Where all cry out, "What sums are thrown away!"
So proud, so grand; of that stupendous air,
Soft and Agreeable come never there.

Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a draught

As brings all Brobdignag1 before your thought.
To compass this, his building is a Town,
His pond an Ocean, his parterre a Down:
Who but must laugh, the Master when he sees,
A puny insect, shiv'ring at a breeze!
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around 2!
The whole, a labour'd Quarry above ground;
Two Cupids squirt before; a Lake behind
Improves the keenness of the Northern wind.
His Gardens next your admiration call,
On ev'ry side you look, behold the Wall!
No pleasing Intricacies intervene,

No artful wildness to perplex the scene;

Grove nods at grove, each Alley has a brother,

And half the platform just reflects the other.

The suff'ring eye inverted Nature sees,

Trees cut to Statues, Statues thick as trees;
With here a Fountain, never to be play'd;

120

And there a Summer-house, that knows no shade;

First thro' the length of yon hot Terrace sweat1;

130

And when up ten steep slopes you've dragg'd your thighs,

Just at his Study-door he'll bless your eyes.

His Study! with what Authors is it stor❜d"?

In Books, not Authors, curious is my Lord;
To all their dated Backs he turns you round:
These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound.
Lo some are Vellum, and the rest as good

tended to comprize the principles of a false Taste of Magnificence, and to exemplify what was said before, that nothing but Good Sense can attain it. P. [As to the allusion in these lines to Canons, the seat of the Duke of Chandos, see Note on Moral Essays, Ep. 1. v. 54.]

1-all Brobdignag] A region of giants, in the satires of Gulliver. Warburton.

2 Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!] Grandeur in building, as in the human frame, takes not its denomination from the body, but the soul of the work: when the soul therefore is lost

and Gladiator moriens. P.

135

4 The Approaches and Communication of house with garden, or of one part with another, ill judged, and inconvenient. P.

5 His Study! &c.] The false Taste in Books; a satire on the vanity in collecting them, more frequent in men of Fortune than the study to understand them. Many delight chiefly in the elegance of the print, or of the binding; some have carried it so far, as to cause the upper shelves to be filled with painted books of wood; others pique themselves so much upo

or incumber'd in its invelope, the unanimated guage they do not understand on books in a lan

parts, how huge soever, are not members of grandeur, but mere heaps of littleness.

3 The two Statues of the Gladiator pugnans

most useful in one they do. P.

as to exclude the

6 [Aldo Manutio, who established his famous printing-press at Venice about 1490.]

For all his Lordship knows, but they are Wood1.
For Locke or Milton 'tis in vain to look,
These shelves admit not any modern book.

140

And now the Chapel's silver bell you hear,
That summons you to all the Pride of Pray'r2:
Light quirks of Music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a Jig to Heav'n.
On painted Ceilings you devoutly stare,

145

Where sprawl the Saints of Verrio or Laguerre*,
On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,
And bring all Paradise before your eye.
To rest, the Cushion and soft Dean invite,
Who never mentions Hell to ears polite.

But hark! the chiming Clocks to dinner call;
A hundred footsteps scrape the marble Hall:
The rich Buffet well-colour'd Serpents grace,
And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face.
Is this a dinner? this a Genial room?
No, 'tis a Temple, and a Hecatomb7.
A solemn Sacrifice, perform'd in state,
You drink by measure, and to minutes eat.

150

155

So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear

Sancho's dread Doctor and his Wand were there.
Between each Act the trembling salvers ring,

160

From soup to sweet-wine, and God bless the King.
In plenty starving, tantaliz'd in state,

And complaisantly help'd to all I hate,

Treated, caress'd, and tir'd, I take my leave,

165

Sick of his civil Pride from Morn to Eve;

I curse such lavish cost, and little skill,

And swear no Day was ever past so ill.

Yet hence the Poor are cloth'd, the Hungry fed9;
Health to himself, and to his Infants bread
The Lab'rer bears: What his hard Heart denies,
His charitable Vanity supplies.

1 [i.e. as if they were wood. Warton compares to Pope's disadvantage Young's passage on the same subject in Universal Passion, Sat. 111.]

2 The false Taste in Music, improper to the subjects, as of light airs in churches, often practised by the organists, &c. P.

3-And in Painting (from which even Italy is not free) of naked figures in Churches, &c. which has obliged some Popes to put draperies on some of those of the best masters. P.

Verrio or Laguerre.] Verrio (Antonio) painted many ceilings, &c. at Windsor, Hamptoncourt, &c. and Laguerre at Blenheim-castle, and other places. P. [Verrio's ceilings at Windsor are referred to in Windsor Forest, v. 305. The line in the text was said exactly to describe the ceilings at Canons; but Pope in a letter to Aaron Hill (Feb. 3, 1732) asserts that the frescoes there were not by the painters mentioned and that the rest of the description was equally inapplicable. See Roscoe's Life.]

