Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like thefe, if length of days attend,
May Heav'n, to bless those days, preferve my friend,
Preferve him focial, cheerful, and ferene,

And just as rich as when he ferv'd a QUEEN.
A. Whether that bleffing be deny'd or giv'n,
Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heav'n.

NOTES.

416

Melanchon appeared in an amiable light, when he was feen holding a book in one hand, and attentively reading, and with the other, rocking the cradle of his infant child. And we read with more fatisfaction,

Τρις μεν ορέξατ ιων' το δε τέτρατον ικετο τεκμωρ
Aryas

WARTON.

VER. 409. To rock the cradle) This tender image is from the Effays of Montaign. Mr. Gray was equally remarkable for affectionate attention to his aged mother; fo was Ariofto. Pope's mother was a filter of Cooper's wife, the very celebrated minia. ture painter. Lord Carleton had a portrait of Cooper, in crayons, which Mrs. Pope faid was not very like; and which, defcending to Lord Burlington, was given by his Lordship to Kent. "I have a drawing," fays Mr. Walpole, " of Pope's father, as he lay dead in his bed, by his brother in-law, Cooper." It was Mr. WARTON. Pope's. Anecdotes of Painting, vol. iii. p. 115.

VER. 417. And just as rich as when he ferv'd a QUEEN.] An honeft compliment to his Friend's real and unaffected disintereftednefs, when he was the favourite Phyfician of Queen Anne. WARBURTON.

VER. 417. And just as rich, &c.] After the death of Queen Anne, Arbuthnot removed from St. James's Street to Dover Street, probably not in fo good circumftances, or fuch extenfive practice, as before In a letter to Pope, he fays, " Martin's office is now the second door, on the left hand, in Dover street, where he will be glad to fee Dr. Parnell, Mr. Pope, and his old Friends, to whom he can still afford a half pint of claret."

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE HE Occafion of publishing these Imitations was the Clamour raised on fome of my Epiftles. An Anfwer from Horace was both more full, and of more Dignity, than any I could have made in my own Perfon; and the Example of much greater Freedom in fo eminent a Divine as Dr. Donne, feemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Chriftian may treat Vice or Folly, in ever fo low, or ever fo high a Station. Both thefe Authors were acceptable to the Princes and Ministers under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr. Donne I verfified, at the defire of the Earl of Oxford, while he was Lord Treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury, who had been Secretary of State; neither of whom looked upon a Satire on Vicious Courts as any Reflection on those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error, than that which Fools are fo apt to fall into, and Knaves with good reason to encourage, the mistaking a Satirist for a Libeller; whereas to a true Satirift nothing is fo odious as a Libeller, for the fame reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is fo hateful as a Hypocrite.

Uni

aquus Virtuti atque ejus Amicis.

POPE.