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One half-pint bottle serves them both to dine,
And is at once their vinegar and wine.
But on some lucky day (as when they found
A lost Bank-bill, or heard their Son was drown'd)
At such a feast, old vinegar to spare,
Is what two souls so gen'rous cannot bear:
Oil, tho’ it stink, they drop by drop impart,
But souse the cabbage with a bounteous heart.

He knows to live, who keeps the middle state,
And neither leans on this side, nor on that;
Nor stops, for one bad cork, his butler's pay,
Swears, like Albutius, a good cook away;
Nor lets, like Naevius, ev'ry error pass,
The musty wine, foul cloth, or greasy glass.

Now hear what blessings Temperance can bring:
(Thus said our friend, and what he said I sing, )
First Health: The stomach (cramm'd from ev'ry dish,
A tomb of boild and roast, and flesh and fish,
Where bile, and wind, and phlegm, and acid jar,
And all the man is one intestine war)
Remembers oft the School-boy's simple fare,
The temp'rate sleeps, and spirits light as air.

How pale, each Worshipful and Rev'rend guest
Rise from a Clergy, or a City feast !
What life in all that ample body, say?
What heav'nly particle inspires the clay?
The Soul subsides, and wickedly inclines
To seem but mortal, ev'n in sound Divines?

On morning wings how active springs the Mind
That leaves the load of yesterday behind !
How easy ev'ry labour it pursues !
How coming to the Poet ev'ry Muse !
Not but we may exceed, some holy time,
Or tir'd in search of Truth, or search of Rhyme;
Ill health some just indulgence may engage,
And more the sickness of long life, Old age;
For fainting Age what cordial drop remains,
If our intemp'rate Youth the vessel drains ?

Our fathers prais'd rank Ven’son. You suppose
Perhaps, young men ! our fathers had no nose.
Not so:

à Buck was then a week's repast,
And 'twas their point, I ween, to make it last ;
More pleas'd to keep it till their friends could come,
Than eat the sweetest by themselves at home.
Why had not I in those good times my birth,
Ere coxcomb-pies or coxcombs were on earth?

Unworthy he, the voice of Fame to hear,
That sweetest music to an honest ear;
(For 'faith, Lord Fanny3! you are in the wrong,
The world's good word is hetter than a song)

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Who has not learned, fresh sturgeon and ham-pie
Are no rewards for want, and infamy!
When Luxury has lick’d up all thy pelf,

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Cursid by thy neighbours, thy trustees, thyself,
To friends, to fortune, to mankind a shame,
Think how posterity will treat thy name;
And buy a rope, that future times may tell
Thou hast at least bestow'd one penny well.

Right,” cries his Lordship, “for a rogue in need "To have a Taste is insolence indeed: “In me 'tis noble, suits my birth and state, “My wealth unwieldy, and my heap too great." Then, like the Sun, let Bounty spread her ray,

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And shine that superfluity away.
Oh Impudence of wealth! with all thy store,
How dar'st thou let one worthy man be poor?
Shall half the new-built churches round thee fall ?
Make Quays, build Bridges, or repair White-hall:
Or to thy country let that heap be lent,
As M** o'sl was, but not at five per cent.

Who thinks that Fortune cannot change her mind,
Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind.
And who stands safest? tell me, is it he

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That spreads and swells in puff’d prosperity,
Or blest with little, whose preventing care
In peace provides fit arms against a war?

Thus BETHEL spoke, who always speaks his thought, And always thinks the very thing he ought:

130 His equal mind I copy what I can, And, as I love, would imitate the Man. In South-sea days not happier, when surmis'd The Lord of Thousands, than if now Excis'd? ; In forest planted by a Father's hand»,

135 Than in five acres now of rented land. Content with little, I can piddle here On brocoli and mutton, round the year; But ancient friends (tho' poor, or out of play) That touch my bell, I cannot turn away.

140 'Tis true, no Turbots dignify my boards, But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords: To Hounslow-heath I point and Bansted-down 4, Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own: From yon old walnut-tree a show'r shall fall;

145 And grapes, long ling’ring on my only wall, And ñgs from standard and espalier join; The dev'l is in you if you cannot dine: Then cheerful healths“ (your Mistress shall have place), And, what's more rare, a Poet shall say Grace.

