Ne Rubeam,
Pingui donatus Munere (Horace,
Epistles II.i.267) While you, great patron of mankind, sustain The balanc'd world, and open all the main; Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend, At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend; How shall the Muse, from such a monarch steal An hour, and not defraud the public weal? Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name, After a life of gen'rous toils endur'd, The Gaul subdu'd, or property secur'd, Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm'd, Or laws establish'd, and the world reform'd; Clos'd their long glories with a sigh, to find Th' unwilling gratitude of base mankind! All human virtue, to its latest breath Finds envy never conquer'd, but by death. The great Alcides, ev'ry labour past, Had still this monster to subdue at last. Sure fate of all, beneath whose rising ray Each star of meaner merit fades away! Oppress'd we feel the beam directly beat, Those suns of glory please not till they set. To thee the world its present homage pays, The harvest early, but mature the praise: Great friend of liberty! in kings a name Above all Greek, above all Roman fame: Whose word is truth, as sacred and rever'd, As Heav'n's own oracles from altars heard. Wonder of kings! like whom, to mortal eyes None e'er has risen, and none e'er shall rise. Just in one instance, be it yet confest Your people,
Sir, are partial in the rest: Foes to all living worth except your own, And advocates for folly dead and gone. Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old; It is the rust we value, not the gold. Chaucer's worst ribaldry is learn'd by rote, And beastly Skelton heads of houses quote: One likes no language but the Faery Queen ; A Scot will fight for Christ's Kirk o' the Green: And each true Briton is to Ben so civil, He swears the Muses met him at the Devil. Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires, Why should not we be wiser than our sires? In ev'ry public virtue we excel: We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well, And learned Athens to our art must stoop, Could she behold us tumbling through a hoop. If time improve our wit as well as wine, Say at what age a poet grows divine? Shall we, or shall we not, account him so, Who died, perhaps, an hundred years ago? End all dispute; and fix the year precise When British bards begin t'immortalize? "Who lasts a century can have no flaw, I hold that wit a classic, good in law." Suppose he wants a year, will you compound? And shall we deem him ancient, right and sound, Or damn to all eternity at once, At ninety-nine, a modern and a dunce? "We shall not quarrel for a year or two; By courtesy of England, he may do." Then by the rule that made the horsetail bare, I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair, And melt down ancients like a heap of snow: While you, to measure merits, look in Stowe, And estimating authors by the year, Bestow a garland only on a bier. Shakespeare (whom you and ev'ry playhouse bill Style the divine, the matchless, what you will) For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight, And grew immortal in his own despite. Ben, old and poor, as little seem'd to heed The life to come, in ev'ry poet's creed. Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet, His moral pleases, not his pointed wit; Forgot his epic, nay Pindaric art, But still I love the language of his heart. "Yet surely, surely, these were famous men! What boy but hears the sayings of old Ben? In all debates where critics bear a part, Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson's art, Of Shakespeare's nature, and of Cowley's wit; How Beaumont's judgment check'd what Fletcher writ; How Shadwell hasty,
Wycherley was slow; But, for the passions,
Southerne sure and Rowe. These, only these, support the crowded stage, From eldest Heywood down to Cibber's age." All this may be; the people's voice is odd, It is, and it is not, the voice of God. To Gammer Gurton if it give the bays, And yet deny the Careless Husband praise, Or say our fathers never broke a rule; Why then,
I say, the public is a fool. But let them own, that greater faults than we They had, and greater virtues,
I'll agree. Spenser himself affects the obsolete, And Sidney's verse halts ill on Roman feet: Milton's strong pinion now not Heav'n can bound, Now serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground, In quibbles, angel and archangel join, And God the Father turns a school divine. Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book, Like slashing Bentley with his desp'rate hook, Or damn all Shakespeare, like th' affected fool At court, who hates whate'er he read at school. But for the wits of either Charles's days, The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease; Sprat,
Carew,
