Yet should the Graces all thy figures place,
And breathe an air divine on ev'ry face;
Yet should the Muses bid my numbers roll
Strong as their charms, and gentle as their soul;
With Zeuxis' Helen thy Bridgewater vie,

75

And these be sung 'till Granville's Mira die1;
Alas! how little from the grave we claim !

Thou but preserv'st a Face, and I a Name.

EPISTLE TO MISS BLOUNT, WITH THE WORKS OF VOITURE3.

N these gay thoughts the Loves and Graces shine,

IN

And all the Writer lives in ev'ry line;

His easy Art may happy Nature seem,

Trifles themselves are elegant in him.
Sure to charm all was his peculiar fate,

Who without flatt'ry pleas'd the fair and great;
Still with esteem no less convers'd than read;

With wit well-natur'd, and with books well-bred :
His heart, his mistress, and his friend did share,
His time, the Muse, the witty, and the fair.
Thus wisely careless, innocently gay,
Cheerful he play'd the trifle, Life, away;
Till fate scarce felt his gentle breath supprest,
As smiling Infants sport themselves to rest.
Ev'n rival Wits did Voiture's death deplore,

And the gay mourn'd who never mourn'd before;
The truest hearts for Voiture heav'd with sighs,
Voiture was wept by all the brightest Eyes:
The Smiles and Loves had died in Voiture's death,
But that for ever in his lines they breathe.
Let the strict life of graver mortals be

5

IO

15

20

A long, exact, and serious Comedy;

In ev'ry scene some Moral let it teach,

And, if it can, at once both please and preach.
Let mine, an innocent gay farce appear,
And more diverting still than regular,
Have Humour, Wit, a native Ease and Grace,
Tho' not too strictly bound to Time and Place:
Critics in Wit, or Life, are hard to please,
Few write to those, and none can live to these.
Too much your Sex is by their forms confin'd,
Severe to all, but most to Womankind;

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1 [See Windsor Forest, v. 298.]

2 [Miss Teresa Blount. See Introductory Memoir, p. xxx. This Epistle was first published in Lintot's Miscellany in 1712; so that Pope's note (ante, p. 443) is not accurate.]

3 Vincent Voiture (1598-1648), one of the chief ornaments of the Hotel Rambouillet (the centre of the society of the so-called précieux and précieuses at Paris under the regency of Mary de' Medici). 'His great merit,' says a

your guide;

Custom, grown blind with Age, must be
Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride;
By Nature yielding, stubborn but for fame;
Made Slaves by honour, and made Fools by shame,
Marriage may all those petty Tyrants chase,
But sets up one, a greater, in their place;
Well might you wish for change by those accurst,
But the last Tyrant ever proves the worst.
Still in constraint your suff'ring Sex remains,
Or bound in formal, or in real chains:
Whole years neglected, for some months ador'd,
The fawning Servant turns a haughty Lord.
Ah quit not the free innocence of life,
For the dull glory of a virtuous Wife;
Nor let false Shows, or empty Titles please:
Aim not at Joy, but rest content with Ease.
The Gods, to curse Pamela with her pray'rs,
Gave the gilt Coach and dappled Flanders Mares,
The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state,
And, to complete her bliss, a Fool for Mate.
She glares in Balls, front Boxes, and the Ring,
A vain, unquiet, glitt'ring, wretched Thing!

35

40

45

50

Pride, Pomp, and State but reach her outward part;
She sighs, and is no Duchess at her heart.

55

But, Madam, if the fates withstand, and you

Are destin'd Hymen's willing Victim too;

Trust not too much your now resistless charms,
Those, Age or Sickness, soon or late disarms:
Good humour only teaches charms to last,

бо

Still makes new conquests, and maintains the past;

Love, rais'd on Beauty, will like that decay,

Our hearts may bear its slender chain a day;

As flow'ry bands in wantonness are worn,

65

A morning's pleasure, and at evening torn;
This binds in ties more easy, yet more strong,
The willing heart, and only holds it long.