5 Who never mentions Hell to ears polite.]

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This is a fact; a reverend Dean preaching at Court, threatened the sinner with punishment in "a place which he thought it not decent to name in so polite an assembly." P.

6 Taxes the incongruity of Ornaments (tho' sometimes practised by the ancients) where an open mouth ejects the water into a fountain, or where the shocking images of serpents, &c. are introduced in Grotto's or Buffets. P.

7 Is this a dinner, &c.] The proud Festivals of some men are here set forth to ridicule, where pride destroys the ease, and formal regularity all the pleasurable enjoyment of the entertainment. P.

8 Sancho's dread Doctor] See Don Quixote, chap. xlvii. P.

9 Yet hence the Poor, &c.] The Moral of the whole, where PROVIDENCE is justified in giving Wealth to those who squander it in this manner. A bad Taste employs more hands, and diffuses Expence more than a good one. This recurs to what is laid down in Book i. Epist. II. v. 230-7, and in the Epistle preceding this, v. 161, &c. P.

Another age shall see the golden Ear1
Embrown the Slope, and nod on the Parterre,
Deep Harvests bury all his pride has plann'd,

175

And laughing Ceres re-assume the land.

Who then shall grace, or who improve the Soil?

Who plants like BATHURST, or who builds like BOYLE.

'Tis Use alone that sanctifies Expense,

180

And Splendour borrows all her rays from Sense.
His Father's Acres who enjoys in peace,
Or makes his Neighbours glad, if he increase:
Whose cheerful Tenants bless their yearly toil,
Yet to their Lord owe more than to the soil;
Whose ample Lawns are not asham'd to feed
The milky heifer and deserving steed;
Whose rising Forests, not for pride or show,
But future Buildings, future Navies, grow:
Let his plantations stretch from down to down,
First shade a Country, and then raise a Town.

You too proceed! make falling Arts your care,
Erect new wonders, and the old repair;
Jones and Palladio3 to themselves restore,
And be whate'er Vitruvius4 was before:
'Till Kings call forth th' Ideas of your mind,
(Proud to accomplish what such hands designed,)
Bid Harbours open, public Ways extend,
Bid Temples, worthier of the God, ascend;
Bid the broad Arch the dang'rous Flood contain,
The Mole projected break the roaring Main;
Back to his bounds their subject Sea command,
And roll obedient Rivers thro' the Land:
These Honours Peace to happy Britain brings,
These are Imperial Works, and worthy Kings".

Another age, &c.] Had the Poet lived but three Years longer, he had seen this prophecy fulfilled. Warburton. [This note, as Warton points out, was judiciously generalised by Warburton in a later edition, to avoid the plain reference to Canons.]

2 [Jones, v. ante line 46.]

3 [Palladio was born at Vicenza, where the Basilica della Ragione was his first work. He ultimately settled at Venice where most of his masterpieces were undertaken. He died in 1580.] 4 [M. Vitruvius Pollio, celebrated for his work de Architectura, was born about the year 80 B. C.] 5 'Till Kings-Bid Harbours open, &c.] The poet after having touched upon the proper objects of Magnificence and Expense, in the private works of great men, comes to those great and public works which become a prince. This Poem was published in the year 1732, when some of the newbuilt Churches, by the act of Queen Anne, were ready to fall, being founded in boggy land (which is satirically alluded to in our author's imitation of Horace, Lib, ii. Sat. 2,

Shall half the new-built Churches round thee fall;

185

190

195

200

others were vilely executed, thro' fraudulent ca-
bals between undertakers, officers, &c. Dagen-
ham-breach had done very great mischiefs; many
of the Highways throughout England were hardly
passable; and most of those which were repaired
by Turnpikes were made jobs for private lucre,
and infamously executed, even to the entrances
of London itself: The proposal of building a
Bridge at Westminter had been petition'd against
and rejected; but in two years after the publication
of this poem, an Act for building a Bridge pass'd
thro' both houses. After many debates in the
committee, the execution was left to the carpenter
above-mentioned, who would have made it a
wooden one: to which our author alludes in these
lines,

Who builds a Bridge that never drove a pile?
Should Ripley venture, all the world would
smile.
See the notes on that place. P.

6 [Carruthers refers to Dryden's free translation of En. vi. 853-4:

"These are imperial arts, and worthy thine.']

EPISTLE V.

To MR ADDISON.

Occasioned by his Dialogues on MEDALS.

THIS was originally written in the year 1715, when Mr Addison intended to publish his book of medals; it was sometime before he was secretary of State; but not published till Mr Tickell's Edition of his works; at which time the verses on Mr Craggs, which conclude the poem, were added, viz. in 1720. P. [The materials for these Dialogues, were collected by Addison during his travels in Italy, and the book itself was begun to be written at Vienna as early as 1702. Though known to and favourably esteemed by many scholars of note, it was never published in his lifetime; for he died in 1719. Concerning Pope's relations with Addison see Introductory Memoir, p. xv. f.

