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Dear madam, had you but the spirit to tease,
You might have a barrack whenever you please:
And, madam, I always believed you so stout,
That for twenty denials you would not give out.
If I had a husband like hiin, I purtest,
'Till he gave me my will, I would give him no rest;
But, madam, I beg you contrive and invent,
And worry him out, 'till he gives his consent.

Dear madam, whene'er of a barrack I think,
An I were to be hanged I can't sleep a wink:
For if a new crotchet comes into my brain,
I can't get it out, though I'd never so fain.
I fancy already a barrack contrived,
At Hamilton's Bawn, and the troop is arrived;
Of this, to be sure, Sir Arthur has warning,
And waits on the captain betimes the next morning.
Now see when they meet how their honours behave,
Noble captain, your servant-Sir Arthur, your slave;
You honour me much-the honour is mine-
'Twas a sad rainy night-but the morning is fine.
Pray how does my lady?-my wife's at your service.
I think I have seen her picture by Jervis.
Good morrow, good captain-I'll wait on you down-
You shan't stir a foot-you'll think me a clown-
For all the world, captain, not half an inch farther
You must be obeyed-your servant, Sir Arthur;
My humble respects to my lady unknown-
I hope you will use my house as your own.

'Go bring me my smock, and leave off your prate,
Thou hast certainly gotten a cup in thy pate.'
Pray madam, be quiet: what was it I said?
You had like to have put it quite out of my head.
Next day, to be sure, the captain will come
At the head of his troop, with trumpet and drum ;
Now, madam, observe how he marches in state;
The man with the kettle-drum enters the gate;
Dub, dub, adub, dub. The trumpeters follow,
Tantara, tantara, while all the boys hollow.
See now comes the captain all daubed with gold
lace;

O, la! the sweet gentleman, look in his face;
And see how he rides like a lord of the land,
With the fine flaming sword that he holds in his hand;
And his horse, the dear creter, it prances and rears,
With ribbons in knots at its tail and its ears;
At last comes the troop, by the word of command,
Drawn up in our court, when the captain cries, Stand.
Your ladyship lifts up the sash to be seen
(For sure I had dizened you out like a queen),
The captain, to show he is proud of the favour,
Looks up to your window, and cocks up his beaver.
(His beaver is cocked; pray, madam, mark that,
For a captain of horse never takes off his hat;
Because he has never a hand that is idle,

To shorten my tale (for I hate a long story),
The captain at dinner appears in his glory;
The dean and the doctor have humbled their pride,
For the captain's intreated to sit by your side;
And, because he's their betters, you carve for him
first,

The parsons for envy are ready to burst;
The servants amazed are scarce ever able
To keep off their eyes, as they wait at the table;
And Molly and I have thrust in our nose
To peep at the captain in all his fine clothes;
Dear madam, be sure he's a fine spoken man,
Do but hear on the clergy how glib his tongue ran;
'And madam,' says he, if such dinners you give,
You'll never want parsons as long as you live;
I ne'er knew a parson without a good nose,
But the devil's as welcome wherever he goes;
G-d-me, they bid us reform and repent,
But, z-s, by their looks they never keep lent;
Mister curate, for all your grave looks, I'm afraid
You cast a sheep's eye on her ladyship's maid;
I wish she would lend you her pretty white hand
In mending your cassock, and smoothing your band;
(For the dean was so shabby, and looked like a ninny
That the captain supposed he was curate to Jenny).
Whenever you see a cassock and gown,
A hundred to one but it covers a clown;
Observe how a parson comes into a room,
G-d-me, he hobbles as bad as my groom;
A scholar, when just from his college broke loose,
Can hardly tell how to cry bo to a goose;
Your Noveds, and Bluturks, and Omurs, and stuff,
By G-, they don't signify this pinch of snuff.
To give a young gentleman right education,
The army's the only good school of the nation;
My schoolmaster called me a dunce and a fool,
But at cuffs I was always the cock of the school;
I never could take to my book for the blood o' me,
And the puppy confessed he expected no good o' me.
He caught me one morning coquetting his wife,
But he mauled me; I ne'er was so mauled in my life;
So I took to the road, and what's very odd,
The first man I robbed was a parson by G--.
Now, madam, you'll think it a strange thing to say,
But the sight of a book makes me sick to this day.

