One half-pint bottle serves them both to dine, 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: He knows to live, who keeps the middle state, Now hear what blessings Temperance can bring: 60 65 70 Rise from a Clergy, or a City feast! How pale, each Worshipful and Rev'rend guest 75 To seem but mortal, ev'n in sound Divines1. 80 That leaves the load of yesterday behind! On morning wings how active springs the Mind How coming to the Poet ev'ry Muse! 85 Or tir'd in search of Truth, or search of Rhyme; Ill health some just indulgence may engage, Our fathers prais'd rank Ven'son. You suppose More pleas'd to keep it till their friends could come, 1 [Warburton remarks on the orthodox turn given by Pope to the Epicureanism of Horace.] 2 [A delicacy still in vogue at academical feasts.] 3 [Lord Hervey.] Who has not learned, fresh sturgeon and ham-pie 66 105 110 115 Oh Impudence of wealth! with all thy store, 120 Who thinks that Fortune cannot change her mind, 125 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. 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; 145 And grapes, long ling'ring on my only wall, And figs from standard and espalier join; Then cheerful healths (your Mistress shall have place), 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, 150 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; My lands are sold, my father's house is gone; 155 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, 160 "Pray heav'n it last!" (cries SWIFT!)". as you go on; "I wish to God this house had been your own: 165 170 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", 175 Become the portion of a booby Lord; And Hemsley, once proud Buckingham's delight®, Let lands and houses have what Lords they will, fends Dr Johnson, himself in general no enemy 180 "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 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, Why will you break the Sabbath of my days 2? Public too long, ah let me hide my Age! ('Tis Reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear) "Lest stiff, and stately, void of fire or force, "You limp, like Blackmore on a Lord Mayor's horse "." The Rhymes and Rattles of the Man or Boy; 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 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: 25 And house with Montaigne now, or now with Locke1. Mix with the World, and battle for the State, Free as young Lyttelton, her Cause pursue, Long, as to him who works for debt, the day, Which done, the poorest can no wants endure *; 30 35 40 45 50 55 Know, there are Words, and Spells, which can control 60 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.] |