Shakes all together, and produces-you.

Be this a woman's fame: with this unblest,
Toasts live a scorn, and queens may die a jest.
This Phoebus promised (I forget the year)
When those blue eyes first opened on the sphere;
Ascendant Phoebus watched that hour with care,
Averted half your parents' simple pray'r;
And gave you beauty, but denied the pelf
That buys your sex a tyrant o'er itself.
The generous God, who wit and gold refines,
And ripens spirits as he ripens mines,

Kept dross for duchesses, the world shall know it, To you gave sense, good-humour, and a poet.

EPISTLE III.'

TO ALLEN LORD BATHURST.2

ARGUMENT.

OF THE USE OF RICHES.

That it is known to few, most falling into one of the extremes, avarice or profusion, ver. 1, &c. The point discussed, whether the inven tion of money has been more commodious or pernicious to mankind, ver. 21-77. That riches, either to the avaricious or the prodigal, cannot afford happiness, scarcely necessaries, ver. 89-160. That avarice is an absolute frenzy, without an end or purpose, ver. 113, &c., 152. Conjectures about the motives of avaricious men, ver. 121-153. That the conduct of men, with respect to riches, can only

This epistle was written after a violent outcry against our author, on a supposition that he had ridiculed a worthy nobleman merely for his wrong taste.* He justified himself upon that article in a letter to the Eari of Burlington, at the end of which are these words: "I have learnt that there are some who would rather be wicked than ridicu lous; and therefore it may be safer to attack vices than follies. I will therefore leave my betters in the quiet possession of their idols, their groves, and their high places; and change my subject from their pride to their meanness, from their vanities to their miseries; and as the only certain way to avoid misconstructions, to lessen offence, and not to multiply ill-natured applications, I may probably in my next, make use of real names instead of fictitious ones."-Pope.

2 This Epistle is written in the form of a dialogue between the poet and Lord Bathurst.

"None of my works" said Pope to Mr. Spence, "was more laboured than my Epistle on the Use of Riches.""

* The Duke of Chandos in the next Epistle as Timon.

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be accounted for by the Order of Providence, which works the general good out of extremes, and brings all to its great end by perpetual revolutions, ver. 161-178. How a miser acts upon principles which appear to him reasonable, ver. 179. How a prodi gal does the same, ver 199. The due medium, and true use of Fiches, yer. 219. The Man of Ross, ver. 250. The fate of the profuse and the covetous, in two examples; both miserable in life and in death, ver. 300, &c. The story of Sir Balaam, ver. 339 to the end.

you

P. WHO shall decide, when doctors disagree,
And soundest casuists doubt, like and me?
You hold the word, from Jove to Momus giv'n
That man was made the standing jest of heav'n;
And gold but sent to keep the fools in play,
For some to heap, and some to throw away.
But I, who think more highly of our kind,
(And surely, Heav'n and I are of a mind)
Opine, that nature, as in duty bound,
Deep hid the shining mischief under ground:
But when by man's audacious labour won,
Flamed forth this rival to its sire, the sun,
Then careful Heav'n supplied two sorts of men,
To squander these, and those to hide again.
Like doctors thus, when much dispute has past,
We find our tenets just the same at last.
Both fairly owning riches, in effect,

No grace of Heav'n or token of the elect;
Giv'n to the fool, the mad, the vain, the evil,
To Ward,' to Waters, Chartres, and the Devil.

1 John Ward, of Hackney, Esq., member of Parliament, being proseented by the Duchess of Buckingham, and convicted of forgery, was first expelled the House, and then stood in the pillory on the 17th of March, 1727. He was suspected of joining in a conveyance with Sir John Blunt, to secrete fifty thousand pounds of that director's estate, forfeited to the South Sea Company by Act of Parliament. The company recovered the fifty thousand pounds against Ward; but he set up prior conveyances of his real estate to his brother and son, and concealed all his personal, which was computed to be one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. These conveyances being also set aside by a bill in Chancery, Ward was imprisoned, and hazarded the forfeiture of his life, by not giving in his effects till the last day, which was that of his examination. During his confinement, his amusement was to give poison to dogs and cats, and to see them expire by slower or quicker torments. To sum up the worth of this gentleman, at the several eras of his life, at his standing in the pillory he was worth about two hundred thousand pounds; at his commitment to prison, he was worth one hundred and fifty thousand pounds; but has been since so far diminished in his reputation, as to be thought a worse man by fifty or sixty thousand.-Pope.

