No More Learning

_

I doubt not but the third line was originally thus:

_Et Messapus equûm domitor, et fortis Atinas:_

for the two names of Asylas and Atinas are so like, that one might
easily be mistaken for the other by the transcribers. And to fortify
this opinion, we find afterward, in the relation of Saces to Turnus,
that Atinas is joined with Messapus:

_Soli, pro portis, Messapus et acer Atinas
Sustentant aciem_----

In general I observe, not only in this Æneïd, but in all the six last
Books, that Æneas is never seen on horseback, and but once before,
as I remember, in the fourth, where he hunts with Dido. The reason of
this, if I guess aright, was a secret compliment which the poet made to
his countrymen the Romans, the strength of whose armies consisted most
in foot, which, I think, were all Romans and Italians. But their wings
or squadrons were made up of their allies, who were foreigners.


Note III.

_This let me beg (and this no fates withstand)
Both for myself and for your father's land, &c. _--P. 176.

The words in the original are these:

_Pro Latio obtestor, pro majestate tuorum_.

Virgil very artfully uses here the word _majestas_, which the Romans
loved so well, that they appropriated it to themselves--_Majestas
populi Romani_. This title, applied to kings, is very modern; and that
is all I will say of it at present, though the word requires a larger
note. In the word _tuorum_, is included the sense of my translation,
_Your father's land_, because Saturn, the father of Jove, had governed
that part of Italy, after his expulsion from Crete. But that on which I
most insist, is the address of the poet, in this speech of Juno. Virgil
was sufficiently sensible, as I have said in the preface, that whatever
the common opinion was, concerning the descent of the Romans from the
Trojans, yet the ancient customs, rites, laws, and habits of those
Trojans were wholly lost, and perhaps also that they had never been:
and, for this reason, he introduces Juno in this place, requesting of
Jupiter that no memory might remain of Troy (the town she hated), that
the people hereafter should not be called Trojans, nor retain any thing
which belonged to their predecessors. And why might not this also be
concerted betwixt our author and his friend Horace, to hinder Augustus
from re-building Troy, and removing thither the seat of empire, a
design so unpleasing to the Romans? But of this I am not positive,
because I have not consulted Dacier, and the rest of the critics,
to ascertain the time in which Horace writ the ode relating to that
subject.


Note IV.

_Deep in the dismal regions void of light,
Three daughters, at a birth, were born to Night. _--P. 177.

The father of these (not here mentioned) was Acheron: the names of
the three were Alecto, Megæra, and Tisiphone. They were called Furies
in hell, on earth Harpies, and in heaven Diræ. Two of these assisted
at the throne of Jupiter, and were employed by him to punish the
wickedness of mankind. These two must be Megæra and Tisiphone--not
Alecto; for Juno expressly commands her to return to hell, from whence
she came; and gives this reason:

_Te super ætherias errare licentius auras
Haud pater ipse velit, summi regnator Olympi,
Cede locis_.

Probably this Dira, unnamed by the poet in this place, might be
Tisiphone; for, though we find her in hell, in the Sixth Æneïd,
employed in the punishment of the damned,

_Continuo sontes ultrix, accincta flagello,
Tisiphone quatit insultans, &c. _

yet afterwards she is on earth in the tenth Æneïd, and amidst the
battle,

_Pallida Tisiphone media inter millia sævit_--

which I guess to be Tisiphone, the rather, by the etymology of her
name, which is compounded of τιω ulciscor, and φονος cœdes;
part of her errand being to affright Turnus with the stings
of a guilty conscience, and denounce vengeance against him for breaking
the first treaty, by refusing to yield Lavinia to Æneas, to whom she
was promised by her father--and, consequently, for being the author of
an unjust war; and also for violating the second treaty, by declining
the single combat, which he had stipulated with his rival, and called
the gods to witness before their altars. As for the names of the
Harpies, (so called on earth,) Hesiod tells us they were Iris, Aëllo,
and Ocypete. Virgil calls one of them Celæno: this, I doubt not, was
Alecto, whom Virgil calls, in the Third Æneïd, _Furiarum maxima_, and
in the sixth again by the same name--_Furiarum maxima juxta accubat_.
That she was the chief of the Furies, appears by her description in the
Seventh Æneïd; to which, for haste, I refer the reader.




POSTSCRIPT

TO

THE READER.


What Virgil wrote in the vigour of his age, in plenty and at ease,
I have undertaken to translate in my declining years; struggling
with wants, oppressed with sickness, curbed in my genius, liable to
be misconstrued in all I write; and my judges, if they are not very
equitable, already prejudiced against me, by the lying character which
has been given them of my morals. Yet, steady to my principles, and not
dispirited with my afflictions, I have, by the blessing of God on my
endeavours, overcome all difficulties, and, in some measure, acquitted
myself of the debt which I owed the public when I undertook this work.
In the first place, therefore, I thankfully acknowledge to the Almighty
Power the assistance he has given me in the beginning, the prosecution,
and conclusion, of my present studies, which are more happily performed
than I could have promised to myself, when I laboured under such
discouragements. For, what I have done, imperfect as it is for want
of health and leisure to correct it, will be judged in after-ages,
and possibly in the present, to be no dishonour to my native country,
whose language and poetry would be more esteemed abroad, if they were
better understood. Somewhat (give me leave to say) I have added to both
of them in the choice of words, and harmony of numbers, which were
wanting (especially the last) in all our poets, even in those who,
being endued with genius, yet have not cultivated their mother-tongue
with sufficient care; or, relying on the beauty of their thoughts, have
judged the ornament of words, and sweetness of sound, unnecessary.
One is for raking in Chaucer (our English Ennius) for antiquated
words, which are never to be revived, but when sound or significancy
is wanting in the present language. But many of his deserve not this
redemption, any more than the crowds of men who daily die, or are slain
for sixpence in a battle, merit to be restored to life, if a wish could
revive them. Others have no ear for verse, nor choice of words, nor
distinction of thoughts; but mingle farthings with their gold, to make
up the sum. Here is a field of satire opened to me: but, since the
Revolution, I have wholly renounced that talent: for who would give
physic to the great, when he is uncalled--to do his patient no good,
and endanger himself for his prescription? Neither am I ignorant, but I
may justly be condemned for many of those faults, of which I have too
liberally arraigned others.

