SATIRES AND EPISTLES OF HORACE IMITATED. ADVERTISEMENT. THE Occasion of publishing these Imitations was the clamour raised on some of my Epistles. An Answer from Horace was both more full, and of more Dignity, than any I could have made in my own person; and the Example of much greater Freedom in so eminent a Divine as Dr Donne, seem'd a proof with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat Vice or Folly, in ever so low, or ever so high a Station. Both these Authors were acceptable to the Princes and Ministers under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr Donne I versified, at the desire of the Earl of Oxford while he was Lord Treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury who had been Secretary of State; neither of whom look'd upon a Satire on Vicious Courts as any Reflection on those they serv'd in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error, than that which Fools are so apt to fall into, and Knaves with good reason to encourage, the mistaking a Satirist for a Libeller; whereas to a true Satirist nothing is so odious as a Libeller, for the same reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a Hypocrite. Uni aequus Virtuti atque ejus Amicis. P. ['Whoever,' says Warburton, 'expects a paraphrase of Horace, or a faithful copy of his genius, or manner of writing in these Imitations, will be much disappointed. Our author uses the Roman poet for little more than his canvas; and if the old design or colouring chance to suit his purpose, it is well; if not, he employs his own, without scruple or ceremony.' 'He deemed it more modest,' felicitously adds the same authority, 'to give the name of Imitations to his Satires, than, like Despreaux' [Boileau], 'to give the name of Satires to Imitations.' 'In two large columns,' wrote a less kindly critic, from whom impartiality could hardly be expected, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (alluding to the juxtaposition of the Latin and English texts), — 'In two large columns, on thy motley page And on the other how he never wrote: Who can believe, who views the bad and good, That spirit he pretends to imitate, Than heretofore the Greek he did translate;' proceeded, from this pleasant allusion to Pope's Homer, to explain the moral obliquities of her detractor by his defects of person, birth and nature. It was not to be expected that Sappho would sing the praises of these Imitations; and the question remains, to what species of composition they belong, and what rank they hold among efforts of that species. They are not Translations; neither of the close nor of the loose kind, and are therefore at once removed from comparison even with Dryden's magnificent versions, splendid in their very faults, of Juvenal. Nor do they properly bear the name of Imitations; for an Imitation of an earlier author is an attempt to produce a poem in his style and manner, though not necessarily on the same subject. Thomson's Castle of Indolence is an Imitation of Spenser; Johnson's London is an Imitatión of Boileau, or, indeed, of Oldham and of Pope himself. But Pope differs quite sufficiently in manner and style from Horace to place his so-called 'Imitations' out of the category to which they assume to belong. They are rather Adaptations, or as Warburton has correctly suggested, Parodies; in other words, they take as much of the ancient form as suits the purposes of the modern poet, they occasionally cling closely to its outlines, occasionly desert them altogether. It was the form which came most readily, and originally almost accidentally, to Pope's hands; and which he justly thought himself free to use in his own way. The example of the First Epistle of the Second Book will best illustrate these remarks. In Pope's 'Imitation' the original is here turned upside down, and what in Horace is a panegyric, in the English poem becomes a covert satire. As Pope meant to suggest that George II. was a parody on Augustus, so his Epistle is a parody on, and not an imitation of, the Latin poem. It is therefore obvious that any comparison or contrast between the Latin and English poets, interesting and suggestive as it doubtless is from other points of view, is idle with reference to the relation between these 'Imitations' and their 'originals. Warburton is true to his self-imposed task of vindicating the Christian orthodoxy of Pope, in pointing out, ever and anon, passages where the latter has substituted for the Epicurean heresies of the genial Roman turns of thought more becoming the friend of an embryo bishop. Horace designed his Satires and Epistles as humorous sketches of society, seasoned with such personal allusions as appeared necessary to enliven his pictures, or as suggested themselves to a ready wit which can never teach a lesson without applying it. What with him was ornament, with Pope was purpose. Whatever may have been the philosophical system with which Warburton laboured so hard to credit him, the centre of that system was Pope; nor were his friends and foes so much introduced into these Imitations to point morals, as the morals preached to introduce his friends and foes, and himself. The ease with which Pope moved in a form which imposed no restraint on his wit, makes these 'Imitations' the most enjoyable of all his productions. He closed the last Dialogue of the 'Epilogue' with an announcement