2 Fr. Chartres, a man infamous for all manner of vices.-When he was an ensign in the army, he was drummed out of the regiment for a cheat; he was next banished Brussels, and drummed out of Ghent on the same account. After a hundred tricks at the gaming tables, he took to lending of money at exorbitant interest and on great penalties, accumulating premium, iuterest, and capital, into a new capital and

B. What nature wants, commodious gold bestows, "Tis thus we eat the bread another sows.

P. But how unequal it bestows, observe,
"Tis thus we riot, while, who sow it, starve;
What nature wants (a phrase I much distrust)
Extends to luxury, extends to lust:

Useful, I grant, it serves what life requires,
But, dreadful too, the dark assassin hires.
B. Trade it may help, society extend.

P. But lures the pirate, and corrupts the friend.

seizing to a minute when the payments became due; in a word, by a constant attention to the vices, wants, and follies of mankind, he acquired an immense fortune. He was twice condemned for great crimes, and pardoned; but the last time not without imprisonment in Newgate, and large confiscations. He died in Scotland in 1731, aged 62. The populace at his funeral raised a great riot, almost tore the body out of the coffin, and cast dead dogs, &c., into the grave along with it. The following epitapth contains his character very justly drawn by Dr. Arbuthnot:

Here continueth to rot

The body of FRANCIS CHARTRES,

Who with an inflexible constancy, and
inimitable uniformity of life,
Persisted,

In spite of age and infirmities,
In the practice of every human vice;
Excepting prodigality and hypocrisy:
His insatiable avarice excepted him
from the first,

His matchless impudence from the second.
Nor was he more singular in the undeviating
pravity of his manners

Than successful in accumulating wealth.
For, without trade or profession,
Without trust of public money,
And without bribe-worthy service,
He acquired, or more properly created,
A ministerial estate.

He was the only person of his time,
Who could cheat without the mask of honesty
Retain his primeval meanness

When possessed of ten thousand a year,

And having daily deserved the gibbet for what he did,
Was at last condemned to it for what he could not do.
Oh, indignant reader!

Think not his life useless to mankind!
Providence connived at his execrable designs,
To give to after ages

A conspicuous proof and example,
Of how small estimation is exorbitant
wealth in the sight of God,

By his bestowing it on the most unworthy
of all mortals.

This gentleman was worth seven thousand pounds a year estate in land, and about one hundred thousand in money.-Pope.

Mr. Waters, the second of these worthies, was a man no way resembling the former in his military, but extremely so in his civil, capacity; his great fortune having been raised by the like diligent attendance on the necessities of others. But this gentleman's history must be deferred till his death, when his worth may be known more certainly. -Pope.

B. It raises armies in a nation's aid.

P. But bribes a senate, and the land's betrayed.
In vain may heroes fight, and patriots rave;
If secret gold sap on from knave to knave.
Once, we confess, beneath the patriot's cloak,1
From the cracked bag the dropping guinea spoke,
And jingling down the back-stairs, told the crew,
"Old Cato is as great a rogue as you.".

Blest paper-credit! last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!
Gold imp'd by thee, can compass hardest things,
Can pocket states, can fetch or carry kings;2
A single leaf shall waft an army o'er,
Or ship off senates to a distant shore;3
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, encumbered villany!

Could France or Rome divert our brave designs, With all their brandies or with all their wines? What could they more than knights and squires confound,

Or water all the quorum ten miles round?

A statesman's slumbers how this speech would spoil! Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil;

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Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door;
A hundred oxen at your levee roar."

Poor avarice one torment more would find;
Nor could profusion squander all in kind.
Astride his cheese Sir Morgan might we meet;

1 This is a true story, which happened in the reign of William III. to an unsuspected old patriot, who coming out at the back-door from hav ing been closeted by the king, where he had received a large bag of guineas, the bursting of the bag discovered his business there. According to Warburton, this was Sir Christopher Musgrave.-Pope.

2 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.-Pope.

3 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.-Pope.

4 Supposed to be a stroke of satire on Queen Caroline. Pope was an adherent of the "King over the water," whom he believed to have been sold by traitors.

And Worldly crying coals from street to street,
Whom with a wig so wild, and mien so mazed,
Pity mistakes for some poor tradesman crazed.
Had Colepepper's whole wealth been hops and hogs,
Could he himself have sent it to the dogs?
His grace will game: to White's3 a bull he led,
With spurning heels and with a butting head.
To White's be carried, as to ancient games,
Fair coursers, vases, and alluring dames.
Shall then Uxorio, if the stakes he sweep,
Bear home six w- and make his lady weep?
Or soft Adonis, so perfumed and fine,
Drive to St. James's a whole herd of swine?
Oh filthy check on all industrious skill,

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?

clothes, and fire.

P. Meat,

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!
What can they give? to dying Hopkins, heirs;

5

6

1 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.-Pope

2 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 gaming-table, 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.-Pope.

3 A well-known club.

4 One who, being possesed 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 this by that course of life he saved both clothes and all other expenses.-Pope.

5 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.-Pope.

6 A citizen, whose rapacity obtained him the name of Vulture Hopkins. He lived worthless, but died worth three hundred thousand