Sedley, and a hundred more, (Like twinkling stars the Miscellanies o'er) One simile, that solitary shines In the dry desert of a thousand lines, Or lengthen'd thought that gleams through many a page, Has sanctified whole poems for an age. I lose my patience, and I own it too, When works are censur'd, not as bad, but new; While if our elders break all reason's laws, These fools demand not pardon, but applause. On Avon's bank, where flow'rs eternal blow, If I but ask if any weed can grow? One tragic sentence if I dare deride, Which Betterton's grave action dignified, Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims (Though but, perhaps, a muster-roll of names) How will our fathers rise up in a rage, And swear, all shame is lost in George's age! You'd think no fools disgrac'd the former reign, Did not some grave examples yet remain, Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill, And, having once been wrong, will be so still. He, who to seem more deep than you or I, Extols old bards, or Merlin's Prophecy, Mistake him not; he envies, not admires, And to debase the sons, exalts the sires. Had ancient times conspir'd to disallow What then was new, what had been ancient now? Or what remain'd, so worthy to be read By learned critics, of the mighty dead? In days of ease, when now the weary sword Was sheath'd, and luxury with Charles restor'd; In ev'ry taste of foreign courts improv'd, "All, by the King's example, liv'd and lov'd." Then peers grew proud in horsemanship t'excel, Newmarket's glory rose, as Britain's fell; The soldier breath'd the gallantries of France, And ev'ry flow'ry courtier writ romance. Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm, And yielding metal flow'd to human form: Lely on animated canvas stole The sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul. No wonder then, when all was love and sport, The willing Muses were debauch'd at court: On each enervate string they taught the note To pant or tremble through an eunuch's throat. But Britain, changeful as a child at play, Now calls in princes, and now turns away: Now Whig, now Tory, what we lov'd we hate; Now all for pleasure, now for Church and state; Now for prerogative, and now for laws; Effects unhappy! from a noble cause. Time was, a sober Englishman would knock His servants up, and rise by five o'clock, Instruct his family in ev'ry rule, And send his wife to church, his son to school. To worship like his fathers was his care; To teach their frugal virtues to his heir; To prove that luxury could never hold, And place, on good security, his gold. Now times are chang'd, and one poetic itch Has seiz'd the court and city, poor and rich: Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will wear the bays, Our wives read Milton, and our daughters plays, To theatres, and to rehearsals throng, And all our grace at table is a song. I, who so oft renounce the Muses, lie, Not {-}{-}{-}{-}{-}'s self e'er tells more fibs than I; When sick of Muse, our follies we deplore, And promise our best friends to rhyme no more; We wake next morning in a raging fit, And call for pen and ink to show our wit. He serv'd a 'prenticeship who sets up shop; Ward tried on puppies and the poor, his drop; Ev'n Radcliffe's doctors travel first to France, Nor dare to practise till they've learn'd to dance. Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile? (Should Ripley venture, all the world would smile) But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man. Yet,
Sir, reflect, the mischief is not great; These madmen never hurt the Church or state: Sometimes the folly benefits mankind; And rarely av'rice taints the tuneful mind. Allow him but his plaything of a pen, He ne'er rebels, or plots, like other men: Flight of cashiers, or mobs, he'll never mind; And knows no losses while the Muse is kind. To cheat a friend, or ward, he leaves to Peter; The good man heaps up nothing but mere metre, Enjoys his garden and his book in quiet; And then—a perfect hermit in his diet. Of little use the man you may suppose, Who says in verse what others say in prose: Yet let me show, a poet's of some weight, And (though no soldier) useful to the state. What will a child learn sooner than a song? What better teach a foreigner the tongue? What's long or short, each accent where to place, And speak in public with some sort of grace. I scarce can think him such a worthless thing, Unless he praise some monster of a king; Or virtue or religion turn to sport, To please a lewd, or unbelieving court. Unhappy Dryden!—In all Charles's days, Roscommon only boasts unspotted bays; And in our own (excuse some courtly stains) No whiter page than Addison remains. He, from the taste obscene reclaims our youth, And sets the passions on the side of truth, Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art, And pours each human virtue in the heart. Let Ireland tell, how wit upheld her cause, Her trade supported, and supplied her laws; And leave on Swift this grateful verse engrav'd, "The rights a court attack'd, a poet sav'd." Behold the hand that wrought a nation's cure, Stretch'd to relieve the idiot and the poor, Proud vice to brand, or injur'd worth adorn, And stretch the ray to ages yet unborn. Not but there are, who merit other palms; Hopkins and Sternhold glad the heart with psalms: