Poor guiltless I! and can I chufe but smile, When ev'ry Coxcomb knows me by my Style? Curft VARIATIONS. After Ver 282. in the MS. P What if I fing Auguftus, great and good? A. You did fo lately, was it understood? P. Be nice no more, but, with a mouth profound, NOTES. With combe. By the kindness of Mr. Wyndham, member for Wiltshire, I have been able to examine all Lord Melcombe's correspondence with many of the first characters in point of rank and literature and it is fingular, though there are letters from so many literary men, and upon literary fubjects, particularly from Voltaire, Young, Thomfon, &c. Pope's name is never once mentioned. Dodington, although it appears his governing principle was to fide with that party by which he could get moft, had in other refpects many good qualities. He was a liberal patron, and kind friend. His magnificent houfe at Eafbury was the refort of men of genius. Thomson was enabled, by his liberal bounty, to travel into France and Italy; and his letters to Dodington from thence are very interefting, and expreffive of the utmost respect and gratitude. He was handsome, and of a striking figure, and was certainly poffeffed of wit and talents, if not of great parts. Some of his verfes are written with great elegance and beauty, and are particularly animated. Lady M. W. Montagu in her letter calls him, "the all accomplished Mr. Dodington." The manfion, which he built at Eafbury, near Blandford, did not long furvive him. It came into the poffeffion of the Marquis of Buckingham, and was taken down a few years fince. Part of the offices were left ftanding, and have been turned into a very convenient and handfome houfe, now in the poffeffion of J. Wedgewood, Efq. who purchased the estate of the Marquis of Buckingham. VER. 282. When ev'ry Coxcomb knows me by my Style?] The difcovery of a concealed author by his Style, not only requires a Curst be the verfe, how well foe'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe, VARIATIONS Give With GEORGE and FRED'RIC roughen ev'ry verfe, NOTES. perfect intimacy with his writings, but great fkill in the nature of compofition. But, in the practice of thefe Critics, knowing an Author by his ftyle, is like judging of a man's whole perfon from the view of one of his moles. When Mr. Pope wrote the Advertisement to the fift edition of the New Dunciad, intimating, that "it was by a different hand. from the other, and found in detached pieces, incorrect and unfinished," I objected to him the affectation of using so unpromifing an attempt to mislead his Reader. He replied, that I thought too highly of the public taste; that, moft commonly, it was formed on that of half a dozen people in fafhion; who took the lead, and who fometimes have intruded on the Town the dulleft performances, for works of wit: while, at the fame time, fome true effort of genius, without name or recommendation, hath paffed by the public eye unobserved or neglected: That he once before made the trial, I now objected to, with fuccefs, in the Effay on Man: which was at firft given (as he told me) to Dr. Young, to Dr. Defaguliers, to Lord Bolingbroke, to Lord Paget, and, in fhort, to every body but to him who was capable of writ ing it. However, to make him amends, this fame Public, when let into the fecret, would, for fome time after, fuffer no poem with a moral title, to påfs for any man's but his. So the Effay on Human Life, the Effay on Reason, and many others of a worse tendency, were very liberally beftowed upon him. WARBURTON. Give Virtue fcandal, Innocence a fear, And fhow the fenfe of it without the love; Who to the Dean, and filver bell can swear, NOTES. 285 290 295 300 Who · VFR. 285. Give Virtue fcanda!, &c.] The whole of this paffage is beautifully worked up; were Satire only fo employed, we should hail it as the aid of virtue, if not the corrector of vice. If there be a tone of afperity here, it appears the natural warmth of genuine and honeft feelings, and it is rendered more pleas ing on account of the fentiments, which Pope did not always, I fear, remember: Curft be the verfe, how well foe'er it flow, Or from the foft-ey'd Virgin steal a tear! The mufical flow of the paffage, and the force of the words, need not be pointed out; who can read it, and not say, Ofi, fic omnia? Who reads, but with a luft to mifapply, Let Sporus tremble-A. What? that thing of filk, Sporus, that mere white curd of Afs's milk? NOTES. 306. Satire VER. 299. Who to the Dean, and filver bell, &c.] Meaning the man who would have perfuaded the Duke of Chandos that Mr. Pope meant him in those circumftances ridiculed in the Epistle on Tafie. See Mr. Pope's letter to the Earl of Burlington concern. ing this matter. POPE. VER. 305. Let Sporus tremble] Language cannot afford more glowing or more forcible terms to exprefs the utmost bitterness of contempt. We think we are here reading Milton against Salmafius. The raillery is carried to the very verge of railing, some will fay ribaldry. He has armed his mufe with a scalping-knife. The portrait is certainly over-charged: for Lord H. for whom it was defign'd, whatever his morals might be, had yet confiderable abilities, though marred by affectation. Some of his speeches in parliament were much beyond florid impotence. They were, it is true, in favour of Sir R. Walpole; and this was fufficiently offenfive to Pope. The fact that particularly excited his indignation, was Lord H.'s Epifle to a Doctor of Divinity (Dr. Sherwin) from a Nobleman at Hampton Court, 1733; as well as his having been concerned with Lady M. W. M. in Verfes to the Imitator of Horace, 1732. This Lady's beauty, wit, gerius, and travels, of which she gave an account in a series of elegant and entertaining letters, very characteristical of the manners of the Turks, and of which many, are addreffed to Pope; are well known, and juftly celebrated. With both noble perfonages had Pope lived in à ftate of intimacy. And juftice obligeth us to con fefs that he was the aggreffor in the quarrel with them; as he first affaulted and affronted Lord H. by these two lines in his Imitation of the firft Satire of Horace's fecond Book: The Satire or Senfe, alas! can Sporus feel? NOTES. The lines are weak, another's pleas'd to fay, Lord Fanny fpins a thousand such a day. P. Yet And Lady M. W. M. by the eighty-third line of the fame piece, too grofs to be here repeated. But can this be the nobleman (we are apt to ask) whom Middleton, in his Dedication to the History of the Life of Tully, has so seriously and fo earne.ly praised, for his ftrong good sense, his confummate politeness, his real patriotifm, his rigid temperance, his thorough knowledge and defence of the laws of his country, his accurate skill in hiftory, his unexampled and unremitted diligence in literary pursuits, who added credit to this very history, as Scipio and Lelius did to that of Polybius, by revifing and correcting it; and brightening it, as he expreffes it, by the ftrokes of his pencil? The man that had written this fplendid encomium on Lord H. could not, we may imagine, be very well affected to the board who had painted Lord Fanny in fo ridiculous a light. We find him writing thus to Dr. Warburton, January 7, 1740: "You have evinced the orthodoxy of Mr. Pope's principles; but, like the old commentators on his Homer, will be thought perhaps, in fome places, to have found a meaning for him, that he himself never dreamt of. However, if you did not find him a philofopher, you will make him one; for he will be wife enough to take the benefit of your reading, and make his future Effays more clear and confiftent." WARTON. VER. 306. white curd] Lord Hervey, to prevent the attacks of an epilepfy, persisted in a strict regimen of daily food, which was a fmall quantity of affes milk and a flour biscuit, with an apple once a week; and he ufed a little paint to foften his ghaftly appearance. WARTON. I muft refer the reader to Mr. Coxe's humane and manly fentiments upon this occafion, Coxe's Walpole, oct. edit. vol. ii. p. 164. VER. 307.. can Sporus feel?] In the first edition, Pope had the name "Paris," inftead of Sporus; it seems a more fuitable name. There is, I believe, no account why it was altered. E 4 |