With a single hair.] In allusion to those lines of Hudibras, applied to the same purpose,

'And tho' it be a two-foot Trout, 'Tis with a single hair pull'd out.'

Ver. 45.

xi. P. [vv. 794-5.]

Ver. 119.

Warburton.

Ver. 35. So spoke the Dame,] It is a verse

The pow'rs gave ear.] Virg. Æn. frequently repeated in Homer after any speech,
'So spoke and all the Heroes applauded.' P.
Ver. 53. Triumphant Umbriel] Minerva
in like manner, during the battle of Ulysses with
the Suitors in Odyss. perches on a beam of the
roof to behold it. P.

-'clypei dominus septemplicis Ajax.' Ovid. Warburton [Metam. lib. xiii. v. 2.]

Ver. 121. About the silver bound.] In allusion to the shield of Achilles,

'Thus the broad shield complete the Artist
crown'd,

With his last band, and pour'd the Ocean round:
In living Silver seem'd the waves to roll,
And beat the Buckler's verge, and bound the
whole.' Warburton. [Iliad bk. xviii.]

Ver. 64. Those eyes are made so killing.] The words of a Song in the Opera of Camilla.

P.

Ver. 65. Thus on Maander's flow'ry margin lies]

'Sic ubi fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis, Ad vada Mæandri concinit albus olor.'

Ver. 72.

xii. P.

Ver. 83.

Ov. Ep. P. [Heroid. Ep. vii. v. 2.]
Vid. Homer II. viii. and Virg. Æn.

The Gnomes direct,] These two lines added for the above reason. P.

Ver. 89. The same, his ancient personage to deck,] In imitation of the progress of Agamemnon's sceptre in Homer, Il. ii. P.

Ver. 128.

'Flammiferumque trahens spatioso limite crinem Ovid. P. [Metam. lib. xv. vv. 849-50.]

'Dum juga montis aper, fluvios dum piscis ama- Stella micat.' bit,

ELEGY

TO THE

MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY1

[This Elegy was first published in 1717, but doubtless written earlier. After endless enquiries and conjectures as to the 'Unfortunate Lady' had failed in fixing her identity, it was pointed out that in certain letters of Pope, described by him in the table of contents as relating to an Unfortunate Lady,' we are introduced to a Mrs W. who had endured a series of hardships and misfortunes. This Mrs W. has been proved to have been a Mrs Weston (by birth a Miss Gage, the sister of the first Viscount Gage and of the 'modest Gage' of Moral Essays, Ep. III. v. 128), who was soon after her marriage separated from her husband. Her case was warmly taken up by Pope, by whose aid the quarrel was adjusted, though with small thanks to him for interposing. Buckingham's lines,' says Carruthers, who discusses the question at length in his Life of Pope, Ch. II., suggested the outline of the picture, Mrs Weston's misfortunes and the poet's admiration of her gave it life and warmth, and imagination did the rest. But even if the situation upon which the poem is based were real instead of fictitious, Dr Johnson's accusation against it as attempting a defence of suicide would remain unwarranted. In execution this elegy ranks with Pope's most consummate efforts, in pathetic power it stands almost alone among his works.]

p. 206.

WHAT beck'ning ghost, along the moon-light shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?

'Tis she!—but why that bleeding bosom gor'd,
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?

Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,

Is it, in heav'n, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,

To act a Lover's or a Roman's part?

Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

Why bade ye else, ye Pow'rs! her soul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
Ambition first sprung from your blest_abodes;
The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods;
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breasts of Kings and Heroes glows.
Most souls, 'tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull sullen pris'ners in the body's cage:

See the Duke of Buckingham's verses to a Lady designing to retire into a Monastery compared with Mr Pope's Letters to several Ladies, She seems to be the same person whose unfortunate death is the subject of this poem. P. If this note was written by Pope (of which we have strong doubts), it must have been written purely for mystification and deception. The

10

Duke's verses were first published in Tonson's Miscellany for 1709, when he was in his sixtieth year and married to his third wife! They were, most likely, a much earlier production, and this renders it in the highest degree improbable that the same lady should have also been commemorated by Pope, who was thirty-seven years younger than his friend. Carruthers.

Dim lights of life, that burn a length of years
Useless, unseen, as lamps in sepulchres;
Like Eastern Kings a lazy state they keep,
And close confin'd to their own palace, sleep.
From these perhaps (ere nature bade her die1)
Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky.
As into air the purer spirits flow,

And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below;
So flew the soul to its congenial place,
Nor left one virtue to redeem her Race.

