some sequester'd part,
Lies down to dje (the arrow in his heart);
There hid in shades, and wasting day by day,

ON SIR WILLIAM TRUMBAL,
Inly be bleeds, and pants his soul away.

KING WILLIAM III. WHO, HAVING RESIGNED HIS
PLACE, DIED IN HIS RETIREMENT AT EASTHAMSTRD

IN BERKSHIRE, 1716.
VERSES LEFT BY MR. POPE,

A pleasing form ; a firm, yet cautious mind;
ON HIS LYING IN THE SAME BED WHICH WILMOT THE Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resign'd;

EARL OF ROCHESTER SLEPT IN, AT Honour unchang'd, a principle profest, ADDERBURY, THEN BELONGING TO THE DUKE OF Fix'd to one side, but moderate to the rest : ARGYLE, JULY 9th, 1739.

An honest courtier, yet a patriot too :

Just to his prince, and to his country true: WITH no poetic ardour fir'd

Fill'd with the sense of age, the fire of youth, I press’d the bed where Wilmot lay;

A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth ; That here he lov'd, or here expir'd,

A generous faith, from superstition free: Begets nu numbers grave, or gay.

A love to peace, and bate of tyranny ; But in thy roof, Argyle, are bred

Such this mau was: who now from Earth remov'd, Such thoughts as prompt the brave to lie At length enjoys that liberty he lov'd. Stretch'd out in Honour's nobler bed, Beneath a nobler ruof-the sky.

ON THE HON. SIMON HARCOURT, Such flanies as high in patriots burn, Yet stoop to bless a child or wite;

ONLY SON OF THE LORD CHANCELLOR HARCOURT, AT And such as wicked kings may mourn,

THE CHURCH OF STANTON-HARCOURT IN OXFORD When freedown is more dear than life.

SHIRE, 1720.
To this sad shrine, whoe'er thou art! draw near,
Here lies the friend most lov'd, the son most dear;

Who ne'er knew joy, but friendship micht divide,
VERSES TO MR. C.

Or gave his father grief but when he dy'd.
ST. JAMES'S PLACE.

How vain is reason, eloquence how weak!

If Pope must tell what Harcourt cannot speak. LONDON, OCTOBER 22.

Oh let thy once lov'd friend inscribe thy stone,

And with a father's sorrows mix his own. Few words are best ; I wish you well ;

Bethel, I'm told, will soon be kere :
Sune morning-walks along the Mall,

ON JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ.
And evening friends, will end the year.
If, in this interval, between
The faling leaf and coming frost,

JACOBUS CRAGGS,
You please to ste, on Twit'nam green,

REGI MAGY BRITANNIA A ST.CRBTIS
Your friend, your puit, and your host;

ET CONSILIIS SANCTIOR150%,
For three woole days you here inay rest,

PRINCIPIS P'ABITER AC POPULI AMRET DELICIE
From othce, business, news, and strife;
And (what most folks would think a jest)

ANNOS, ILU PALCOS, XXXV.
Want notuing else, except your wife

OB. PEB. XVI. MDCCXX.
Statesman, yet friend to truth!'of soul sincere,
un action faithful, and in honour clear!

Whu broke no proiuise, servd no private end, EFIT:IPES.

Wbo gain't no title, and who lost to friend.

Eunobled by himself, by all approv'd,
His siltem accuinului donis, et fungar inani
Durere!

Virg.

Prais’d, wept, and honour'd, by the Muse he lor'da

IN WESTMIXSTER-ABBEY.

VIXIT TITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR

a

Beneath a rude and nameless stone he lies, Lies crown'd with princes' honours, poets' lays,
To which thy tomb shall guide inquiring eyes. Due to his merit, and brave thirst of praise.
Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest! Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie
Blest in thy genius, in thy love too blest ! Her works; and, dying, fears herself inay die
One grateful woman to thy fame supplies
What a whole thankless land to his denies.

ON GENERAL HENRY WITHERS,

IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1729.
ON MRS. CORBET,

HERE, Withers, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind,

Thy country's friend, but more of human kind. Here rests a woman, good without pretence, Oh born to arms! O worth in youth approv'd! Blest with plain reason, and with sober sense :

O soft humanity, in age belov'd ! No conquests she, but o'er herself, desir'd,

For thee the hardy veteran drops a tear, No arts essay'd, but not to be admir'd.

And the gay courtier feels the sigh sincere. Passion and pride were to her soul unknown,

Withers, adieu ! yet not with thee remove Convinc'd that virtue only is our own.

