But show'd his Breeding and his Wit; "Consider, Mice, like Men, must die, The veriest Hermit in the Nation tion. 185 Away they come, thro' thick and thin, 204 210 Was ever such a happy Swain? 215 GAIN AGAI BOOK IV. ODE I. TO VENUS1. new Tumults in my breast? Ah spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest! I am not now, alas! the man As in the gentle Reign of My Queen Anne. Ah sound no more thy soft alarms, Nor circle sober fifty with thy Charms. Mother too fierce of dear Desires! Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires. To Number five direct your Doves, There spread round MURRAY all your blooming Loves; Noble and young, who strikes the heart With ev'ry sprightly, ev'ry decent part; Equal, the injur'd to defend, To charm the Mistress, or to fix the Friend. 1 It may be worth observing, that the measure Pope has here chosen is precisely the same that Ben Jonson used in a translation of this very Ode. Warton. 5 10 2 The number of Murray's lodgings in King's Bench Walks. Bowles. [See Imitations of Horace, Bk. 1. Ep. VI. 49, note.] "I wonder what some people mean; 66 My Lord and he are grown so great, Always together, tête à tête; 66 106 What, they admire him for his jokes"See but the fortune of some Folks!" There flies about a strange report Of some Express arriv'd at Court; I'm stopp'd by all the Fools I meet, And catechis'd in ev'ry street. "You, Mr Dean, frequent the Great; "Inform us, will the Emp'ror treat? "Or do the Prints and Papers lie?" 115 Faith, Sir, you know as much as I.' "Ah Doctor, how you love to jest? """Tis now no secret' -'I protest ''Tis one to me'- "Then tell us, pray, "When are the Troops to have their pay?" And, tho' I solemnly declare 120 I know no more than my Lord Mayor, They stand amaz'd, and think me grown The closest mortal ever known. over, like Swift, from the Whigs to the Tories, and was one of the members of the Scriblerus Club. He died in 1717; and Pope published his poems in 1722, with a dedication to the Earl of Oxford (v. infra, p. 441). Parnell wrote the Life of Homer for Pope's Iliad, and translated the Batrachomyomachia. His biography was afterwards written by Goldsmith.] [Charles Fox, on a summer's day at St Ann's, declared it the right time for lying in the shade with a book. Why with a book?' asked Sheridan.] 2 ['(For one whole day) we have had nothing for dinner but mutton-broth, beans and bacon, and a barn-door fowl.' Pope to Swift (from Dawley), June 28, 1728.] 3 [The City Mouse and Country Mouse was written by Prior and Charles Montagu (afterwards Earl of Halifax) in 1688, in ridicule of Dryden's Hind and Panther. The reason why Pope was so sparing in his praise of Prior, is found by Warton in the satirical epigrams written by Prior on Atterbury. 'Dan is the old familiar abbreviation for dominus; Douglas speaks of 'Dan Chaucer;' and Prior himself, in his Alma, facetiously mentions 'Dan Pope.'] But show'd his Breeding and his Wit; He did his best to seem to eat, And cry'd, "I vow you're mighty neat. "But Lord, my Friend, this savage Scene! 175 "For God's sake, come, and live with Men: "Consider, Mice, like Men, must die, "Both small and great, both you and I: "Then spend your life in Joy and Sport, "(This doctrine, Friend, I learnt at Court)." 180 The veriest Hermit in the Nation May yield, God knows, to strong temptation. 185 Away they come, thro' thick and thin, 204 210 Was ever such a happy Swain? He stuffs and swills, and stuffs again. "I'm quite asham'd-'tis mighty rude "To eat so much-but all's so good. "I have a thousand thanks to give"My Lord alone knows how to live." No sooner said, but from the Hall Rush Chaplain, Butler, Dogs and all: "A Rat, a Rat! clap to the door"The Cat comes bouncing on the floor. O for the heart of Homer's Mice, Or Gods to save them in a trice! (It was by Providence they think, For your damn'd Stucco has no chink.) "An't please your Honour, quoth the Peasant, 215 BOOK IV. ODE I. TO VENUS1. GAIN? new Tumults in my breast? Ah spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest! I am not now, alas! the man Ah sound no more thy soft alarms, As in the gentle Reign of My Queen Anne. Nor circle sober fifty with thy Charms. Mother too fierce of dear Desires! Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires. To Number five direct your Doves, There spread round MURRAY all your blooming Loves; Noble and young, who strikes the heart With ev'ry sprightly, ev'ry decent part; Equal, the injur'd to defend, To charm the Mistress, or to fix the Friend. 1 It may be worth observing, that the measure Pope has here chosen is precisely the same that Ben Jonson used in a translation of this very Ode. Warton. 5 IO 2 The number of Murray's lodgings in King's Bench Walks. Bowles. [See Imitations of Horace, Bk. 1. Ep. VI. 49, note.] He, with a hundred Arts refin'd, Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind: Make but his Riches equal to his Wit1. (Thy Grecian Form) and Chloe lend the Face: Sacred to social life and social love3, Shall glitter o'er the pendant green, Where Thames reflects the visionary scene: Shall call the smiling Loves, and young Desires; There Youths and Nymphs, in concert gay, With me, alas! those joys are o'er; For me, the vernal garlands bloom no more.. The still-believing, still-renew'd desire; Adieu, the heart-expanding bowl, And all the kind Deceivers of the soul! But why? ah tell me, ah too dear3! Steals down my cheek th' involuntary Tear? Why words so flowing, thoughts so free, Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee? Absent I follow thro' th' extended Dream; Now, now I seize, I clasp thy charms, And now you burst (ah cruel!) from my arms; Or softly glide by the Canal, Now, shown by Cynthia's silver ray, And now, on rolling waters snatch'd away. PART OF THE NINTH ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK 4. 40 5 Sages and Chiefs long since had birth And Those, new Heav'ns and Systems fram'd.. Vain was the Chief's, the Sage's pride! IO 135 EPISTLES. EPISTLE TO ROBERT EARL OF OXFORD, AND EARL MORTIMER 1. S UCH were the notes thy once-lov'd Poet sung, 'Till Death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue. Oh just beheld, and lost! admir'd and mourn'd! For him, thou oft hast bid the World attend, Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear 1 Epist. to Robert Earl of Oxford,] This Epistle was sent to the Earl of Oxford with Dr Parnell's Poems published by our Author, after the said Earl's Imprisonment in the Tower, and Retreat into the Country, in the Year 1721. P. [As to Parnell v. ante p. 437. Robert Harley, though descended from a Puritan family and in the early part of his career an extreme Whig, had, by a transition not unparalleled in political history, become the leader of the Country Party; and was chosen_Speaker of the House of Commons in 1701. In 1704 he became Secretary of State in the Godolphin Ministry, and after being expelled from office succeeded in obtaining the 5 10 Chancellorship of the Exchequer by employing 'female intrigue and raising the cry of the Church in danger.' (Macknight.) He subsequently was created Earl of Oxford and made Lord Treasurer; and it was at this time that he principally availed himself of the services of Swift and his friends. The rivalry between himself and Bolingbroke ended in his downfall immediately after the death of Queen Anne; in 1716, he was impeached for treasonable intrigues with the Jacobites during his tenure of power; and confined in the Tower. In 1717 the trial was abandoned; and he died in retirement in 1724.] 2 [Verg. Æn. VI. 870.] |