----_Cynthius aurem
Vellit, et admonuit_----

It is enough for me, if the government will let me pass unquestioned.
In the mean time, I am obliged, in gratitude, to return my thanks
to many of them, who have not only distinguished me from others of
the same party, by a particular exception of grace, but, without
considering the man, have been bountiful to the poet--have encouraged
Virgil to speak such English as I could teach him, and rewarded his
interpreter for the pains he has taken in bringing him over into
Britain, by defraying the charges of his voyage. Even Cerberus, when
he had received the sop, permitted Æneas to pass freely to Elysium.
Had it been offered me, and I had refused it, yet still some gratitude
is due to such who were willing to oblige me: but how much more to
those from whom I have received the favours which they have offered
to one of a different persuasion! amongst whom I cannot omit naming
the Earls of Derby[15] and of Peterborough[16]. To the first of these
I have not the honour to be known; and therefore his liberality
was as much unexpected, as it was undeserved. The present Earl of
Peterborough has been pleased long since to accept the tenders of my
service: his favours are so frequent to me, that I receive them almost
by prescription. No difference of interests or opinion has been able
to withdraw his protection from me. And I might justly be condemned
for the most unthankful of mankind, if I did not always preserve for
him a most profound respect and inviolable gratitude. I must also add,
that, if the last Æneïd shine amongst its fellows, it is owing to the
commands of Sir William Trumball,[17] one of the principal secretaries
of state, who recommended it, as his favourite, to my care; and, for
his sake particularly, I have made it mine: for who would confess
weariness, when he enjoined a fresh labour? I could not but invoke the
assistance of a Muse, for this last office.

_Extremum hunc, Arethusa----
----Negat quis carmina Gallo? _

Neither am I to forget the noble present which was made me by Gilbert
Dolben, Esq. the worthy son of the late Archbishop of York,[18] who,
when I began this work, enriched me with all the several editions of
Virgil, and all the commentaries of those editions in Latin; amongst
which, I could not but prefer the Dauphin's, as the last, the shortest,
and the most judicious. Fabrini[19] I had also sent me from Italy; but
either he understands Virgil very imperfectly, or I have no knowledge
of my author.

Being invited by that worthy gentleman, Sir William Bowyer, to Denham
Court, I translated the First Georgic at his house, and the greatest
part of the last Æneïd. [20] A more friendly entertainment no man ever
found. No wonder, therefore, if both those versions surpass the rest,
and own the satisfaction I received in his converse, with whom I had
the honour to be bred in Cambridge, and in the same college. The
Seventh Æneïd was made English at Burleigh, the magnificent abode of
the Earl of Exeter. [21] In a village belonging to his family I was
born;[22] and under his roof I endeavoured to make that Æneïd appear in
English with as much lustre as I could; though my author has not given
the finishing strokes either to it, or to the eleventh, as I perhaps
could prove in both, if I durst presume to criticise my master.

By a letter from William Walsh, of Abberley, Esq. [23] (who has so long
honoured me with his friendship, and who, without flattery, is the
best critic of our nation,) I have been informed, that his grace the
Duke of Shrewsbury[24] has procured a printed copy of the Pastorals,
Georgics, and six first Æneïds, from my bookseller, and has read them
in the country, together with my friend. This noble person having been
pleased to give them a commendation, which I presume not to insert,
has made me vain enough to boast of so great a favour, and to think
I have succeeded beyond my hopes; the character of his excellent
judgment, the acuteness of his wit, and his general knowledge of good
letters, being known as well to all the world, as the sweetness of
his disposition, his humanity, his easiness of access, and desire of
obliging those who stand in need of his protection, are known to all
who have approached him, and to me in particular, who have formerly
had the honour of his conversation. Whoever has given the world the
translation of part of the Third Georgic, which he calls "The Power of
Love," has put me to sufficient pains to make my own not inferior to
his;[25] as my Lord Roscommon's "Silenus" had formerly given me the
same trouble. The most ingenious Mr Addison of Oxford has also been as
troublesome to me as the other two, and on the same account. After his
"Bees," my latter swarm is scarcely worth the hiving. [26] Mr Cowley's
"Praise of a Country Life" is excellent, but is rather an imitation
of Virgil, than a version. That I have recovered, in some measure, the
health which I had lost by too much application to this work, is owing,
next to God's mercy, to the skill and care of Dr Guibbons[27] and Dr
Hobbs,[28] the two ornaments of their profession, whom I can only pay
by this acknowledgment. The whole faculty has always been ready to
oblige me; and the only one of them, who endeavoured to defame me, had
it not in his power. [29] I desire pardon from my readers for saying
so much in relation to myself, which concerns not them; and, with my
acknowledgments to all my subscribers, have only to add, that the few
Notes which follow, are _par manière d'acquit_, because I had obliged
myself by articles to do somewhat of that kind. [30] These scattering
observations are rather guesses at my author's meaning in some
passages, than proofs that so he meant. The unlearned may have recourse
to any poetical dictionary in English, for the names of persons,
places, or fables, which the learned need not: but that little which I
say, is either new or necessary; and the first of these qualifications
never fails to invite a reader, if not to please him.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 15: William Richard George, ninth earl of Derby. He died 5th
November, 1702. He joined early in the Revolution. ]

[Footnote 16: Charles Mordaunt, third earl of Peterborough, and first
earl of Monmouth of his family, is one of the most heroic characters,
according to ancient ideas of heroism, which occur in English history.
Under every disadvantage of want of money, and provisions, and men,
from England, of the united opposition of France, and almost all Spain,
and of the untoward and untractable disposition of Charles of Austria,
he had almost placed that prince upon the Spanish throne, in defiance
of all opposition, as well as of Charles's own imprudence. With an
army, which never amounted to 10,000 men, he drove triple the number
out of Spain before him; and, had he not been removed by a wretched
intrigue, he would have secured the kingdom, which he had effectually
conquered. Like other heroes, he was attached to literature, and
especially to poetry; and the conqueror of Spain was the patron of
Dryden, and the friend of Swift, Pope, and Gay. He was a keen Whig,
but not in favour with his party. "It is a perfect jest," says Swift,
in a letter to Archbishop King, 5th February, 1707-8, "to see my Lord
Peterborough, reputed as great a Whig as any man in England, abhorred
by his own party, and caressed by the Tories. " This great man died at
Lisbon, 1737, aged seventy-seven. ]

[Footnote 17: The name of Sir William Trumball is eminent among
those statesmen, who, amidst the fatigues of state, have found
leisure to cultivate the Muses. He had been ambassador to France
and Constantinople; and, in 1695, was raised to the high situation
mentioned in the text. In 1697, he resigned his employments, and
retired to East Hamstead, in Berkshire, where he early distinguished
the youthful genius of Pope. During the remaining years of Sir
William's life, the young bard and the old statesman were almost
inseparable companions. ]

[Footnote 18: Gilbert was the eldest son of John Dolben, Archbishop
of York; a man distinguished for bravery in the civil wars, and for
dignity of conduct in his episcopal station. Sir William Trumball
wrote a character of him, which is inserted in the new edition of the
_Biographia_, Vol. V. p. 330. The archbishop is celebrated by Dryden,
as a friend of David, in the first part of "Absalom and Achitophel. "
See Vol. IX. p. 243, 303. Of Gilbert Dolben's life, the munificence
extended to Dryden is perhaps the most memorable incident. ]

[Footnote 19: Printed at Venice, 1623. His countrymen claim for Fabrini
more respect than Dryden allows him. ]

