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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

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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 boil'd 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.

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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

How pale, each Worshipful and Rev'rend guest

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To seem but mortal, ev'n in sound Divines1.

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That leaves the load of yesterday behind!
How easy ev'ry labour it pursues!

On morning wings how active springs the Mind

How coming to the Poet ev'ry Muse!
Not but we may exceed, some holy time,

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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: a 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-pies2 or coxcombs were on earth?
Unworthy he, the voice of Fame to hear,
That sweetest music to an honest ear;
(For 'faith, Lord Fanny! you are in the wrong,
The world's good word is better than a song)

1 [Warburton remarks on the orthodox turn given by Pope to the Epicureanism of Horace.]

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2 [A delicacy still in vogue at academical feasts.] 3 [Lord Hervey.]

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,
Curs'd 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,
And shine that superfluity away.

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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's1 was, but not at five per cent.

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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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In_peace provides fit arms against a war?

Thus BETHEL spoke, who always speaks his thought,

And always thinks the very thing he ought:

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His equal mind I copy what I can,

And, as I love, would imitate the Man.

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But gudgeons, flounders, what my Thames affords:

To Hounslow-heath I point and Bansted-down4,

Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own:

From yon old walnut-tree a show'r shall fall;

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And grapes, long ling'ring on my only wall,

And figs 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.

1 [The Duke of Marlborough.] 2 [See notes to Moral Essays, Ep. III. vv. 115 and 118.]

3 [Pope's father originally purchased twenty acres of land in the outskirts of Windsor Forest,

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which he sold in 1716. The sum which he left to his son was something under £4000. The 'five acres of rented land' are the Twickenham estate. ] 4 [Between Caterham and Epsom.]

5 [Pope's economy in the matter of wine of

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 came1.

My lands are sold, my father's house is gone;
I'll hire another's; is not that my own,

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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 guest2.)

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"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 one3,
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 heir1;
Or in pure equity (the case not clear)

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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",

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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.

fends Dr Johnson, himself in general no enemy
of more liberal potations: 'When he had two
guests in his house he would set at supper a
single pint of wine upon the table, and having
taken himself two small glasses would retire and
say,
"Gentlemen, I leave you to your wine.""]
[Practically, England has had a standing
army
since the time of Charles II.; legally, the
existence of the army depends on the annual
Mutiny-bills, of which the first was passed in
1689. From the first years of Walpole's admi-
nistration, the army (independently of the Irish
establishment) continued in ordinary times to
number about 17,000 men; but even its virtual
perpetuity was not acknowledged; and as late as
1732 Pulteney declared that he always had been,
and always would be, against a standing army of
any kind. See Hallam, Const. History, chap. xvI.]
2 From Hom. Od. Bk. xv. v. 74. Warton.
3 Well, if the use be mine, etc.] In a letter
to this Mr Bethel, of March 20, 1743, he says,
"My Landlady, Mrs Vernon, being dead, this
"Garden and House are offered me in sale; and,
"I believe (together with the cottages on each
side my grass-plot next the Thames) will come
"at about a thousand pounds. If I thought any
very particular friend would be pleased to live

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"in it after my death (for, as it is, it serves all my purposes as well during life) I would pur"chase it," &c. Warburton. [Pope never carried out this intention.]

▲ Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir;] The expression well describes the surprise an heir must be in, to find himself excluded by that Instrument which was made to secure his succession. For Butler humorously defines a Jointure to be the act whereby Parents

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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.]

STi

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!
See, Modest Cibber now has left the Stage3:
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 cause3.
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,

"You limp, like Blackmore on a Lord Mayor's horse "."
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 I:

1 [Cf. note to Essay on Man, Ep. 1.] 2 Sabbath of my days?] i.e. The 49th year, the age of the Author. Warburton.

3 [Colley Cibber retired from the stage after a histrionic career of more than 40 years in 1733; but returned in 1734 and did not make his 'positively last appearance' till 1745.]

[Warburton compares Moral Essays, Ep. IV. v. 30. Pope is said by Warton to allude to the entrance of Lord Peterborough's Lawn at Bevismount near Southampton.]

5 Ev'n in Brunswick's cause.] In the former

5

IO

15

20

Editions it was, Britain's cause. But the terms
are synonymous.
Warburton. [Hardly always
so in Pope's mouth.]

6 You limp, like Blackmore on a Lord Mayor's horse.] The fame of this heavy Poet, however problematical elsewhere, was universally received in the City of London. His versification is here exactly described: stiff, and not strong; stately and yet dull, like the sober and slow-paced Animal generally employed to mount the Lord Mayor and therefore here humorously opposed to Pegasus. P. [Blackmore was City Physician.]

As drives the storm, at any door I knock:

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And house with Montaigne now, or now with Locke1.
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 2:
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 *;
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 Mead 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 Av'rice, or as wretched Love?

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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 with Locke.] i.e. Choose either an active or a contemplative life, as is most fitted to the season and circumstances. For he regarded these Writers as the best Schools to form a man for the world; or to give him a knowledge of himself: Montaigne excelling in his observations on social and civil life; and Locke, in developing the faculties, and explaining the operations of the human mind. Warburton. [Pope appears to have read Locke at an early age; and to have recurred to him in his later and equally desultory philosophical studies.]

2 [George Lord Lyttelton, author of the Dialogues of the Dead, besides poems (Pastorals) and theological and historical works, was a correspondent of Pope's.]

3 Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status,

et res. P. There is an impropriety and indecorum, in joining the name of the most profligate parasite of the Court of Dionysius with that of an apostle. In a few lines before, the name of Montaigne is not sufficiently contrasted by the name of Locke. Warton.

4 can no wants endure;] i.e. Can want nothing. Badly expressed. Warburton.

5 [Mead: v. Moral Essays, Ep. IV. v. 10.] 6 [In answer to Swift's enquiry who this Cheselden was, Pope informed him that C. was 'the most noted and most deserving man in the whole profession of chirurgery and had saved the lives of thousands' by his skill. There is an amusing letter from Pope to Cheselden in Roscoe's Life ad ann. 1737; speaking of the cataract to which v. 52 appears to allude.]

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