The boys and girls whom charity maintains, Implore your help in these pathetic strains: How could devotion touch the country pews, Unless the gods bestow'd a proper Muse? Verse cheers their leisure, verse assists their work, Verse prays for peace, or sings down Pope and Turk. The silenc'd preacher yields to potent strain, And feels that grace his pray'r besought in vain; The blessing thrills through all the lab'ring throng, And Heav'n is won by violence of song. Our rural ancestors, with little blest, Patient of labour when the end was rest, Indulg'd the day that hous'd their annual grain, With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain: The joy their wives, their sons, and servants share, Ease of their toil, and part'ners of their care: The laugh, the jest, attendants on the bowl, Smooth'd ev'ry brow, and open'd ev'ry soul: With growing years the pleasing licence grew, And taunts alternate innocently flew. But times corrupt, and nature, ill-inclin'd, Produc'd the point that left a sting behind; Till friend with friend, and families at strife, Triumphant malice rag'd through private life. Who felt the wrong, or fear'd it, took th' alarm, Appeal'd to law, and justice lent her arm. At length, by wholesome dread of statutes bound, The poets learn'd to please, and not to wound: Most warp'd to flatt'ry's side; but some, more nice, Preserv'd the freedom, and forbore the vice. Hence satire rose, that just the medium hit, And heals with morals what it hurts with wit. We conquer'd France, but felt our captive's charms; Her arts victorious triumph'd o'er our arms; Britain to soft refinements less a foe, Wit grew polite, and numbers learn'd to flow. Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full-resounding line, The long majestic march, and energy divine. Though still some traces of our rustic vein And splayfoot verse remain'd, and will remain. Late, very late, correctness grew our care, When the tir'd nation breath'd from civil war. Exact Racine, and Corneille's noble fire Show'd us that France had something to admire. Not but the tragic spirit was our own, And full in Shakespeare, fair in Otway shone: But Otway fail'd to polish or refine, And fluent Shakespeare scarce effac'd a line. Ev'n copious Dryden wanted, or forgot, The last and greatest art, the art to blot. Some doubt, if equal pains, or equal fire The humbler Muse of comedy require. But in known images of life,
I guess The labour greater, as th' indulgence less. Observe how seldom ev'n the best succeed: Tell me if Congreve's fools are fools indeed? What pert, low dialogue has Farqu'ar writ! How Van wants grace, who never wanted wit! The stage how loosely does Astr{ae}ea tread, Who fairly puts all characters to bed! And idle Cibber, how he breaks the laws, To make poor Pinky eat with vast applause! But fill their purse, our poet's work is done, Alike to them, by pathos or by pun. O you! whom vanity's light bark conveys On fame's mad voyage by the wind of praise, With what a shifting gale your course you ply, For ever sunk too low, or borne too high! Who pants for glory finds but short repose, A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows. Farewell the stage! if just as thrives the play, The silly bard grows fat, or falls away. There still remains, to mortify a wit, The many-headed monster of the pit: A senseless, worthless, and unhonour'd crowd; Who, to disturb their betters mighty proud, Clatt'ring their sticks before ten lines are spoke, Call for the farce, the bear, or the black-joke. What dear delight to Britons farce affords! Farce once the taste of mobs, but now of lords; (For taste, eternal wanderer, now flies From heads to ears, and now from ears to eyes.) The play stands still; damn action and discourse, Back fly the scenes, and enter foot and horse; Pageants on pageants, in long order drawn, Peers, heralds, bishops, ermine, gold, and lawn; The champion too! and, to complete the jest, Old Edward's armour beams on Cibber's breast. With laughter sure Democritus had died, Had he beheld an audience gape so wide. Let bear or elephant be e'er so white, The people, sure, the people are the sight! Ah luckless poet! stretch thy lungs and roar, That bear or elephant shall heed thee more; While all its throats the gallery extends, And all the thunder of the pit ascends! Loud as the wolves on Orcas' stormy steep, Howl to the roarings of the Northern deep. Such is the shout, the long-applauding note, At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat, Or when from Court a birthday suit bestow'd Sinks the lost actor in the tawdry load. Booth enters—hark! the universal peal! "But has he spoken?" Not a syllable. "What shook the stage, and made the people stare?" Cato's long wig, flow'r'd gown, and lacquer'd chair. Yet lest you think I rally more than teach, Or praise malignly arts I cannot reach, Let me for once presume t'instruct the times, To know the poet from the man of rhymes: 'Tis he, who gives my breast a thousand pains, Can make me feel each passion that he feigns; Enrage, compose, with more than magic art, With pity and with terror tear my heart; And snatch me o'er the earth or thro' the air, To Thebes, to Athens, when he will, and where. But not this part of the poetic state Alone, deserves the favour of the great: Think of those authors,
