EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

1738.

The following words of Quintilian might not be an improper motto for these dialogues: "Ingenii plurimum est in eo, et acerbitas mira, et urbanitas, et vis summa; sed plus stomacho quam consilio dedit. Præterea ut amari sales, ita frequenter amaritudo ipsa ridicula est.

IN TWO DIALOGUES.

WRITTEN IN MDCCXXXVIII.

DIALOGUE I.

Fr. Nor twice a twelvemonth' you appear in print,
And when it comes, the court see nothing in't.
You grow correct, that once with rapture writ,
And are, besides, too moral for a wit.
Decay of parts, alas! we all must feel-
Why now, this moment, don't I see you steal?
'Tis all from Horace; Horace long before ye
Said, "Tories called him Whig, and Whigs a Tory;"
And taught his Romans, in much better metre,
"To laugh at fools who put their trust in Peter."
But Horace, sir, was delicate, was nice;
Bubo observes," he lashed no sort of vice:
Horace would say, Sir Billy served the crown,
Blunt could do business, Huggins3 knew the town;
In Sappho touch the failings of the sex,

In rev'rend bishops note some small neglects,
And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing,
Who cropped our ears, and sent them to the king.
His sly, polite, insinuating style

Could please at court, and make Augustus smile :
An artful manager, that crept between

1 These two lines are from Horace; and the only lines that are so in the whole poem: being meant to give a handle to that which follows in the character of an impertinent censurer

"'Tis all from Horace," &c.-Pope.

2 Some guilty person very fond of making such an observation.Pope.

3 Formerly jailor of the Fleet Prison, enriched himself by many exactions, for which he was tried and expelled.-Pope.

4 Said to be executed by the captain of a Spanish ship on one Jenkins, a captain of an English one. He cut off his ears, and bid him carry them to the king his master.-Pope.

Seen him, encumbered with the venal tribe,
Smile without art, and win without a bribe.
Would he oblige me? let me only find,

He does not think me what he thinks mankind.
Come, come, at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt;
The only difference is I dare laugh out.

F. Why yes with Scripture still you may be free; A horse-laugh, if you please, at honesty;

7

A joke on Jekyl, or some odd old Whig
Who never changed his principle, or wig :
A patriot is a fool in ev'ry age,

Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the stage:
These nothing hurts; they keep their fashion still,
And wear their strange old virtue, as they will.
If any ask you, "Who's the man, so near

His prince, that writes in verse, and has his ear?"
Why, answer, Lyttleton, and I'll engage
The worthy youth shall ne'er be in a rage;

1 "Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico
Tangit, et admissus circum præcordia ludit."-Pers.

A metaphor peculiarly appropriated to a certain person in power. -Pope.

2 This appellation was generally given to those in opposition to the court. Though some of them (which our author hints at) had views too mean and interested to deserve that name.-Pope.

3 A phrase by common use appropriated to the first minister.Pope.

4 Sir Robert Walpole.

5 Sir Robert Walpole was in private life very pleasant and agreeable. See the "Memoirs " of the Pope for his cause of gratitude to Sir R. Walpole.

That "every man had his price."

7 Sir Joseph Jekyl, Master of the Rolls, a true Whig in his principles, and a man of the utmost probity. He sometimes voted against the court, which drew upon him the laugh here described of one who bestowed it equaliy upon religion and honesty. He died a few months after the publication of this poem.-Pope.

8 George Lyttleton, secretary to the Prince of Wales, distinguished both for his writings and speeches in the spirit of liberty.-Pope.

But were his verses vile, his whisper base,
You'd quickly find him in Lord Fanny's case.
Sejanus, Wolsey,' hurt not honest Fleury,"
But well may put some statesmen in a fury.
Laugh then at any, but at fools or foes;
These you but anger, and you mend not those.
Laugh at your friends, and, if your friends are sore,
So much the better, you may laugh the more.
To vice and folly to confine the jest,

Sets half the world, God knows, against the rest;
Did not the sneer of more impartial men
At sense and virtue, balance all agen
Judicious wits spread wide the ridicule,
And charitably comfort knave and fool.

P. Dear sir, forgive the prejudice of youth:
Adieu distinction, satire, warmth, and truth!
Come, harmless characters, that no one hit;
Come, Henley's oratory, Osborne's wit!
The honey dropping from Favonio's tongue,
The flowers of Bubo, and the flow of Yonge!
The gracious dew' of pulpit eloquence,
And all the well-whipped cream of courtly sense,
That first was H-vy's, F's next and then
The S- -te's, and then H- -vy's once again.

6

O come, that easy Ciceronian style,

4

So Latin, yet so English all the while,
As, though the pride of Middleton' and Bland,
All boys may read, and girls may understand!?
Then might I sing, without the least offence,

1 The one the wicked minister of Tiberius; the other, of Henry VIII. The writers against the court usually bestowed these and other odious names on the minister, without distinction, and in the most injurious manner. See Dial. ii. ver. 137.-Pope.

