SATIRE IV.

WELL, if it be my time to quit the stage,
Adieu to all the follies of the age!

I die in charity with fool and knave,
Secure of peace at least beyond the grave.
I've had my Purgatory here betimes,
And paid for all my satires, all my rhymes.
The poet's hell, its tortures, fiends, and flames,
To this were trifles, toys, and empty names.

With foolish pride my heart was never fired,
Nor the vain itch to admire, or be admired;
I hoped for no commission from his Grace;
I bought no benefice, I begg'd no place;
Had no new verses, nor new suit to show;

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Yet went to Court!-the devil would have it so.

But, as the fool that in reforming days

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Would go to Mass in jest (as story says)

Could not but think, to pay his fine was odd,

Since 'twas no form'd design of serving God;
So was I punish'd, as if full as proud
As prone to ill, as negligent of good,
As deep in debt, without a thought to pay,
As vain, as idle, and as false, as they

Who live at Court, for going once that way!

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Line 86 stood as follows:

NOTES.

Obliging Sir, I love you I profess,

But wish you liked retreat a little less,
Spirits like you, believe me, should be seen,
And like Ulysses visit Courts and men ;

So much alone, to speak plain truth between us,
You'll die of spleen—excuse me, nunquam minus.
Line 154 ran thus:

Shows Poland's interest, takes the Primate's part. Dr. Johnson speaks, methinks, too slightingly of these Imitations of Donne, when he says, that "Pope seems to have known their imbecility.”— Warton.

Therefore I suffer'd this; towards me did run
A thing more strange than on Nile's slime the sun
E'er bred, or all which into Noah's ark came :
A thing which would have posed Adam to name :
Stranger than seven antiquaries' studies,

That Africk monsters, Guinea's rarities,
Stranger than strangers: one who, for a Dane,
In the Danes' massacre had sure been slain,
If he had lived then; and without help dies,
When next the 'prentices 'gainst strangers rise;
One whom the watch at noon lets scarce go by;
One, to whom the examining justice sure would cry,
Sir, By your priesthood, tell me what you are?

His cloathes were strange, though coarse, and black, though bare;

Sleeveless his jerkin was, and it had been

Velvet, but 'twas now (so much ground was seen)
Become Tufftaffaty; and our children shall

See it plain rash awhile, then nought at all.

The thing hath travail'd, and faith, speaks all

tongues,

And only knoweth what to all States belongs,
Made of the accents, and best phrase of all these,
He speaks one language. If strange meats displease,
Art can deceive, or hunger force my taste;
But pedants' motley tongue, souldiers' bumbast,
Mountebanks' drug-tongue, nor the terms of law,
Are strong enough preparatives to draw

Me to hear this, yet I must be content

With his tongue, in his tongue call'd Compliment:

Scarce was I enter'd, when, behold; there came
A thing which Adam had been posed to name;
Noah had refused it lodging in his ark,
Where all the race of reptiles might embark:
A verier monster, than on Afric's shore

The sun e'er got, or slimy Nilus bore,

Or Sloane or Woodward's wondrous shelves contain, Nay, all that lying travellers can feign.

The watch would hardly let him pass at noon,

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At night would swear him dropp'd out of the moon:
One, whom the mob, when next we find or make
A popish plot, shall for a Jesuit take,
And the wise justice, starting from his chair,
Cry, By your priesthood, tell me what you are?
Such was the wight: the apparel on his back,
Though coarse, was reverend, and though bare, was
black:

The suit, if by the fashion one might guess,

Was velvet in the youth of good Queen Bess,
But mere tuff-taffety what now remain'd;

So time, that changes all things, had ordain'd!
Our sons shall see it leisurely decay,

First turn plain rash, then vanish quite away.

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This thing has travell'd, speaks each language

too,

And knows what's fit for every state to do;

Of whose best phrase and courtly accent join'd,
He forms one tongue, exotic and refined.
Talkers I've learn'd to bear; Motteux I knew,
Henley himself I've heard, and Budgel too.
The doctor's wormwood style, the hash of tongues
A pedant makes, the storm of Gonson's lungs,
The whole artillery of the terms of war,
And (all those plagues in one) the bawling bar:
These I could bear; but not a rogue so civil,
Whose tongue will compliment you to the devil;

VOL. V.

с

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In which he can win widows, and pay scores,
Make men speak treason, couzen subtlest whores,
Outflatter favourites, or outlie either

Jovius, or Surius, or both together.

