mixed with unequal trash, in the Pasquin of Fielding, may be mentioned as capital, and full of the truest humour. It is, indeed, a fine and fruitful subject for a satirist. As POPE could not use a nomenclator (seroum) he has happily added-a Lord. And if he has omitted a lively circumstance, fodiat latus, he has made ample compensation by, take into your coach. Impor tunus is skilfully turned by, this may be troublesome; as is facetus, by, laugh at your own jest.*

61.

-remigium vitiosum Ithacensis Ulyssei

Cui potior patriâ fuit interdicta voluptas,†

is admirably applied to the frequent mischievous. effects of early foreign travel.

From Latian Syrens, French Circæan feasts,
Return well travell'd, and transform'd to beasts;
Or for a titled punk, or foreign flame,

Renounce our country, and degrade our name?‡

62. Si, Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore jocisque, Nil est jucundum, vivas in amore jocisque.§

If

*Yet Horace, lib. 1. sect. 10. uses facetus in another sense,

as interpreted by Quintilian, lib. 6. c. 3.

† Ver. 63.

Ver. 122.

§ Ver. 65.

!”*

If SWIFT cry wisely, "Vive la Bagatelle !"*

The Dean made his old age despicable, by mis-spending it in trifling and in railing; in scribbling paltry riddles and rebusses, and venting his spleen in peevish invectives. His banishment to Ireland, (for such he thought it,) and his disappointed ambition, embittered and exasperated his mind and temper. An excellent man, and excellent philosopher, whose loss I shall long and sincerely deplore, has lately made the following strictures upon one of his capital works.

"Misanthropy is so dangerous a thing, and goes so far in sapping the very foundation of morality and religion, that I esteem the last part of Swift's Gulliver (that I mean relative to his Houyhnhnms and Yahoos) to be a worse book to peruse, than those which we forbid as the most flagitious and obscene. One absurdity in this author (a wretched philosopher, though a great wit) is well worth remarking in order to render the nature of men odious, and the nature

of beasts amiable, he is compelled to give human characters to his beasts, and beastly characters to his men; so that we are to admire the beasts, not for being beasts, but amiable men; and to detest the men, not for being men, but detestable beasts.

"Whoever has been reading this unnatural FILTH, let him turn for a moment to a Spectator of ADDISON, and observe the PHILANTHROPY of that classical writer; I may add, the superior purity of his diction, and his wit."*

63. Cum tot sustineas & tanta negotia solus,
Res Italas armis tuteris, moribus ornes,

Legibus emendes, in publica commoda, peccem,
Si longo sermone morer tua tempora, Cæsar !+

While you, great patron of mankind, sustain
The balanc'd world, and open all the main;
Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend,
At home with morals, arts, and laws amend;

How

* Philological Inquiries, in three parts, by JAMES HARRIS, Esq. London, 1781. Part iii. page 537.

+ Ep. 1. Lib. ii. v. 1. If an interrogation point is placed after Casar? in the original, it would remove a difficulty complained of by the commentators.

How shall the Muse from such a monarch steal
An hour, and not defraud the public weal?*

All those nauseous and outrageous † compliments, which Horace, in a strain of abject adulation, degraded himself by paying to Augustus, POPE has converted into bitter and pointed sarcasms, conveyed under the form of the most artful irony. Of this irony the following specimens shall

Z 3

* Ver. 1.

"Horace (says POPE) in the advertisement to this piece, made his court to this great prince (or rather this cool and subtle tyrant) by writing with a decent freedom towards him, with a just contempt of his low flatterers, and with a manly regard to his own character." Surely he forgot,

Jurandasque tibi per Numen ponimus aras,

Nil oriturum alias, nil oṛtum tale, fatentes, &c.

We sometimes speak incorrectly of what are called the writers of the Augustan age. Terence, Lucretius, Catullus, Tully,

J. Cæsar, and Sallust, wrote before the time of Augustus; and Livy, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, and Propertius, were not made good writers by his patronage and encouragement. Virgil had the courage to represent his hero assisting the Etruscans in punishing their tyrannical king, Lib. 8. v. 495. One of the most unaccountable prejudices that ever obtained, seems to be that of celebrating Augustus for clemency.

shall be placed together, in one view, added to the preceding lines, which are of the same cast.

Wonder of kings! like whom, to mortal eyes,
None e'er has risen, and none e'er shall rise.*
How shall we fill a library with wit,
When Merlin's cave is half unfinish'd yet?+
My liege! why writers little claim your thought,
I guess; and with their leave will tell the fault.
Yet think, great Sir! so many virtues shown,
Ah, think what poet best may make them known!
Or chuse at least some minister of grace,
Fit to bestow the Laureat's weighty place.§
Oh could I mount on the Mæonian wing,
Your arms, your actions, your repose, to sing!
What seas you travers'd, and what fields you fought,
Your country's peace, how oft, how dearly bought!
How barbarous rage subsided at your word,
And nations wonder'd while they dropp'd the sword!
How when you nodded, o'er the land and deep,
Peace stole her wing, and wrapt the world in sleep;
Till earth's extremes your mediation own,
And Asia's tyrants tremble at your

throne.

But verse, alas! your majesty disdains,
And I'm not us'd to panegyric strains :
Besides, a fate attends on all I write,
That when I aim at praise, they say I bite.||