Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's fubtle art,
No language, but the language of the heart.
By Nature honest, by Experience wise,
Healthy by temp❜rance, and by exercife;
His life, tho' long, to sickness past unknown,
His death was inftant, and without a groan.
O grant me, thus to live, and thus to die!
Who fprung from Kings fhall know lefs joy than I.
O Friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!
Be no unpleafing Melancholy mine:
Me, let the tender office long engage,

404

To rock the cradle of repofing Age,

410

With lenient arts extend a Mother's breath,
Make Languor fmile, and smooth the bed of Death,
Explore

400

NOTES.

VER. 397. Nor dar'd an Oath,] He was a non-juror, and would not take the oath of allegiance or fupremacy, or the oath against the Pope.

VER. 408. Me, let the tender office] Thefe exquifite lines give us a very interefting picture of the exemplary filial piety of our Author! There is a penfive and pathetic sweetness in the very flow of them. The eye that has been wearied and oppreffed by the harsh and auftere colouring of fome of the preceding paffages, turns away with pleasure from these afperities, and repofes with complacency on the foft tints of domeftic tenderness. We are naturally gratified to fee men defcending from their heights, into the familiar offices of common life; and the fenfation is the more pleafing to us, because admiration is turned into affection. In the very entertaining Memoirs of the Life of Racine (published by his fon) we find no paffage more amusing and interesting, than where that great Poet fends an excufe to Monfieur, the Duke, who had earnestly invited him to dine at the Hotel de Conde, because he had promifed to partake of a great fish that his children had got for him, and he could not think of disappointing them.

VOL. IV.

Melancthon

Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like thefe, if length of days attend,
May Heav'n, to bless those days, preferve my friend,
Preferve him focial, cheerful, and ferene,

416

And just as rich as when he ferv'd a QUEEN.
A. Whether that bleffing be deny'd or giv❜n,
Thus far was right, the reft belongs to Heav'n.

NOTES.

Melancthon appeared in an amiable light, when he was feen holding a book in one hand, and attentively reading, and with the other, rocking the cradle of his infant child. And we read with more fatisfaction,

- κα' παιδος ορέξατο φαιδίμος Εκτωρ. Αψ δ ̓ ὁ παῖς προς κολπον ἐϋζωνοιο τιθηνης Εκλίνθη ιαχών.

than we do,

Ίρις μεν ορέξατ ιων' το δε τετρατον σκετο τεκμωρ

Αιγας

WARTON. VER. 409. To rock the cradle] This tender image is from the Effays of Montaign. Mr. Gray was equally remarkable for affectionate attention to his aged mother; fo was Ariosto. Pope's mother was a fifter of Cooper's wife, the very celebrated minia. ture painter. Lord Carleton had a portrait of Cooper, in crayons, which Mrs. Pope faid was not very like; and which, descending to Lord Burlington, was given by his Lordship to Kent. “I have a drawing," fays Mr. Walpole, " of Pope's father, as he lay dead in his bed, by his brother in law, Cooper." It was Mr. Pope's. Anecdotes of Painting, vol. iii. p. 115. WARTON,

VER. 417. And just as rich as when he ferv'd a QUEEN.] An honeft compliment to his Friend's real and unaffected diinterestedness, when he was the favourite Phyfician of Queen Anne.

WARBURTON.

VER. 417. And just as rich, &c.] After the death of Queen Anne, Arbuthnot removed from St. James's Street to Dover Street, probably not in fo good circumftances, or fuch extensive practice, as before. In a letter to Pope, he says, " Martin's office is now the fecond door, on the left hand, in Dover ftreet, where he will be glad to fee Dr. Parnell, Mr. Pope, and his old Friends, to whom he can still afford a half pint of claret."

SATIRES AND EPISTLES

OF

HORACE

IMITATED.

Ludentis fpeciem dabit, et torquebitur.

HOR.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE HE Occasion of publishing these Imitations was the Clamour raised on fome of my Epiftles. An Anfwer from Horace was both more full, and of more Dignity, than any I could have made in my own Perfon; and the Example of much greater Freedom in fo eminent a Divine as Dr. Donne, feemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat Vice or Folly, in ever fo low, or ever so high a Station. Both thefe Authors were acceptable to the Princes and Minifters under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr. Donne I verfified, at the defire 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 looked upon a Satire on Vicious Courts as any Reflection on those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error, than that which Fools are fo apt to fall into, and Knaves with good reafon to encourage, the miftaking a Satirist for a Libeller; whereas to a true Satirift nothing is fo odious as a Libeller, for the same reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is fo hateful as a Hypocrite.

Uni aquus Virtuti atque ejus Amicis.

POPE,