Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

The first firm P

Brave & S d

с

[ocr errors]

y

foon refign'd his breath,

-- w lov'd thee, and was ly'd to death.

f

Good M - m - t's fate tore Pth from thy fide,

And thy last figh was heard when & W m died. 80

NOTES.

[ocr errors]

Thy

VER. 80. W-m died.] Sir William Wyndham died this year; his death was a fevere blow to the Party, and none felt it perhaps more than Bolingbroke, whose friendship for him appears to have been ardent and fincere. The following extract of a letter from Bolingbroke, to Sir Charles Wyndham on this occafion will be read with intereft, as it particularly fhews the fentiments of the Party at this time :

Lord BOLINGBROKE to Sir CHARLES WYNDHAM. "DEAR SIR,

Argeville, August 8th, 1740.

"I feel as I ought to do, the kindness you fhew me in fending a fervant on purpose, with a letter that gives me as much comfort as I am capable of receiving, fince the lofs we have fuftained by the death of your Father and my Friend. You are in the right, and I love you the better for the sentiment: it is reputation to be defcended from fo great and fo good a man; and furely it is some to have lived thirty years with him in the warmest and most active friendship. Far from any need of making excuses, that you did not write the cruel news to me when you sent to my Lady Denbigh, I have thanks to return you for fparing me, as you spared yourself. The news came to me with less furprize, but not with lefs effect. My unhappiness, for fuch it will be as long as I am able to feel pleasure and pain, began however a little later. It is a plain truth, free from all affectation or compliment, that as your Father was dearer to me than all the rest of the world, fo must every thing be that remains of him : you, Sir, especially, who are as dear to my heart as you could be, if, being the fame worthy man you are, you was my own fon. The refolutions you have taken both as to public and private life, are such as become the fon

Earl of Scarborough. In another place Pope fpells his name with a w. Ep. to the Sat. Dial. 2. 1. 65.

• Marchmont.

g Wyndham.

* Polwarth, fon to Lord Marchmont.

Thy Nobles "Sl-s, thy Ses bought with gold, Thy Clergy perjur'd, thy whole People fold.

k

An atheist a 's ad ...

Blotch thee all o'er, and fink...

Alas! on one alone our all relies,

Let him be honest, and he must be wife,

Let him no trifler from his

[blocks in formation]

school,

Be but a man! unminifter'd, alone,

And free at once the Senate and the Throne;

Efteem the public love his best fupply,

A 'C's true glory his integrity;
Rich with his . . . . in his . . . ftrong,

Affect no conqueft, but endure no wrong.

NOTES.

85

90

Whatever

fon and fucceffor of Sir William Wyndham. To be a friend to your country, is to be what he was eminently; it is to be what he would have recommended you to be, even with his dying breath, if the nature of his diftemper had permitted such an effort. He thought this country on the brink of ruin, and that monarchical but free conftitution of government, wherein the glory and the happiness of our nation confifted, at the point of being dissolved, and facrificed to the fupport of a weak and wicked administration; but he thought that the greater the diftrefs was, the more incumbent and the more preffing the duty of ftruggling to prevent, or to alleviate, it became. One of the last things he said to me the day before he left this place was, that he did not expect to live to fee Britain restored to a flourishing and fecure ftate, but that he would die in labouring to procure that happiness to those he fhould leave behind him.M. S. from the Egremont

Papers; communicated by Mr. Coxe.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Whatever his religion or his blood,

His public virtue makes his title good.

Europe's just balance and our own may ftand,
And one man's honesty redeem the land.

95

NOTES.

VER. 65. Whatever his religion] He probably means Frederick Prince of Wales, who took a decided part with the malecontents against Sir R. Walpole's administration. This was written the year before the general election, which decided the fate of Walpole. It is fingular that Pope, in this Satire, turns his weapons against his own party, and attacks many of those whom he had lately panegyrised with the moft extravagant praise, particularly Pulteney and Chesterfield, of whom he said in 1738:

"How can I, Pulteney, Chesterfield forget,
While Roman spirit charms and Attic wit."

THE

PLAN OF AN EPIC POEM,

TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN BLANK VERSE,

AND INTITLED,

BRUTUS.

« ZurückWeiter »