Never since I was born did I hear so much wit,
And, madam, I laughed till I thought I should split.
So then you looked scornful, and snift at the dean,
As who should say, Now, am I skinny and lean 13
But he durst not so much as once open his lips,
And the doctor was plaguily down in the hips.

Thus merciless Hannah ran on in her talk,
Till she heard the dean call, Will your ladyship walk!
Her ladyship answers, I'm just coming down.

For the right holds the sword, and the left holds the Then turning to Hannah and forcing a frown,
bridle);

Then flourishes thrice his sword in the air,
As a compliment due to a lady so fair;
(How I tremble to think of the blood it hath spilt !)
Then he lowers down the point, and kisses the hilt.
Your ladyship smiles, and thus you begin:
Pray captain, be pleased to alight and walk in.
The captain salutes you with congee profound,
And your ladyship curtsies half way to the ground.
Kit, run to your master, and bid him come to us.
I'm sure he'll be proud of the honour you do us;
And, captain, you'll do us the favour to stay,
And take a short dinner here with us to-day;
You're heartily welcome; but as for good cheer,
You come in the very worst time of the year.
If I had expected so worthy a guest-
Lord, madam! your ladyship sure is in jest;
You banter me, madam, the kingdom must grant-
You officers, captain, are so complaisant.

Hist, hussy, I think I hear somebody coming'-
No, madam, 'tis only Sir Arthur a-humming.

Although it was plain in her heart she was glad,
Cried, Hussy, why sure the wench is gone mad;
How could these chimeras get into your brains?
Come hither, and take this old gown for your pains.
But the dean, if this secret should come to his ears,
Will never have done with his jibes and his jeers.
For your life not a word of the matter, I charge ye;
Give me but a barrack, a fig for the clergy.'

ALEXANDER POPE.

United with Swift in friendship and in fame, but possessing far higher powers as a poet, and more refined taste as a satirist, was ALEXANDER POPE, born in London May 22, 1688. His father, a linen draper, having acquired an independent fortune, retired to Binfield, in Windsor Forest. He was a Roman Catholic, and the young poet was partly

1 Dr Jenny, a clergyman in the neighbourhood.

2 Ovids, Plutarchs, Homers. 8 Nicknames for my lady.

educated by the family priest. He was afterwards sent to a Catholic seminary at Twyford, near Win

A. Pope

chester, where he lampooned his teacher, was severely punished, and afterwards taken home by his parents. He educated himself, and attended no school after his twelfth year! The whole of his early life was that of a severe student. He was a poet in his infancy.

machinery of the poem, founded upon the Rosicrucian
theory, that the elements are inhabited by spirits,
which they called sylphs, gnomes, nymphs, and
salamanders, was added at the suggestion of Dr
Garth and some of his friends. Sylphs had been
previously mentioned as invisible attendants on the
fair, and the idea is shadowed out in Shakspeare's
'Ariel,' and the amusements of the fairies in the Mid-
summer Night's Dream.' But Pope has blended the
most delicate satire with the most lively fancy, and
produced the finest and most brilliant mock-heroic
poem in the world. It is,' says Johnson, 'the most
airy, the most ingenious, and the most delightful of
all Pope's compositions.' The Temple of Fame and
the Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady, were next pub-
lished; and in 1713 appeared his Windsor Forest,
which was chiefly written so early as 1704. The
latter was evidently founded on Denham's 'Cooper's
Hill,' which it far excels. Pope was, properly speak-
ing, no mere descriptive poet. He made the pic-
turesque subservient to views of historical events,
or to sketches of life and morals. But most of the
Windsor Forest' being composed in his earlier
years, amidst the shades of those noble woods which
he selected for the theme of his verse, there is in this
poem a greater display of sympathy with external
nature and rural objects than in any of his other
works. The lawns and glades of the forest, the
russet plains, and blue hills, and even the 'purple
dyes' of the wild heath,' had struck his young
imagination. His account of the dying pheasant is
a finished picture-

See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings:
Short is his joy, he feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.
Ah! what avail his glossy varying dyes,
His purple crest and scarlet-circled eyes;
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,
His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold
Another fine painting of external nature, as pic-
turesque as any to be found in the purely descrip-
tive poets, is the winter piece, in the Temple of
Fame-

So Zembla's rocks (the beauteous work of frost)
Rise white in air, and glitter o'er the coast;
Pale suns, unfelt, at distance roll away,
And on the impassive ice the lightnings play;
External snows the growing mass supply,
Till the bright mountains prop the incumbent sky:
As Atlas fixed, each hoary pile appears,
The gathered winter of a thousand years.

