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You love a verse, take fuch as I can fend,

(a) A Frenchman comes, prefents you with his boy, Bows and begins---" This lad, Sir, is of Blois :

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LORE, bono claroque fidelis amice Neroni,
(a) Si quis forte velit puerum tibi vendere

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natum

Tibure vel Gabiis, et tecum fic agat:

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* Hic et

Candidus, et talos a vertice pulcher ad imos, "Fiet eritque tuus numorum millibus octo;

NOTES.

Ver. 4. This lad, Sir, is of Blois: a town in Beauce, where the French tongue is spoken in great purity.

"Obferve

"Obferve his fhape how clean! his locks how "curl'd!

6

My only fon, I'd have him fee the world; "His French is pure; his voice too---you fhall hear. "Sir, he's your flave, for twenty pound a-year. "Mere wax as yet, you fashion him with ease, "Your barber, cook, upholft'rer, what you please: 10 "A perfect genius at an op'ra-fong--

"To fay too much, might do my honour wrong. "Take him with all his virtues, on my word; "His whole ambition was to ferve a lord: "But, Sir, to you with what would I not part? 15 "Tho' 'faith, I fear, 'twill break his mother'sheart. "Once (and but once) I caught him in a lie, "And then, unwhipp'd, he had the grace to cry: "The fault he has I fairly fhall reveal,

"(Could you o'erlook but that), it is, to steal." 20 [b] If, after this, you took the graceless lad, Could you complain, my friend, he prov'd so bad?

"Verna minifteriis ad nutus aptus heriles; Litterulis Græcis imbutus, idoneus arti "Cuilibet argilla quidvis imitaberis uda; "Quin etiam canet indoctum, fed dulce bibenti. "Multa fidem promiffa levant, ubi plenius æquo "Laudat venales, qui vult extrudere, merces. "Res urget me nulla: meo fum pauper in ære. "Nemo hoc mangonum faceret tibi: non temere

a me

"Quivis ferret idem : femel hic ceffavit, et (ut fit) "In fcalis latuit metuens pendentis habenæ : “Des nummos, excepta nihil te fi fuga lædit." (b) Ille ferat pretium, poenæ fecurus, opinor.

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'Faith,

'Faith, in fuch cafe, if you should profecute,
I think Sir Godfrey fhould decide the fuit;
Who fent the thief that ftole the cash, away,
`And punish'd him that put it in his way.

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[c] Confider then, and judge me in this light; I told you when I went, I could not write; You faid the fame; and are you discontent With laws, to which you gave your own affent? 30 Nay worse, to ask for verse at such a time! D'ye think me good for nothing but to rhyme? [d] In ANNA's wars, a foldier poor and old Had dearly earn'd a little purse of gold: Tir'd with a tedious march, one luckless night, 35 He flept, poor dog! and loft it, to a doit.

Prudens emifti vitiofum: dicta tibi eft lex.
Infequeris tamen hunc, et lite moraris iniqua.
(c) Dixi me pigrum proficifcenti tibi, dixi
Talibus officiis prope mancum: ne mea fævus
Jurgares ad te quod epiftola nulla veniret.
Quid tum profeci, mecum facentia jura

Si tamen attentas? quereris fuper hoc etiam, quod
Exfpectata tibi non mittam carmina mendax.
(d) Luculli miles collecta viatica multis
Ærumnis, laffus dum noctu ftertit, ad affem
Perdiderat : poft hoc vehemens lupus, et fibi et hoi
Iratus pariter, jejunis, dentibus acer,

Præfidium regale loco dejecit, ut aiunt,
Summe munito, et multarum divite rerum.

NOTES.

Ver. 24. I think Sir Godfrey] Sir G. Kneller, an eminent juftice of peace, who decided much in the manner of

Sancho Panca.

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4.

This put the man in such a desp’rate mind, Between revenge, and grief, and hunger join'd Against the foe, himself, and all mankind, He leap'd'the trenches, fcal'd a castle-wall, Tore down a standard, took the fort and all. "Prodigious well;" his great commander cry'd, Gave him much praise, and some reward befide. Next pleas'd his Excellence a town to batter; (Its name I know not, and 'tis no great matter): 45 "Go on, my friend, (he cry'd), fee yonder walls! "Advance and conquer! go where glory calls! "More honours, more rewards, attend the brave." Don't you remember what reply he gave?

D'ye think me, noble Gen'ral, fuch a fot? "Let him take caftles who has ne'er a groat." [e] Bred up at home, full early I begun To read in Greek the wrath of Peleus' fon.

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Clarus ob id factum, donis ornatur honeftis,
Accipit et bis dena fuper feftertia nummum.
Forte fub hoc tempus caftellum evertere prætor
Nefcio quod cupiens, hortari cœpit eundem
Verbis, quæ timido quoque poffent addere mentem:
I, bone, quo virtus tua te vocat: i pede fausto,
Grandia laturus meritorum præmia: quid stas ?
Poft hæc ille catus, quantumvis rufticus, "Ibit,
"Ibit eo, quo vis, qui zonam perdidit, inquit."
(e) Romæ nutriri mihi contigit, atque doceri,
Befides,

NOTES.

Ver. 52. Bred up at home, etc.] Mr Pope was taught his letters very early by an aunt; and, from thence to his eighth year, he took great delight in reading. He learned ic write of himself by copying after printed books, whofe

Befides, my father taught me from a lad, The better art to know the good from bad; (And little fure imported to remove,

To hunt for truth in Maudlin's learned grove.)

Iratus Graiis quantum nocuiffet Achilles.
Adjecere bonæ paulo plus artis Athenæ:
Scilicet ut poffem curvo dignofcere rectum,

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But

NOTES,

characters he brought himself to imitate in great perfection. At eight he was put under one Taverner, a priest, who taught him the rudiments of the Latin and Greek tongues, together: from him, in a little time, he was fent to a private school at Twiford near Winchester. Here he continued about a year, and was then removed to another, near Hyde-park corner. Under thefe two laft mafters he loft the little he had got under the priest. At twelve, he went with his father into the Foreft; where he was for a few months under another prieft, and with as little fuccefs as before. For, as he used to fay, he never could learn any thing which he did not purfue with pleafure. And thefe miferable pedants had not the art of making his ftudies an amufement to him. Upon the remnants, therefore, of this fmall ftock, fo hardly picked up, so easily loft, and recovered (as we shall fee) with fo much labour, he at length thought fit to become his own mafter. And now the only method of ftudy he prefcribed to himself was reading those claffic writers, who afforded him moft entertainment. So that while he was intent upon the fubject, with a strong appetite for knowledge, and an equal paffion for poetry, he insensibly got Latin and Greek. And, what was extraordinary, his impatience of restraint, in the usual forms, did not hinder his fubjecting himself, now he was his own mafter, to all the drudgery and fatigue of perpetually recurring to his grammar and lexicon. By the time he was fifteen, he had acquired a very ready habit in the learned languages, when a ftrong fancy came into his head to remove to London to learn

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