What walls can guard me, or what fhades can hide? They pierce my Thickets, through my Grot they glide, NOTE S. By nefs of Mathematical Learning, and his Treatife on Air and Aliment, are fufficient proofs. His tables of antient coins, weights, and measures, are the work of a man intimately acquainted with antient history and literature, and are enlivened with many curious and interefting particulars of the manners and ways of living of the antients. The Hiftory of John Bull, the best parts of the Memoirs of Scriblerus, the Art of Political Lying, the Freeholder's Catechism, It cannot rain but it pours, &c. abound in strokes of the most exquisite humour. It is known that he gave numberlefs hints to Swift, and Pope, and Gay, of fome of the most striking parts of their works. He was fo neglectful of his writings that his children tore his manufcripts and made paper-kites of them. Few letters in the English language are fo interefting, and contain fuch marks of Chriftian refignation and calmness of mind, as one that he wrote to Swift a little before his death, and is inferted in the third volume of Letters, p. 157. He frequently, and ably, and warmly, in many converfations, defended the cause of revelation against the attacks of Bolingbroke and Chefterfield. The strokes of fatire, in many parts of this Epiftle, have such an extraordinary energy and poignancy, that our Author's want of temper has been much cenfured; and I know not whether it will be a fufficient juftification to fay, that thefe malevolent fcriblers, however impotent and infignificant, attacked his perfon, morals, and family. If Boileau ridicules and rallies vile writers with more feeming pleafantry and good-humour, we ought to recollect that Boileau was the aggreffor, and had received no previous abuse, when he fell upon Cotin, De Pure, Quinalt, St. Amand, Colletet, Chapelain, and Theophyle. It was on this account that the Duke de Montaufieur, a man of rigid virtue, fo much condemned Boileau, that it was with great difficulty he was brought to read his Works, and be reconciled to him. The authors that Pope profcribed were in truth fo mean and contemptible, that Swift faid, "Give me a fhilling and I will infure you that pofterity shall never know you had a fingle enemy, excepting those whofe memory you have preferved." "Laiffez By land, by water, they renew the charge, They stop the chariot, and they board the barge. ro No place is facred, not the Church is free, Ev'n Sunday fhines no Sabbath-day to me: Then from the Mint walks forth the Man of rhyme, Happy! to catch me, juft at Dinner-time. Is NOTES. "Laiffez mourir un fat dans fon obfcurité, Dont les noms en cent lieux, placez comme en leurs niches, BOILEAU, Sat. ix. 89. This is exquifitely pleafant, and expreffed with that purity and force both of thought and diction, that happy Horatian mixture of jest and earnest that contribute to place Defpreaux at the head of modern claffics. I think it must be confeffed, that he has caught the manner of Horace more fuccefsfully than Pope. It is obfervable that Boileau, when he firft began to write, copied Juvenal, whofe violent, downright, declamatory fpecies of fatire is far more eafy to be imitated than the oblique, indirect, delicate touches of Horace. The judgment of L. Gyraldus concerning Juvenal feems to be judicious and well-founded: " If you think my opinion worth regarding, I would fay, that the Satires of Juvenal ought never to be read till our tafte is fixed and confirmed, and we are thoroughly tinctured with a knowledge of the Latin language and I mention this my opinion more freely, because I perceive many masters use a contrary method." Dial. iv. VER. 13. Mint] A place to which infolvent debtors retired, to enjoy an illegal protection, which they were there fuffered to afford to one another, from the perfecution of their creditors. W. Is there a Parfon much be-mus'd in beer, A maudlin Poetefs, a rhyming Peer, A Clerk, foredoom'd his father's foul to cross, 15 21 Arthur, VARIATIONS. After Ver. 20. in the MS. Is there a Bard in durance? turn them free, NOTES. VER. 15. Is there a Parfon] Some lines in this Epistle to Arbuthnot had been used in a letter to Thomson when he was in Italy, and transferred from him to Arbuthnot, which naturally displeased the former, though they lived always on terms of civility and friendship and Pope earneftly exerted himself, and used all his intereft to promote the success of Thomson's Agamemnon, and attended the firft night of its being performed. Though Agamemnon is not a capital play on the whole, and abounds in languid and long declamatory fpeeches, yet parts of it are ftriking; particularly Melifander's account of the desert island to which he was banished, copied from the Philoctetes of Sophocles; and the prophetic speeches of Caffandra, during the moment of Agamemnon's being murdered, well calculated to fill the audience with alarm, aftonifhment, and fufpenfe, at an awful event, obfcurely hinted at in very ftrong imagery. These speeches are closely copied from the Agamemnon of Efchylus, as is a striking fcene in his Eleonora from the Alcerftis of Euripides. Thomfon was well acquainted with the Greek Tragedies, on which I heard him talk learnedly, when I was once introduced to him by my friend Mr. W. Colling. Arthur, whofe giddy fon neglects the Laws, And curfes Wit, and Poetry, and Pope. Friend to my life! (which did not you prolong, If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead. With honeft anguish, and an aching head; 25 30 35 This faving counsel," Keep your piece nine years," VARIATIONS. Nine VER. 29. in the first Ed. Dear Doctor, tell me, is not this a curfe? NOTES. VER. 23. Arthur,] Arthur Moore, Efq. VER. 33. Seix'd and ty'd down to judge,] Alluding to the scene in the Plain-Dealer, where Oldfox gags and ties down the Widow, to hear his well-penn'd flanzas. W.-Rather from Horace; vide his Drufo, VER. 38. An aching head;] Alluding to the disorder he was then fo conftantly afflicted with. W. VER. 40. Keep your piece nine years.] Boileau employed eleven years in his short satire of L'Equivoque. Patru was four years altering and correcting the first paragraph of his translation of the oration for Archias. 44 Nine years! cries he,, who high in Drury-lane, 41 Lull'd by foft Zephyrs through the broken pane, Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before Term ends, Oblig'd by hunger, and requeft of friends: "The piece, you think is incorrect? why take it, "I'm all fubmiffion, what you'd have it, make it." Three things another's modeft wishes bound, My Friendship, and a Prologue, and ten pound. Pitholeon fends to me: "You know his Grace, "I want a Patron; afk him for a Place." Pitholeon libell'd me-" but here's a letter 50 "Informs you, Sir, 'twas when he knew no better. "Dare you refufe him? Curl invites to dine, "He'll write a Journal, or he'll turn Divine.” Bless me! a packet.—" "Tis a stranger fues, "A Virgin Tragedy, an Orphan Mufe." VER. 53. in the MS. If VARIATIONS. you refufe, he goes, as fates incline, To plague Sir Robert, or to turn Divine. NOTES. 55 If VER. 49. Pitholeon] The name taken from a foolish Poet of Rhodes, who pretended much to Greek. Schol. in Horat. l. 1. Dr. Bentley pretends, that this Pitholeon libelled Cæfar alfo. See notes on Hor. Sat. 10. l. i. P. VER. 54. He'll write a Journal,] Meaning the London Journal; a paper in favour of Sir R. Walpole's ministry. Bishop Hoadley wrote in it, as did Dr. Bland. VER. 55. A packet.] Alludes to a tragedy called the Virgin Queen, by Mr. R. Barford, published 1729, who difpleafed Pope ALLUSION. VER. 43. Rhymes ere he wakes,] "Dictates to me flumb'ring, or infpires by Eafy my unpremeditated Verfe." MILTON. |