Sir, who would rely More on a reader's sense, than gazer's eye. Or who shall wander where the Muses sing? Who climb their mountain, or who taste their spring? How shall we fill a library with wit, When Merlin's Cave is half unfurnish'd yet? My Liege! why writers little claim your thought, I guess: and, with their leave, will tell the fault: We poets are (upon a poet's word) Of all mankind, the creatures most absurd: The season, when to come, and when to go, To sing, or cease to sing, we never know; And if we will recite nine hours in ten, You lose your patience, just like other men. Then too we hurt ourselves, when to defend A single verse, we quarrel with a friend; Repeat unask'd; lament, the wit's too fine For vulgar eyes, and point out ev'ry line. But most, when straining with too weak a wing, We needs will write epistles to the king; And from the moment we oblige the town, Expect a place, or pension from the Crown; Or dubb'd historians by express command, T'enroll your triumphs o'er the seas and land, Be call'd to court to plan some work divine, As once for Louis,
Boileau and Racine. Yet think, great Sir! (so many virtues shown) Ah think, what poet best may make them known? Or choose at least some minister of grace, Fit to bestow the laureate's weighty place. Charles, to late times to be transmitted fair, Assign'd his figure to Bernini's care; And great Nassau to Kneller's hand decreed To fix him graceful on the bounding steed; So well in paint and stone they judg'd of merit: But kings in wit may want discerning spirit. The hero William, and the martyr Charles, One knighted Blackmore, and one pension'd Quarles; Which made old Ben, and surly Dennis swear, "No Lord's anointed, but a Russian bear." Not with such majesty, such bold relief, The forms august, of king, or conqu'ring chief, E'er swell'd on marble; as in verse have shin'd (In polish'd verse) the manners and the mind. Oh! could I mount on the M{ae}onian wing, Your arms, your actions, your repose to sing! What seas you travers'd! and what fields you fought! Your country's peace, how oft, how dearly bought! How barb'rous rage subsided at your word, And nations wonder'd while they dropp'd the sword! How, when you nodded, o'er the land and deep, Peace stole her wing, and wrapp'd the world in sleep; Till earth's extremes your mediation own, And Asia's tyrants tremble at your throne— But verse, alas! your Majesty disdains; And I'm not us'd to panegyric strains: The zeal of fools offends at any time, But most of all, the zeal of fools in rhyme, Besides, a fate attends on all I write, That when I aim at praise, they say I bite. A vile encomium doubly ridicules: There's nothing blackens like the ink of fools; If true, a woeful likeness; and if lies, "Praise undeserv'd is scandal in disguise." Well may he blush, who gives it, or receives; And when I flatter, let my dirty leaves (Like journals, odes, and such forgotten things As Eusden,
Philips,
Settle, writ of kings) Clothe spice, line trunks, or flutt'ring in a row, Befringe the rails of Bedlam and Soho.
Form: couplets 1.
Pope began his Imitations of Horace around 1733, presumably on a hint or suggestion from Bolingbroke.
Epistle II, i, usually called the Epistle to Augustus, was written in 1736 and first published in May 1737.
By 1737 George II had become sufficiently unpopular that it was safe for Pope to publish this ironic version of Horace's tribute to the Emperor Augustus.
While Horace's Augustus might have questioned the usefulness of poets to the state, he had been a major ruler, who had demonstrated qualities of leadership, integrity, sagacity, and intelligence.
The monarch to whom Pope addressed his poem was hardly able to speak English and was antagonistic to learning and the arts.
George II, although having personal courage, had little else a monarch required.
His desire for personal glory was frustrated by Walpole's pacifism, while his blind egoism prevented him from realizing that the royal power was actually controlled by Queen Caroline.
These qualities, coupled with George's indifference to English culture, made him the ideal recipient for Pope's poem, which is an apology for the arts and an ironic defence of cultural values.
Pope's summary is as follows: "The reflections of Horace, and the judgments passed in his pistle to Augustus, seemed so seasonable to the present times that I could not help applying them to the use of my own country.
The author thought them considerable enough to address them to his Prince; whom he paints with all the great and good qualities of a monarch upon whom the Romans depended for the increase of an absolute empire.
But to make the poem entirely English,
I was willing to add one or two of those which contribute to the happiness of a free people, and are more consistent with the welfare of our neighbours.
