'Your wine lock'd up, your Butler ftroll'd abroad, Or fish deny'd, (the river yet unthaw'd,) If then plain bread and milk will do the feat, * Preach as I please, I doubt our curious men NOTES. 20 Oldfield troduced this bird to the table as a great dainty, in a magnificent feast which he made on his being created Augur. The price of a peacock, fays Arbuthnot, page 129. was fifty denarii, that is, l. 12 s. 3d. A flock of a hundred was fold at a much dearer rate, for 3221. 18s. 4d. of our money. M. Aufidius Lurco, according to Varro, ufed to make every year of his peacocks 4841. 7s. 6d. WARTON. VER. 21. Of carps and mullets] Very inferior to the original; and principally fo, because that pleasant ftroke is omitted of the eaters knowing in what part of the river the lupus was taken, and whether or no betwixt the two bridges, which was deemed an effential circumftance. The reader will be well entertained on this fubject if he will look into the feventeenth chapter of the third book of Macrobius, particularly into a curious fpeech of C. Tertius there recited. But Horace feems to have had in his eye a paffage of Lucilius, quoted by Macrobius: "Sed et Lucilius acer et violentus poeta, oftendit fcire se hunc pifcem egregii faporis, qui inter duos pontes captus effet." WARTON. "Porrectum magno magnum fpectare catino Vellem, ait Harpyiis gula digna rapacibus. At vos, Præfentes, Auftri, coquite horum opfonia: quam n quam Putet aper rhombufque recens, mala copia quando Infamis. quid? tum rhombos minus æquora alebant? Donec vos auctor docuit prætorius. ergo NOTES. Sordidus VER. 25. Oldfield] This eminent Glutton ran through a fortune of fifteen hundred pounds a-year in the fimple luxury of good eating. WARBURTON. VER. 26. Hog barbecu'd, &c.] A Weft Indian term of Gluttony; a hog roafted whole, stuffed with spice, and bafted with Madeira wine. POPE. He has happily introduced this large unwieldy instance of gluttony, fuppofed to be peculiar to the Weft Indies. But Athenæus fpeaks of a cook that could dress a whole hog with various puddings in his belly. Gulla is here used personally, as it is alfo by Juvenal, Sat. xiv. v. 10. WARTON. VER. 28. rabbit's tail.] A very filthy and offenfive image for the more happy and decent word coquite: So fond, it must be owned, was our Author, as well as Swift, of such disgusting ideas WARTON. "Oldfield with more than Harpy throat endu'd, 25 By what Criterion do ye eat, d'ye think, He calls for fomething bitter, fomething four, And the rich feast concludes extremely poor : 30 • Cheap eggs, and herbs, and olives still we fee; 35 Thus much is left of old Simplicity! The Robin-red-breast till of late had rest, And children facred held a Martin's neft, Till Becaficos fold fo dev'lish dear To one that was, or would have been, a Peer. Or e'en to crack live Crawfish recommend ; NOTES. 40 'Tis VER. 41. Let me extol] To dine upon a cat fattened with oyf. ters, and to crack live crawfish, is infinitely more pleasant and ridiculous than to eat mergos affos. But then the words, extol and recommend, fall far below edixerit, give out á decree. So Virgil, Geor. iii. line 295. does not advife, but raifes his fubject, by faying, Incipiens ftatutis edico” 66 In the lines above, 37 and 38, he has dextrously substituted for the ftork two birds that among us are vulgarly held to be facred. Semp. Rufus first taught the Romans to eat ftorks, for which he loft the prætorfhip. VER. 42. Bedford head;] A famous Eating-house. WARTON. POPE. อ 'Sordidus a tenui victus diftabit, Ofello Judice: nam fruftra vitium vitaveris istud, Si te alio pravus detorferis. S $ Avidienus Cui Canis ex vero ductum cognomen adhæret, Ac, nifi mutatum, parcit defundere vinum; et W Feftos albatus celebret) cornu ipfe bilibri Caulibus inftillat, * veteris non parcus aceti. Quali igitur victu fapiens utetur, et horum Utrum imitabitur? hac urget lupus, hac canis, aiunt. Mundus erit, qua non offendat fordibus, atque In neutram partem cultus mifer. a * Hic neque fervis Albutâ fenis exemplo, dum munia didit, Savus erit; nec fit ut fimplex Nævius, unctam Convivis præbebit aquam: vitium hoc quoque mag с num. Accipe nunc, victus tenuis quæ quantaque fecum Afferat. In primis valeas bene; nam variæ res Ut noceant homini, credas, memor illius efcæ, NOTES. Quæ VER. 50. For him you'll call a dog,] Warburton obferves, "that Pope had the art of giving wit and dignity to Billingfgate!" VER. 55 But on fome lucky] Much heightened and improved on the original, by two fuch fuppofed occafions of the unnatural feftivity and joy of a true mifer. The 68th line is useless and redundant. WARTON. г I 'Tis yet in vain, I own, to keep a pother About one vice, and fall into the other: Between Excefs and Famine lies a mean; Plain, but not fordid; tho' not splendid, clean. Avidien, or his Wife, (no matter which, For him you'll call a dog, and her a bitch,) But on fome "lucky day (as when they found A lost Bank-bill, or heard their Son was drown'd) Is what two fouls fo gen'rous cannot bear: ' He knows to live, who keeps the middle state, And neither leans on this fide, nor on that; a Nor ftops, for one bad cork, his butler's pay, b Nor lets, like Nævius, ev'ry error pass, The musty wine, foul cloth, or greafy glass. 45 50 55 60 65 "Now hear what bleffings Temperance can bring: (Thus faid our Friend, and what he said I sing :) d First Health: the stomach (cramm'd from ev'ry dish, A tomb of boil'd and roast, and flesh and fish, Where bile, and wind, and phlegm, and acid jar, NOTES. 70 Remembers VER. 72. one intefline war] Dr. Warton fays, "It is in the original, tumultum; a metaphor used by Hippocrates." It is of very |