Mine, as a Friend to ev'ry worthy mind;
And mine as Man, who feel for all mankind.
F. You're ftrangely proud.

P. So proud, I am no Slave:

So impudent, I own myself no Knave : 206
So odd, my Country's Ruin makes me grave.
Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to fee
Men not afraid of God, afraid of me:
Safe from the Bar, the Pulpit, and the Throne,
Yet touch'd and sham'd by Ridicule alone.

O facred weapon! left for Truth's defence,
Sole Dread of Folly, Vice, and Infolence!
To all but Heav'n-directed hands deny'd,

211

The Mufe may give thee, but the Gods muft guide:

NOTES.

VER. 204. And mine as Man, who feel for all mankind.] From Terence: "Homo fum: humani nihil a me alienum

puto."

P.

VER. 208. Yes, I am proud; etc.] In this ironical exultation the Poet infinuates a subject of the deepest humiliation.

VER. 211. Yet touch'd and fham'd by Ridicule alone.] The Paffions are given us to awake and support Virtue. But they frequently betray their truft, and go over to the interests of Vice. Ridicule, when employed in the caufe of Virtue, fhames and brings them back to their duty. Hence the ufe and importance of Satire.

VER. 214. To all but Heav'n-directed hands] "The Citizen "(fays Plato, in his fifth book of Laws) who does no injury to "any one, without queftion, merits our efteem. He, who,

not content with being barely juft himself, oppofes the "courfe of injuftice, by profecuting it before the Magiftrate, "merits our esteem vaftly more. The first discharges the du

Rev'rent I touch thee! but with honeft zeal;
To rouse the Watchmen of the public Weal,
To Virtue's work provoke the tardy Hall,
And goad the Prelate flumb'ring in his Stall..
Ye tinfel Infects! whom a Court maintains, 220
That counts your Beauties only by your Stains,

NOTES.

"ty of a fingle Citizen; but the other does the office of a Body. But he whofe zeal ftops not here, but proceeds to "ASSIST THE MAGISTRATE IN PUNISHING is the most "precious bleffing of Society. This is the PERFECT CITIZEN, to whom we should adjudge the prize of Virtue.”

ઃઃ

VER. 219. And goad the Prelate flumb'ring in his Stall.] The good Eufebius, in his Evangelical Preparation, draws a long parallel between the Ox and the Chriftian Priesthood. Hence the dignified Clergy, out of mere humility, have ever fince called their thrones by the name of stalls. To which a great Prelate of Winchester, one W. Edinton, modeftly alluding, (who otherwife had been long fince forgotten) has rendered his name immortal by this ecclefiaftical aphorifm, Canterbury is the bigher rack, but Winchester is the better manger. By which, however, it appears that he was not one of thofe here condemned, who flumber in their stalls. SCRIBL.

VER. 220. Ye tinfel Infects! whom a Court maintains, Thai counts your Beauties only by your Stains, Spin all your Cobwebs} And again, to the fame purpose, in the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,

This painted child of Dirt, that ftinks and ftings. Thefe, it is objected, are Infects not of Nature's creating, but the Poet's, and therefore fuch compound images are to be condemned. One would think, by this, that mixed qualities troubled the fenfe, as much as mixed metaphors do the ftyle. But whoever thinks fo, is miftaken. The fault of mixed meta

Spin all

your Cobwebs o'er the Eye of Day! The Mufe's wing shall brush you all away: All his Grace preaches, all his Lordship fings, All that makes Saints of Queens, and Gods of Kings.

NOTES.

phors is, that they call the imagination from image to image, when it is the writer's purpose to fix it upon one. On the contrary, mixed qualities do their office rightly, and inform the understanding of what the author would infinuate, that the moral infect is a more worthless creature than the phyfical, as he collects together, in one individual, many bad or trifling qualities, which nature had difperfed in feveral. And when, in fact, we see them so collected; as venom, fophiftry, and infidioufnefs, in a Court-Butterfly, the giving it the bite of the bug, and the web of the spider, makes it a monster indeed, but a monster of nature's producing, and not the poet's,

cujus velut agri fomnia vana Fingentur fpecies.

