TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM

ENTITLED

SUCCESSIO.

[FIRST published in Lintot's Miscellanies; avowed by Pope as written by him when fourteen years of age, in note to Dunciad, Bk. 1. v. 181. Elkanah Settle, the city poet, and the Doeg of Absalom and Achitophel, had written a poem in celebration of the settlement of the crown on the house of Brunswick. Of this poem vv. 4 and 17-18 were afterwards, with slight alterations, inserted in the Dunciad as vv. 183-4 and 181-2 of Bk. 1.]

EGONE, ye Critics, and restrain your spite,

The heaviest Muse the swiftest course has gone,
As clocks run fastest when most lead is on;
What tho' no bees around your cradle flew,
Nor on your lips distill'd their golden dew;
Yet have we oft discover'd in their stead

A swarm of drones that buzz'd about your head.
When you, like Orpheus, strike the warbling lyre,
Attentive blocks stand round you and admire.
Wit pass'd through thee no longer is the same,
As meat digested takes a diff'rent name;
But sense must sure thy safest plunder be,
Since no reprisals can be made on thee.
Thus thou may'st rise, and in thy daring flight
(Though ne'er so weighty) reach a wondrous height.
So, forced from engines, lead itself can fly,

And pond'rous slugs move nimbly through the sky.
Sure BAVIUS copied MÆVIUS to the full,
And CHERILUS taught CODRUS to be dull;
Therefore, dear friend, at my advice give o'er
This needless labour; and contend no more
To prove a dull succession to be true,
Since 'tis enough we find it so in you.

ARGUS.

5

ΙΟ

13

'HOMER'S account of Ulysses's dog Argus is the most pathetic imaginable, all the circumstances consider'd, and an excellent proof of the old bard's goodnature. Ulysses had left him at Ithaca when he embark'd for Troy, and found him at his return after twenty years (which by the way is not unnatural, as some critics have said, since I remember the dam of my dog was twenty-two years old when she died. May the omen of longevity prove fortunate to her successors!). You shall have it in verse.' Pope to H. Cromwell, Oct. 19, 1709.

HEN wise Ulysses, from his native coast

Perhaps by Chaærilus, the juvenile satirist designed Flecknoe or Shadwell, who had received their immortality of Dulness from his

and long by tempests toss'd,

master Catholic in poetry and opinions: Dryden. D'Israeli, cited by Roscoe.

Arriv'd at last, poor, old, disguis'd, alone,

To all his friends and ev'n his Queen unknown;
Chang'd as he was, with age, and toils, and cares,
Furrow'd his rev'rend face, and white his hairs,
In his own palace forc'd to ask his bread,
Scorn'd by those slaves his former bounty fed,
Forgot of all his own domestic crew:

The faithful dog alone his rightful master knew!
Unfed, unhous'd, neglected, on the clay,
Like an old servant, now cashier'd, he lay;
Touch'd with resentment of ungrateful man,

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10

And longing to behold his ancient Lord again.

Him when he saw-he rose, and crawl'd to meet,

('Twas all he could) and fawn'd, and kiss'd his feet,
Seiz'd with dumb joy-then falling by his side,
Own'd his returning lord, look'd up, and died!

15

IMITATION OF MARTIAL.

[LIB. X. Epigr. XXIII. Mentioned as Pope's 'imitation of Martin's epigram on Antonius Primus,' by Sir William Trumball, in a letter to Pope, Jan. 19, 1716.] T length, my Friend, (while Time, with still career,

A was on his gentle wing his eightieth year,

Sees his past days safe out of Fortune's pow'r,
Nor dreads approaching Fate's uncertain hour;
Reviews his life, and in the strict survey
Finds not one moment he could wish away,
Pleas'd with the series of each happy day.
Such, such a man extends his life's short space,
And from the goal again renews the race;
For he lives twice, who can at once employ
The present well, and ev'n the past enjoy.

OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE
THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM2.

And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends.
Let Crowds of Critics now my verse assail,
Let Dennis write, and nameless numbers rail:
This more than pays whole years of thankless pain;
Time, health, and fortune are not lost in vain.
Sheffield approves, consenting Phoebus bends,
And I and Malice from this hour are friends.

1 How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! Milton's Sonnets, Carruthers.

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10

2 The verses referred to are the commendatory lines prefixed to Pope's poem by B. Roscoe. [As to Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, see note to Essay on Criticism, v. 724.]

