Our youth, all liveried o'er with foreign gold, 155 Before her dance: behind her, crawl the old! Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim, 160 In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in power, 'Tis avarice all, ambition is no more! See all our nobles begging to be slaves! See all our fools aspiring to be knaves! The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, 165 Are what ten thousand envy and adore: All, all look up, with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law: While truth, worth, wisdom, daily they decry"Nothing is sacred now but villany." 170 Yet may this verse (if such a verse remain) Show there was one who held it in disdain. NOTES. Ver. 162. 'Tis avarice all,] "So far from having the virtues, we have not even the vices of our ancestors,” says Bolingbroke.—Warton. Ver. 170. "Nothing is sacred now but villany."] From the conclusion of this satire, which is highly poetical and animated, one might suppose that there was neither honesty, honour, public spirit, nor virtue, in the nation. We should, however, always keep in mind the agitated state of parties at the time. Tories, Jacobites, disappointed Whigs, all under the name of Patriot, united in one cry against the administration of Walpole, who most truly deserved that distinguished appellation, and by whose firmness, wisdom, and integrity, under Providence, the Protestant succession was in great measure sustained, in the most trying periods, and with it our laws and liberties. But whatever may be said of the political, of the poetical part, particularly the description of vice, and the noble conclusion, there can be but one opinion. More dignified and impressive numbers, inore lofty indignation, more animated appeals, and more rich personifications, never adorned the page of the Satiric Muse.-Bowles. EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES. WRITTEN IN MDCCXXXVIII. DIALOGUE II. Fr. Tis all a libel-Paxton (Sir) will say. How should I fret to mangle every line, In reverence to the sins of Thirty-nine ! Feign what I will, and paint it e'er so strong, 66 NOTES. Ver. 1. 'Tis all a libel] The liberty of the press was about this time thought to be in danger; and Milton's noble and nervous discourse on this subject, entitled, Areopagitica, was reprinted in an octavo pamphlet, with a preface written by Thomson, the poet. "If we think to regulate printing," says Milton, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. No music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave and Doric. He who is made judge to sit upon the birth or death of books, whether they may be wafted into this world or not, had need to be a man above the common measure, both studious, learned, and judicious."-Warton. Ver. 1. Paxton] Late solicitor to the Treasury.—Warburton. Ver. 8. Feign what I will, &c.] The Poet has here introduced an oblique apology for himself with great art. You attack personal characters, say his enemies. No, replies he, I paint merely from my invention; and then, to prevent a likeness, I aggravate the features. But, alas! the growth of vice is so monstrously sudden, that it rises up to a resemblance before I can get from the press.-Warburton. F. Yet none but you by name the guilty lash; Even Guthry saves half Newgate by a dash. Spare then the person, and expose the vice. 10 P. How, Sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice? Come on then, Satire! general, unconfined, Spread thy broad wing, and souse on all the kind. 15 Ye tradesmen, vile, in army, court, or hall! Who? name them! P. Why that's the thing you bid me not to do. Who starved a sister, who forswore a debt, I never named; the town's inquiring yet. 20 The poisoning dame-F. You mean-P. I don't. F. You do. P. See, now I keep the secret, and not you! The bribing statesman-F. Hold, too high you go. P. The bribed elector-F. There you stoop too low. 25 NOTES. Ver. 11. Even Guthry] The Ordinary of Newgate, who publishes the Memoirs of the Malefactors, and is often prevailed upon to be so tender of their reputation, as to set down no more than the initials of their name. -Pope. Ver. 13. How, Sir! not damn the sharper, but the dice?] It is pity that the liveliness of the reply cannot excuse the bad reasoning: the dice, though they rhyme to vice, can never stand for it; which his argument requires they should do. For dice are only the instruments of fraud; but the question is not, whether the instrument, but whether the act committed by it, should be exposed, instead of the person.-Warburton. Ver. 21. the town's inquiring yet.] So true is Swift's observation on personal satire: "I have long observed, that twenty miles from London nobody understands hints, initial letters, or town-facts and passages; and in a few years not even those who live in London.” See verse 258 below, for two asterisks, not filled up or known.-Warton. Ver. 22. F. You mean-P. I don't.] The same friend is here again introduced making such remonstrances as before. And several parts of the dialogue here are more rapid and short, and approach nearer to common conversation, than any lines he had ever before written; and are examples of that style mentioned by Horace : -parcentis viribus, atque Extenuantis eas consultò."-Warton. Ver. 24. The bribing statesman] Corruption was the universal cry at this period, and it had been repeated so long, that people began to think the P. I fain would please you, if I knew with what; Tell me, which knave is lawful game, which not? Must great offenders, once escaped the crown, Like royal harts, be never more run down? Admit your law to spare the knight requires, As beasts of nature may we hunt the squires? 30 Suppose I censure-you know what I mean To save a bishop, may I name a dean? F. A dean, Sir? No: his fortune is not made; You hurt a man that's rising in the trade. NOTES. 35 removal of Sir Robert Walpole would introduce a sort of happiness into the political world, like that of the "millennium :" No taxes, no corruption, no bribery. Dodington, who was upon terms of the greatest kindness and intimacy with the Walpoles, to secure his election at Portsmouth, had no scruple in making Sir Robert Walpole (to whom he had before addressed his poetical Epistle, as to the Saviour of the Nation) the burden of his song, in the following ballad, which, in the MS. he says, was made in his road to Portsmouth, with a view to the election there, 1741. Stanzas, 1740, on the road to Portsmouth. Now, Britain, is the crisis of thy fate, Let George's friends be honest all and free, The servile and corrupt, be friends to Boв.-Bowles. Ver. 29. Like royal harts, &c.] Alluding to the old game laws; when our Kings spent all the time they could spare from human slaughter in woods and forests.-Warburton. Ver. 31. As beasts of nature may we hunt the squires ?] The expression is rough, like the subject, but without reflection: for if beasts of nature, then not beasts of their own making; a fault too frequently objected to country squires. However, the Latin is nobler; Feræ naturæ, things uncivilized, and free. Fere, as the critics say, being from the Hebrew, Pere, Asinus silvestris.-Scriblerus. Ver. 35. You hurt a man] In a former edition there was the following P. If not the tradesman who set up to-day, Much less the 'prentice who to-morrow may. Down, down, proud satire! though a realm be spoil'd, Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild; Or, if a court or country's made a job, Go drench a pickpocket, and join the mob. 40 The poor and friendless villain, than the great? 45 Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe. To tax directors who (thank God) have plums; 50 P. Must satire, then, not rise nor fall? Speak out, and bid me blame no rogues at all. F. Yes, strike that Wild, I'll justify the blow. P. Strike? why the man was hang'd ten years ago: Who now that obsolete example fears? Even Peter trembles only for his ears. F. What, always Peter? Peter thinks Peter thinks you mad; You make men desperate if they once are bad: 56 NOTES. note on this line: "For as the reasonable De la Bruyère observes, Qui ne sait être une Erasme, doit penser à être Evêque." Dr. Warburton omitted it after he got a seat on the Bench.-Warton. Ver. 39. wretched Wild ;] Jonathan Wild, a famous thief, and thiefimpeacher, who was at last caught in his own train, and hanged.-Pope. Ver. 51. why, lay it on a king.] Warburton says: "He is serious in the foregoing subjects of satire, but ironical here; and only alludes to the common practice of ministers, in laying their own miscarriages on their masters." I fear Pope meant more.-Bowles. Ver. 57. Even Peter trembles only for his ears.] Peter had, the year before this, narrowly escaped the pillory for forgery; and got off with a severe rebuke only from the bench.-Pope. |