To please his mistress, one aspersed his life;
He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife:
Let Budgell' charge low Grub-street on his quill,
And write whate'er he pleased, except his will;'
Let the two Curlls of town and court, abuse
His father, mother, body, soul, and muse.
Yet why? that father held it for a rule,
It was a sin to call our neighbour fool:

That harmless mother thought no wife a whore:
Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore!
Unspotted names, and memorable long!

If there be force in virtue, or in song.

sioned a lady's death, and to name a person he never heard of. He also published that he libelled the Duke of Chandos; with whom (it was added) that he had lived in familiarity, and received from him a present of five hundred pounds, the falsehood of both which is known to his Grace. Mr. P. never received any present, farther than the subscription for Homer, from him,'or from any great man what

soever.

Budgell, in a weekly pamphlet called The Bee, bestowed much abuse on him, in the imagination that he writ some things about the last will of Dr. Tindal, in the Grub-street Journal; a paper wherein he never had the least hand, direction, or supervisal, nor the least knowledge of its author.

2 Alluding to Tindal's will; by which, and other indirect practices, Budgell, to the exclusion of the next heir, a nephew, got to himself almost the whole fortune of a man entirely unrelated to him.

3 In some of Curll's and other pamphlets, Mr. Pope's father was said to be a mechanic, a hatter, a farmer, nay, a bankrupt. But, what is stranger, a nobleman (if such a reflection could be thought to come from a nobleman), had dropped an allusion to that pitiful untruth, in a paper called An Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity; and the following line,

"Hard as thy heart, and as thy birth obscure,"

had fallen from a like courtly pen, in certain verses to the imitator of Horace. Mr. Pope's father was of a gentleman's family in Oxfordshire, the head of which was the Earl of Downe, whose sole heiress married the Earl of Lindsay.-His mother was the daughter of William Turner, Esq., of York: she had three brothers, one of whom was killed, another died in the service of King Charles; the eldest following his fortunes, and becoming a general officer in Spain, left her what estate remained after the sequestrations and forfeitures of her family.-Mr. Pope died in 1717, aged 75; she in 1733, aged 93, a very few weeks after this poem was finished. The following inscription was placed by their son on their monument in the parish of Twickenham, in Middlesex:

M*

D. O. M.

ALEXANDRO. POPE. VIRO. INNOCVO. PROBO. PIO.
QUI. VIXIT. ANNOS. LXXV. OB. MDCCXVIL
ET. EDITHÆ. CONIVGI. INCVLPABILI.
PIENTISSIMÆ. QUÆ. VIXIT. ANNOS.
XCIII. OB. MDCCXXXIII.

PARENTIBVS. BENEMERENTIBVS. FILIVS. FECIT.

ET. SIBI.

1

Of gentle blood (part shed in honour's cause,
While yet in Britain honour had applause)
Each parent sprung-A. What fortune, pray?—
P. Their own;

And better got, than Bestia's from the throne.
Born to no pride, inheriting no strife,
Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,

The good man walk'd innoxious through his age.
No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie
Unlearn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,
No language but the language of the heart.
By nature honest, by experience wise,
Healthy by temperance, and by exercise;

His life, though long, to sickness past unknown,
His death was instant, and without a groan.

O grant me thus to live, and thus to die!

Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.
O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!
Be no unpleasing melancholy mine:
Me, let the tender office long engage,
To rock the cradle of reposing age,

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,

Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like these, if length of days attend,
May Heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend,
Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,
And just as rich as when he served a QUEEN.

A. Whether that blessing be denied or given,
Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heaven.

SATIRES AND EPISTLES OF HORACE

IMITATED.

Ludentis speciem dabit, et torquebitur.-HOR.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Occasion of publishing these Imitations was the clamour raised on some of my Epistles. An answer from Horace was both more full, and of more dignity, than any I could have made in my own person; and the example of much greater freedom in so eminent a divine as Dr. Donne, seemed a proof with what indignation and contempt a Christian may treat více or folly, in ever so low, or ever so high a station. Both these authors were acceptable to the princes and ministers under whom they lived. The Satires of Dr. Donne I versified at the desire of the Earl of Oxford, while he was lord treasurer, and of the Duke of Shrewsbury, who had been secretary of state; neither of whom looked upon a satire on vicious courts as any reflection on those they served in. And indeed there is not in the world a greater error than that which fools are so apt to fall into, and knaves with good reason to encourage,-the mistaking a satirist for a libeller, whereas to a true satirist nothing is so odious as a libeller, for the same reason as to a man truly virtuous nothing is so hateful as a hypocrite.

