4

One from all Grub-street1 will my fame defend,
And, more abusive, calls himself my friend.
This prints my letters,2 that expects a bribe,
And others roar aloud, "Subscribe, subscribe!"
There are, who to my person pay their court:
I cough like Horace,3 and, though lean, am short;
Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high,
Such Ovid's nose, and, "Sir! you have an eye".
Go on, obliging creatures, make me see
All that disgraced my betters, met in me;
Say for my comfort, languishing in bed,
"Just so immortal Maro 5 held his head;"
And when I die, be sure you let me know
Great Homer died three thousand years ago.
Why did I write? What sin to me unknown
Dipt me in ink, — my parents', or my own?
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,

I lisped in numbers,7 for the numbers came.
I left no calling for this idle trade,

No duty broke, no father disobeyed.

The muse but served to ease some friend, not wife, To help me through this long disease, my life,

1 Grub-street. "A street in London much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called Grubstreet." - JOHNSON.

2 this prints my letters. A collection of Pope's letters had been surreptitiously printed in 1726.

3 I cough like Horace. Horace, the Latin poet, was short and fat.

4 Ammon's great son. Alexander the Great.

Pope

5 Maro, the Latin poet Virgil. 6 parents'. What noun is understood after this possessive? 7 I lisped in numbers. began writing verse ("numbers") when only eleven years old. Give an instance of the use by Longfellow, of the word "numbers" as an equivalent of poetry.

To second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care,
And teach, the being you preserved, to bear.

But why, then, publish? Granville the polite,1
And knowing Walsh,2 would tell me I could write;
Well-natured Garth inflamed with early praise;
• And Congreve loved and Swift endured my lays;
The courtly Talbot,5 Somers,6 Sheffield," read;
Even mitered Rochester would nod the head,
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friends before)
With open arms received one poet more.
Happy my studies, when by these approved!
Happier their author, when by these beloved!
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets,10 Oldmixons, and Cookes.

Did some more sober critic come abroad,
If wrong, I smiled; if right, I kissed the rod."
Pains, reading, study, are their just pretense,
And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense;
Commas and points they set exactly right,
And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite.

1 Granville the polite, i.e., 6 Somers. Lord Keeper under George Granville, afterwards Lord William III. Lansdowne, a wit and poet of the time of Queen Anne.

2 Walsh, who was the first to recognize in Pope the dawnings of genius.

8 Garth. Dr. Samuel Garth; an author, and an early friend of Pope.

4 Congreve. William Congreve (died 1729), one of the wittiest comedians in the language.

5 Talbot. Duke of Shrewsbury, died 1718.

7 Sheffield. Duke of Buckingham, the friend and patron of Dryden, and also Pope's first patron.

8 Mitered Rochester. Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. 9 St. John. Lord Bolingbroke, Pope's warmest friend and patron. 10 Burnet. Bishop Burnet, the Whig historian, is here maliciously joined with authors of no importance whatever.

11 kissed the rod. Explain.

Each wight,1 who reads not, and but scans and spells,
Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables,

Even such small critics some regard may claim,
Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name.2
Pretty! in amber to observe the forms

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there.

Were others angry, I excused them too:
Well might they rage, I gave them but their due.
A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find;
But each man's secret standard in his mind,
That casting-weight pride adds to emptiness,
This, who can gratify? for who can guess?
The bard whom pilfered Pastorals3 renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown,
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,
And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year.
He who still wanting, though he lives on theft,
Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left;
And he who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning;
And he whose fustian's so sublimely bad,

It is not poetry, but prose run mad,” —
All these my modest Satire bade translate,

1 wight. See Glossary.

2 Preserved . . . name. The reference is to the commentators on Shakespeare and Milton.

4 Just writes, etc. Select epigramatic and antithetic expressions in the next dozen lines.

5 fustian. See Glossary.

6 sublimely bad. Explain. prose run mad. Note this vivid

7

8 pilfered Pastorals. The allusion is to the poet Ambrose Philips, whom Pope accused of plagiarism. | phrase.

And owned that nine such poets made a Tate.1
How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe!
And swear, not Addison himself was safe.

Peace 2 to all such! but were there one whose fires
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires;
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease;
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him 5 with scornful yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,7
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserved to blame or to commend,
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged,

1 Tate. Nahum Tate, a hack | brothers," —that is, destroyed the translator of the classics. authority of all other philosophers. 5 him. Whom?

2 Peace were he. These famous twenty-two lines are the poisoned shaft directed against Addison by Pope after their estrangement. See page 137; and for a criticism on the satire, see Macaulay's Essay on Addison.

3 to rule of ruling. 4 Bear... throne. This expression has been traced to Lord Bacon, who, speaking of Aristotle, says that like the Ottomans he thought he could not reign in safety unless he massacred all his

6 Damn, the technical expression when an audience condemns, or disapproves of, a play.

7 assent with civil leer. Macaulay says, "Addison had one habit which both Swift and Stella applauded, and which we hardly know how to blame. If his first attempts to set a presuming dunce right were ill-received, he changed his tone, 'assented with civil leer' and lured the flattered coxcomb deeper and deeper into absurdity."

And so obliging that he ne'er obliged;1
Like Cato,2 give his little senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause;
While wits and Templars every sentence raise,*
And wonder with a foolish face of praise,

3

Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus 5 were he?.
Proud as Apollo on his forkéd hill,6
Sat full-blown Bufo, puffed by every quill;
Fed with soft Dedication all day long,
Horace and he went hand in hand in song.
His library (where busts of poets dead
And a true Pindar stood without a head')
Received of wits an undistinguished race,

1 obliged, pronounced in Pope's | Pope had come to some realization day obleeged.

2 Like Cato... laws. An allusion to Addison's tragedy of Cato. That there was some foundation for the charge that Addison was too fond of presiding over a circle of humble friends, see the paper on Addison in Macaulay's Essays.

3 wits and Templars. It is related, that, when Addison's Cato was first performed, Steele brought into the theater a band of "wits" from Will's Coffee-house, and another appreciative and applauding band from the Inns of Court ("Templars").

4 raise, applaud.

5 Atticus. In the original form of these verses, the name was given - Addison. The later substitution of Atticus is thought to show that

of the outrage he was committing.

6 forked hill. That is, Parnassus. (See page 141.) From its two summits, Parnassus is frequently described by the poets as doubleheaded: hence the significance of "forked."

7 Bufo, Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax, a great patron of letters in Pope's time.

8 Fed with soft Dedication. It was the fashion in Pope's time, for authors to dedicate their works to some powerful personage from whom they hoped for reward. Addison made a dedication to Montague; so also Steele, and many others.

9 a true Pindar... head. An allusion to a passage in the Latin satirist Juvenal.