This epistle will show the learned world to have fallen into two mistakes: one, that Augustus was a patron of poets in general; whereas he not only prohibited all but the best writers to name him, but recommended that care even to the civil magistrate:
Admonebat Praetores ne paterentur Nomen suum obsolefieri, etc.
The other, that this piece was only a general discourse of poetry; whereas it was an apology for the poets, in order to render Augustus more their Patron.
Horace here pleads the cause of his contemporaries, first against the taste of the town, whose humour it was to magnify the authors of the preceding age; secondly against the court and nobility, who encouraged only the writers for the theatre; and lastly against the emperor himself, who had conceived them of little use to the government.
He shows (by a view of the progress of learning, and the change of taste among the Romans) that the introduction of the polite arts of Greece had given the writers of his time great advantages over their predecessors; that their morals were much improved, and the licence of those ancient poets restrained; that satire and comedy were become more just and useful; that whatever extravagances were left on the stage were owing to the ill taste of the nobility; that poets, under due regulations, were in many respects useful to the state, and concludes, that it was upon them the emperor himself must depend for his fame with posterity.
We may farther learn from this epistle that Horace made his court to this great prince by writing with a decent freedom toward him, with a just contempt of his low flatterers, and with a manly regard to his own character.
Ne Rubeam, ... : lest I have to blush at (when presented with) the stupid gift. 7.
Edward:
Edward
II.
Henry:
Henry V.
England's warrior king. 17.
Alcides:
Hercules. 25. liberty.
The Tories charged that liberty was being lost in George II's reign. 38.
Skelton "[Pope] Poet Laureate to Henry
II, a volume of whose verses has been lately reprinted, consisting almost wholly of ribaldry, obscenity and scurrilous language." 40.
Christ's Kirk o' the Green: "[Pope] A ballad made by a King of Scotland." Usually attributed to James I or James V. 42 "[Pope] The Devil's Tavern, where Ben Jonson held his Poetical Club."Devil: rhymes with civil, (dí;vil).48.
Refers to contemporary pantomime. 66.
Stowe: an Elizabethan chronicler. 69. "[Pope] Shakespeare and Ben Jonson may truly be said not much to have thought of this immortality, the one in many pieces composed in haste for the stage; the other in his latter works in general which Dryden called his Dotages [in An Essay of Dramatic Poesy." 75.
Cowley:
Abraham Cowley (1618-1667), a metaphysical poet whom Pope considered a "fine poet,in spite of all his faults." 77.
Pindaric Art: "[Pope] which has much more merit than his Epic: but very unlike the character, as well as numbers of Pindar." 83-86.
Pope satirizes the chatter of would-be men of taste employing the critical cliché;s of his day.84.
Beamount ...
Fletcher: see note to Dryden's To My Dear Friend Mr.
Congreve, line 20. 85.
Shadwell ...
Wycherly. "[Pope] Nothing was less true than this particular:
But the whole paragraph has a mixture of irony, and must not altogether be taken for Horace's own judgment, only the common chatt of the pretenders to criticism; in some things right, in others wrong: as he tells us in his answer,
Interdum vulgus rectum videt, est ubi peccat (Sometimes the public sees right: sometimes they err) II, i, 63."Shadwell: see notes to
Flecknoe.
Wycherley: see notes to To My Dear Friend Mr.
Congreve, line 30.86.
Southerne:
Thomas Southerne (1660-1746), dramatist; a writer of "pathetic" tragedy, e.g.,
The Fatal Marriage (1694).
Rowe:
Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718), considered chief tragic dramatist in the reign of Queen Anne; also the first editor of Shakespeare and a friend of Pope's. 88.
Heywood:
John Heywood (1497?-1580?), the author of several interludes.
Cibber: see notes to The Dunciad. 91.
Gammer Gurton: "[Pope] a piece of very low humour, one of the first printed plays in English, and therefore much valued by some antiquaries." In Pope's time, before the discovery of an earlier example, it was believed to the earliest. 92. the Careless Husband: one of Cibber's successful comedies. 97.
Spenser ... absolute: "[Pope] Particularly in the Shepherd's Calendar, where he imitates the unequal measures, as well as the language, of Chaucer." 101.
Quibbles: see Paradise Lost,
VI, 609-28. 102.
School Divine: see Paradise Lost,
II, 80-134. 104. slashing Bentley.
Bentley was generally ridiculed for his heavily amended edition of Paradise Lost (1732).
For further information see Epistle to Dr.