Thus Voiture's early care still shone the same,

And Montausier 2 was only chang'd in name:

70

By this, ev'n now they live, ev'n now they charm,

Their Wit still sparkling, and their flames still warm.
Now crown'd with Myrtle, on th' Elysian coast,

Amid those Lovers, joys his gentle Ghost:

Pleas'd, while with smiles his happy lines you view,
And finds a fairer Rambouillet in you.

75

The brightest eyes of France inspir'd his Muse;

The brightest eyes of Britain now peruse;
And dead, as living, 'tis our Author's pride

Still to charm those who charm the world beside.

1 Mademoiselle Paulet. P.

2 [The Duke of Montausier, governor to the Dauphin son of Louis XIV., married Mdlle. de

Rambouillet. He was believed to have been the original of Molière's Misanthrope.]

EPISTLE' TO THE SAME, ON HER LEAVING THE TOWN
AFTER THE CORONATION 2.

As

S some fond Virgin, whom her mother's care
Drags from the Town to wholesome Country air,

Just when she learns to roll a melting eye,
And hear a spark, yet think no danger nigh;
From the dear man unwilling she must sever,
Yet takes one kiss before she parts for ever:
Thus from the world fair Zephalinda flew,
Saw others happy, and with sighs withdrew;
Not that their Pleasures caus'd her discontent,
She sigh'd not that they stay'd, but that she went.
She went, to plain-work, and to purling brooks,
Old fashion'd halls, dull Aunts, and croaking rooks:
She went from Op'ra, Park, Assembly, Play,
To morning-walks, and pray'rs three hours a day;
To part her time 'twixt reading and bohea;

To muse, and spill her solitary tea;

Or o'er cold coffee trifle with the spoon,

Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon;
Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
Hum half a tune, tell stories to the squire;
Up to her godly garret after sev'n,

There starve and pray, for that's the way to heav'n“.
Some Squire, perhaps you take delight to rack;
Whose game is Whisk5, whose treat a toast in sack;
Who visits with a Gun, presents you birds,
Then gives a smacking buss, and cries,-'No words!'
Or with his hound comes hollowing from the stable,
Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table;
Whose laughs are hearty, tho' his jests are coarse,
And loves you best of all things-but his horse.
In some fair ev'ning, on your elbow laid,
You dream of Triumphs in the rural shade;
In pensive thought recall the fancy'd scene,
See Coronations rise on ev'ry green;

Before you pass th' imaginary sights

Of Lords, and Earls, and Dukes, and garter'd Knights,
While the spread fan o'ershades your closing eyes;
Then give one flirt, and all the vision flies.
Thus vanish sceptres, coronets, and balls,
And leave you in lone woods, or empty walls!

[This Epistle is cited by M. Taine (Lit. Angl. IV. c. 7) to exemplify the realistic element which, according to his theory, was no more absent from Pope than from any of the contemporary English poets.]

2 Coronation.] Of King George the first, 1715. P..

The assumed name of Teresa Blount, under which she corresponded for many years with a Mr Moore, under the feigned name of Alexis.

Bowles. [James Moore Smythe.] Originally, according to Warburton (cited from Ruff head by Carruthers):

'So fair Teresa gave the town a view.' 4 [Sheridan may have remembered this passage, when writing the famous scene between Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, School for Scandal, Act II. Sc. 1.]

5 [According to Dr Johnson, the word whist was vulgarly pronounced whisk.]

So when your Slave, at some dear idle time,
(Not plagu'd with head-achs, or the want of rhyme)
Stands in the streets, abstracted from the crew,
And while he seems to study, thinks of you;
Just when his fancy points your sprightly eyes,

45

Or sees the blush of soft Parthenia1 rise,

Gay pats my shoulder, and you vanish quite,

Streets, Chairs, and Coxcombs, rush upon my sight;
Vex'd to be still in town, I knit my brow,

Look sour, and hum a Tune, as you may now.

50

ON RECEIVING FROM THE

RIGHT HON. THE LADY FRANCES SHIRLEY

A STANDISH AND TWO PENS2.