[Footnote 20: Dryden gives a beautiful description of this spot in a
note on the beginning of the Second Georgic, Vol. XIV. p. 49. ]

[Footnote 21: John Cecil, fifth earl of Exeter. He was a non-juror,
and lived in retirement at his noble seat of Burleigh. Prior was
early patronised by his lordship; and dates from his mansion the
lively epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd. Mr Malone supposes Prior may
have assisted in composing his epitaph, where his character is thus
elegantly drawn: _Johannes Cecil, Baro de Burghley, Exoniæ comes, magni
Burleii abnepos haudquaquam degener. Egregiam enim indolem optimis
moribus optimis artibus excoluit. Humanioribus literis bene instructus,
peregre, plus vice simplici, profectus est. Et ab excultis Europæ
regionibus, multam antiquitatum linguarum, necnon et rerum civilium
scientiam reportavit. Cum nemo fortê meliùs vel aulam ornare, vel
curare respublicas posset, maluit tamen otium et secessum. Itaque
ruri suo vixit, eleganter, sumptuose, splendide, liberalibus studiis
oblectatus, amicis comis et jocundus, egenis largus, legum et ecclesiæ
Anglicanæ fortis semper propugnator. _]

[Footnote 22: Aldwincle, in Northamptonshire. ]

[Footnote 23: See Vol. XIII. p. 297. ]

[Footnote 24: Charles Talbot, the twelfth earl, and only duke of
Shrewsbury. He was bred a Catholic; but renounced the tenets of Rome
during the time of the Popish plot. Previous to the Revolution, he had
so strong a sense of the necessity of that measure, that he mortgaged
his estate for 40,000l. and retired into Holland, for the purpose of
offering his fealty, and sword, to the Prince of Orange. Accordingly,
when that great enterprize succeeded, he was advanced to the ducal
dignity, and loaded with office and honours. In 1700, the Duke went
upon the Continent for his health; and, on his return, finding the
Whigs disgusted at his having married a foreign lady, having visited
Rome, and, above all, having declined to enter actively into their
measures, he joined the Tories; he assisted in bringing about the peace
of Utrecht, being appointed ambassador extraordinary for that purpose;
and, finally, went to Ireland as lord-lieutenant. He died 1st February,
1717-18. --Mackay, or Davis, gives him the following character.

"Never was a greater mixture of honour, virtue, [_none_] and good
sense, in any one person, than in him. A great man, attended with a
sweetness of behaviour and easiness of conversation, _which charms all_
who come near him: Nothing of the stiffness of a statesman, yet the
capacity and knowledge of a piercing wit. He speaks French and Italian
as well as his native language: and, although but one eye, yet he has
a very charming countenance, and is the most generally beloved by the
ladies of any gentleman in his time. He is turned of forty years old. "

The little word _none_, within the crotchets, is inserted by Swift.
That wit elsewhere describes the duke "as a person of admirable
qualities; and, if he were somewhat more active, and less timorous
in business, no man would be thought comparable to him. "--_Letter to
Archbishop King, 20th May, 1712. _]

[Footnote 25: Mr Malone conjectures the concealed translator may have
been Lord Lansdowne, author of the poem which precedes that translation
in the Miscellanies. ]

[Footnote 26: Alluding to a translation of the Third Book of the
Georgics, exclusive of the story of Aristæus, which appeared in the
third volume of the Miscellanies; by the famous Addison, then of
Queen's College, Oxford. ]

[Footnote 27: The same of whom Dryden elsewhere says,

"Guibbons but guesses, nor is sure to save. "
]

[Footnote 28: Also an eminent physician of the time, ridiculed, in the
"Dispensary," under the title of Guiacum. ]

[Footnote 29: Alluding to his ancient foe, Sir Richard Blackmore.
See the "Epistle to Dryden of Chesterton," and the conclusion of the
Preface to the Fables. ]

[Footnote 30: A passage in a letter from our author to Jacob Tonson,
dated probably February 1695-6, lets us know yet more plainly, that
to the niggard disposition of this bookseller, we owe that the notes,
as here acknowledged, were rather slurred over, than written with
due care: "I am not sorry that you will not allow any thing towards
the Notes; for, to make them good, would have cost me half a year's
time at least. Those I write shall be only marginal, to help the
unlearned, who understand not the poetical fables. The Prefaces, as
I intend them, will be somewhat more learned. It would require seven
years to translate Virgil exactly; but, I promise you once more, to do
my best in the four remaining Books, as I have hitherto done in the
foregoing. --Upon trial, I find all of your trade are sharpers, and you
not more than others; therefore, I have not wholly left you. Mr Aston
does not blame you for getting as good a bargain as you could, though I
could have got a hundred pounds more; and you might have spared almost
all your trouble, if you had thought fit to publish the proposals for
the first subscriptions, for I have guineas offered me every day, if
there had been room; I believe, modestly speaking, I have refused
already twenty-five. I mislike nothing in your letter, therefore, but
only your upbraiding me with the public encouragement, and my own
reputation concerned in the notes; when I assure you I could not make
them to my mind in less than half a year's time. "]






POEMS

ASCRIBED TO DRYDEN.


_In this last division of poetry, those poems are placed
which have been ascribed to Dryden upon grounds more or less
satisfactory, yet do not seem entitled to be classed with his
acknowledged writings. To some of them he doubtless lent his
assistance, either from friendship to the author, or to the cause
in which they were written. But, even in these, the hand of Dryden
is not so effectually distinguished from that of the inferior
artist, as to entitle them to be removed from the apocryphal
station which is here assigned. Others I would have discarded
altogether, but from the consideration that they were not of great
length, and that the first complete edition of Dryden should
contain all that has hitherto been ascribed to our immortal Bard,
even upon loose and uncertain grounds. _




AN ESSAY UPON SATIRE.


Among the pieces fathered upon Dryden, without satisfactory reason,
this contains as little internal evidence as any of having received
even the touches of that great master. Yet, as is mentioned in the
Life of our poet, the suspicion of being the author subjected him
to the cowardly revenge of Rochester, who hired bravoes to beat
Dryden, in return for the severity with which he is here treated.
The versification is so harsh, and the satire so coarse and clumsy,
that I can hardly consent to think that Dryden did more than revise
and correct it. If he added a few lines here and there, he had so
industriously levelled them with the rest of the performance, that they
cannot be distinguished from it. The real author was Sheffield, Earl of
Mulgrave, afterwards Duke of Buckingham.

Like other lampoons of the time, the "Essay on Satire" was handed about
in manuscript copies, about November 1679. It is inserted in the quarto
edition of Sheffield Duke of Buckingham's Works, with many alterations
and improvements by Pope, to whose correction it had been subjected by
the noble poet. It is obvious, and has been well argued by Mr Malone,
that if Dryden had taken any considerable pains with the original copy,
Pope would have had but little to do.