of his resolution never to publish any more poems of the kind. Yet it was at the time (1741) when he was meditating a new Dunciad that he informed Lord Marchmont that uneasy desire of fame' and 'keen resentment of injuries' were 'both asleep together;' and even if we regard as spurious the fragment of an unpublished Satire entitled 1740,' found among his papers by Bolingbroke, and full of personal allusions to 'Bub,' and 'Hervey' and others, we may remain in doubt, whether had he lived he would or could have adhered to his determination. But he had done enough to establish himself as the unapproached master of personal satire in a poetic form; and to damn a multitude of victims, helpless against the strokes of genius, to everlasting fame.] OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE SATIRE I. TO MR FORTESCUE1 [FIRST published in 1733 under the title of Dialogue between Alexander Pope, of Twickenham, on the one part, and the learned counsel on the other. In Horace's Satire the interlocutors are the poet and G. Trebatius Testa, the friend of Caesar and of Cicero (among whose correspondents he appears). It forms a kind of introduction to Horace's Second Book of Satires.] P. HERE are, (I scarce can think it, but am told,) ΤΗ There are, to whom my Satire seems too bold: And something said of Chartres much too rough. 2 Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day. I come to Counsel learned in the Law: F. I'd write no more. P. Not write? but then I think, F. You could not do a worse thing for your life. Hartshorn, or something that shall close your eyes. 5 ΤΟ 15 20 P. What? like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce3, With ARMS, and GEORGE, and BRUNSWICK crowd the verse, Rend with tremendous sound your ears asunder, 25 With Gun, Drum, Trumpet, Blunderbuss, and Thunder? Or nobly wild, with Budgel's fire and force 6, Paint Angels trembling round his falling Horse?? [The Hon. W. Fortescue, an intimate friend and a frequent associate and correspondent of the poet's, and a schoolfellow of Gay's. He afterwards became one of the Barons of the Exchequer, and ultimately Master of the Rolls.] 2 [Lord Hervey.] [i. e. any physician of note.] 30 6 [Budgel; see Epistle to Arbuthnot, v. 378.] falling Horse?] The Horse on which his Majesty charged at the battle of Oudenarde: when the Pretender, and the Princes of the blood of France, fled before him. Warburton. 8 [Caroline of Brandenburg-Anspach, the 3 Hartshorn] This was intended as a plea- Queen of George II. She became a frequent santry on the novelty of the prescription. Warburton. 5 [Sir Richard Blackmore.] object of Pope's sarcasms, after George II. on his accession had retained Walpole and the Whigs in office.] Lull with AMELIA'S1 liquid name the Nine, P. Alas! few verses touch their nicer ear; F. Better be Cibber, I'll maintain it still, 9 P. What should ail them ? 5 [See Moral Essays, Ep. iv. vv. 99-176, and Ep. 111. vv. 339-402.] Darty his Ham-pie;] This Lover of Hampie own'd the fidelity of the poet's pencil; and said, he had done justice to his taste; but that if, instead of Ham-pie, he had given him Sweet-pie, he never could have pardoned him. Warburton. Lyttelton in his Dialogues of the Dead, has introduced Darteneuf, bitterly lamenting his illfortune in having died before turtle-feasts were known in England. Warton. [Lord Scarsdale and Charles Dartiquenave, or Dartineuf, were noted epicures. The latter was in office as Paymaster of the Works; and the poet, Robert Dodsley, was his footman. Carruthers cites a paper written by him in the Tatler, No. 252, on the cheerful use of wine. Gay speaks of him as a ' grave joker.'] 7 [Ridotta; from Ridotto, the fashionable Italian term for an assembly.] 8 Most likely Henry Fox, first Lord Holland, alluded to in Epil. to Satires, Dial. I. v. 71. The 'brother' is Stephen Fox, afterwards Lord Ilchester. Carruthers. 9 [The bear-garden at Hockley-in-the-Hole is described in the Spectator, No. 436. Cf. Dunciad, Bk. I. v. 326.1 10 William Shippen, an outspoken politician and a Jacobite, who was sent to the Tower in 1718. According to Coxe, he used to say of himself and Sir Robert Walpole: 'Robin and I are two honest men; though he is for King George, and I for King James.'] My head and heart thus flowing thro' my quill, While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory. To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet; Slander or Poison dread from Delia's rage4, Hard words or hanging, if your Judge be Page5. 83 90 Then, learned Sir! (to cut the matter short) [As Warburton points out, a great improvement on Horace's 'Lucanus an Appulus, anceps,' &c. As to Pope's religious standpoint see Introductory Memoir, p. xxxiii.] [Cardinal Fleury, formerly tutor of King Lous XV., became Prime Minister of France in 1726, and held power till his death in 1743- He was able to maintain the pacific policy which he advocated till two years before that event.] 3 Closely copied from Boileau. Warton. [A Miss Mackenzie died about this time, and was supposed to have been poisoned from jealousy.] The person alluded to was Lady D-ne. Bowies. [Mary Howard Countess of Deloraine, who died in 1744 See note to Lord Hervey's Memoirs by Croker, who has not discovered the grounds of the suspicion, but it was very pre valent.'] 5 [Judge Page; cf. Epil. to Sat. Dial. II. v. 156.] |