Thy martial spirit, or thy social love!
So unaffected, so compos'd a mind;

Amidst corruption, luxury, and rage,
So firm, yet soft; so strong, yet so refin'd; Still leave some ancient virtues to our age :
Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures try'd;

Nor let us say (those English glories gone)
The saint sustain'd it, but the woman dy'd.

The last true Briton lies beneath this stone.

WHO DIED OF A CANCER IN HER BREAST.

ON THE MONUMENT OF THE HONOURABLE ROBERT DIGBY, AND OF HIS SISTER MARY,

ERECTED BY THEIR FATHER THE LORD DIGBY,
IN THE CHURCH OF SHERBORNE, IN DORSETSHIRE,

1727.
Go! fair example of untainted youth,
Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth;
Compos'd in sufferings, and in joy sedate,
Good without noise, without pretension great.
Just of thy word, in every thought sincere,
Who knew no wish but what the world might hear:
Of softest manners, unaffected mind,
Lover of peace, and friend of human kind :
Go, live! for Heaven's eternal year is thine,
Go, and exalt thy moral to divine.

And thou, blest maid! attendant on his doom,
Pensive hast follow'd to the silent tomb,
Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore,
Not parted long, and now to part no more !
Go then, where ouly bliss sincere is known!
Go, where to love and to enjoy are one !

Yet take these tears, mortality's relief,
And till we share your joys, forgive our grief:
These little rites, a stone, a verse receive;
'Tis all a father, all a friend can give!

ON MR. ELIJAH FENTON,

AT EASTUAMSTED, IN BERKS, 1730.
This modest stone, what few vain marbles car,
May truly say, “ Here lies an honest man:"
A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate,
Whom Heaven kept sacred from the proud and

great :
Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease,
Content with Science in the vale of Peace,
Calınly he look'd on either life, and here
Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear;
From Nature's temperate feast rose satisfy'd,
Thank'd Heaven that he had liv'd, and that he dy'de

ON MR. GAY,

IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1732.
Or manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit, a man; simplicity, a child:
With native humour tempering virtuous rage,
Form'd to delight at once and lash the age :
Above temptation in a low estate,
And uncorrupted, ev'n among the great:
A safe companion, and an easy friend,
Unblam'd through life, lamented in thy end.
These are thy honours! not that here thy bust
Is mix'd with heroes, or with kinys thy dust;
But that the worthy and the good shall say,
Striking their pensive bosoms---Here lies Gay.

ANOTHER.

Well then, poor Gay lies under ground,

So there's an end of honest Jack :
So little justice here he found,

'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.

ON SIR GODFREY KNELLER,

IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 1723.
KNELLER, by Heaven, and not a master taught,
Whose art was Nature, and whose pictures thought;
Now for two ages having snatch'd from Fate
Whate'er was beauteous, or whate'er was great,

VARIATION.
Oh, next him, skill'd to draw the tender tear,
For never heart felt passion more sincere !
To nobler sentiment to fire the brave,
For never Briton more disdain'd a slave.
Peace to thy gentle shade, and endless rest;
Blest in thy genius, in thy love too blest!
And blest, that, timely from our scene remov'd,
Thy soul enjoys the liberty it lov'd.

To these so mourn'd in death, so lov'd in life;
The childless parent and the widowd wife,
With tears inscribe this monumental stone,
That holds their ashes and expects her own.

INTENDED FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON,

IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

ISAACUS NEWTONUS:

Quem Immortalemn
Testantur Teinpus, Natura, Cælum :

Mortalem

Hoc marmor fatetur.
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, “ Let Newton be!” and all was light

ON DR. FRANCIS ATTERBURY,

ON BUTLER'S MONUMENT.
BISHOP Oy ROCHESTER,

PERHAPS BY MR. POPE',
WHO DIED IN EXILE AT PARIS, 1732.

Respect to Dryden, Sheffield justly paid, (His only daughter having expired in his arms,

And noble Villers honour'd Cowley's shade: immediately after she arrived in France to see

But whence this Barber?--that a name so mean bill.]

Should, join'd with Butler's, on a tomb be seen:

This pyramid would better far proclaim,
DIALOGUE.

To future ages huinbler Settle's name:

Poet and patron then had been well pair'd,
Yes, we have liv'd-one pang, and then we part! The city printer, and the city bard.
May Heaven, dear father! now have all thy heart.
Yet ah! how once we lov'd, remember still,
Till you are dust like me.

THE DUNCIAD:
Dear shade! I will.
Then mix this dust with thine - spotless ghost!

IN POUR BOOKS.
O znore than fortune, friends, or country lost !
Is there on Earth one care, one wish beside?

