ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE

FIRST PUBLICATION OF THIS EPISTLE.

THIS HIS paper is a fort of bill of complaint, begun many years fince, and drawn up by fnatches, as the feveral occafions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleafed fome Perfons of Rank and Fortune [the Authors of Verses to the Imitator of Horace, and of an Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton-Court] to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my Writings (of which, being public, the Public is judge) but my Perfon, Morals, and Family, whereof, to thofe who know me not, a truer information may be requifite. Being divided between the neceffity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake fo aukward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the laft hand to this Epiftle. If it have any thing pleafing, it will be that by which I am moft defirous to please, the Truth and the Sentiment; and if any thing offenfive, it will be only to those I am leaft forry to offend, the vicious or the ungenerous.

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Many

Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have for the most part fpared their Names, and they may efcape being laughed at, if they please.

I would have fome of them know, it was owing to the request of the learned and candid Friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of theirs, as they have done of mine. However, I fhalt have this advantage, and honour, on my fide, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can poffibly be done by mine, fince a nameless Character can never be found out, but by its truth and likeness. P..

Lady Wortley Montague begins her Addrefs to Mr. Pope, on his Imitation of the 1ft Satire of the Second Book of Horace, in these words:

1

"In two large columns, on thy motly page,

Where Roman wit is ftrip'd with English rage;
Where ribaldry to fatire makes pretence,

· And modern fcandal rolls with antient fense:
Whilft on one fide we fee how Horace thought,
And on the other how he never wrote:

Who can believe, who view the bad and good,
That the dull copyift better understood
That fpirit he pretends to imitate,

Than heretofore the Greek he did translate?
Thine is juft fuch an image of his pen
As thou thyfelf art of the fons of men ;
Where our own species in burlesque we trace,
A fign-post likeness of the noble race,
That is at once refemblance and difgrace.

I

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Horace

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Horace can laugh, is delicate, is clear;
You only coarfely rail, or darkly fneer:
His ftyle is elegant, his diction pure,
Whilft none thy crabbed numbers can endure,
Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obfcure.
If he has thorns, they all on roses grow;
Thine like rude thistles and mean brambles fhow,
With this exception, that though rank the foil,
Weeds, as they are, they feem produc'd by toil.
Satire should, like a polish'd razor keen,
Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.
Thine is an oyster-knife, that hacks and hews,
The
rage, but not the talent of abuse;
And is in hate what love is in the stews;
"Tis the grofs luft of hate, that ftill annoys
Without distinction, as grofs love enjoys:
Neither to folly, nor to vice confin'd;
The object of thy fpleen is human-kind :
It preys on all, who yield or who refift;
To thee 'tis provocation to exift.
But if thou fee'ft a great and gen'rous heart,
Thy bow is doubly bent to force a dart.
Nor only juftice vainly we demand,
But even benefits can't rein thy hand :
To this or that alike in vain we trust,
Nor find thee lefs ungrateful than unjust."

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EPISTLE

то

DR. ARBUTHNOT,

BEING THE

PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES.

P.SHUT, fhut the door, good John! fatigu'd I faid,
Tye up the knocker, fay I'm fick, I'm dead.
The Dog-star rages! nay, 'tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnaffus, is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

5

What

NOTES.

VER. 1. Shut, but the door, good John!] John Searl, his old and faithful fervant; whom he has remembered, under that character, in his Will: of whose fidelity Dodsley, from his own observation, used to mention many pleafing instances. His wife was living at Ecclefhall, 1783, ninety years old, and knew many anecdotes of Pope.

VER. 1. Shut, but the door,] This abrupt exordium is animated and dramatic. Our Poet, wearied with the impertinence and flander of a multitude of mean fcriblers that attacked him, fuddenly breaks out with this fpirited complaint of the ill-ufage he had fuftained. This piece was published in the year 1734, in the form of an Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot: It is now given as a Dialogue, in which a very small share indeed is allotted to his friend. Arbuthnot was a man of confummate probity, integrity, and sweetness of temper he had infinitely more learning than Pope or Swift, and as much wit and humour as either of them. He was an excellent mathematician and phyfician, of which his letter on the Useful

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nefs