Gold imp'd by thee, can compass hardest things,
Can pocket States, can fetch or carry Kings;
A single leaf shall waft an Army o'er,

Or ship off Senates to a distant shore;
A leaf, like Sibyl's, scatter to and fro

Our fates and fortunes, as the winds shall blow:
Pregnant with thousands flits the Scrap unseen,
And silent sells a King, or buys a Queen.

Oh! that such bulky Bribes as all might see,
Still, as of old, encumber'd Villany!
Could France or Rome divert our brave designs,
With all their brandies, or with all their wines?

45

50

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 50 in the MS.

To break a trust were Peter brib'd with wine,
Peter! 'twould pose as wise a head as thine.

NOTES.

Ver. 42. 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.

Ver. 44. 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.

Ver. 47. Pregnant with thousands flits the Scrap unseen,] The imagery is very sublime, and alludes to the course of a destroying pestilence. The Psalmist, in his expression of the Pestilence that walketh in darkness, supplied him with the grandeur of his idea. W.

Ver. 48. buys a Queen.] A sly stroke of satire on a character he frequently satirized; but not so severely as Swift in verses on his own Death.

What could they more than Knights and Squires

confound,

Or water all the Quorum ten miles round?

56

A Statesman's slumbers how this speech would spoil!
"Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil;
Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door;
A hundred oxen at your levee roar."

60

Poor Avarice one torment more would find; Nor could Profusion squander all in kind. Astride his cheese Sir Morgan might we meet; And Worldly crying coals from street to street, Whom with a wig so wild, and mien so maz'd, Pity mistakes for some poor tradesman craz'd. Had Colepepper's whole wealth been hops and hogs, Could he himself have sent it to the dogs? His Grace will game: to White's a Bull be led, With spurning heels and with a butting head.

66

NOTES.

Ver. 62. 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.

Ver. 65. 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 Gamingtable, passed 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.

Ver. 65. Had Colepepper's] Thus in former Editions,

Had Hawley's fortune lay'n in hops and hogs,
Scarce Hawley's self had sent it to the dogs.

To White's be carry'd, as to ancient games,
Fair Coursers, Vases, and alluring Dames.
Shall then Uxorio, if the stakes he sweep,

70

Bear home six Whores, and make his Lady weep?
Or soft Adonis, so perfum'd and fine,

Drive to St. James's a whole herd of Swine?
Oh filthy check on all industrious skill,

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.
P. What Riches give us let us then inquire:
Meat, Fire, and Clothes. B. What more? P. Meat,
Clothes, and Fire.

Is this too little? would you more than live?
Alas! 'tis more than Turner finds they give.
Alas! 'tis more than (all his Visions past)
Unhappy Wharton, waking, found at last!

80

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 77. Since then, &c.] In the former Editions,
Well then, since with the world we stand or fall,
Come take it as we find it, Gold and all.

NOTES.

Ver. 82. 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 clothes and all other expenses. P.

Ver. 84. 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. A

What can they give? to dying Hopkins, Heirs; 85
To Chartres, Vigour; Japhet, Nose and Ears?
Can they, in gems bid pallid Hippia glow,

In Fulvia's buckle ease the throbs below:
Or heal, old Narses, thy obscener ail,
With all th' embroid'ry plaster'd at thy tail?
They might (were Harpax not too wise to spend)
Give Harpax self the blessing of a friend;
Or find some Doctor that would save the life
Of wretched Shylock, spite of Shylock's Wife:
But thousands die, without or this or that;
Die, and endow a College, or a Cat.

NOTES.

90

95

Ver. 85. 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 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 the greatest joy thereat, and said, "They would then be as long in spending as he had been in getting it." But the Chancery afterward set aside the will, and gave it to the heir at law.

Ver. 86. 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.

Ver. 90. With all] An image insufferably filthy, and unworthy of such a writer! Boileau has no such images.

Ver. 96. Die, and endow a College, or a Cat.] A famous Dutchess of R. in her last Will left considerable legacies and annuities to her Cats.

P.

To some, indeed, Heav'n grants the happier fate,
T'enrich a Bastard, or a Son they hate.

Perhaps you think the Poor might have their part? Bond damns the Poor, and hates them from his heart: The grave Sir Gilbert holds it for a rule

101

That ev'ry man in want is knave or fool:
"God cannot love (says Blount, with tearless eyes)
The wretch he starves”—and piously denies :
But the good Bishop, with a meeker air,
Admits, and leaves them, Providence's care.

105

NOTES.

This benefactress was no other than La Belle Stuart of the Comte de Grammont; and her endowment was not a proper object of satire. The real truth was, that she left annuities to certain female friends, with the burden of maintaining some of her cats; a delicate way of providing for poor, and probably, proud gentlewomen, without making them feel that they owed their livelihood to her mere liberality.

Ver. 100. 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 expelled. By the report of the Committee appointed to inquire 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 either knave or fool," &c. were the genuine apothegms of same of the Persons here mentioned. P.

Ver. 105. But the good Bishop, &c.] In the place of this imaginary Bishop, and in the first Dialogue of 1738, the Poet had named a very worthy Person of condition, who, for a course of many years, had shined in public stations much to the honour and advantage of his country. But being at once oppressed by