VER. 223. Ye Infects - The Mufe's wing shall brush you all away:] This it did very effectually; and the memory of them had been now forgotten, had not the Poet's charity, for a while, protracted their miferable Being. There is now in his library a complete collection of all the horrid Libels written and published against him;

The tale reviv'd, the lye fo oft o'erthrown,
Th'imputed trash, and dulnefs not his own;
The morals blacken'd, when the writings 'fcape,
The libell'd Perfon, and the pictur'd shape.

These he had bound up in feveral volumes, according to their various fizes, from folios down to duodecimos; and to each of them hath affixed this motto out of the book of Job:

Behold, my defire is, that mine adversary should write a book. Surely I should take it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me. Ch. xxxi. 35, 36.

VER. 224. Cobwebs] Weak and flight sophistry against virtue and honour. Thin colours over vice, as unable to hide the light of Truth, as cobwebs to shade the fun. P.

All, all but Truth, drops dead-born from the Prefs, Like the last Gazette, or the laft Addrefs. 227

When black Ambition stains a public Cause, A Monarch's fword when mad Vain-glory draws, Not Waller's Wreath can hide the Nation's Scar, Nor Boileau turn the Feather to a Star.

Not fo, when diadem'd with rays divine,

231

Touch'd with the Flame that breaks from Virtue's

Shrine,

Her Prieftefs Mufe forbids the Good to die,

And opes the Temple of Eternity.

VARIATIONS.

After 227. in the MS.

Where's now the Star that lighted Charles to rife?

-With that which follow'd Julius to the skies.

Angels, that watch'd the Royal Oak fo well,

How chanc'd ye nod, when luckless Sorel fell?
Hence, lying miracles! reduc'd fo low
As to the regal-touch, and papal-toe;
Hence haughty Edgar's title to the Main,
Britain's to France, and thine to India, Spain!

NOTES.

235

VER. 228. When black Ambition etc.] The cafe of Cromwell in the civil war of England; and ( 229.) of Louis XIV. in his conqueft of the Low Countries. P.

VER. 231. Nor Boileau turn the Feather to a Star.] See his Ode on Namur; where (to ufe his own words)" il a fait un "Aftre de la Plume blanche que le Roy porte ordinairement "à fon Chapeau, et qui eft en effet une efpece de Comete, "fatale à nos ennemis." P.

There, other Trophies deck the truly brave,
Than fuch as Anftis cafts into the Grave;
Far other Stars than * and ** wear,

And may defcend to Mordington from STAIR:
(Such as on HOUGH's unfully'd Mitre shine, 240
Or beam, good DIGBY, from a heart like thine)
Let Envy howl, while Heav'n's whole Chorus fings,
And bark at Honour not confer'd by Kings;
Let Flatt'ry fickening fee the Incense rise,
Sweet to the World, and grateful to the Skies :
Truth guards the Poet, fanctifies the line, 246
And makes immortal, Verfe as mean as mine.

Yes, the last Pen for Freedom let me draw, When Truth stands trembling on the edge of Law;

NOTES.

VER. 237. Anftis] The chief Herald at Arms. It is the cuftom, at the funeral of great peers, to caft into the grave the broken ftaves and enfigns of honour. P.

VER. 239. Stair ;] John Dalrymple Earl of Stair, Knight of the Thiftle; ferved in all the wars under the Duke of Marlborough; and afterwards as Embaffador in France. P.

VER. 240, 241. Hough and Digby] Dr. John Hough Bishop of Worcester, and the Lord Digby. The one an affertor of the Church of England in oppofition to the falfe measures of King James II. The other as firmly attached to the cause of that King. Both acting out of principle, and equally men of honour and virtue. P.

VER. 249. on the edge of Law:] From the fummit of law is a dreadful precipice, which may well make Truth herself tremble. And from thence came the common proverb, Summum jus, fumma injuria. SCRIBL.

* Z