Uni æquus virtuti atque ejus amicis

SATIRE I.

TO MR. FORTESCUE.

P. THERE are, (I scarce can think it, but am told) There are, to whom my Satire seems too bold: Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough,

And something said of Chartres much too rough.
The lines are weak, another's pleased to say,
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
Timorous by nature, of the rich in awe,
I come to counsel learned in the law:

You'll give me, like a friend both sage and free,
Advice; and (as you use) without a fee.

F. I'd write no more.

P. Not write? but then I think,

And for my soul I cannot sleep a wink.
I nod in company, I wake at night,
Fools rush into my head, and so I write.

F. You could not do a worse thing for your life.
Why, if the nights seem tedious-take a wife:
Or rather truly, if your point be rest,

Lettuce and cowslip-wine; probatum est.
But talk with Celsus, Celsus will advise

Hartshorn, or something that shall close your eyes.
Or, if you needs must write, write CÆSAR's praise,
You'll gain at least a knighthood, or the bays.

P. What? like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce,

With ARMS, and GEORGE, and BRUNSWICK, crowd the verse,

Rend with tremendous sound your ears asunder,

With gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder?
Or nobly wild, with Budgell's fire and force,
Paint angels trembling round his falling horse?
F. Then all your muse's softer art display,
Let CAROLINA smooth the tuneful lay,
Lull with AMELIA's liquid name the nine,
And sweetly flow through all the royal line.

P. Alas! few verses touch their nicer ear;
They scarce can bear their laureat twice a year;
And justly CESAR scorns the poet's lays,
It is to history he trusts for praise.

F. Better be Cibber, I'll maintain it still,
Than ridicule all taste, blaspheme quadrille,
Abuse the city's best good men in metre,
And laugh at peers that put their trust in Peter.
E'en those you touch not hate you.

P. What should ail 'em? F. A hundred smart in Timon and in Balaam: The fewer still you name, you wound the more; Bond is but one, but Harpax is a score.

P. Each mortal has his pleasure: none deny
Scarsdale his bottle, Darty his ham-pic;
Ridotta sips and dances, till she see
The doubling lustres dance as fast as she;
Floves the senate, Hockley-hole his brother,
Like in all else, as one egg to another.

I love to pour out all myself as plain

As downright SHIPPEN, or as old Montaigne:
In them as certain to be loved as seen,

The soul stood forth, nor kept a thought within;
In me what spots (for spots I have) appear,
Will prove at least the medium must be clear.
In this impartial glass, my muse intends
Fair to expose myself, my foes, my friends;
Publish the present age; but where my text
Is vice too high, reserve it for the next;
My foes shall wish my life a longer date,
And every friend the less lament my fate.
My head and heart thus flowing through my quill,
Verse-man or prose-man, term me which you will,
Papist or Protestant, or both between,
Like good Erasmus in an honest mean,
In moderation placing all my glory,
While tories call me whig, and whigs a tory.
Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet
To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet;
I only wear it in a land of Hectors,

Thieves, supercargoes, sharpers, and directors.
Save but our army! and let Jove incrust
Swords, pikes, and guns, with everlasting rust!
Peace is my dear delight-not FLEURY's more:
But touch me, and no minister so sore.
Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time
Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme,
Sacred to ridicule his whole life-long,
And the sad burthen of some merry song.

Slander or poison dread from Delia's rage,
Hard words or hanging, if your judge be Page.
From furious Sappho scarce a milder fate,
Pox'd by her love, or libell'd by her hate.
Its proper power to hurt, each creature feels;
Bulls aim their horns, and asses lift their heels.
'Tis a bear's talent not to kick, but hug;
And no man wonders he's not stung by pug.
So drink with Walters, or with Chartres eat,
They'll never poison you, they'll only cheat.

Ther, learned Sir! (to cut the matter short) Whate'er my fate, or well or ill at court, Whether old age, with faint but cheerful ray, Attends to gild the evening of my day,