Who first his judgment asked, and then a place:1 Much they extolled his pictures, much his seat, And flattered every day, and some days eat;

Till, grown more frugal in his riper days,

He paid some bards with port, and some with praise,
To some a dry rehearsal was assigned,

And others (harder still) he paid in kind.2
Dryden alone (what wonder!) came not nigh,
Dryden alone escaped this judging eye;
But still the great have kindness in reserve
He helped to bury3 whom he helped to starve.1
May some choice patron bless each gray goose quill!
May every Bavius have his Bufo still!

So, when a statesman wants a day's defense,
Or envy holds a whole week's war with sense,
Or simple pride for flattery makes demands,
May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands!
Blest be the great! for those they take away,
And those they left me; for they left me Gay,7-
Left me to see neglected genius bloom,
Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb: 8

1

a place, an office.

2 in kind: that is, Montague read some of his own productions to the aspiring bard.

3 He helped to bury. Montague offered to pay the expenses of Dryden's funeral.

4 helped to starve.

Inasmuch

as he had not relieved his wants.
5 Bavius, any wretched poet
looking for patronage.

6 dunce. For its etymology see Webster.

7 Gay. John Gay (1688-1732), a distinguished poet, and one of Pope's dearest friends. His straits were owing more to carelessness than want of money.

8 tell . . . tomb. "Tell" depends on "left," and the explanation is that Pope wrote Gay's epitaph.

Of all thy blameless life the sole return

My verse, and Queensbury1 weeping o'er thy urn!
O, let me live my own,2 and die so too!
(To live and die is all I have to do:)
Maintain a poet's dignity and ease,

And see what friends, and read what books, I please;
Above a patron, though I condescend
Sometimes to call a minister3 my friend.

I was not born for courts or great affairs:
I pay my debts, believe, and say my prayers;
Can sleep without a poem in my head,

Nor know if Dennis be alive or dead.

Why am I asked what next shall see the light?5 Heavens! was I born for nothing but to write? Has life no joys for me? or (to be grave) Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save?

I found him close with Swift: "Indeed? no doubt" (Cries prating Balbus"), "something will come out." 'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will:

"No, such a genius never can lie still;"

And then for mine obligingly mistakes

The first lampoon7 Sir Will8 or Bubo makes.

5 shall see the light, shall be published.

6 Balbus, a name for any gossiping Paul Pry.

7 lampoon. See Webster.

8 Sir Will. Sir William Yonge, who set up for a satirist.

4 Dennis. John Dennis (1657- 9 Bubo. George Bubb Doding1734), a critic of the time, with ton, a light-hearted, unscrupulous whom Pope was at eternal warfare. man of fashion.

Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but smile,
When every coxcomh knows me by my style?

Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,

Or from the soft-eyed virgin steal a tear!
But he who hurts a harmless neighbor's peace,
Insults fallen worth, or beauty in distress,
Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out;1
That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame;
Who can your merit selfishly approve,

And show the sense of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honor, injured,2 to defend;
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say,
And, if he lie not, must at least betray:
Who reads, but with a lust to misapply,

3

Make satire a lampoon, and fiction lie.

A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.*

Not fortune's worshiper,5 nor fashion's fool, Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool,

6

Not proud, nor servile; be one poet's praise,
That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways;
That flattery, even to kings, he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same;
That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stooped to truth, and moralized his song:1
That not for fame, but virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laughed at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt,2 the tear he never shed;
The tale revived, the lie so oft o'erthrown,
The imputed trash and dullness not his own;
The morals blackened when the writings 'scape,
The libeled person,5 and the pictured shape;6
Abuse on all he loved, or loved him, spread, -
A friend in exile, or a father dead;7

1 That not in fancy's maze.. song. That is, though he at first wrote light pieces of fancy, he afterwards treated graver themes (“moralized his song"), as'in the Essay on Man.

-2 The blow unfelt. The allusion is to a lampoon professing to give an account of a whipping inflicted on Pope in 1728.

5 person, physical form.

6 pictured shape, caricatures of Pope, who was terribly hurt by some of these. 7 Abuse dead. Curll the bookseller published every scrap which he could rake out of the sinks of literature against Pope and his friends. By "a friend in exile" is meant Bolingbroke, who

3 imputed trash. Trash printed was much esteemed by Pope. By

"a father dead" is meant Pope's

own father.

The whisper, that to greatness still too near,
Perhaps yet vibrates on his Sovereign's ear-
Welcome for thee, fair virtue! all the past;
For thee, fair virtue! welcome even the last!

Of gentle blood, part shed in honor's cause,1 While yet in Britain honor had applause,

Each parent2 sprung. —A.3 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,5
Stranger to civil and religious rage,

6

The good man walked innoxious through his age.
No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie.
Unlearned, he knew no schoolman's subtile 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 passed unknown, His death was instant, and without a groan.

... cause.

One of his

1 part.. mother's kindred was killed, and another died, in the service of Charles I.

2 each parent; that is, each of Pope's parents.

5 Nor... wife. Supposed to be a reference to Addison.

6 The good man; that is, Pope's father.

7 Nor dared an oath. As a Roman Catholic, Pope's father de8 A.; that is, Arbuthnot, as P. is clined to take various oaths which were at that time necessary qualifi

of course Pope.

4 Bestia, some unknown royal cations for civil offices under the favorite. British government.