Could laureate Dryden pimp and friar engage, Yet neither Charles nor James be in a rage? And I not 'strip the gilding off a knave, Unplaced, unpension'd, no man's heir, or slave? NOTES. 115 Ver. 116. Unplaced, unpension'd, no man's heir, or slave?] Mr. Pope, it is well known, made his fortune by his Homers. Lord Treasurer Oxford affected to discourage that design; for so great a genius (he said) ought not to be confined to translation. He always used Mr. Pope civilly; and would often express his concern that his religion rendered him incapable of a place. At the same time, he never spoke one word of a pension. For this offer, he was solely indebted to the Whig Ministers. In the beginning of George I., Lord Halifax, of his own motion, sent for Mr. Pope, and told him, it had often given him concern that so great a Poet had never been distinguished; that he was glad it was now in his power to serve him; and, if he cared to accept of it, he should have a pension not clogged with any engagements. Mr. Pope thanked him, and desired time to consider of it. After three months (having heard nothing further from that Lord) he wrote him a letter to repeat his thanks; in which he took occasion to mention the affair of the pension with much indifference. So the thing dropped, till Mr. Craggs came into the ministry. The affair of the pension was then resumed. And this minister, in a very frank and friendly manner, told Mr. Pope, that three hundred pounds a-year were then at his service: he had the management of the secret service money, and could pay him such a pension without its being known, or ever coming to account. But now Mr. Pope declined the offer without hesitation: only, in return for so friendly a proposal, he told the Secretary, that if at any time he wanted money, he would draw upon him for 100 or 2007. Which liberty, however, he did not take. Mr. Craggs more than once pressed him on this head, and urged to him the conveniency of a chariot; which Mr. Pope was sensible enough of: but the precariousness of that supply made him very prudently decline the thoughts of an equipage; which it was much better never to set up, than not properly to support. From Spence. Warburton. Ingenio offensi? aut læso doluere Metello, Nugari cum illo, et discincti ludere, donec Quidquid sum ego, quamvis NOTES. Ver. 125. There, my retreat] I know not whether these lines, spirited and splendid as they are, give us more pleasure than the natural picture of the great Scipio and Lælius, unbending themselves from their high occupations, and descending to common and even trifling sports: for the old commentator says, that they lived in such intimacy with Lucilius, "ut quodam tempore Lælio circum lectos triclinii fugienti Lucilius superveniens, eum obtortâ mappa quasi percussurus sequeretur." For this is the fact to which Horace seems to allude, rather than to what Tully mentions in the second book De Oratore, of their amusing themselves in picking up shells and pebbles on the sea-shore. Warton. Ver. 129. And HE, whose lightning, &c.] Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, who in the year 1705 took Barcelona, and in the winter following, with only 280 horse and 900 foot, enterprised and accomplished the conquest of Valentia. Pope. Ver. 133. Envy must own,] Pope has omitted an elegant allusion. Horace seems to have been particularly fond of those exquisite morsels of wit and genius, the old Æsopic fables. He frequently alludes to them, but always with a brevity very different from our modern writers of fable. Even the natural La Fontaine has added a quaint and witty thought to this very fable. The File says to the Viper, Fab. 98: "Tu I will, or perish in the generous cause: Hear this, and tremble! you, who 'scape the laws. Yes, while I live, no rich or noble knave Shall walk the world, in credit, to his grave. 120 "TO VIRTUE ONLY, and HER FRIENDS A FRIEND, The world beside may murmur, or commend. Know, all the distant din that world can keep, Rolls o'er my grotto, and but soothes my sleep. There, my retreat the best companions grace, 125 Chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place; There ST. JOHN mingles with my friendly bowl The feast of reason and the flow of soul; b And HE, whose lightning pierced th' Iberian lines, Envy must own, I live among the great, NOTES. "Tu le romprois toutes les dents, Je ne crains que celles du temps." Warton. Ver. 135. With eyes that pry not,] Pope triumphs and felicitates himself upon having lived with the great, without descending into one of those characters which he thinks it unavoidable to escape in such a situation. From the generosity and openness of Horace's character, I think he might be pronounced equally free (at least from the last) of these imputations. There must have been something uncommonly captivating in the temper and manners of Horace, that could have made Augustus so fond of him, though he had been so avowed an enemy, and served under Brutus. I have Offendet solido: Dissentis. *nisi quid tu, docte Trebati, T. 'Equidem nihil hîc diffingere possum. Sed tamen, ut monitus caveas, ne fortè negotî Incutiat tibi quid sanctarum inscitia legum: Si mala condiderit in quem quis carmina, jus est Judiciumque." H. Esto, si quis "mala: sed bona si quis Judice condiderit laudatus CÆSARE? si quis NOTES. seen some manuscript letters of Shaftesbury, in which he has ranged, in three different classes, the ethical writings of Horace, according to the different periods of his life in which he supposes them to have been written. The first, during the time he professed the stoic philosophy, and was a friend of Brutus. The second, after he became dissolute and debauched at the court of Augustus. The third, when he repented of this abandoned Epicurean life, wished to retire from the city and court, and become a private man and a philosopher. I have read a poem, which may one day see the light, in which Horace is represented as meeting Brutus in Elysium, who will not deign to hold any conversation with our Court-poet, but turns away from him with the sullen silence and haughty disdain with which Ajax treats Ulysses in the Odyssey. Warton. Ver. 146. A man was hang'd, &c.] Si mala condiderit—A great French lawyer explains this matter very truly. "L'aristocratie est le gouvernement qui proscrit le plus les ouvrages satiriques. Les magistrats y sont de petits souverains, qui ne sont pas assez grands pour mépriser les injures. Si dans la monarchie quelque trait va contre le monarque, il est si haut que le trait n'arrive point jusqu'à lui; un seigneur aristocratique en est percé de part en 140 To help who want, to forward who excel; m Consult the statute: quart. I think, it is, Edwardi sext. or prim. et quint. Eliz. See Libels, Satires-here you have it-read. P. "Libels and Satires! lawless things indeed! But grave Epistles, bringing vice to light, Such as a king might read, a bishop write, NOTES. en part. Aussi les Decemvirs, qui formoient une aristocratie, punirent ils de mort les écrits satiriques." De L'Esprit des Loix, 1. xii. c. 13. Warburton. Ver. 146. A man was hang'd] This may put the reader in mind of the ridiculous circumstance in Shakespear's Julius Cæsar; where poor Cinna the poet, when attacked by the mob, exclaims: Bowles. "I am not Cinna the conspirator, I am Cinna the poet." "No matter; tear him for his bad verses!" Ver. 150, 151. Libels and Satires! lawless things indeed; But grave Epistles, &c.] The legal objection is here more justly and decently taken off than in the original. Horace evades the force of it with a quibble: "Esto, siquis mala, sed bona si quis—” But the imitator's grave Epistles shew the satire to be a serious reproof, and therefore justifiable; which the integer ipse of the original does not. Warburton. |