VES, I beheld th' Athenian Queen3

YES

Descend in all her sober charms;
"And take," (she said, and smil'd serene,)
"Take at this hand celestial arms:

"Secure the radiant weapons wield;
"This golden lance shall guard Desert,
"And if a Vice dares keep the field,
"This steel shall stab it to the heart."

Aw'd, on my bended knees I fell,
Receiv'd the weapons of the sky;
And dipt them in the sable Well,
The fount of Fame or Infamy.

'What well? what weapons?' (Flavia cries,)
'A standish, steel and golden pen!
'It came from Bertrand's 4, not the skies;
'I gave it you to write again.

In the first edition it is 'the blush of Parthenissa,' which was the principal designation of Martha Blount in the correspondence of the sisters with James Moore. Carruthers.

2 To enter into the spirit of this address, it is necessary to premise, that the Poet was threatened with a prosecution in the House of Lords, for the two poems entitled the Epilogue to the Satires. On which with great resentment against his enemies, for not being willing to distinguish between

Grave epistles bringing vice to light' and licentious libels, he began a Third Dialogue, more severe and sublime than the first and second; which being no secret, matters were soon compromised. His enemies agreed to drop the pro

secution, and he promised to leave the third Dialogue unfinished and suppressed. This affair occasioned this little beautiful poem, to which it alludes throughout, but more especially in the four last stanzas. Warburton. Lady Frances Shirley was fourth daughter of Earl Ferrers, who had at that time a house at Twickenham. Notwithstanding her numerous admirers, she died at Bath, unmarried, in the year 1762. Bowles. [Bowles thinks the Third Dialogue alluded to by Warburton to be the fragment 1740' discovered after Pope's death among his papers by Bolingbroke; but there is no evidence to support this plausible conjecture.]

3 [Pallas Athene.]

4 A famous toy-shop at Bath. Warburton.

'But, Friend, take heed whom you attack;
'You'll bring a House (I mean of Peers)
'Red, Blue, and Green, nay white and black,
'L...... and all about your ears1.

'You'd write as smooth again on glass,

'And run, on ivory, so glib,
'As not to stick at fool or ass,
'Nor stop at Flattery or Fib'.

"Athenian Queen! and sober charms!

'I tell ye, fool, there's nothing in't:
"Tis Venus, Venus gives these arms;
'In Dryden's Virgil see the print 3.

'Come, if you'll be a quiet soul,

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"That dares tell neither Truth nor Lies 4,

'I'll lift you in the harmless roll

30

"Of those that sing of these poor eyes.'

[No observations would be called for upon these Epitaphs, composed at different periods of Pope's life, were it not that they were subjected to a minute, and indeed a petty, criticism by Dr Johnson, in his Dissertation on the Epitaphs written by Pope, (contributed to a paper called the Universal Visitor in 1756, and afterwards thought worthy of republication in the Idler.) Johnson's criticisms, though occasionally just, are in this instance too thoroughly in the Ricardus Aristarchus style to need quotation. Perhaps the most pointed is that on the Epitaph on Rowe, concerning which Johnson remarks that its chief fault is that it belongs less to Rowe than to Dryden, and indeed gives very little information concerning either.' The Epitaph on Newton, (which he afterwards declared to Mrs Piozzi to be little less than profane, as designed for the tomb of a Christian in a Christian Church,) the Dissertation condemned because the thought is obvious, and the words night and light too nearly allied!' Johnson afterwards remembered (Hayward's Autobiography, &c. of Mrs Piozzi, II. p. 159) 'that something like this was said of Aristotle,' but he forgot by whom.' Pope's Epitaphs-with the exception of the charming lines on Gay-only rise above the ordinary level of this class of compo sition, because that level is so extremely low.]

6

1 Lambeth; alluding to the Scandal hinted at in Epil. to Satires, Dial. I. v. 120. Carruthers.

2 The Dunciad. Warburton. 3 The Epistle to Arbuthnot.

Warburton.

4 i. e. If you have neither the courage to write Satire, nor the application to attempt an Epic poem. He was then meditating on such

a work.

Warburton.