SA

ON MRS TOFTS,

A CELEBRATED OPERA-SINGER

bright is thy Beauty, so charming thy Song,

As had drawn both the Beasts and their Orpheus along;

But such is thy Av'rice, and such is thy Pride,

That the Beasts must have starv'd, and the Poet have died.

EPIGRAM ON THE FEUDS ABOUT HANDEL
AND BONONCINI 2.

[SOMETIMES, but incorrectly, attributed to Swift.]

TRANGE! all this Difference should be
"Twixt Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee!

STR

YOU

EPIGRAM.

OU beat your Pate, and fancy Wit will come:
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.

EPITAPH.

[IMITATED by Goldsmith in his Epitaph on Edward Purdon, a bookseller's

hack.']

LL then, poor G lies under Ground!

WELL

So there's an End of honest Jack.

So little Justice here he found,

'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.

EPITAPH.

[FROM the Latin on Joannes Mirandula3. The lines were afterwards applied by Pope to Lord Coningsby; as to whom cf. Moral Essays, Ep. III. v. 397.]

TO A LADY WITH

"THE TEMPLE OF FAME,"

["I send you my Temple of Fame, which is just come out; but my sentiments about it you will see better by this epigram."-Pope to Martha Blount, 1714.]

W

THAT'S Fame with Men, by Custom of the Nation,
Is call'd in Women only Reputation;

About them both why keep we such a pother?

Part you with one, and I'll renounce the other.

IMPROMPTU TO LADY WINCHILSEA.

OCCASIONED BY FOUR SATIRICAL VERSES ON WOMEN-WITS, IN THE
66 RAPE OF THE LOCK."

[THE four verses are apparently Canto IV. vv. 59-62. The Countess of Winchilsea, a poetess whom Rowe hailed as inspired by 'more than Delphic ardour,' replied by some pretty lines, where she declares that, disarmed with so genteel an air,' she gives over the contest. Her reply will be found in Roscoe's Supplement, pp. 183-6.]

N vain you boast Poetic Names of yore,

IN

And cite those Sapphos we admire no more:
Fate doom'd the Fall of every Female Wit;
But doom'd it then, when first Ardelia writ.
Of all Examples by the World confess'd,
I knew Ardelia could not quote the best;
Who, like her Mistress on Britannia's Throne1,
Fights and subdues in Quarrels not her own.
To write their Praise you but in vain essay;
E'en while you write, you take that Praise away:
Light to the Stars the Sun does thus restore,
But shines himself till they are seen no more.

EPIGRAM

ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB, ANNO 1716.

[THE Kit-Cat Club was so named from Christopher Katt, a famous pastrycook. Steele, Addison, and many other wits were members, and Tonson secretary. It was customary to write verses in honour of the 'Toasts,' and engrave them upon the glasses. Each member gave his picture to the club.]

WHI

HENCE deathless Kit-Cat took its Name,
Few Critics can unriddle;
Some say from Pastry-cook it came,
And some from Cat and Fiddle.

the origin belongs to the times of Henry IV. of France. Pope's epigram refers to the state of Europe after the peace of Utrecht in 1715, as a peace resulting (which was not in truth the case)

from general exhaustion.]

[Alluding to the wars concerning the Spanish succession, in which England certainly had no direct interest, under Queen Anne.]

INCE my old friend is grown so great
As to be Minister of State,

SIN

I'm told, but 'tis not true, I hope,
That Craggs will be ashamed of Pope.
CRAGGS.-Alas! if I am such a creature

To grow the worse for growing greater;
Why, faith, in spite of all my brags,
'Tis Pope must be ashamed of Craggs.

ON DRAWINGS OF THE STATUES OF APOLLO, VENUS, AND HERCULES,

MADE FOR POPE BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

THAT god, what genius, did the pencil move,
When Kneller painted these?

'Twas friendship warm as Phoebus, kind as love,
And strong as Hercules.

PROLOGUE TO THE "THREE HOURS AFTER
MARRIAGE."

[From the Miscellanies of Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay.]

[THOUGH I am not aware on what evidence Roscoe and Carruthers agree in ascribing the Prologue of this farce to Pope, instead of leaving its joint honours like those of the farce itself to Gay and Arbuthnot (for both contributed to the volume of Miscellanies in which it was published) as well as him; yet the following has been inserted on account of the interest attaching to the piece, as the origin of Pope's quarrel with Cibber. A brief notice of the play, which was produced at Drury-Lane on Jan. 16th, 1717, will be found in the Introductory Memoir: and the play itself in most editions of Gay, and in Bowles' edition of Pope, vol. x.]

A Fools:

UTHORS are judg'd by strange capricious Rules;

[See p. 442:]