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Fortune not much of humbling me can boast;
Tho' double tax'd, how little have I lost?
My Life's amusements have been just the same,
Before, and after, Standing. Armies came'.
My lands are sold, my father's house is gone;
I'll hire another's; is not that my own,
And yours, my friends ? thro' whose free-opening gate
None comes too early, none departs too late;
(For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best,
Welcome the coming, speed the going guest?.)
“ Pray heav'n it last !” (cries Swift !) as you go on;
“I wish to God this house had been your own:
“Pity! to build, without a son or wife:

Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life.”
Well, if the use be mine, can it concern one"},
Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon?
What's Property ? dear Swift! you see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter ;
Or, in a mortgage, prove a Lawyer's share;
Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heiro;
Or in pure equity (the case not clear)
The Chanc'ry takes your rents for twenty year:
At best, it falls to some ungracious son,
Who cries, “My father's damn'd, and all's my own.'
Shades, that to BACON could retreat afford",
Become the portion of a booby Lord;
And Hemsley, once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a Scriv'ner or a city Knight.
Let lands and houses have what Lords they will,
Let Us be fix'd, and our own masters still.

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say;

'turn

fends Dr Johnson, himself in general no enemy "in it after my death (for, as it is, it serves all of more liberal potations: When he had two my purposes as well during life) I would purguests in his house he would set at supper a “chase it,” &c. Warburton. (Pope never carsingle pint of wine upon the table, and having ried out this intention.] taken himself two small glasses would retire and * Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;]

“Gentlemen, I leave you to your wine.”.] The expression well describes the surprise an

[Practically, England has had a standing heir must be in, to find himself excluded by that army since the time of Charles II.; legally, the Instrument which was made to secure his sucexistence of the army depends on the annual cession. For Butler humorously defines a JoinMutiny-bills, of which the first was passed in ture to be the act whereby Parents 1689. From the first years of Walpole's administration, the army (independently of the Irish Their Children's Tenants, ere they're born.' establishment) continued in ordinary times to

Warburton. number about 17,000 men; but even its virtual 5 [Gorhambury, near St Alban's, the seat of perpetuity was not acknowledged; and as late as Lord Bacon, was at the time of his disgrace con1732 Pulteney declared that he always had been, veyed by him to his quondam secretary, Sir J. ! and always would be, against a standing army of Meantys, whose heir sold it to Sir Harbottle any kind.' See Hallam, Const. History, chap. xvi.] Grimston, whose grandson left it to his nephew

2 From Hom. Od. Bk. xv. v. 74. Warton. (Wm. Lucklyn, who took the name of Grimston',

3 Well, if the use be mine, etc.] In a letter whose second son was in 1719 created Viscount to this Mr Bethel, of March 20, 1743, he says, Grimston. This is the booby lord' to whom i "My Landlady, Mrs Vernon, being dead, this Pope refers.] “Garden and House are offered me in sale; and,

6

proud Buckingham's etc.] Villiers Duke "I believe (together with the cottages on each of Buckingham. P. The estate of Helmsley “side my grass-plot next the Thames) will come was purchased by Sir Charles Duncombe, Lord

THE FIRST EPISTLE

OF THE

FIRST BOOK OF HORACE.

EPISTLE I.

To LORD BOLINGBROKE1.

[HORACE's Epistle is addressed to Maecenas; and explains the causes why he had relinquished lyrical poetry in order to study philosophy as an eclectic after the fashion of Aristippus. It then proceeds to show that true happiness depends upon virtue and wisdom, to which that study leads, and not upon the external comforts of life.]

T. JOHN, whose love indulg'd my labours past,

Matures my present, and shall bound my last!
Why will you break the Sabbath of my days 2?
Now sick alike of Envy and of Praise.
Public too long, ah let me hide my Age !

5
See, Modest Cibber now has left the Stage 3:
Our Gen'rals now, retir'd to their Estates,
Hang their old Trophies o’er the Garden gates“,
In Life's cool Ev'ning satiate of Applause,
Nor fond of bleeding, ev'n in BRUNSWICK'S cause 5.