WITH THE PROLEGOMENA OF SCRIBLERUS, THE Yes~" Save iny country, Heaven,"

HYPERCRITICS OF ARISTARCHUS,
He said, and dy'd.

AND NOTES VARIORUM.

SHE.

ON EDMOND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, A LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER, WHO DIED IN THE NINETEENTH YEAR OF HIS AGE,

OCCASIOSED BY THE FIRST CORRECT EDITION OF THE 1735.

DUNCIAD. If modest youth, with cool reflection crowu'd,

It is with pleasure I hear, that you have procured And every opening virtue blooming rvund, a correct copy of the Dunciad, which the many Could save a parent's justest pride froin fate, surreptitious ones have rendered so necessary; Or add one patriot to a sinking state;

and it is yet with more, that I am informed it will This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear,

be attended with a commentary : a work so reOr sadly told how many hopes lie here!

quisite, that I cannot think the author himself The living virtue naw had shone approv'd,

would have omitted it, had he approved of the first The senate heard him, and his country lov’d. appearance of this poein. Yet softer honours, and less noisy fame

Such notes as have occurred to me I herewith Attend the shade of gentle Buckingham:

send you : you will oblige me by inserting them In whom a race, for courage fam'd and art, amongst those which are, or will be, transmitted Ends in the naililer merit of the heart;

to you by others; since not only the author's And, chiefs or sages long to Britain giren,

friends, but even strangers, appear engaged by Pays the last tribute of a saint to Heaven. huinanity, to take some care of an orphan of so

much genius and spirit, which its parent seems

to have abandoned from the very beginning, and FOR ONE

suffered to step into the world naked, unguarded, WHO WOULD NOT BE BURIED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. and unattended. Heroes and kings! your distance keep,

It was upon reading some of the abusive papers

lately published, that my great regard to a person, In peace let one poor poet sleep, Who never fatter'd folks like you :

whose friendship I esteem as one of the chief ho

nours of my life, and a much greater respect to Let Horace blush, and Virgil tou.

truth, than to him or any man living, engaged ANOTHER, ON THE SAME.

me in inquiries, of which the inclosed notes are

the fruit. Under this marble, or under this sill, Or under this turf, or e'en what they will;

"Mr. Pope, in one of the prints from ScheeWhatever an heir, or a friend in his stead,

maker's monument of Shakspeare in Westminster Or any good creature shall lay o'ur my head, Lies one who ne'er car'd, and still cares not a pin, alderman Barber, by the following complet, which

Abbey, has sufficiently shown his contempt of What they sail, or may say, of the mortal within :

is substituted in the place of “ The cloud-capp'd But who, living and dying, serene still and free,

towers, &c." Trusts in God, that as well as he was, he shall be.

Thus Britain lov'd me; and preserv'd my fame,

Clear from a Barber's or a Benson's name.
LORD CONINGSBY'S EPITAPH'.

A. POPE. Hore lies lord Coningsby-be civil;

Pope might probably have suppressed his satire The rest God knows--so does the Devil.

on the alderman, because he was one of Swift's ac

quaintances and correspondents; though in the 1 This epitaph, originally written on Picus Mi-fourth book of the Dunciad he has an anonymous randula, is applied to F. Chartres, and printed stroke at him : among the works of Swift. See Hawkesworth's So by each bard an alderman shall sit, adition, vol. via S.

A heavy lord shall hang at every wit.

A

288

I perceived, that most of these authors had I am no author, and consequently not to be sus. been (doubtless very wisely) the first aggressors. pected either of jealousy or resentment against any They had tried, till they were weary, what was to of the men, of whom scarce one is known to me be gut by railing at each other: nobody was either by sight; and as for their writings, I have sought concerned or surprised, if this or that scribbler was them (on this one occasion) in vain, in the closets proved a dunce. But every one was curious to and libraries of all my acquaintance. I had still read what could be said to prove Mr. Pope one,

been in the dark, if a gentleman had not procured and was ready to pay something for such a disce- me (I suppose from some of themselves, for they very: a stratagem which would they fairly own, are generally inuch more dangerous friends than it might not only reconcile them to me, but eneinies) the passages I send you. Isoleuinly screen them from the resentinent of their lawful protest I have added nothing to the malice or absuperiors, whom they daily abuse, only (as I cha- surdity of them ; which it behoves me to declare, ritably hope) to get that by them, which they since the vouchers themselves will be o soon and cannot get from them.