Sheffield, in his "Essay on Poetry," pays our author a very
supercilious and aristocratic compliment on this, his own poem, having
been attributed to him, and the castigation which ensued:

Though praised and punished for another's rhimes,
His own deserve as much applause _sometimes_.

It is thus that noble authors distribute their praise, like their
bounty, duly seasoned with humbling admonition. In the copy of the
Essay, revised by Pope, this impertinent couplet is omitted.




AN

ESSAY UPON SATIRE.


How dull, and how insensible a beast
Is man, who yet would lord it o'er the rest!
Philosophers and poets vainly strove
In every age the lumpish mass to move;
But those were pedants, when compared with these,
Who know, not only to instruct, but please.
Poets alone found the delightful way,
Mysterious morals gently to convey
In charming numbers; so that as men grew
Pleased with their poems, they grew wiser too.
Satire has always shone among the rest;
And is the boldest way, if not the best,
To tell men freely of their foulest faults,
To laugh at their vain deeds, and vainer thoughts. [31]
In satire, too, the wise took different ways,
To each deserving its peculiar praise.
Some did all folly with just sharpness blame,
Whilst others laughed and scorned them into shame.
But of these two, the last succeeded best,
As men aim rightest when they shoot in jest.
Yet, if we may presume to blame our guides,
And censure those, who censure all besides,
In other things they justly are preferred;
In this alone methinks the ancients erred:
Against the grossest follies they declaim;
Hard they pursue, but hunt ignoble game.
Nothing is easier than such blots to hit,
And 'tis the talent of each vulgar wit:
Besides, 'tis labour lost; for, who would preach
Morals to Armstrong,[32] or dull Aston[33] teach?
'Tis being devout at play, wise at a ball,
Or bringing wit and friendship to Whitehall.
But with sharp eyes those nicer faults to find,
Which lie obscurely in the wisest mind,
That little speck which all the rest does spoil,--
To wash off that would be a noble toil;
Beyond the loose-writ libels of this age,
Or the forced scenes of our declining stage;
Above all censure too, each little wit
Will be so glad to see the greater hit;
Who judging better, though concerned the most,
Of such correction will have cause to boast.
In such a satire all would seek a share,
And every fool will fancy he is there.
Old story-tellers, too, must pine and die,
To see their antiquated wit laid by;
Like her, who missed her name in a lampoon,
And grieved to find herself decayed so soon.
No common coxcomb must be mentioned here;
Not the dull train of dancing sparks appear;
Nor fluttering officers, who never fight;
Of such a wretched rabble, who would write?
Much less half-wits; that's more against our rules;
For they are fops, the other are but fools.
Who would not be as silly as Dunbar? [34]
As dull as Monmouth,[35] rather than Sir Carr? [36]
The cunning courtier should be slighted too,
Who with dull knavery makes so much ado;
Till the shrewd fool, by thriving too too fast,
Like Æsop's fox, becomes a prey at last.
Nor shall the royal mistresses[37] be named,
Too ugly, or too easy to be blamed;
With whom each rhyming fool keeps such a pother,
They are as common that way as the other;
Yet, sauntering Charles, between his beastly brace, }
Meets with dissembling still in either place, }
Affected humour, or a painted face. }
In loyal libels we have often told him,
How one has jilted him, the other sold him:
How that affects to laugh, how this to weep;
But who can rail so long as he can sleep?
Was ever prince by two at once misled,
False, foolish, old, ill-natured, and ill-bred?
Earnely[39] and Aylesbury,[40] with all that race--
Of busy blockheads, shall have here no place;
At council set as foils on Dorset's score,
To make that great false jewel shine the more;
Who all that while was thought exceeding wise,
Only for taking pains, and telling lies.
But there's no meddling with such nauseous men;
Their very names have tired my lazy pen:
'Tis time to quit their company, and choose
Some fitter subject for a sharper muse.
First, let's behold the merriest man alive[41]
Against his careless genius vainly strive;
Quit his dear ease, some deep design to lay,
'Gainst a set time, and then forget the day:
Yet he will laugh at his best friends, and be
Just as good company as Nokes and Lee.
But when he aims at reason or at rule,
He turns himself the best to ridicule.
Let him at business ne'er so earnest sit,
Shew him but mirth, and bait that mirth with wit,
That shadow of a jest shall be enjoyed,
Though he left all mankind to be destroyed.
So cat transformed sat gravely and demure,
Till mouse appeared, and thought himself secure;
But soon the lady had him in her eye,
And from her friend did just as oddly fly.
Reaching above our nature does no good;
We must fall back to our old flesh and blood;
As by our little Machiavel we find,
That nimblest creature of the busy kind.
His limbs are crippled, and his body shakes; }
Yet his hard mind, which all this bustle makes, }
No pity of its poor companion takes. }
What gravity can hold from laughing out,
To see him drag his feeble legs about,
Like hounds ill-coupled? Jowler lugs him still
Through hedges, ditches, and through all that's ill.
'Twere crime in any man but him alone,
To use a body so, though 'tis one's own:
Yet this false comfort never gives him o'er,
That, whilst he creeps, his vigorous thoughts can soar:
Alas! that soaring to those few that know,
Is but a busy grovelling here below.
So men in rapture think they mount the sky, }
Whilst on the ground the entranced wretches lie: }
So modern fops have fancied they could fly. }
As the new earl,[42] with parts deserving praise,
And wit enough to laugh at his own ways,
Yet loses all soft days and sensual nights,
Kind nature checks, and kinder fortune slights;
Striving against his quiet all he can,
For the fine notion of a busy man.
And what is that at best, but one, whose mind
Is made to tire himself and all mankind?
For Ireland he would go; faith, let him reign;
For, if some odd fantastic lord would fain
Carry in trunks, and all my drudgery do,
I'll not only pay him, but admire him too.
But is there any other beast that lives,
Who his own harm so wittingly contrives?
Will any dog that has his teeth and stones,
Refinedly leave his bitches and his bones,
To turn a wheel? and bark to be employed,
While Venus is by rival dogs enjoyed?
Yet this fond man, to get a statesman's name,
Forfeits his friends, his freedom, and his fame.
Though satire nicely writ with humour stings
But those who merit praise in other things;
Yet we must needs this one exception make,
And break our rules for silly Tropos' sake;[43]
Who was too much despised to be accused,
And therefore scarce deserves to be abused;
Raised only by his mercenary tongue,
For railing smoothly, and for reasoning wrong.
As boys, on holidays let loose to play,
Lay waggish traps for girls that pass that way;
Then shout to see, in dirt and deep distress,
Some silly cit in her flowered foolish dress,--[44]
So have I mighty satisfaction found,
To see his tinsel reason on the ground;
To see the florid fool despised, and know it,
By some who scarce have words enough to show it;
For sense sits silent, and condemns for weaker
The finer, nay sometimes the wittier speaker:
But 'tis prodigious so much eloquence
Should be acquired by such little sense;
For words and wit did anciently agree,
And Tully was no fool, though this man be:
At bar abusive; on the bench unable;
Knave on the woolsack; fop at council-table.
These are the grievances of such fools as would
Be rather wise than honest, great than good.
Some other kind of wits must be made known,
Whose harmless errors hurt themselves alone;
Excess of luxury they think can please,
And laziness call loving of their ease;
To live dissolved in pleasures still they feign,
Though their whole life's but intermitting pain;
So much of surfeits, head-aches, claps are seen,
We scarce perceive the little time between;
Well-meaning men, who make this gross mistake,
And pleasure lose only for pleasure's sake;
Each pleasure has its price, and when we pay
Too much of pain, we squander life away.
Thus Dorset,[45] purring like a thoughtful cat,
Married,--but wiser puss ne'er thought of that;
And first he worried her with railing rhyme,
Like Pembroke's mastives at his kindest time;
Then for one night sold all his slavish life,
A teeming widow, but a barren wife.
Swelled by contact of such a fulsome toad,
He lugged about the matrimonial load;
Till fortune, blindly kind as well as he,
Has ill restored him to his liberty;
Which he would use in his old sneaking way,
Drinking all night, and dozing all the day;
Dull as Ned Howard, whom his brisker times
Had famed for dulness in malicious rhymes. [46]
Mulgrave[47] had much ado to 'scape the snare,
Though learned in all those arts that cheat the fair;
For, after all his vulgar marriage-mocks,
With beauty dazzled, Numps was in the stocks;
Deluded parents dried their weeping eyes,
To see him catch his Tartar for his prize:
The impatient town waited the wished-for change,
And cuckolds smiled in hopes of sweet revenge;
Till Petworth plot made us with sorrow see,
As his estate, his person too was free:
Him no soft thoughts, no gratitude could move;
To gold he fled from beauty and from love;
Yet failing there he keeps his freedom still,
Forced to live happily against his will;
'Tis not his fault, if too much wealth and power
Break not his boasted quiet every hour.
And little Sid. [48] for simile renowned,
Pleasure has always sought, but never found;
Though all his thoughts on wine and women fall,
His are so bad, sure he ne'er thinks at all.
The flesh he lives upon is rank and strong,
His meat and mistresses are kept too long.
But sure we all mistake this pious man,
Who mortifies his person all he can:
What we uncharitably take for sin,
Are only rules of this odd capuchin;
For never hermit, under grave pretence,
Has lived more contrary to common sense;
And 'tis a miracle, we may suppose,
No nastiness offends his skilful nose;
Which from all stink can, with peculiar art,
Extract perfume and essence from a f----t.
Expecting supper is his great delight;
He toils all day but to be drunk at night;
Then o'er his cups this night-bird chirping sits,
Till he takes Hewet[49] and Jack Hall[B] for wits.
Rochester I despise for want of wit,
Though thought to have a tail and cloven feet;
For, while he mischief means to all mankind,
Himself alone the ill effects does find;
And so, like witches, justly suffers shame,
Whose harmless malice is so much the same.
False are his words, affected is his wit;
So often he does aim, so seldom hit;
To every face he cringes while he speaks,
But when the back is turned the head he breaks.
Mean in each action, lewd in every limb,
Manners themselves are mischievous in him;
A proof that chance alone makes every creature,
A very Killigrew without good nature.
For what a Bessus[52] has he always lived,
And his own kickings notably contrived?
For, there's the folly that's still mixt with fear,
Cowards more blows than any hero bear;
Of fighting sparks some may their pleasures say,
But 'tis a bolder thing to run away.
The world may well forgive him all his ill,
For every fault does prove his penance still;
Falsely he falls into some dangerous noose,
And then as meanly labours to get loose;
A life so infamous is better quitting,
Spent in base injury and low submitting. [53]
I'd like to have left out his poetry;
Forgot by all almost as well as me.
Sometimes he has some humour, never wit,
And if it rarely, very rarely, hit,
'Tis under so much nasty rubbish laid,
To find it out's the cinderwoman's trade,
Who, for the wretched remnants of a fire,
Must toil all day in ashes and in mire.
So lewdly dull his idle works appear,
The wretched text deserves no comments here;
Where one poor thought sometimes, left all alone,
For a whole page of dulness must atone.
How vain a thing is man, and how unwise!
E'en he, who would himself the most despise!
I, who so wise and humble seem to be,
Now my own vanity and pride can't see.
While the world's nonsense is so sharply shown,
We pull down others but to raise our own;
That we may angels seem, we paint them elves,
And are but satires to set up ourselves.
I, who have all this while been finding fault,
E'en with my master, who first satire taught;
And did by that describe the task so hard,
It seems stupendous and above reward;
Now labour with unequal force to climb
That lofty hill, unreached by former time,--
'Tis just that I should to the bottom fall,
Learn to write well, or not to write at all.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 31: Would Dryden have pardoned such a rhyme? ]

