consists in the Size and Dimension, instead of the Proportion and Harmony of the whole, v. 97, and the second, either in joining together Parts incoherent, or too minutely resembling, or in the Repetition of the same too frequently, v. 105, &c. A word or two of false Taste in Books, in Music, in Painting, even in Preaching and Prayer, and lastly in Entertainments, v. 133, &c. Yet PROVIDENCE is justified in giving Wealth to be squandered in this manner, since it is dispersed to the Poor and Laborious part of mankind, v. 169 [recurring to what is laid down in the first book, Ep. ii. and in the Epistle preceding this, v. 159, &c.]. What are the proper Objects of Magnificence, and a proper field for the Expence of Great Men, v. 177, &c., and finally, the Great and Public Works which become a Prince, v. 191, to the end. IS strange, the Miser should his Cares employ 'TIS To gain those Riches he can ne'er enjoy: Is it less strange, the Prodigal should waste For what has Virro painted, built, and planted? 1 A Gentleman famous for a judicious collection of Drawings. P. ? [Henry Earl of Pembroke, under whom the ancient family seat of Wilton, already adorned by the art of Holbein, Inigo Jones and Vandyke, received its last touches of beauty. See Warton's Note.] 3 [Thomas Hearne, the well-known antiquary; who revenged himself for the sarcastic reference to him in the Dunciad by ill-natured reflexions on Pope's parentage and education in his Diary. See Carruthers' Life of Pope, p. 14, note.] ▲ And Books for Mead, and Butterflies for Sloane.] Two eminent Physicians; the one had an excellent Library, the other the finest collection in Europe of natural curiosities; both men of great learning and humanity. P. [Dr Mead, physician to George II. and the most noted practitioner of his day, was born in 1675 and died in 1754, bequeathing the greater part of his famous Library to the College of Physicians. He was, however, the reverse of a bookworm; for Johnson says of him (Boswell ad ann. 1778) that 'he lived more in the broad sunshine of life than almost any man.' 5 ΤΟ 15 20 Sir John or Hans Sloane (b. 1660), the well-known botanist and physician, in his will offered his collections to the nation at a sum one quarter of their estimated value. His Natural History cabinet now forms part of the national collections in the British Museum; his pictures &c are in Lincoln's Inn Fields.] 5 Ripley] This man was a carpenter, employed by a first Minister, who raised him to an Architect, without any genius in the art; and after some wretched proofs of his insufficiency in public Buildings, made him Comptroller of the Board of works. P. Mr[Horace] Walpole speaks more favourably of this architect. Warton. [He was a protegee of Sir Robert Walpole's, and built his house at Houghton.] 6 [Bubb Doddington. See Epistle to Arbuthnot, ver. 280.] 7 After v. 22, in the MS. Then why not Kent as well our treaties draw, You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse1, 25 Who random drawings from your sheets shall take, And of one beauty many blunders make; Load some vain Church with old Theatric state, 30 Reverse your Ornaments, and hang them all On some patch'd dog-hole ek'd with ends of wall; That, lac'd with bits of rustic, makes a Front. Shall call the winds thro' long arcades to roar, To build, to plant, whatever you intend, Consult the Genius of the Place in all; The Earl of Burlington was then publishing the Designs of Inigo Jones, and the Antiquities of Rome by Palladio. P. 2 A door or window so called, from being much practised at Venice, by Palladio and others. P. 3 [The seven sciences of the scholastic trivium and quadrivium.] 4 [Inigo Jones the architect of the Banqueting House of Whitehall, the 'English Palladio,' died in 1653. He had originally risen into fame by designing Rosenborg, the Luxembourg of Copen 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 hagen, for Christian IV., the brother-in-law of James I.] 5 Inigo Jones, the celebrated Architect, and M. Le Nôtre, the designer of the best gardens of France. P. [André Le Nôtre, the favourite landscape-gardener of Lous XIV., was born in 1613, and died in 1700. It was he who introduced into France the taste for the so-called ‘jardins Anglais,' which he exemplified at all the royal residences, and especially at Versailles.] Parts answ'ring parts shall slide into a whole, Without it, proud Versailles! thy glory falls; The vast Parterres a thousand hands shall make, Nor in an Hermitage set Dr. Clarke. Behold Villario's ten years' toil complete; His Quincunx darkens, his Espaliers meet; 80 The Wood supports the Plain, the parts unite, And strength of Shade contends with strength of Light; Thro' his young Woods how pleas'd Sabinus stray'd, Or sat delighted in the thick'ning shade, 90 With annual joy the redd'ning shoots to greet, Or see the stretching branches long to meet! 1 The seat and gardens of the Lord Viscount Cobham in Buckinghamshire. P. 2 [i.e. are utterly subverted. Warton truly remarks that every instance of false taste and false magnificence is to be found at Versaillesand, it may be added, in the hundred copies of Versailles in Germany. Of Nero's Golden House, probably the most colossal effort architecture and landscape gardening ever made, a good short account will be found in Dyer's History of the City of Rome, Sect. Iv.] Or cut wide views thro' Mountains to the Plain, You'll wish your hill or shelter'd seat again.] This was done in Hertfordshire, by a wealthy citizen, at the expense of above £5000, by which means (merely to overlook a dead plain) he let in the north-wind upon his house and parterre, which were before adorned and defended by beautiful woods. P. 4-set Dr. Clarke.] Dr S. Clarke's busto placed by the Queen in the Hermitage, while, the Dr duly frequented the Court. P. [Dr Clarke, 95 one of Queen Caroline's chaplains, and the author of Evidences of Religion, and Prayers and Meditations, was charged with Arian opinions. See Boswell's Life of Johnson. On Pope's visit to Oxford in 1716, Dr Clarke in vain endeavoured to engage him in controversy on theological subjects.] 5 The two extremes in parterres, which are equally faulty; a boundless Green, large and naked as a field, or a flourished Carpet, where the greatness and nobleness of the piece is lessened by being divided into too many parts, with scroll'd works and beds, of which the examples are frequent. P. 6 5-mournful family of Yews;] Touches upon the ill taste of those who are so fond of Evergreens (particularly Yews, which are the most tonsile) as to destroy the nobler Forest-trees, to make way for such little ornaments as Pyramids of dark-green continually repeated, not unlike a Funeral procession. P. 7 At Timon's Villa] This description is in Where all cry out, "What sums are thrown away!" Grove nods at grove, each Alley has a brother, And half the platform just reflects the other. Trees cut to Statues, Statues thick as trees; 120 With here a Fountain, never to be play'd; And there a Summer-house, that knows no shade; But soft,-by regular approach,—not yet, First thro' the length of yon hot Terrace sweat ; 130 And when up ten steep slopes you've dragg'd your thighs, Just at his Study-door he'll bless your eyes. In Books, not Authors, curious is my Lord; 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 or incumber'd in its invelope, the unanimated parts, how huge soever, are not members of grandeur, but mere heaps of littleness. 3 The two Statues of the Gladiator pugnans 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 upon books in a language they do not understand, as to exclude the most useful in one they do. P. 6 [Aldo Manutio, who established his famous printing-press at Venice about 1490.] For all his Lordship knows, but they are Wood1. Where sprawl the Saints of Verrio or Laguerre, But hark! the chiming Clocks to dinner call; 140 145 150 155 So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear Sancho's dread Doctor and his Wand were there. 160 From soup to sweet-wine, and God bless the King. 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; [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.] Who never mentions Hell to ears polite.] 170 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. 11. v. 230-7, and in the Epistle preceding this, v. 161, &c. P. |