The following is Warburton's attempt to connect the revised version of Pope's lines to Addison with the series of Moral Essays:

'As the third Epistle treated of the extremes of Avarice and Profusion; and the 'fourth took up one particular branch of the latter, namely, the vanity of expence in 'people of wealth and quality, and was therefore a corollary to the third; so this 'treats of one circumstance of that Vanity, as it appears in the common collectors of 'old coins; and is, therefore, a corollary to the fourth.']

SE

EE the wild Waste of all-devouring years!
How Rome her own sad Sepulchre appears1,
With nodding arches, broken temples spread!
The very Tombs now vanish'd like their dead!
Imperial wonders rais'd on Nations spoil'd,
Where mix'd with Slaves the groaning Martyr toil'd2:
Huge Theatres, that now unpeopled Woods,

5

Now drain'd a distant country of her Floods:
Fanes, which admiring Gods with pride survey,
Statues of Men, scarce less alive than they!
Some felt the silent stroke of mould'ring age,
Some hostile fury, some religious rage.
Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire,
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.

10

Perhaps, by its own ruins sav'd from flame,

15

Some bury'd marble half preserves a name;

That Name the learn'd with fierce disputes pursue,

And give to Titus old Vespasian's due.

Ambition sigh'd: She found it vain to trust

The faithless Column and the crumbling Bust:

20

Huge moles, whose shadow stretch'd from shore to shore,
Their ruins perish'd, and their place no more!
Convinc'd, she now contracts her vast design,
And all her triumphs shrink into a Coin.
A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps ;
Beneath her Palm here sad Judæa weeps3;

1 St Jerome calls Rome 'populi Romani sepulcrum.' Warton.

[According to an ancient tradition, the Chris

25

tians were forced to labour at the construction of the famous Baths of Diocletian.]

3 ['Judæa Capta' on a reverse of Vespasian.]

Now scantier limits the proud Arch1 confine,
And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine2;
A small Euphrates thro' the piece is roll'd,
And little Eagles wave their wings in gold.

The Medal, faithful to its charge of fame,
Thro' climes and ages bears each form and name:
In one short view subjected to our eye
Gods, Emp'rors, Heroes, Sages, Beauties, lie.
With sharpen'd sight' pale Antiquaries pore,
Th' inscription value, but the rust adore.

30

This the blue varnish, that the green endears 4,
The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years!
To gain Pescennius5 one employs his schemes,
One grasps a Cecrops in ecstatic dreams.
Poor Vadius, long with learned spleen devour'd,

35

40

Can taste no pleasure since his Shield was scour'd;
And Curio, restless by the Fair-one's side,
Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride.
Theirs is the Vanity, the Learning thine:
Touch'd by thy hand, again Rome's glories shine;
Her Gods, and god-like Heroes rise to view,
And all her faded garlands bloom anew.
Nor blush, these studies thy regard engage;
These pleas'd the Fathers of poetic rage;
The verse and sculpture bore an equal part,
And Art reflected images to Art.

45

50

Oh when shall Britain, conscious of her claim",
Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame?
In living medals see her wars enroll'd,

55

And vanquish'd realms supply recording gold?
Here, rising bold, the Patriot's honest face;
There Warriors frowning in historic brass?
Then future ages with delight shall see
How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's looks agree;
Or in fair series laurell'd Bards be shown,

A Virgil there, and here an Addison 10.

Then shall thy CRAGGS" (and let me call him mine)
On the cast ore, another Pollio, shine;

-the proud Arch] i.e. The triumphal Arch, which was generally an enormous mass of building. Warburton.

2 [A small figure of the conquered province frequently occurs on medals struck on the occasion of a triumph.]

3 [i.e. with the aid of microscopes.]

4 This the blue varnish, that the green endears,] i. e. This a collector of silver; that, of brass coins. Warburton.

5 [Pescennius Niger assumed the purple in Syria in 131, but was speedily worsted by Septimius Severus.]

6 [Ecstatic, because of course no such medals exist.]

7 Poor Vadius,] See his history, and that of his Shield, in the Memoirs of Scriblerus. War

бо

burton. [Aimed at Dr Woodward the eminent physician and naturalist, who wrote a dissertation on an ancient shield which he possessed. Carruthers.]

8 Charles Patin was banished from the Court because he sold Louis XIV. an Otho that was not genuine. Warton. [A very remarkable Otho is given by Addison.]

9 Oh when shall Britain, &c.] A compliment to one of Mr Addison's papers in the Spectator on this subject. Warburton.

10 Copied evidently from Tickell to Addison on his Rosamond: Which gain'd a Virgil and an Addison.' Warton. [Asinius Pollio, on the birth of whose son Vergil wrote the Eclogue paraphrased in Pope's Messiah.]

[Craggs. See note to Pope's Epitaph Iv.]