Who thinks he reads when he but scans and spells;
A word catcher that lives on syllables.
Yet e'en this creature may some notice claim,
Wrapt round and sanctified with Shakspeare's name *.
Pretty! in amber to observe the forms
Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The thing, we know, is neither rich nor rare;
And wonder how the devil it got there.

Are others angry? I excuse them too:
Well may they rage; I gave them but their duę.
Each 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 wretch †, who pilfer'd pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale ‡ for half a crown,

for Pope's resentment: that Atterbury, being in company with Bentley and Pope, insisted on knowing the Doctor's opinion of the English Homer; and that, being earnestly pressed to declare his sentiments freely, he said, "The verses are good verses; but the work is not Homer, it is Spondanus." It may however be observed, in favour of Pope, that Dr. Clarke, whose critical exactness is well known, has not been able to point out above three or four mistakes in the sense throughout the whole Iliad.

* This couplet was afterward thus altered :

Dr. WARTΟΝ.

"Ev'n such small critics some regard may claim,

Preserv'd in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name." N.

+ Philips, certainly not a very animated or first-rate writer, yet appears not to deserve quite so much contempt; if we look at his first and fifth pastoral, &c. &c. and above all, his pleasing tragedy of "The Distressed Mother." The secret grounds of Philips's malignity to Pope, are said to have been the ridicule and laughter he met with from the Hanover club, of which he was secretary, for mistaking the incomparable ironical paper in the Guardian, No. 40, which was written by Pope, for a serious criticism on pastoral poetry. The learned Heyne also mistook this irony.

Dr. WARTON.

↑ Ambrose Philips translated a book, called, "Persian Tales," a book full of fancy and imagination. Porz.

Just writes to make his barrenness appear,
And strains from hardbound brains six lines a year;
In sense still wanting, tho' he lives on theft,
Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left.
Johnson *, 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 madt:
Should modest Satire bid all these translate,
And own that nine such poets make a Tate;
How would they fume, and stamp, and roar and

chafe!

How would they swear not CONGREVE'S & self was

safe!

Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires Apollo kindled, 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 with scornful, yet with fearful eyes, And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering teach the rest to sneer : Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserv'd to blame, or to commend, A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend : Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieg'd, And so obliging, that he ne'er oblig'd; Who, if two wits on rival themes contest, Approves of each, but likes the worst the best;

Like Cato, gives his little senate laws,
And sits attentive to his own applause;
While Wits and Templars ev'ry sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise-
What pity, Heaven! if such a man there be;
Who would not weep, if ADDISON * were he!

MACER.

FIRST PRINTED IN 1727.

WHEN simple Macer†, now of high renown,
First sought a poet's fortune in the town;
'Twas all th' ambition his great soul could feel,
To wear red stockings †, and to dine with Steele.
Some ends of verse his betters might afford,
And gave the harmless fellow a good word.
Set up with these, he ventur'd on the town,
And in a borrow'd play outdid poor Crown.

* Thus also originally stood this concluding line, in which it is well known the name was altered to Atticus; a circumstance which has occasioned a considerable controversy, too long to be here introduced; but for which the curious reader is referred to the second volume of the Biographia Britannica; to bishop Hurd's Life of bishop Warburton; and to the Notes of Dr. Warton, in his edition of Pope, 1797, vol. iv. p. 34. N.

+ Said to be the character of James Moore Smyth, author of "The Rival Modes, a comedy, in 1726." He pilfered verses from Pope; and joined in a political paper with the duke of Wharton, called, "The Inquisitor," written with such violence against government, that he was soon obliged to drop it.

Dr. WARTON.

† I remember old Demoivre told me, about fifty years ago, that all he remembered of Corneille was, that he had seen him in red stockings at the theatre. Dr. WARTON.

There he stopt short, nor since has writ a tittle,
But has the wit to make the most of little;
Like stunted hidebound trees, that just have got
Sufficient sap at once to bear and rot.
Now he begs verse *, and what he gets commends,
Not of the wits his foes, but fools his friends.

<

So some coarse country wench, almost decay'd, Trudges to town, and first turns chambermaid : Awkward and supple each devoir to pay, She flatters her good lady twice a day; Thought wondrous honest, tho' of mean degree, And strangely lik'd for her simplicity: In a translated suit then tries the town, With borrow'd pins, and patches not her own; But just endur'd the winter she began, And in four months a batter'd harridan. Now nothing's left; but wither'd, pale, and shrunk, To bawd for others, and go shares with punk.

SYLVIA †, A FRAGMENT.

SYLVIA my heart in wondrous wise alarm'd,
Aw'd without sense, and without beauty charm'd:
But some odd graces and some flights she had,
Was just not ugly, and was just not mad:
Her tongue still ran on credit from her eyes,
More pert than witty, more a wit than wise:
Goodnature, she declar'd it, was her scorn,
Tho' 'twas by that alone she could be born:

* He requested, by public advertisements, the aid of the inge nious, to make up a Miscellany, in 1713. H.

† This fragment was, with some variation, introduced by Mr. Pope into the second of his moral essays, "Of the Characters of Women."

1

Ν.

Affronting all, yet fond of a good name;
A fool to pleasure, yet a slave to fame:
Now coy, and studious in no point to fall,
Now all agog for Dy at a ball:
Now deep in Taylor, and the Book of Martyrs,
Now drinking citron with his Grace and Chartres.

Men, some to bus'ness, some to pleasure take;

But ev'ry woman's in her soul a rake.
Frail, fev'rish sex! their fit now chills, now burns:
Atheism and superstition rule by turns;
And a mere heathen in the carnal part,
Is still a sad good Christian at her heart *.

IMPROMPTU.

TO LADY WINCHELSEA.

OCCASIONED BY FOUR SATIRICAL VERSES ON WOMEN
WITS, IN THE RAPE OF THE LOCK.

In vain you boast poetic names of yore,
And cite those Sapphoes we admire no more:
Fate doom'd the fall of every female wit;
But doom'd it then, when first Ardelia writ.
Of all examples by the world confest,
I knew Ardelia could not quote the best;
Who, like her mistress on Britannia's throne,
Fights and subdues in quarrels not her own.
To write their praise you but in vain essay;
Ev'n while you write, you take that praise away:
Light to the stars the sun does thus restore,
But shines himself till they are seen no more:

* I have been informed, on good authority, that this character was designed for the then duchess of Hamilton. Dr. WARTON.