A Voice there is, that whispers in my ear,
('Tis Reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear)

Friend Pope! be prudent, let your Muse take breath,
“And never gallop Pegasus to death;
“Lest stiff, and stately, void of fire or force,

15 “You limp, like Blackmore on a Lord Mayor's horse 6."

Farewell then Verse, and Love, and ev'ry Toy,
The Rhymes and Rattles of the Man or Boy;
What right, what true, what fit we justly call,
Let this be all my care- - for this is All :
To lay this harvest up, and hoard with haste
What ev'ry day will want, and most, the last.

But ask not, to what Doctors I apply?
Sworn to no Master, of no Sect am 1:

IO

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1 [Cf. note to Essay on Man, Ep. 1.]

Editions it was, Britain's cause. But the terms 2 Sabbath of my days?) i.e. The 49th year, are synonymous.

Warburton. [Hardly always the age of the Author. Warburton.

so in Pope's mouth.] 3 (Colley Cibber retired from the stage after 6 You limp, like Blackmore on

a Lord a histrionic career of more than 40 years in 1733; Mayor's horse. The fame of this heavy Poet, but returned in 1734 and did not make his however problematical elsewhere, was universally 'positively last appearance' till 1745.]

received in the City of London. His versification [Warburton compares Moral Essays, Ep. is here exactly described : stiff, and not strong; IV. V. 30. Pope is said by Warton to allude to stately and yet dull, like the sober and slow-paced the entrance of Lord Peterborough's Lawn at Animal generally employed to mount the Lord Bevismount near Southampton.]

Mayor: and therefore here humorously opposed 5 Evn in Brunswick's cause.] In the former to Pegasus. P. (Blackmore was City Physician.]

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As drives the storm, at any door I knock:
And house with Montaigne now, or now with Lockel.
Sometimes a Patriot, active in debate,
Mix with the World, and battle for the State,
Free as young Lyttelton, her Cause pursue,
Still true to Virtue, and as warm as true?:
Sometimes with Aristippus", or St. Paul,
Indulge my candor, and grow all to all;
Back to my native Moderation slide,
And win my way by yielding to the tide.

Long, as to him who works for debt, the day,
Long as the Night to her whose Love's away,
Long as the Year's dull circle seems to run,
When the brisk Minor pants for twenty-one:
So slow th' unprofitable moments roll,
That lock up all the Functions of my soul;
That keep me from myself; and still delay
Life's instant business to a future day:
That task, which as we follow, or despise,
The eldest is a fool, the youngest wise;
Which done, the poorest can no wants endure 4;
And which not done, the richest must be poor.

Late as it is, I put myself to school,
And feel some comfort, not to be a fool.
Weak tho' I am of limb, and short of sight,
Far from a Lynx, and not a Giant quite;
I'll do what Mead5 and Cheselden advise,
To keep these limbs, and to preserve these eyes.
Not to go back, is somewhat to advance,
And men must walk at least before they dance.

Say, does thy blood rebel, thy bosom move
With wretched Ay'rice, or as wretched Love?
Know, there are Words, and Spells, which can control
Between the Fits this Fever of the soul:
Know, there are Rhymes, which fresh and fresh apply'd
Will cure the arrant'st Puppy of his Pride.

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? And house with Montaigne now, and now

P. There is an impropriety and indewith Locke.] i.e. Choose either an active or a coruin, in joining the name of the most profligate contemplative life, as is most fitted to the season parasite of the Court of Dionysius with that of an and circumstances.-For he regarded these apostle. In a few lines before, the name of Writers as the best Schools to form a man for the Montaigne is not sufficiently contrasted by the world; or to give him a knowledge of himself: name of Locke.

Warton. Montaigne excelling in his observations on social 4 can no wants endure;] i.e.

Can want and civil life; and Locke, in developing the facul- nothing. Badly expressed. Warburton. ties, and explaining the operations of the human 5 [Mead: v. Moral Essays, Ep. iv. v. 10.) mind. Warburton. [Pope appears to have read 6 [In answer to Swift's enquiry who this Locke at an early age; and to have recurred to Cheselden was, Pope informed him that C. was him in his later and equally desultory philoso- 'the most noted and most deserving man in the phical studies. ]