But thou, false guardian of a charge too good,
Thou, mean deserter of thy brother's blood!
See on these ruby lips the trembling breath,
These cheeks now fading at the blast of death:
Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before,
And those love-darting eyes must roll no more.
Thus, if Eternal justice rules the ball,

Thus shall your wives, and thus your children fall;
On all the line a sudden vengeance waits,
And frequent herses shall besiege your gates.
There passengers shall stand, and pointing say,
(While the long fun'rals blacken all the way)

Lo these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd,
And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield.
Thus unlamented pass the proud away,

The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day!

So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others good, or melt at others woe.
What can atone (oh ever-injur'd shade!)

Thy fate unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid?
No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear
Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier.
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd!
What tho' no friends in sable weeds appear,
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year,
And bear about the mockery of woe

To midnight dances, and the public show?
What tho' no weeping Loves thy ashes grace,
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face??
What tho' no sacred earth allow thee room,
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb?
Yet shall thy grave with rising flow'rs be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast:
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow,
There the first roses of the year shall blow;

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30

40

50

03

[Compare Byron's Childe Harold, canto iv. stanza cii. ]

2 [It has been fairly asked whether the poet is not in these lines guilty of an anticlimax.]

While Angels with their silver wings o'ershade
The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made.

So peaceful rests, without a stone, a name,
What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame.
How lov'd, how honour'd once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee,
'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!
Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung,
Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
Ev'n he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays,
Shall shortly want the gen'rous tear he pays;
Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part,
And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart,
Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er,

The Muse forgot, and thou be lov'd no more!

PROLOGUE

ΤΟ

MR ADDISON'S TRAGEDY OF CATO.

[Addison's Cato which the author had kept by him in an unfinished state for seven years was produced at Drury Lane on April 14th, 1713; eleven days after the news had reached London of the definitive conclusion of the Peace of Utrecht. The Whigs attempted to identify Cato with the faithful remnant of their own party which still upheld the glories and liberties of the past; while the Tories sagaciously refused to recognise the analogy, and vied with the Whigs in applauding the play, Bolingbroke presenting Booth, who performed Cato, with fifty guineas 'in acknowledgment for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator.' Addison disclaimed all political design, and waived the profits of the performances of the tragedy which continued for a month in London, and then recommenced at Oxford. See Cibber's account in the Apology. The epilogue was written by Garth, who dwelt chiefly on those amatory episodes in the play, which Schlegel has so successfully ridiculed. As to the relations between Pope and Addison see Introductory Memoir.]

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius, and to mend the heart;
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold:
For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage,
Commanding tears to stream thro' ev'ry age;
Tyrants no more their savage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our author shuns by vulgar springs to move
The hero's glory, or the virgin's love;

In pitying Love, we but our weakness show,
And wild Ambition well deserves its woe.
Here tears shall flow from a more gen'rous cause,
Such Tears as Patriots shed for dying Laws:
He bids your breasts with ancient ardour rise,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes.
Virtue confess'd in human shape he draws,
What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was :
No common object to your sight displays,
But what with pleasure Heav'n itself surveys1,
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling, with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little Senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his Country's cause?
Who sees him act, but envies ev'ry deed?

Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Ev'n when proud Cæsar 'midst triumphal cars,

The spoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
Ignobly vain and impotently great,

Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in state;
As her dead Father's rev'rend image past,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercast;
The Triumph ceas'd, tears gush'd from ev'ry eye;
The World's great Victor pass'd unheeded by;
Her last good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And honour'd Cæsar less than Cato's sword.
Britons, attend: be worth like this approv'd2,
And show, you have the virtue to be mov'd.
With honest scorn the first fam'd Cato view'd

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30

Rome learning arts from Greece, whom she subdu'd;
Your scene precariously subsists too long
On French translation, and Italian song.

40

Dare to have sense yourselves; assert the stage,
Be justly warm'd with your own_native_rage:
Such Plays alone should win a British ear,
As Cato's self had not disdain'd to hear 3.

1 But what with pleasure] This alludes to a famous passage of Seneca, which Mr. Addison afterwards used as a motto to his play, when it was printed. Warburton. [It is taken from Sen. de Divin. Prov. and runs as follows: 'Ecce spectaculum dignum, ad quod respiciat, intentus operi suo, Deus! Ecce par Deo dignum, vir fortis cum malâ fortunâ compositus! Non video, inquam, quid habeat in terris Jupiter pulchrius, si convertere animum velit, quam ut spectet Catonem, jam paribus non semel fractis, nihilominus inter ruinas publicas erectum.']

Britons, attend] Mr. Pope had written it arise, in the spirit of Poetry and Liberty; but Mr. Addison frighten'd at so daring an expression, which, he thought, squinted at rebellion, would have it alter'd, in the spirit of Prose and Politics, to attend. Warburton.

3 As Cato's self, etc.] This alludes to the famous story of his going into the Theatre, and immediately coming out again, related by Martial. Warburton. [Martial. Lib. 1. Epigr. 1.]