2 Cardinal; and minister to Louis XV. It was a patriot fashion, at that time, to cry up his wisdom d honesty.-Pope.

3 See them in their places in the "Dunciad."-Pope.

4 Bubo-Bubb Doddington-Sir William Yonge.-Bowles.

6 Alludes to some court sermons, and florid panegyrical speeches; particularly one very full of puerilities and flatteries; which afterwards got into an address in the same pretty style; and was lastly served up in an epitaph, between Latin and English, published by its author.-Pope.

6 Foxe.

7 Dr. Conyers Middleton wrote the "Life of Cicero," for which he obtained a great sum of money. He was a friend of Lord Hervey, Pope's foe.

8 Dr. Bland was Master of Eton, and a friend of Sir Robert Walpole's.

9 Full of school phrases and Anglicisms,--Warburton,

F. Why so? if satire knows its time and place,
You still may lash the greatest-in disgrace :
For merit will by turns forsake them all;
Would you know when? exactly when they fall.
But let all satire in all changes spare
Immortal Selkirk, and grave De-

-re,

Silent and soft, as saints remove to heaven,
All ties dissolved and every sin forgiven,
These may some gentle ministerial wing
Receive, and place for ever near a king!
There, where no passion, pride, or shame transport,
Lulled with the sweet nepenthe of a court;

There, where no father's, brother's, friend's disgrace
Once break their rest, or stir them from their place :
But passed the sense of human miseries,
All tears are wiped for ever from all eyes;

No cheek is known to blush, no heart to throb,
Save when they lose a question, or a job.

[glory,

P. Good heav'n forbid, that I should blast their Who know how like Whig ministers to Tory, [vext, And, when three sovereigns died, could scarce be Considering what a gracious prince was next. Have I, in silent wonder, seen such things As pride in slaves, and avarice in kings; And at a peer, or peeress, shall I fret, Who starves a sister, or forswears a debt?

1 A cant term of politics at the time.-Warburton.

2 Queen Consort to King George II. She died in 1737. Her death gave occasion, as is observed above, to many indiscreet and mean performances unworthy of her memory, whose last moments manifested the utmost courage and resolution.-Pope.

3 This was bitter sarcasm. Caroline hated Frederick Prince of Wales, and refused to see him on her deathbed.

4 A title given that lord by King James II. He was of the bedchamber to King William; he was so to King George I.; he was so to King George II. This lord was very skillful in all the forms of the house, in which he discharged himself with great gravity. Pope alludes to Charles Hamilton, created Earl Selkirk, 1687.

Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast;
But shall the dignity of vice be lost?
Ye gods! shall Cibber's son, without rebuke,
Swear like a lord, or Rich' out-w-

a duke?

A favourite's porter with his master vie,

Be bribed as often, and as often lie?

Shall Ward draw contracts with a statseman's skill? Or Japhet pocket, like his grace, a will?

Is it for Bond, or Peter, (paltry things)

2

To pay their debts, or keep their faith, like kings? If Blount dispatched himself, he played the man, And so mayest thou, illustrious Passeran!

But shall a printer, weary of his life,

3

Learn, from their books, to hang himself and wife?*
This, this, my friend, I cannot, must not bear;
Vice thus abused, demands a nation's care;
This calls the Church to deprecate our sin,
And hurls the thunder of the laws on gin."
Let modest Foster, if he will, excel
Ten metropolitans in preaching well;
A simple Quaker, or a Quaker's wife,'
Outdo Landaff in doctrine,-yea in life:
Let humble Allen,' with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Virtue may choose the high or low degree,
"Tis just alike to virtue, and to me;
Dwell in a monk, or light upon a king,
She's still the same, beloved, contented thing.

1 Two players; look for them in the "Dunciad,"-Pope.

2 Author of an impious and foolish book called "The Oracles of Reason," who being in love with a near kinswoman of his, and rejected, gave himself a stab in the arm, as pretending to kill himself, of the consequence of which he really died.-Pope.

He was the younger son of Sir Henry Blount, and the author of an infidel treatise, &c.-Warton.

3 Author of another book of the same stamp, called "A Philosophical Discourse on Death," being a defence of suicide. He was a nobleman of Piedmont, banished from his country for his impieties. This unhappy man at last died a penitent.

4 A fact that happened in London a few years past. The unhappy man left behind him a paper justifying his action by the reasonings of some of these authors.--Pope.

5 The use of gin was restrained by act of Parliament 1736.

6 An eloquent and persuasive preacher, who wrote an excellent

defence of Christianity against Tindal.- Warton.

7 Mrs. Drummond, celebrated in her time.- Warton.

8 The bishop of Llandaff at this time was Dr. Matthias Mawson, Master also of Benet College, Cambridge.

9 Ralph Allen, of Prior Park, Pope's great friend and correspondent,