[Footnote 32: Sir Thomas Armstrong, then an officer of the guards, and
gentleman of horse to the king. He seems to have been remarkable for
riot and profligacy, even in that profligate age; witness his stabbing
a gentleman in the pit of the theatre. Thus principled, he became,
unfortunately for himself and his patron, a favourite of the Duke of
Monmouth, and engaged deeply in all his intrigues, particularly in that
of the Rye-house plot, on the discovery of which he fled to Holland, of
which he was a native: nevertheless, he was there seized and delivered.
He was tried by Jefferies; and sustained the brutality of that judge
with more spirit than his friends or his enemies expected. Upon a
conviction of outlawry for treason, he was executed, June 1685. ]

[Footnote 33: Aston is mentioned as a sort of half wit in some of
the lampoons of the day; but I have not been able to trace any thing
of his history, except that he seems to have been a courtier of the
period; perhaps the same Colonel Aston, whom the reader will find
in a subsequent note, acting as Mulgrave's second, in an intended
duel with Rochester. If this be so, from the slight with which he is
here mentioned, there may have been a coolness in their friendship,
although, indeed, the mere want of _morals_ was not considered as an
insufferable stigma in the reign of Charles II. , and might pass for a
good-natured joke, were the epithet _dull_ omitted. The name Aston is
mentioned in the "Epistle to Julian. "]

[Footnote 34: Robert Constable, third Viscount of Dunbar. He is
elsewhere mentioned with the epithet of "brawny Dunbar. " He married,
1st, Mary, daughter of Lord Bellasis; 2dly, the countess-dowager of
Westmoreland. ]

[Footnote 35: The unfortunate duke; the qualities of whose mind did not
correspond to his exterior accomplishments. Rochester says of him,--

But, now we talk of Maestricht, where is he
Famed for that brutal piece of bravery?
He, with his thick impenetrable scull,
The solid hardened armour of a fool,
Well might himself to all war's ills expose,
Who, come what will, yet had no brains to lose.
]

[Footnote 36: Sir Carr Scroop, a poet and courtier. See Note on the
"Epistle to Julian. "]

