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Still follow Sense, of every art the soul; Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole,

Spontaneous beauties all around advance, Start ev'n from difficulty, strike from chance:

Nature shall join you; time shall make it grow

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A work to wonder at-perhaps a Stowe. Without it, proud Versailles! thy glory falls,

And Nero's terraces desert their walls: The vast parterres a thousand hands shall make,

Lo! Cobham comes, and floats them with a lake;

Or cut wide views thro' mountains to the plain,

You'll wish your hill or shelter'd seat again.

Ev'n in an ornament its place remark,
Nor in a hermitage set Dr. Clarke.

Behold Villario's ten years' toil com-
plete:

His quincunx darkens, his espaliers meet, The wood supports the plain, the parts unite,

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And strength of shade contends with strength of light;

A waving glow the bloomy beds display,
Blushing in bright diversities of day,
With silver quiv'ring rills meander'd o'er —
Enjoy them, you! Villario can no more:
Tired of the scene parterres and fountains
yield,

He finds at last he better likes a field.

Thro' his young woods how pleased 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.
His son's fine Taste an opener vista loves,
Foe to the dryads of his father's groves;
One boundless green or flourish'd carpet
views,

With all the mournful family of yews;
The thriving plants, ignoble broomsticks

made,

Now sweep those alleys they were born to shade.

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sees,

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A puny insect shiv'ring at a breeze!
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!
The whole a labour'd quarry above ground.
Two Cupids squirt before: a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the northern
wind.

His gardens next your admiration call;
On every side you look, behold the wall!
No pleasing intricacies intervene;

No artful wildness to perplex the scene; Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,

And half the platform just reflects the other.

The suff'ring eye inverted Nature sees, 119 Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees; With here a fountain never to be play'd, And there a summer-house that knows no shade,

Here Amphitrite sails thro' myrtle bowers, There gladiators fight or die in flowers; Unwater'd, see the drooping seahorse

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That summons you to all the pride of prayer.

Light quirks of music, broken and unev'n,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav'n:
On painted ceilings you devoutly stare,
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or La-
guerre,

On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,
And bring all paradise before your eye:
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions Hell to ears polite. 150
But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner
call:

A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall; The rich buffet well-colour'd serpents grace,

And gaping Tritons spew to wash your

face.

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third epistle treated the extremes of Avarice and Profusion, and the fourth took up one particular branch of the latter, namely the vanity of expense in people of wealth and quality, and was therefore corollary to the third; so this treats of one circumstance of that vanity, as it appears in the common collections of old coins; and is therefore a corollary to the fourth.'

See the wild waste of all-devouring years! How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears! With nodding arches, broken temples spread,

The very tombs now vanish'd like their dead!

Imperial wonders raised on nations spoil'd, Where mix'd with slaves the groaning martyr toil'd;

Huge theatres, that now unpeopled woods, Now drain'd a distant country of her floods; Fanes, which admiring Gods with pride

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Can taste no pleasure since his shield was scour'd;

And Curio, restless by the fair one's side, Sighs for an Otho, and neglects his bride. Theirs is the vanity, the learning thine: Touch'd by thy hand, again Rome's glories shine;

Her Gods and godlike Heroes rise to view, And all her faded garlands bloom anew. Nor blush these studies thy regard engage: These pleas'd the fathers of poetic rage; 50 The verse and sculpture bore an equal part, And art reflected images to art.

Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim,

Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame?
In living medals see her wars enroll'd,
And vanquish'd realms supply recording
gold?

Here, rising bold, the patriot's honest face,
There warriors frowning in historic brass.
Then future ages with delight shall see
How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's looks

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Ennobled by himself, by all approv'd And prais'd, unenvied by the Muse he lov'd.'

UNIVERSAL PRAYER

DEO OPT. MAX.

This was written in 1738 to correct the im. pression of fatalism which Warburton's ingenious exposition had failed to remove. Pope had really as little mind for dogma as most poets; but these verses represent what, in view of the instructions of Bolingbroke, corrected by Warburton, he now believed himself to believe.

FATHER of all! in ev'ry age,
In ev'ry clime ador'd,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Cause, least understood,
Who all my sense confin'd

To know but this, that thou art good,
And that myself am blind:

Yet gave me, in this dark estate,

To see the good from ill; And binding Nature fast in Fate, Left free the human Will.

What Conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do;
This teach me more than Hell to shun,
That more than Heav'n pursue.

What blessings thy free bounty gives
Let me not cast away;

For God is paid when man receives;
T'enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to earth's contracted span

Thy goodness let me bound, Or think thee Lord alone of man, When thousand worlds are round.

Let not this weak unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge thy foe.

If I am right, thy grace impart, Still in the right to stay;

If I am wrong, O teach my heart To find that better way.

Save me alike from foolish Pride
Or impious Discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught thy goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see:
That mercy I to others show,

That mercy show to me.

Mean tho' I am, not wholly so,
Since quicken'd by thy breath;
O lead me, whereso'er I
go,
Thro' this day's life or death!

This day be bread and peace my lot:
All else beneath the sun
Thou know'st if best bestow'd or not,
And let thy will be done.

To Thee, whose temple is all Space,
Whose altar earth, sea, skies,
One chorus let all Being raise,
All Nature's incense rise!

SATIRES

The Satires retain nearly the order of their original publication. They appeared between 1733 and 1738. It is said that Bolingbroke suggested the translation of the First Satire of

EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT

BEING THE PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES

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ADVERTISEMENT

This paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some Persons of Rank and Fortune (the authors of 'Verses to the Imitator of Horace,' and of an Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton Court') to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my Writings (of which, being public, the Public is judge), but my Person, Morals, and Family; whereof, to those who know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so awkward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to this epistle. If it have any thing pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the Truth and the Sentiment; and if any thing offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious or the ungenerous.

Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and they may escape being laughed at if they please.

I would have some of them know it was owing to the request of the learned and candid Friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage and honour on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a nameless character can never be found out but by its truth and like

ness.

P. 'SHUT, shut the door, good John!' fatigued, I said;

Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.'

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