As yet a child, and all unknown to fame, I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came. The writings of Dryden became the more particular object of his admiration, and he prevailed upon a friend to introduce him to Will's coffeehouse, which Dryden then frequented, that he might have the gratification of seeing an author whom he so enthusiastically admired. Pope was then not more than twelve years of age. He wrote, but afterwards destroyed, various dramatic pieces, and at the age of sixteen composed his Pastorals, and his imitations of Chaucer. He soon became acquainted with most of the eminent persons of the day both in politics and literature. In 1711 appeared his Essay on Criticism, unquestionPope now commenced his translation of the Iliad. ably the finest piece of argumentative and reasoning At first the gigantic task oppressed him with its poetry in the English language. The work is said difficulty, but he grew more familiar with Homer's to have been composed two years before publication, images and expressions, and in a short time was when Pope was only twenty-one. The ripeness of able to despatch fifty verses a-day. Great part of judgment which it displays is truly marvellous. the manuscript was written upon the backs and Addison commended the Essay' warmly in the covers of letters, evincing that it was not withSpectator, and it instantly rose into great popu-out reason he was called paper-sparing Pope. The larity. The style of Pope was now formed and com- poet obtained a clear sum of £5320, 4s. by this plete. His versification was that of his master, translation: his exclamationDryden, but he gave the heroic couplet a peculiar terseness, correctness, and melody. The essay was shortly afterwards followed by the Rape of the Lock. The stealing of a lock of hair from a beauty of the day, Miss Arabella Fermor, by her lover, Lord Petre, was taken seriously, and caused an estrangement between the families, and Pope wrote his poem to make a jest of the affair, and laugh them together again.' In this he did not succeed, but he added greatly to his reputation by the effort. The

And thanks to Homer, since I live and thrive,
Indebted to no prince or peer alive-

was, however, scarcely just, if we consider that this
large sum was in fact a benevolence' from the upper
classes of society, good-naturedly designed to reward
his literary merit. The fame of Pope was not advanced
in an equal degree with his fortune by his labours
as a translator. The 'fatal facility' of his rhyme,
the additional false ornaments which he imparted

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Where grows where grows it not? If vain our toil, The anticipated approach of the Pretender led the We ought to blame the culture, not the soil. Fixed to no spot is Happiness sincere ; "Tis nowhere to be found, or everywhere; "Tis never to be bought, but always free,

And fled from monarchs, ST JOHN! dwells with thee.
Ask of the learned the way! The learned are blind;
This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind;
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease;
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these;
Some sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain;
Some swelled to gods, confess even virtue vain ;
Or indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in everything, or doubt of all.

Pope's future labours were chiefly confined to satire. In 1727 he published, in conjunction with his friend Swift, three volumes of Miscellanies, in prose and verse, which drew down upon the authors a torrent of invective, lampoons, and libels, and ultimately led to the Dunciad, by Pope. This elaborate and splendid satire displays the fertile invention of the poet, the variety of his illustration, and the unrivalled force and facility of his diction; but it is now read with a feeling more allied to pity than admiration-pity that one so highly gifted should have allowed himself to descend to things so mean, and devote the end of a great literary life to the infliction of retributary pain on every humble aspirant in the world of letters. I have often wondered,' says Cowper, that the same poet who wrote the "Dunciad" should have written these lines