[Footnote 37: The royal mistresses were, the Duchesses of Cleveland
and of Portsmouth. Neither was supposed over-scrupulous in fidelity to
their royal lover. The Duchess of Cleveland, in particular, lavished
her favours even upon Jacob Hall, the rope-dancer; at least, so
Count Hamilton assures us, in the "Memoirs of Grammont. " The Duchess
of Portsmouth was a pensioner of the French court; by whom she was
thrown into the arms of Charles, with the express purpose of securing
his attachment to the cause of France. Charles knew, as well as any
of his subjects, the infidelity of one mistress, and the treachery
of the other; and Sheffield has elsewhere vindicated the epithet of
"sauntering," which is here bestowed on that indolent monarch. "I am
of opinion," says the duke, "that, in his latter times, there was
as much of laziness as of love in all those hours he passed among
his mistresses; who, after all, only served to fill up his seraglio,
while a bewitching kind of pleasure, called _sauntering_, and talking
without constraint, was the true sultana-queen he delighted in. "[38]
While Sheffield thus solemnly confirms, in prose, the character given
of Charles in the "Essay upon Satire," he ascertains his claim to
the property of the poem. And I must add, I should be sorry to think
Dryden was accessary to lampooning persons, to whom he had offered the
incense of his verse. See the "Epistle to Lady Castlemain," afterwards
Duchess of Cleveland, and "The Fair Stranger," addressed to Louise
Querouailles, afterwards Duchess of Portsmouth. ]

[Footnote 38: _Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham's Works_, Vol. II. p. 61.
4to, 1723. ]

[Footnote 39: Sir John Earnely was bred to the law; but became
distinguished as a second-rate statesman. He was chancellor of the
exchequer in 1686; and was made one of the commissioners of the
treasury, in the room of the Earl of Rochester. ]

[Footnote 40: Robert Bruce, second Earl of Elgin, in Scotland,
created after the Restoration an English peer, by the titles of
Baron and Viscount Bruce, Earl of Aylesbury. In 1678, he was of the
privy-council to his majesty, and a gentleman of the bed-chamber. In
the reign of James II. , the Earl of Aylesbury succeeded to the office
of lord-chamberlain, upon the death of the Earl of Arlington, in July
1685; an office which he held only two months, as he died in October
following. ]

[Footnote 41: The Earl of Shaftesbury; of whose decrepit body,
and active mind, much has been said in the notes on "Absalom and
Achitophel," and on the "Medal. "]

[Footnote 42: This was Arthur, first Earl of Essex of his name. He was
son of that Lord Capel, who so gallantly defended Colchester during the
civil wars, and was executed upon the place being taken. Lord Essex
had been lieutenant of Ireland from 1672 to 1677, and was supposed
to have fixed his ambition upon returning to that situation. Being
disappointed, he joined in the measures of Shaftesbury and Monmouth,
and was a violent opponent of the court. He was committed to the Tower
on account of his accession to the Rye-house plot; and, upon the
morning on which Lord Russel was conveyed to his trial, he was found
with his throat cut, the King and Duke of York being in the Tower at
the very time, to witness some experiment on the ordnance. It was
afterwards asserted, that he had been murdered by order of the court.
Even Burnet, however, seems to acquit them of the crime, both because
Essex was a free-thinker, and accustomed to vindicate suicide, and
because his surgeon declared to him, that, from the mode in which the
wound was inflicted, it could only have been done with his own hand.
But the violent proceedings against Braddon and Speke, who attempted to
investigate this mysterious affair, threw some suspicion upon the court
party. If Charles was accessary to the murder, the time was strangely
chosen, and the king's dissimulation equally remarkable; for, on
hearing the event, be exclaimed, "Alas! Lord Essex might have trusted
my clemency, I owed his family a life. "]

[Footnote 43: This was the infamous Lord Chief-Justice Scroggs. He had
ready eloquence, and much impudence. At first he stickled hard for the
Popish Plot; but, finding that ceased to be the road to preferment, he
became as eager on the other side. North allows, that his course of
life was scandalous. ]

[Footnote 44: This seems to have been copied by Gay in his Trivia:

Why do you, boys, the kennel's surface spread,
To tempt, with faithless pass, the matron's tread?
How can you laugh to see the damsel spurn,
Sink in your frauds, and her green stocking mourn?
]

[Footnote 45: The witty Earl of Dorset, whom we have often had occasion
to mention in these notes. His first wife was the Countess-Dowager of
Falmouth. Sheffield insinuates, that he had previously lampooned this
lady, and hints at some scandal now obsolete. She died without any
issue by Dorset. ]

[Footnote 46: Alluding to Dorset's verses to Mr Edward Howard. "On his
incomparable incomprehensible Poem, called the British Princess. "]

[Footnote 47: Mulgrave here alludes to some anecdotes of his own life
and amours, which probably were well known at the time, but are now too
obscure to be traced. He was three times married, and always to widows.
His lordship is here pleased to represent himself as a gallant of the
first order, skilled in all the arts of persuasion and conquest. But
his contemporaries did not esteem him so formidable, at least if we may
believe the author of a satire, called, "A Heroical Epistle from Lord
Allpride to Doll Common;" a bitter and virulent satire on Mulgrave. He
is thus described, in an epigram on Lord Allpride:

Against his stars the coxcomb ever strives,
And to be something they forbid contrives.
With a red nose, splay foot, and goggle eye,
A ploughman's booby mien, face all awry,
A filthy breath, and every loathsome mark,
The punchinello sets up for a spark:
With equal self-conceit he takes up arms,
But with such vile success his part performs,
That he burlesques the trade, and, what is best
In others, turns, like Harlequin, to jest:
So have I seen, at Smithfield's wonderous fair,
When all his brother-monsters flourish there,
A lubbard elephant divert the town,
With making legs, and shooting of a gun.
Go where he will, he never finds a friend,
Shame and derision all his steps attend;
Alike abroad, at home, i'the camp, and court,
This knight o'the burning pestle makes us sport.

This seems to have been written by the offended Sir Car Scrope. ]

[Footnote 48: Derrick is inclined to think, that Sidney, brother of the
Earl of Leicester, and of the famous Algernon Sidney, is here meant.
But the character better suits Sir Charles Sedley or Sidley, for he
spelled the name both ways. In explanation of the line, there is, in
the 4to edition of Sheffield's Works, this short note, "Remarkable for
making pleasant and proper similies upon all occasions. " In a satire in
the State Poems, Vol. II.

To a soul so mean e'en Shadwell is a stranger;
Nay, little Sid. it seems, less values danger.
]

[Footnote 49: Sir George Hewet was a coxcomb of the period, after whom
Etherege is said to have modelled Sir Fopling Flutter's character:

Scarce will their greater grief pierce every heart,
Should Sir George Hewit or Sir Car depart.
Had it not better been, than thus to roam,
To stay and tie the cravat string at home;
To strut, look big, shake pantaloon, and swear
With Hewit, "Damme, there's no action here! "

_Rochester's Farewell. _

His pretensions to gallantry are elsewhere ridiculed:

Yet most against their genius blindly run,
The wrong they chuse, and what they're made for shun;
Thus Arlington thinks for state affairs he's fit,
Hewit for ogling, C----ly for a wit.

