At once his own bright prospect to be blest,
And strongest motive to assist the rest.

Self-love, thus push'd to Social, to Divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbor's blessing thine.
355 Is this too little for the boundless heart?
Extend it, let thy enemies have part:

Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense, In one close system of benevolence:

Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree,

360 And height of bliss but height of charity.

God loves from whole to parts: but human soul Must rise from individual to the whole.

Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake;
365 The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads;

Friend, parent, neighbor, first it will embrace;
His country next; and next all human race;
Wide and more wide, the o'erflowings of the mind
70 Take every creature in, of every kind;

Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest, And Heav'n beholds its image in his breast.

Come, then, my friend! my genius, come along, O master of the poet and the song!

375 And, while the muse now stoops or now ascends,
To man's low passions or their glorious ends,
Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise;
Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe :
Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease,
Intent to reason, or polite to please.

380

Oh! while along the stream of time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame,

285 Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale? When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose, Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes, Shall then this verse to future age pretend 390 Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend? That, urged by thee, I turn'd the tuneful art From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart; For Wit's false mirror held up Nature's light; Show'd erring pride, Whatever is, is right; 395 That Reason, Passion, answer one great aim; That true Self-love and Social are the same; That Virtue only makes our bliss below; And all our knowledge is, ourselves to know. 389. Pretend, make plain.

EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT.1

PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

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) 2 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 anything pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the Truth and the Sentiment; and if anything 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

1 John Arbuthnot (1675-1735) was an eminent physician, scholar, and satirist, and an intimate friend of Pope, Gay, and Swift. "He has more wit than we all have," said Swift; "and more humanity than wit."

2 Of these papers the former was said to be a joint production of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Lord Hervey; the latter was written by Hervey alone. See Carruthers' Life of Pope, ch. viii.

make not as free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage, and honor, 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 likeness.

P. SHUT, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd, I said,

Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
The Dog-star rages! nay, 't is past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:

5 Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, thro' my Grot they glide;
By land, by water, they renew the charge;
10 They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
No place is sacred, not the church is free;
Ev'n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me;
Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme.
Happy to catch me just at dinner-time.

15 Is there a Parson, much bemus'd in beer,
A maudlin Poetess, a rhyming Peer,

A Clerk, foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross ?
Is there, who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls

1. John Searl, Pope's body-servant for many years.

8. An artificial grotto, constructed under a road, was one of Pope's fanciful improvements of his little estate at Twickennam. Twitenham or Twit'nam (line 21) are forms of the name affected by Pope.

13. The Mint, a place to which insolvent debtors retired, to enjoy an illegal protection, which they were there suffered to afford one another, from the persecution of their creditors. WARBURTON.

20 With desp'rate charcoal round his darken'd walls? All fly to TWIT’NAM, and in humble strain Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain. Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws, Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause: 25 Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope, And curses Wit, and Poetry, and Pope.

Friend to my Life! (which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song)
What Drop or Nostrum can this plague remove?
30 Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love?
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped.
If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead.
Seiz'd and tied down to judge, how wretched I!
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie.
35 To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace,
And to be grave, exceeds all pow'r of face.
I sit with sad civility, I read

With honest anguish, and an aching head;
And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,

40 This saving counsel, "Keep your piece nine years." "Nine years!" cries he, who high in Drury-lane, Lull'd by soft zephyrs thro' the broken pane, Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before Term ends, Oblig'd by hunger, and request of friends:

45 "The piece, you think, is incorrect? why, take it, I'm all submission, what you'd have it, make it.” Three things another's modest wishes bound, My friendship, and a Prologue, and ten pound.

23. Arthur Moore, a prominent politician, whose son's attempts at verse aroused Pope's scorn.

40. Nonumque prematur in annum. Horace, De Arte Poetica, 388.

43. Term, the London "season."