so irrecoverably lost. You may in sobie measure I found this was not all: ill success in that had prevent it, by preserving at least their titles, transported them to personal abuse, either of him- and discovering (as far as you can depend on tae self, or (what I think he could less forgive) of bis truth of your information) the names of the confriends. They had called men of virtue and ho- cealed authors. nour bad men, long before he had either leisure or The first objection I have heard made to the inclination to call them bad writers: and soine had poem is, that the persons are too obscure for sabeen such old offenders, that he had quite for- tire. The persons themselves, rather than allow gotten their persons as well as their slanders, till the objection, would forgive the satire; and it they were pleased to revive them.

one could be tempted to afford it a serious answer, Now what had Mr. Pope done before, to in- were not all assassinates, popular insurrections, cense them ? He had published those works which the insolence of the rabble without doors, and of are in the hands of every body, in which not the domestics within, inost wrongfully chastised, if the least mention is made of any of them. And what meanness of offenders indemnified them from puhas he done since? He has laughed, and written nishment? On the contrary, obscurity renders them the Dunciad. What has that said of them? more dangerous, as less thought of: law can provery serious truth, which the public had said be- noonce judgment only on open facts: morality fore, that they were dull: and wbat it had no alone can pass censure on intentions of mischief; sooner said, but they themselves were at great so that for secret calumny, or the arrow flying in pains to procure, or even purchase, room in the the dark, there is no public punishment left, but prints, to testity under their hands to the truth what a good writer inticis. of it.

The next objection is, that th: se sort of authors I should still have been silent, if either I had are poor. That might be pleaded as an excuse at seen any inclination in my friend to be serious with the Old Bailey, for lesser crimes than defamation such accusers, or if they had only meddled with (for it is the case of almost all who are tried bis writings; since whoever publishes, puts himself there) but sure it can be none here : for who will on his trial by his country. But when his moral pretend that the robbing another of his reputation character was attacked, and in a manner from supplies the want of it in himself? I question which neither truth nor virtue can secure the most not but such anthors are poor, and heartily wish innocent; in a manner, which, though it annihi- the objection were removed by any bonest livelilates the credit of the accusation with the just and hood. But poverty is here the accident, not the impartial, yet aggravates very much the guilt of subject: he wino describes malice and villainy to the accusers; I mean by authors without names; be pale and meayre, expresses not the least anger then I thought, since the danger was cominou to against paleness or leanness, but against malice all, the concern ought to be so; and that it was and villainy. The Apothecary in Romeo and Ju. an act of justice to detect the authors, not only on liet is poor; but is he therefore justified in vending this account, but as many of them are the same poison ? Not but poverty itself becomes a just who for several years past have made frce with the subiect of satire, when it is the consequence of greatest names in church and state, exposed to the vice, prodigality, or neglect of one's lawful callworld the private misforinnes of families, aimsed ling; for then it increases the public burthen, tills all, even to women, and whose prostituteri papers the streets and biglways with robbers, and the (for one or other party, in the unhappy divisions barrets with clippers, coiners, and weekly jourof their country) have insulted the fallen, the walisis. friendless, the exiled, and the dead.

But omitting that two or three of these offend less Besides this, which I take to be a public con

in their morals than in their writings; must poverty cern, I have already omtessed I had a private make nonsense' sacred? If so, the fame of bad au

I am one of that number who have long thuis would be much better consulted than that of loved and esteemed Mr. Pope; and had often all the good ones in the world ; and not one of an declared it was not his capacity or writings (whicho bannereri had ever been called by his right nane. we ever thought the least valuable part of liis cha- They inisiatis the whole matter : it is not character) but the honest, open, and beneficent man, rity tu encourage them in the way thry follow, that we inost est emed, and loved in hiin. Now, but to get them unt of it; for men are not bun. if what these people say were believed, I inust ap-drs because they are pour, but they are poor bopear to all my friends either a fool, or a knate; cause they are bunglers. either imposed on inyself, or imposing on then, so that I am as much interested in the coafutation ? Which we have done in a list printed in the of these calumnies, as he is bajtuself

.

Jppendi.

one.

A LETTER TO THE PUBLISHERS.