_The Town Life. _

And again,

May Hewet's _billets doux_ successful prove,
In tempting of her little Grace to love.

Sir George Hewet attended the Prince of Denmark when he joined the
Prince of Orange.

Jack Hall, the rotten Uzza of "Absalom and Achitophel," (Vol. IX. pp.
331. 373. ) He seems to have gone into opposition to the court with
Sidley, his patron. There is a comical account given of a literary
effort of his in one of the State Poems:

Jack Hall---- ---- ----
---- ---- ----left town,
But first writ something that he durst not own;
Of prologue lawfully begotten,
And full nine months maturely thought on;
Born with hard labour and much pain,
Ousely was doctor chamberlain. [50]
At length, from stuff and rubbish picked,
As bears' cubs into form are licked,
When Wharton, Etherege, and Soame, }
To give it their last strokes were come, }
Those critics differed in their doom; }
Yet Swan[51] says, he admired it 'scaped,
Being Jack Hall's, without being clapped.
]

[Footnote 50: _Then a famous accoucheur. _]

[Footnote 51: _The same, I suppose, whom Dryden dignifies with the
title of honest Mr Swan_, Vol XIII. p. 97. ]

[Footnote 52: A cowardly braggadocio character in Beaumont and
Fletcher's excellent play of "King and no King. "]

[Footnote 53: No one could know the cowardice of Lord Rochester so
well as Mulgrave, who, in his Memoirs, records the following infamous
instance of it. He had heard it reported, that Lord Rochester had said
something of him very malicious: "I therefore sent Colonel Aston, a
very mettled friend of mine, to call him to account for it. He denied
the words; and, indeed, I was soon convinced he had never said them:
but the mere report, though I found it to be false, obliged me (as I
then foolishly thought) to go on with the quarrel; and the next day
was appointed for us to fight on horseback, a way in England a little
unusual, but it was his part to chuse. Accordingly, I and my second
lay the night before at Knightsbridge, privately, to avoid the being
secured at London upon any suspicion; which yet we found ourselves more
in danger of there, because we had all the appearance of highway-men,
that had a mind to lie skulking in an odd inn for one night; but
this, I suppose, the people of that house were used to, and so took
no notice of us, but liked us the better. In the morning, we met the
Lord Rochester at the place appointed, who, instead of James Porter,
whom, he assured Aston, he would make his second, brought an errant
lifeguard-man, whom nobody knew. To this Mr Aston took exception, upon
the account of his being no suitable adversary; especially considering
how extremely well he was mounted, whereas we had only a couple of
pads. Upon which, we all agreed to fight on foot: But, as my Lord
Rochester and I were riding into the next field, in order to it, he
told me, that he had at first chosen to fight on horseback, because he
was so weak with a distemper, that he found himself unfit to fight at
all any way, much less a-foot. I was extremely surprised, because, at
that time, no man had a better reputation for courage; and (my anger
against him being quite over, because I was satisfied that he never
spoke those words I resented,) I took the liberty of representing,
what a ridiculous story it would make if we returned without fighting;
and therefore advised him, for both our sakes, especially for his
own, to consider better of it; since I must be obliged, in my own
defence, to lay the fault on him, by telling the truth of the matter.
His answer was, that he submitted to it; and hoped, that I would
not desire the advantage of having to do with any man in so weak a
condition. I replied, that, by such an argument, he had sufficiently
tied my hands, upon condition I might call our seconds to be witnesses
of the whole business; which he consented to, and so we parted. When
we returned to London, we found it full of this quarrel, upon our
being absent so long; and therefore Mr Aston thought himself obliged
to write down every word and circumstance of this whole matter, in
order to spread every where the true reason of our returning without
having fought; which being never in the least either contradicted or
resented by the Lord Rochester, entirely ruined his reputation as to
courage, (of which I was really sorry to be the occasion,) though no
body had still a greater as to wit; which supported him pretty well
in the world, notwithstanding some more accidents of the same kind,
that never fail to succeed one another when once people know a man's
weakness. "--_Memoirs of Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham. _

Conscious of his infamy, Rochester only ventured to reply to Sheffield,
the real author of the above satire, by some cold sneers on his
expedition to Tangiers, which occur in the poem called "Rochester's
Farewell. "]




A

FAMILIAR EPISTLE

TO

MR JULIAN,

SECRETARY OF THE MUSES.


The extremity of license in manners, necessarily leads to equal license
in personal satire; and there never was an age in which both were
carried to such excess as in that of Charles II. These personal and
scandalous libels acquired the name of lampoons, from the established
burden formerly sung to them:

_Lampone, lampone, camerada lampone_.

Dryden suffered under these violent and invisible assaults, as much as
any one of his age; to which his own words, in several places of his
writings, and also the existence of many of the pasquils themselves in
the Luttrel Collection, bear ample witness. In many of his prologues
and epilogues he alludes to this rage for personal satire, and to the
employment which it found for the half and three quarter wits and
courtiers of the time:

Yet these are pearls to your lampooning rhymes;
Ye abuse yourselves more dully than the times.
Scandal, the glory of the English nation,
Is worn to rags, and scribbled out of fashion:
Such harmless thrusts, as if, like fencers wise,
They had agreed their play before their prize.
Faith they may hang their harp upon the willows;
'Tis just like children when they box with pillows.

_See_ Vol. X. p. 365.

Upon the general practice of writing lampoons, and the necessity
of finding some mode of dispersing them, which should diffuse the
scandal widely, while the authors remained concealed, was founded
the self-erected office of Julian, secretary, as he called himself,
to the Muses. This person attended Will's, the Wits Coffeehouse, as
it was called; and dispersed, among the crowds who frequented that
place of gay resort, copies of the lampoons which had been privately
communicated to him by their authors. "He is described," says Mr
Malone, "as a very drunken fellow, and at one time was confined for a
libel. " Several satires were written, in the form of addresses, to him,
as well as the following. There is one among the State Poems, beginning,

Julian, in verse, to ease thy wants I write,
Not moved by envy, malice, or by spite,
Or pleased with the empty names of wit and sense,
But merely to supply thy want of pence:
This did inspire my muse, when, out at eel,
She saw her needy secretary reel.
Grieved that a man, so useful to the age,
Should foot it in so mean an equipage;
A crying scandal, that the fees of sense
Should not be able to support the expence
Of a poor scribe, who never thought of wants
When able to procure a cup of Nantz.

Another, called, "A Consoling Epistle to Julian," is said to have been
written by the Duke of Buckingham.

