TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM ENTITLED SUCCESSIO. [FIRST published in Lintot's Miscellanies; avowed by Pope as written by him when fourteen years of age, in note to Dunciad, Bk. I. v. 181. Elkanah Settle, the city poet, and the Doeg of Absalom and Achitophel, had written a poem in celebration of the settlement of the crown on the house of Brunswick. Of this poem vv. 4 and 17-18 were afterwards, with slight alterations, inserted in the Dunciad as vv. 183-4 and 181-2 of Bk. 1.] EGONE, ye Critics, and restrain your spite, The heaviest Muse the swiftest course has gone, A swarm of drones that buzz'd about your head. And pond'rous slugs move nimbly through the sky. ARGUS. 5 IO 15 20 HOMER'S account of Ulysses's dog Argus is the most pathetic imaginable, all the circumstances consider'd, and an excellent proof of the old bard's goodnature. Ulysses had left him at Ithaca when he embark'd for Troy, and found him at his return after twenty years (which by the way is not unnatural, as some critics have said, since I remember the dam of my dog was twenty-two years old when she died. May the omen of longevity prove fortunate to her successors!). You shall have it in verse.' Pope to H. Cromwell, Oct. 19, 1709. THEN wise Ulysses, from his native coast WHEN Long kept by wars, and long by tempests toss'd, 1 Perhaps by Charilus, the juvenile satirist designed Flecknoe or Shadwell, who had received their immortality of Dulness from his master Catholic in poetry and opinions: Dryden. D'Israeli, cited by Roscoe. Arriv'd at last, poor, old, disguis'd, alone, The faithful dog alone his rightful master knew! 5 ΤΟ And longing to behold his ancient Lord again." Him when he saw-he rose, and crawl'd to meet, ('Twas all he could) and fawn'd, and kiss'd his feet, 15 IMITATION OF MARTIAL. [LIB. X. Epigr. XXIII. Mentioned as Pope's ‘imitation of Martin's epigram on Antonius Primus,' by Sir William Trumball, in a letter to Pope, Jan. 19, 1716.] AT T length, my Friend, (while Time, with still career, Sees his past days safe out of Fortune's pow'r, OCCASIONED BY SOME VERSES OF HIS GRACE MUSE, 'tis enough; at length thy labour ends, And thou shalt live, for Buckingham commends. Let Crowds of Critics now my verse assail, 1 How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! Milton's Sonnets. Carruthers. 5 10 5 2 The verses referred to are the commendatory lines prefixed to Pope's poem by B. Roscoe. [As to Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, see note to Essay on Criticism, v. 724.] S ON MRS TOFTS, A CELEBRATED OPERA-SINGER'. O bright is thy Beauty, so charming thy Song, As had drawn both the Beasts and their Orpheus along; But such is thy Av'rice, and such is thy Pride, That the Beasts must have starv'd, and the Poet have died. EPIGRAM ON THE FEUDS ABOUT HANDEL [SOMETIMES, but incorrectly, attributed to Swift.] You EPIGRAM. YOU beat your Pate, and fancy Wit will come: EPITAPH. [IMITATED by Goldsmith in his Epitaph on Edward Purdon, ‘a bookseller's hack.'] TELL then, poor G lies under Ground! WELL So there's an End of honest Jack. So little Justice here he found, 'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back. EPITAPH. [FROM the Latin on Joannes Mirandula3. The lines were afterwards applied by Pope to Lord Coningsby; as to whom cf. Moral Essays, Ep. 111. v. 397.] TERE Francis C- 4 lies. Be civil; HE N The rest God knows-perhaps the Devil! THE BALANCE OF EUROPE5. OW Europe's balanc'd, neither Side prevails; ' [Katharine Tofts first came before the public in 1703, as a singer of Italian and English, at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Subsequently her rivalry with Margherita de l'Epine divided the public into an English and an Italian party. Hughes celebrated her as the British Tofts.' She retired from the stage in 1709, being then under the influence of a mental malady. See the Tatler, No. 20, where her insanity (which led her to identify herself with Camilla, one of her operatic characters) is described. She was married to a Mr Smith; and died in Italy in 1760. See Hogarth's Memoirs of the Musical Drama.] 2 [Giovanni Battista Bononcini's first English opera appeared in 1720; but he was at that time already well-known as the composer of Camilla.] 3 Joannes jacet hic Mirandula; cætera norunt Et Tagus et Ganges-forsan et Antipodes. 4 [Chartres.] 5 [The Balance of Europe' is a term of which TO A LADY WITH "THE TEMPLE OF FAME." ["I send you my Temple of Fame, which is just come out; but my sentiments about it you will see better by this epigram."-Pope to Martha Blount, 1714.] THAT'S Fame with Men, by Custom of the Nation, WH About them both why keep we such a pother? Part you with one, and I'll renounce the other. OCCASIONED BY FOUR SATIRICAL VERSES ON WOMEN-WITS, IN THE .66 RAPE OF THE LOCK. 6 [THE four verses are apparently Canto IV. vv. 59-62. The Countess of Winchilsea, a poetess whom Rowe hailed as inspired by more than Delphic ardour,' replied by some pretty lines, where she declares that, disarmed with so genteel an air,' she gives over the contest. Her reply will be found in Roscoe's Supplement, pp. 183-6.] N vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, IN And cite those Sapphos we admire no more: EPIGRAM ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB, ANNO 1716. [THE Kit-Cat Club was so named from Christopher Katt, a famous pastrycook. Steele, Addison, and many other wits were members, and Tonson secretary. It was customary to write verses in honour of the 'Toasts,' and engrave them upon the glasses. Each member gave his picture to the club.] HENCE deathless Kit-Cat took its Name, W Few Critics can unriddle; Some say from Pastry-cook it came, the origin belongs to the times of Henry IV. of France. Pope's epigram refers to the state of Europe after the peace of Utrecht in 1715, as a peace resulting (which was not in truth the case) from general exhaustion.] [Alluding to the wars concerning the Spanish succession, in which England certainly had no direct interest, under Queen Anne.] From no trim Beaux its Name it boasts, But from this Pell-mell Pack of Toasts POPE. SINC "Kits." A DIALOGUE. 1717. INCE my old friend is grown so great To grow the worse for growing greater; ON DRAWINGS OF THE STATUES OF APOLLO, VENUS, AND HERCULES, MADE FOR POPE BY SIR GODFREY KNELLER. WHAT god, what genius, did the pencil move, WHA When Kneller painted these? 'Twas friendship warm as Phoebus, kind as love, PROLOGUE TO THE "THREE HOURS AFTER MARRIAGE." [From the Miscellanies of Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay.] [THOUGH I am not aware on what evidence Roscoe and Carruthers agree in ascribing the Prologue of this farce to Pope, instead of leaving its joint honours like those of the farce itself to Gay and Arbuthnot (for both contributed to the volume of Miscellanies in which it was published) as well as him; yet the following has been inserted on account of the interest attaching to the piece, as the origin of Pope's quarrel with Cibber. A brief notice of the play, which was produced at Drury-Lane on Jan. 16th, 1717, will be found in the Introductory Memoir: and the play itself in most editions of Gay, and in Bowles' edition of Pope, vol. x.] UTHORS are judg'd by strange capricious Rules; Αυ The great ones are thought mad, the small ones Fools: 1 [See p. 442.] |