He names me, and comes to me; I whisper, God,
How have I sinn'd, that thy wrath's furious rod,
This fellow, chuseth me! He saith, Sir,

I love your judgment; whom do you prefer
For the best linguist? and I seelily

Said that I thought Calepine's Dictionary.
Nay, but of men, most sweet Sir? Beza then,
Some Jesuits, and two reverend men

Of our two academies I named.

Here

He stopt me, and said, Nay, your Apostles were
Good pretty linguists; so Panurgas was,

Yet a poor gentleman; all these may pass

NOTES.

Ver. 68. "The King's," said I.] This sneer, said the ingenious Mr. Wilkes, "is really indecent. The good Bishop who published an edition of his works, ought, in the mild limbo of his Commentary, to have softened the severity of this passage."-Warton.

Ver. 71. “ Onslow,] By an affected gravity, and a solemn and important. air, he presided for many years over the House of Commons; but not with the ability, knowledge, patience, prudence, and amiable manners, of the present speaker, Mr. Addington, 1795. It is a curious fact in the history of English liberty, that the very first person who was raised by the Commons to the dignity of their Speaker, was a member who had been imprisoned by Edward the Third, for attacking his ministers and his mistress in parliament.-Warton.

Ver. 73. But Hoadly for a period] Party occasioned this censure on a writer, whose style, it must be confessed, was sometimes, but not always, (as for instance, in his Treatise on the Sacrament,) languid and diffuse: but who, having spent his life in defending the British Constitution, the Revolution, and the Succession of the House of Hanover, certainly did, by no means, deserve to be styled, as he hath lately been, "That Republican Prelate, Bishop Hoadly." The late excellent Bishop of London, Dr. Lowth, thought very differently of him, and calls him, in his admirable Life of Wickham, The great advocate of civil and religious

liberty."-Warton.

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No name is more obnoxious to the Roman Catholics than that of Hoadly, whose manly and liberal principles were as remote from Republicanism, as from Popery and arbitrary power.—Bowles.

Ver. 73. a period of a mile."] A stadium of Euripides was a standing joke amongst the Greeks. By the same kind of pleasantry, Cervantes has called his hero's countenance, a face of half a league long; which, because the humour, as well as the measure of the expression, was

A tongue, that can cheat widows, cancel scores,
Make Scots speak treason, cozen subtlest whores,
With royal favourites in flattery vie,

And Oldmixon and Burnet both outlie.

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He spies me out; I whisper, Gracious God!
What sin of mine could merit such a rod?
That all the shot of dulness now must be
From this thy blunderbuss discharged on me?
Permit (he cries) no stranger to your fame
To crave your sentiment, if 's your name.

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What Speech esteem you most? "The King's," said I.
But the best words?" O, Sir, the Dictionary."
You miss my aim; I mean the most acute,
And perfect Speaker?" Onslow, past dispute."
But, Sir, of writers? "Swift for closer style,
But Ho**y for a period of a mile.”

Why yes, 'tis granted, these indeed may pass :

Good common linguists, and so Panurge was;

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Nay, troth, the Apostles (though perhaps too rough)

Had once a pretty gift of tongues enough:

Yet these were all poor gentlemen! I dare
Affirm, 'twas travel made them what they were.

NOTES.

excessive, all his translators have judiciously agreed to omit; without doubt paying due attention to that sober rule of Quintilian, licet omnis hyperbole sit ultra fidem, non tamen debet esse ultra MODUM.-Scribl.

Ver. 75. so Panurge was ;] It is surprising that Rabelais, whose book is the most cutting satire on the Pope, the Church, and the principal events of his time, should have escaped severe censure and punishment. Garagantua is decisively Francis I., and Henry II. is Pantagruel; and Charles V. Pierocole. Swift, who formed himself on Rabelais, has exactly copied the famous speech of Panurge, in the Tale of the Tub, where Lord Peter, giving to Martin and John a piece of dry bread, tells them, it contains beef, partridge, capons, and the best wine of Burgundy. Rabelais, like Swift, loved politics. See his Letters from Rome, when he accompanied the Cardinal Bellay, embassador of Francis I. to Pope Paul III. Rabelais imitated, in many passages, the Literæ Virorum Obscurorum.-Warton.

Ver. 78. Yet these were all poor gentlemen!] Our Poet has here added to the humour of his original. Donne makes his threadbare Traveller content himself under his poverty, with the reflection, that even Panurge himself (the great Traveller and Linguist in Rabelais) went a begging.