289 Is it not pleasant enough, to hear our authors, and most judicious critic of his age and country, crying out on the one hand, as if their persons admirable for his talents, and yet perhaps more adand characters were too sacred for satire ; and the mirable for his judgment in the proper application public objecting on the other, that they are too of them; I cannot help remarking the resemblance mean even for ridicule? But whether bread or betwixt him and our author, in qualities, fame, fame be their end, it must be allowed, our author, and fortune; in the distinctions shown them by by and in this poem, has mercifully given them a their superiors, in the general esteem of their little of both.

equals, and in their extended reputation amongst There are two or three, who by their rank and foreigners ; in the latter of which ours has met fortune have no benefit from the former objec- with a better fate, as he has had for his translators tions, supposing them good ; and these I was sorry persons of the most eminent rank and abilities in to see in such company. But if, without any pro- their respective nations'. But the resemblance vocation, two or three gentlemen will fall upon holds in nothing more than in their being equally one, in an affair wherein his interest and reputa- abused by the ignorant pretenders to poetry of tion are equally embarked; they cannot certainly, their times; of which not the least memory will after they have been content to print themselves remain but in their own writings, and in the notes his enemies, complain of being put into the num- made upon them. What Boileau has done in alber of them.

most all his poems, our author has only in this: I Others, I am told, pretend to have been once dare answer for him he will do it in no more; and his friends. Surely they are their enemies who on this principle, of attacking few but who had slan. say so; since nothing can be more odious than to dered him, he could not have done it at all, had treat a friend as they have done. But of this I he been confined from censuring obscure and cannot persuade myself, when I consider the con- worthless persons, for scarce any other were his stant and eternal aversion of all bad writers to a enemies. However, as the parity is so remarkagood one.

ble, I hope it will continue to the last; and if Such as claim a merit from being his admirers, ever he should give us an edition of this poem I would gladly ask, if it lays him under a personal himself, I may see some of them treated as gently, obligation? At that rate he would be the most on their repentance or better merit, as Perrault obliged humble servant in the world. I dare swear and Quinault were at last by Boileau. for these in particular, he never desired them to be In one point I must be allowed to think the chahis admirers, nor promised in return to be theirs : racter of our English poet the more amiable. He that had truly been a sign he was of their ac- has not been a follower of fortune or success; he quaintance; but would not the malicious world has lived with the great without flattery; been a have suspected such an approbation of some mo- friend to men in power, without pensions, from tive worse than ignorance, in the author of the whom, as he asked, so he received no favour, but Essay on Criticism? Be it as it will, the reasons what was done him in his friends. As his satires of their admiration and of his contempt are were the more just for being delayed, so were his equally subsisting, for his works and theirs are the panegyrics; bestowed only on such persons as he very same that they were.

bad faniliarly known, only for such virtues as he
One, therefore, of their assertions I believe had long observed in them, and only at such times
may be true, " That he has a contempt for their as others cease to praise, if not begin to calumniate
writings.” And there is another which would them, I mean when out of power or out of fashion.
probably be sooner allowed by himself than by A satire, therefore, on writers so notorious for the
any good judge beside, “ That his own have contrary practice, became no man so well as him-
found too much success with the public.” But as self; as none, it plain, was so little in their
it cannot consist with his modesty to claim this as friendships, or so much in that of those whom
a justice, it lies not on him, but entirely on the
public, to defend its own judgment.

Essay on Criticism in French verse, by Ge.
There remains what in my opinion might seem

neral Hamilton ; the same, in verse also, by Mona better plea for these people, than any they have sieur Roboton, counsellor and privy secretary to made use of. If obscurity or poverty were to ex-king George I. after by the abbé Reynel in verse, empt a man from satire, much more should folly with notes. Rape of the Lock, in French, by the or dullness, which are still more involuntary; princess of Conti, Paris, 1728; and in Italian pay, as much so as personal deformity. But even verse, by the abbé Conti, a noble Venetian; and this will not help them: deformity becomes an ob- the marquis Rangoni, envoy extraordinary from ject of ridicule, when a man sets up for being hand Modena to king George II. Others of his works some;

and so must dulness, when he sets up for a by Salvini of Florence, &c. His Essays and Diswit. They are not ridiculed because ridicule in sertations on Homer, several times translated into itself is, or ought to be, a pleasure ; but because French. Essay on Man, by the abbé Reynel, in it is just to undeceive and vindicate the honest verse; by Monsieur Silhout, in prose, 1737, ani and unpretending part of mankind from imposi- since, by others in French, Italian, and Latin. tion, because particular interest ought to yield to As Mr. Wycherley, at the time the town degeneral, and a great number who are not naturally claimed against his book of poems; Mr. Walsh, fools, ought never to be made so, in complaisance after his death ; sir William Trumball, when he to a few who are. Accordingly we find that in all had resigned the office of secretary of state ; lord ages, all vain pretenders, were they ever so poor Bolingbroke, at his leaving England, after the or ever so dull, have been constantly the topics of queen's death; lord Oxford, in his last decline of the most candid satirists, from the Codrus of Juve | life ; Mr. secretary Craggs, at the end of the dal to the Damon of Boileau.

South-sea year, and after his death : others only Having mentioned Boileau, the greatest poet | in epitaphs.

VOL XII.