"Pity! to build, without a fon or wife : 165 Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir; 170 Or, in pure fequity, (the cafe not clear,) At best, it falls to some ungracious fon, Who cries, "My father's damn'd, and all's my own." 175 *Shades, that to BACON could retreat afford, Become the portion of a booby Lord; Let lands and houses have what Lords they will, 180 NOTES. VER. 175. That to BACON could] Gorhambury, near St. Alban's, a fine and venerable old manfion. Some anecdotes have lately told us that Bacon was much acquainted with, and had a regard for, Hobbes. VER. 177. Proud Buckingham's, &c.] Villiers Duke of Buckingham. P. VER. 180. Let Us be fix'd,] The majestic plainness of the original is weakened and impaired by the addition of an antithesis, and a turn of wit in this last line. Whenever I have ventured to cenfure Pope, I have never forgotten that fine and candid reflection of Quintilian; " Neque id statim legenti perfuafum fit, omnia, quæ magni Auctores dixerint, esse perfecta." PRIMA dicte mihi, fumma dicende camena, b Spectatum fatis, et donatum jam rude, quæris, Mæcenas, iterum antiquo me includere ludo. Non eadem eft ætas, non mens. Veianius, armis *Herculis ad postem fixis, latet abditus agro; Ne populum extrema toties exoret arena. NOTES. Eft VER. 1. Whose love] Equal to the affection which Horace in the original professes for Mecenas. It has been fufpected that his affection to his friend was so strong, as to make him resolve not to outlive him; and that he actually put into execution his promife of ibimus, ibimus. Od. xvii. lib. 3. Both died in the end of the year 746; Horace only three weeks after Mecænas, November 27. Nothing can be so different as the plain and manly style of the former, in comparison of what Quintilian calls the calamistros of the latter, for which Sactorius and Macrobius, cap. 86. say Augustus frequently ridiculed him, though Augustus himself was guilty of the fame fault: as when he faid, vapide se babere for malè. The learned C. G. Heyne, in his excellent edition of Virgil, after observing that the well-known verses usually ascribed to Augustus, on Virgil's ordering his Æneid to be burnt, are the work of fome bungling grammarian, and not of that emperor, adds, " Videas tamen Voltairium, horridos hos et ineptos versus non modo Augusto tribuere, verum etiam magnopere probare; ils font beaux et semblent partir du cœur. Essai sur le Poefie Epique, cap. 3. Ita vides, ad verum pulchrarum fententiarum fenfum et judicium, fermonis intelligentiam aliquam effe neceffariam." P. V. Maronis Opera, tom. i. p. 131. Lipfiæ, 1767. VER. 3. Sabbath of my days?] i. e. The 49th year, the age of the Author. W. EPISTLE I. TO LORD BOLINGBROKE. ST. JOHN, whose love indulg'd my labours past, 5 Nor fond of bleeding, e'en in BRUNSWICK'S cause. NOTES. A Voice VER. 8. Hang their old Trophies o'er the Garden gates,] An oc cafional stroke of Satire on ill-placed ornaments. He has more openly ridiculed them in his Epistle on Taste: "Load some vain Church with old theatric state, W. He is faid to have alluded to the entrance of Lord Peterborough's Lawn at Bevismount, near Southampton. There is more pleasantry and humour in Horace's comparing himself to an old gladiator, worn out in the service of the public, from which he had often begged his life, and has now at last been dismissed with the usual ceremonies, than for Pope to compare himself to an old actor or retired general. Pope was in his forty-ninth year, and Horace probably in his forty-feventh, when he wrote this Epistle. Bentley has arranged the writings of Horace in the following order. He composed the first book of his Satires between the twenty-fixth and twenty-eighth year of his age; the second |