Arbuthnot, note on line 164. hook: (1) a pruning tool, (2) the square brackets that Bentley used to indicate passages that he thought were spurious in Milton. 107-8. days ... ease: a rhyme in Pope's day. 109.
Sprat:
Thomas Sprat (1635-1713), writer and divine, who became Bishop of Rochester in 1684.
He is noted for his prose writing, especially his History of the Royal Society (1667), which had an important influence on the prose style of Pope's day.
Carew:
Thomas Carew (1595?-1639?), a lyric poet in the cavalier tradition.
Sedley:
Sir Charles Sedley (1639-1701), a lyric poet of the Restoration court circle.
Pope had little respect for these three as poets. 110.
Miscellanies: collections of poems by various writers. 122.
Betterton:
Thomas Betterton (1635?-1710), the leading tragic actor during the Restoration periodand an intimate friend of Pope's. 123.
Booth:
Barton Booth (1681-1733), a well-known eighteenth century tragic actor who played the title role in Addison's Cato (1713). 124. "[Pope] An absurd custom of several actors, to pronounce with emphasis the mere proper names of Greeks or Romans, which (as they call it) fill the mouth of the player." 132.
Merlin's prophecy: translated from the Welsh unto Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth in Book
II of his Historia Regium Brittaniae.
English translations appeared in 1641 and 1718. 142. "[Pope] A verse of Lord Landsdowne" (George Granville) from The Progress of Beauty. 143. "[Pope] The Duke of Newcastle's Book of Horsemanship: the Romance of Parthenissa by the Earl of Orrery, and most of the French romances translated by persons of quality."144.
Newmarket: a race track frequented by Charles II. 149.
Lely:
Sir Peter Lely (1618--1680), a Dutch portrait paunter who came to England in 1641 with William
II. 153. "[Pope] The Siege of Rhodes (1656) by Sir William Davenant, the first opera sung in England." 156.
Refers to the exile of Charles I and the recall of Charles II, the exile of James II and the invitation to William and Mary, and finally the invitation to the Hanovarians. 182.
Ward: "[Pope] A famous Empiric, whose Pill and Drop had several surprising effects, and were one of the principal subjects of writing and conversation at this time." 183.
Radcliff:
Dr.
John Radcliffe (1653-1714), a London physician noted as a diagnostician, who left a large fortune in trust for building and for travelling medical fellowships at Oxford. 186.
Ripley:
See Moral Epistle IV, 18. 195.
Flight of cashiers: refers to the flight of the cashiers of the South Sea Company to France, after being found guilty of a breach of trust.
Pope often refers to the South Sea Bubble. 197.
Peter:
Peter Walter (1664?-1746), politician,
M.
P., and moneylender, who was notorious for usurious practices.
He is the original of Fielding's Peter Pounce in Joseph Andrews. 204. "[Pope] Horace had not acquitted himself much to his credit in this capacity; (non bene relicta parmula [Odes,
II, vii, 10]) in the battle of Philippi.
It is manifest he alludes to himselí in this whole account of a poet's character; but with an intermixture of irony:
Vivit siliquis et pane secundo has a relation to his Epicurism; os tenerum pueri is ridicule:
The nobler office of a poet follows,
Torquet ab obscoenis--Mox etiam pectus--Recte facta refert, etc. which the imitator has applied where he thinks it more due than to himself.
He hopes to be pardoned, if, as he is sincerely inclined to praise what deserves to be praised, he arraigns what deserves to be arraigned, in the 210, 211 and 212th verses. 214.
Roscommon: see Essay On Criticism, note on line 725. 222.
Her trade supported: refers to Swift's proposals to improve the economy of Ireland in his Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture (1720).supplied: to supplement. 224.
Refers to his attack on a court-approved project that would have debased the Irish monetary system.
For this he chose the person of a Dublin drapier; consequently, the work is called The Drapier's Letters. idiot and the poor: " [Pope] A foundation for the maintenance of idiots, and a fund for assisting the poor, by lending small sums of money on demand." 230.
Hopkins and Sternhold: authors of a naive, sixteenth-century metrical version of the Psalms. 236..... or ...
Turk: alludes to the closing line in the prayer at the end of the Hopkins-Sternhold version, "From Pope and Turk defend us,
Lord." Pope, of course, is playing on his name as well. 257.statutes: here, of course, the various laws concerning libel. 267. "[Pope] Mr.