From a passage in one of the "Letters from the Dead to the Living," we
learn, that, after Julian's death, and the madness of his successor,
called Summerton, lampoon felt a sensible decay; and there was no more
that "brisk spirit of verse, that used to watch the follies and vices
of the men and women of figure, that they could not start new ones
faster than lampoons exposed them. "

In another epistle of the same collection, supposed to be written by
Julian from the shades, to Will Pierre, a low comedian, he is made thus
to boast of the extent of the dominion which he exercised when on earth.

"The conscious Tub Tavern can witness, and my Berry Street apartment
testify, the solicitations I have had, for the first copy of a new
lampoon, from the greatest lords of the court, though their own folly
and their wives' vices were the subjects. My person was so sacred,
that the terrible scan-man had no terrors for me, whose business was
so public and so useful, as conveying about the faults of the great
and the fair; for in my books, the lord was shewn a knave or fool,
though his power defended the former, and his pride would not see
the latter. The antiquated coquet was told of her age and ugliness,
though her vanity placed her in the first row in the king's box at the
playhouse; and in the view of the congregation at St James's church.
The precise countess, that would be scandalized at _double entendre_,
was shown betwixt a pair of sheets with a well-made footman, in spite
of her quality and conjugal vow. The formal statesman, that set up
for wisdom and honesty, was exposed as a dull tool, and yet a knave,
losing at play his own revenue, and the bribes incident to his post,
besides enjoying the infamy of a poor and fruitless knavery without
any concern. The demure lady, that would scarce sip off the glass in
company, was shewn carousing her bottles in private, of cool Nantz too,
sometimes, to correct the crudities of her last night's debauch. In
short, in my books were seen men and women as they were, not as they
would seem,--stript of their hypocrisy, spoiled of the fig-leaves of
their quality. A knave was called a knave, a fool a fool, a jilt a
jilt, and a whore a whore. And the love of scandal and native malice,
that men and women have to one another, made me in such request when
alive, that I was admitted to the lord's closet, when a man of letters
and merit would be thrust out of doors. And I was as familiar with the
ladies as their lap-dogs: for to them I did often good services; under
pretence of a lampoon, I conveyed a _billet doux_; and so, whilst I
exposed their vast vices in the present, I prompted matter for the next
lampoon. "

The following lampoon, in which it is highly improbable that Dryden
had any share, is chiefly levelled against Sir Car Scrope, son of
Sir Adrian Scrope of Cockington, in Lincolnshire, a courtier of
considerable poetical talents, of whom Anthony Wood says, "that, as
divers satirical copies of verses were made upon him by other persons,
so he hath diverse made by himself upon them, which are handed about
to this day. " We have seen that he is mentioned with contempt in the
"Essay on Satire;" and, in the "Advice to Apollo," in the State Poems,
Vol. I. his studies are thus commemorated:

----Sir Car, that knight of withered face,
Who, for the reversion of a poet's place,
Waits on Melpomene, and sooths her grace;
That angry miss alone he strives to please,
For fear the rest should teach him wit and ease,
And make him quit his loved laborious walks,
Where, sad or silent, o'er the room he stalks,
And strives to write as wisely as he talks.

He is also mentioned in many other libels of the day, and some of his
answers are still extant. Rochester assailed him in his "Allusion to
the Tenth Satire of Horace's first Book. " Sir Car Scrope replied, and
published a poem in Defence of Satire, to which the earl retorted by
a very coarse set of verses, addressed to the knight by name. Sir Car
Scrope was a tolerable translator from the classics; and his version
of the "Epistle from Sappho to Phaon" is inserted in the translation
of Ovid's Epistles by several hands, edited by our author. Dryden
mentions, in one of his prefaces, Sir Car Scrope's efforts with
approbation. But it is not from this circumstance alone I conclude that
this epistle has been erroneously attributed to our author; for the
whole internal evidence speaks loudly against its authenticity. Indeed,
it only rests on Dryden's name being placed to it in the 6th volume of
the Miscellanies published after his death.




A

FAMILIAR EPISTLE

TO

MR JULIAN,

SECRETARY OF THE MUSES.


Thou common shore of this poetic town,
Where all the excrements of wit are thrown;
For sonnet, satire, bawdry, blasphemy,
Are emptied, and disburdened all in thee:
The choleric wight, untrussing all in rage,
Finds thee, and lays his load upon thy page.
Thou Julian, or thou wise Vespasian rather,
Dost from this dung thy well-pickt guineas gather.
All mischief's thine; transcribing, thou wilt stoop
From lofty Middlesex[54] to lowly Scroop.
What times are these, when, in the hero's room, }
Bow-bending Cupid doth with ballads come, }
And little Aston[55] offers to the bum? }
Can two such pigmies such a weight support,
Two such Tom Thumbs of satire in a court?
Poor George[56] grows old, his muse worn out of fashion,
Hoarsely he sung Ephelia's lamentation.
Less art thou helped by Dryden's bed-rid age;
That drone has lost his sting upon the stage.
Resolve me, poor apostate, this my doubt,
What hope hast thou to rub this winter out?
Know, and be thankful then, for Providence
By me hath sent thee this intelligence.
A knight there is,[57] if thou canst gain his grace,
Known by the name of the hard-favoured face.
For prowess of the pen renowned is he,
From Don Quixote descended lineally;
And though, like him, unfortunate he prove,
Undaunted in attempts of wit and love.
Of his unfinished face, what shall I say,--
But that 'twas made of Adam's own red clay;
That much, much ochre was on it bestowed;
God's image 'tis not, but some Indian god:
Our christian earth can no resemblance bring,
But ware of Portugal for such a thing;
Such carbuncles his fiery face confess,
As no Hungarian water can redress.
A face which, should he see, (but heaven was kind,
And, to indulge his self, Love made him blind,)
He durst not stir abroad for fear to meet
Curses of teeming women in the street:
The best could happen from this hideous sight, }
Is, that they should miscarry with the fright,-- }
Heaven guard them from the likeness of the knight! }
Such is our charming Strephon's outward man,
His inward parts let those disclose who can.
One while he honoureth Birtha with his flame,
And now he chants no less Lovisa's[58] name;
For when his passion hath been bubbling long,
The scum at last boils up into a song;
And sure no mortal creature, at one time,
Was e'er so far o'ergone with love and rhyme.
To his dear self of poetry he talks,
His hands and feet are scanning as he walks;
His writhing looks his pangs of wit accuse,
The airy symptoms of a breeding muse,
And all to gain the great Lovisa's grace.
But never pen did pimp for such a face;
There's not a nymph in city, town, or court,
But Strephon's _billet-doux_ has been their sport.
Still he loves on, yet still he's sure to miss,
As they who wash an Ethiop's face, or his.
What fate unhappy Strephon does attend,
Never to get a mistress, nor a friend!
Strephon alike both wits and fools detest,
'Cause he's like Esop's bat, half bird half beast;
For fools to poetry have no pretence,
And common wit supposes common sense;
Not quite so low as fool, nor quite a top,
He hangs between them both, and is a fop.