185

Away they come, thro' thick and thin,
To a tall house near Lincoln's-Inn;
('Twas on the night of a Debate,
When all their Lordships had sat late.)
Behold the place, where if a Poet
Shin'd in Description, he might show it;
Tell how the Moon-beam trembling falls,
And tips with Silver all the walls;
Palladian walls, Venetian doors,
Grotesco roofs, and Stucco floors:
But let it (in a word) be said,
The Moon was up, and Men a bed,
The Napkins white, the Carpet red:)

190

BOOK IV. ODE I.

TO VENUS1.

GAIN? new Tumults in my breast?

AGA

Ah spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest?

I am not now, alas! the man

As in the gentle Reign of My Queen Anne.

Ah sound no more thy soft alarms,

Nor circle sober fifty with thy Charms.

Mother too fierce of dear Desires!

Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires.

To Number five direct your Doves,

There spread round MURRAY all your blooming Loves;
Noble and young, who strikes the heart

With ev'ry sprightly, ev'ry decent part;

Equal, the injur'd to defend,

To charm the Mistress, or to fix the Friend.

It may be worth observing, that the measure Pope has here chosen is precisely the same that Ben Jonson used in a translation of this very Ode. Warton.

10

2 The number of Murray's lodgings in King's Bench Walks. Bowles. [See Imitations of Horace, Bk. 1. Ep. vi. 49, note.]

He, with a hundred Arts refin'd,

Shall stretch thy conquests over half the kind:
To him each Rival shall submit,

Make but his Riches equal to his Wit1.
Then shall thy Form the Marble grace,

(Thy Grecian Form) and Chloe lend the Face:
His House, embosom'd in the Grove,

Sacred to social life and social love 2,

Shall glitter o'er the pendant green,

Where Thames reflects the visionary scene:

Thither, the silver-sounding lyres

Shall call the smiling Loves, and young Desires;
There, ev'ry Grace and Muse shall throng,
Exalt the dance, or animate the song;

There Youths and Nymphs, in concert gay,

Shall hail the rising, close the parting day.

With me, alas! those joys are o'er;

For me, the vernal garlands bloom no more.
Adieu, fond hope of mutual fire,

Adieu, the heart-expanding bowl,

The still-believing, still-renew'd desire;

And all the kind Deceivers of the soul!

Why words so flowing, thoughts so free,

Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee?
Thee, drest in Fancy's airy beam,

401

Absent I follow thro' th' extended Dream;

PART OF THE NINTH ODE OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

S

UCH were the notes thy once-lov'd Poet sung,
'Till Death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
Oh just beheld, and lost! admir'd and mourn'd!
With softest manners, gentlest Arts adorn'd!
Blest in each science, blest in ev'ry strain!
Dear to the Muse! to HARLEY dear-in vain!

For him, thou oft hast bid the World attend,
Fond to forget the statesman in the friend;
For SWIFT and him despis'd the farce of state,
The sober follies of the wise and great;
Dext'rous the craving, fawning crowd to quit,
And pleas'd to 'scape from Flattery to Wit.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear
(A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear);

1 Epist. to Robert Earl of Oxford,] This Epistle was sent to the Earl of Oxford with Dr Parnell's Poems published by our Author, after the said Earl's Imprisonment in the Tower, and Retreat into the Country, in the Year 1721. P. [As to Parnell v. ante p. 437. Robert Harley, though descended from a Puritan family and in the early part of his career an extreme Whig, had, by a transition not unparalleled in political history, become the leader of the Country Party; and was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons in 1701. In 1704 he became Secretary of State in the Godolphin Ministry, and after being expelled from office succeeded in obtaining the

10

Chancellorship of the Exchequer by employing

female intrigue and raising the cry of the Church in danger.' (Macknight.) He subsequently was created Earl of Oxford and made Lord Treasurer; and it was at this time that he principally availed himself of the services of Swift and his friends. The rivalry between himself and Bolingbroke ended in his downfall immediately after the death of Queen Anne; in 1716, he was impeached for treasonable intrigues with the Jacobites during his tenure of power; and confined in the Tower. In 1717 the trial was abandoned; and he died in retirement in 1724.]

2 [Verg. Æn. vi. 870.]

Recall those nights that clos'd thy toilsome days;
Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays,
Who, careless now of Int'rest, Fame, or Fate,
Perhaps forgets that OXFORD e'er was great;
Or, deeming meanest what we greatest call,
Beholds thee glorious only in thy Fall.

And sure, if aught below the seats divine
Can touch Immortals, 'tis a Soul like thine:
A Soul supreme in each hard instance try'd,
Above all Pain, all Passion, and all Pride,
The rage of Pow'r, the blast of public breath,
The lust of Lucre, and the dread of Death.
In vain to Deserts thy retreat is made;
The Muse attends thee to thy silent shade:
'Tis hers, the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Rejudge his acts, and dignify disgrace.
When Int'rest calls off all her sneaking train,
And all th' oblig'd desert, and all the vain;
She waits, or to the scaffold, or the cell,
When the last ling'ring friend has bid farewell.

15

90

25

30

Thro' Fortune's cloud one truly great can see,
Nor fears to tell, that MORTIMER is he.

Ev'n now, she shades thy Ev'ning-walk with bays
(No hireling she, no prostitute to praise);
Ev'n now, observant of the parting Ray,
Eyes the calm Sun-set of thy various Day,

35

40

EPISTLE TO JAMES CRAGGS', Esq.
SECRETARY OF STATE 2.

SOUL as full of Worth, as void of Pride,

A Which nothing seeks to shew, or needs to hide,

Which nor to Guilt nor Fear, its Caution owes,
And boasts a Warmth that from no Passion flows.

A Face untaught to feign; a judging Eye,

That darts severe upon a rising Lie,

And strikes a blush thro' frontless Flattery.

All this thou wert, and being this before,

Know, Kings and Fortune cannot make thee more.
Then scorn to gain a Friend by servile ways,
Nor wish to lose a Foe these Virtues raise;
But candid, free, sincere, as you began,
Proceed,- -a Minister, but still a Man.

1 James Craggs was made Secretary at War in 1717, when the Earl of Sunderland and Mr Addison were appointed Secretaries of State. Bowles. [He succeeded Addison in the latter office in 1720, and to him Addison dedicated his works in the last letter which he ever composed. Craggs was afterwards involved in the South Sea speculations (concerning which he advised Pope);