Waller, about this time [1664] with the Earl of Dorset,
Mr.
Godolphin, and others, translated the Pompey of Corneille; and the more correct French Poets began to be in reputation." 277-78.
Otway:
Thomas Otway (1652-1685), tragic dramatist of the Restoration, whose plays included Venice Preserved.279-81.fluent ... blot: refers to Ben Jonson's Discoveries where he had observed: "Shakespeare ... never blotted out a line.
My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand." 284. images of life: i.e., critical commonplaces. 287.
Congreve's fools: e.g.,
Witwoud in The Way of the World, or Brisk in The Double Dealer. 288.
Farqu'ar:
George Farquhar (1677-1707),
Restoration comic dramatist. 289.
Van:
Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), comic dramatist and architect.
His literary works include The Provoked Wife and his architectural works Blenheim Palace and the Clarendon Building,
Oxford. 290.
Astraea: "[Pope] A name taken by Aphra Behn,
Authoress of several obscene Plays." Astraea was goddess of justice. 293.
Pinky:
William Penkethman, a comic actor, notorious for having, in a performance of Cibber's Loves Makes Man, eaten two chickens in three seconds. 309.
Black Joke.
The Coal Black Joke was a popular air to which various indecent songs were set. 313. "From Plays to Opera, and from Operas to Pantomimes" (Warburton).
Cf.
Dunciad IV, 45-60. 315. scenes: painted flats, which when parted, revealed the inner stage.
Hence the equivalent of the modern curtain. 319."[Pope] The Coronation of Henry
II and Queen Anne Boleyn, in which the Playhouses vied with each other to represent all the pomp of a Coronation.
In this noble contention, the Armour of one of the Kings of England was borrowed from the Tower to dress the Champion." 320.
Democritus:
A Greek atomist and philosopher (460 B.
C.), who was described by Juvenal as ever laughing at the follies of mankind, and therefore came to be known as "the laughing philosopher" in opposition to the melancholy Heraclitus. 328.
Orcas: "[Pope] The farthest Northern Promontory of Scotland, opposite to the Orcades." 331.....
Quin's ...
Oldfield's ...:
James Quin and Mrs.
Oldfield, most popular comic actor and actress of the time. 332.birthday suit: one of the magnificent suits worn at royal birthday celebrations.
Cf.
Rape of the Lock, note on line 23.337.
Cato ... chair: from Addison's Cato where the stage direction for the opening of the last act reads: "Cato, solus, sitting in a thoughtful posture." 338.rally: rail (spelt "railly" in the eighteenth century).353. mountain ... spring:
Parnassus and the Pierian spring. 354. "[Pope] Munus Apolline dignum.
The Palatine Library then building by Augustus" (refers to 1. 217 of Latin text). 355.
Merlin's cave: "[Pope] A Building in the Royal Gardens of Richmond, where is a small, but choice Collection of Books." (Pope is ironically comparing Queen Caroline's collection of wax figures and a few books with Augustus' building of the great Palatine Library.)375.
Under Charles II,
Dryden was the royal historiographer, while Louis
IV made Racine and Boileau,
France's great neo-classical poet and critic, royal historiographers. 379.
The Laureate had not been a poet of note since Dryden was replaced in 1688. 381.
Bernini: (1598-1680) the architect who designed the great colonnade at St.
Peter's.
His bust of Charles I (now destroyed) was made in Rome, 1636-37, from a triple portrait by Vandyke. 382.
Kneller:
Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723),
German-born portrait painter who settled in England in 1675.
He was a neighbour and acquaintance of Pope's, who at his death requested Pope write his epitaph. 387.
Blackmore:
Sir Richard Blackmore (1655?-1729), physician to William
II, notorious for long prosaic poems, such as Prince Arthur (1695), an epic, and Creation, a philosophic poem.
Quarles: nothing is known of Quarles' pension. 394.
Maeonian.
Homeric\; see Essay on Criticism, note to line 648. 414. i.e.,
King George or his Laureate,
Cibber. 417.
Eusden:
Laurence Eusden (1688-1730),
Poet Laureate in 1718 after Rhodes' death, a person often attacked by Pope.
He had written a number of birthday odes to the King.
Philips: see Epistle to Arbuthnot, notes to lines 100 and 179-82.
Settle:
Elkanah Settle (1648-1724), poet and dramatist, appointed city poet in 1691, who wrote birthday odes addressed to George I and the Prince of Wales in 1717.