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That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Alas for Pope, if the mercy he showed to others was the measure of the mercy he received.' Sir Walter Scott has justly remarked, that Pope must have suffered the most from these wretched contentions. It is known that his temper was ultimately much changed for the worse. Misfortunes were also now gathering round him. Swift was fast verging on insanity, and was lost to the world; Atterbury and Gay died in 1732; and next year his venerable mother, whose declining years he had watched with affectionate solicitude, also expired. Between the years 1733 and 1740, Pope published his inimitable Epistles, Satires, and Moral Essays, addressed to his friends Bolingbroke, Bathurst, Arbuthnot, &c., and containing the most noble and generous sentiments, mixed up with withering invective and the fiercest denunciations. In 1742 he added a fourth book to the 'Dunciad,' displaying the final advent of the goddess to destroy order and science, and to substitute the kingdom of the dull upon earth. The point of his individual satire, and the richness and boldness of his general design, attest the undiminished powers and intense feeling of the poet. Next year Pope prepared a new edition of the four books of the Dunciad,' and elevated Colley Cibber to the situation of hero of the poem. This unenviable honour had previously been enjoyed by Theobald, a tasteless critic and commentator on Shakspeare; but in thus yielding to his personal dislike of Cibber, Pope injured the force of his satire. The laureate, as Warton justly remarks, with a great stock of levity, vanity, and affectation, had sense, and wit, and humour; and the author of the "Careless Husband" was by no means a proper king of the dunces.' Cibber was all vivacity and conceit-the very reverse of personified dulness,

Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound. Political events came in the rear of this accumulated and vehement satire to agitate the last days of Pope.

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government to issue a proclamation prohibiting every Roman Catholic from appearing within ten miles of London. The poet complied with the proclamation; and he was soon afterwards too ill to be in town. This additional proclamation from the Highest of all Powers,' as he terms his sickness, he submitted to without murmuring. A constant state of excitement, added to a life of ceaseless study and contemplation, operating on a frame naturally delicate and deformed from birth, had completely exhausted the powers of Pope. He complained of his inability to think; yet, a short time before his death, he said, 'I am so certain of the soul's being immortal, that seem to feel it within me as it were by intuition.' Another of his dying remarks was, There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and friendship; and, indeed, friendship itself is only a part of virtue.' He died at Twickenham on the 30th of May, 1744.

The

The character and genius of Pope have given rise to abundance of comment and speculation. occasional fierceness and petulance of his satire cannot be justified, even by the coarse attacks of his opponents, and must be ascribed to his extreme sensibility, to over-indulged vanity, and to a hasty and irritable temper. His sickly constitution debarring him from active pursuits, he placed too high a value on mere literary fame, and was deficient in the manly virtues of sincerity and candour. At the same time he was a public benefactor, by stigmatising the vices of the great, and lashing the absurd pretenders to taste and literature. He was a fond and steady friend; and in all our literary biography, there is nothing finer than his constant undeviating affection and reverence for his venerable parents. Me let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of reposing age; With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death; Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep at least one parent from the sky.

Prologue to the Satires.

As a poet, it would be absurd to rank Pope with the greatest masters of the lyre; with the universality of Shakspeare, or the sublimity of Milton. He was undoubtedly more the poet of artificial life and manners than the poet of nature. He was a nice observer and an accurate describer of the phenomena of the mind, and of the varying shades and gradations of vice and virtue, wisdom and folly. He was too fond of point and antithesis, but the polish of the weapon was equalled by its keenness. Let us look,' says Campbell, to the spirit that points his antithesis, and to the rapid precision of his thoughts, and we shall forgive him for being too antithetic and sententious.' His wit, fancy, and good sense, are as remarkable as his satire. His elegance has never been surpassed, or perhaps equalled: it is a combination of intellect, imagination, and taste, under the direction of an independent spirit and refined moral feeling. If he had studied more in the school of nature and of Shakspeare, and less in the school of Horace and Boileau; if he had cherished the frame and spirit in which he composed the Elegy' and the Eloisa,' and forgot his too exclusive devotion to that which inspired the Dunciad,' the world would have hallowed his memory with a still more affectionate and permanent interest than even that which waits on him as one of our most brilliant and accomplished English poets.

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Mr Campbell in his 'Specimens' has given an eloquent estimate of the general powers of Pope, with reference to his position as a poet:-That Pope was neither so insensible to the beauties of nature, nor

so indistinct in describing them, as to forget the
character of a genuine poet, is what I mean to urge,
without exaggerating his picturesqueness. But be-
fore speaking of that quality in his writings, I would
beg leave to observe, in the first place, that the fa-
culty by which a poet luminously describes objects of
art, is essentially the same faculty which enables him
to be a faithful describer of simple nature; in the se-
cond place, that nature and art are to a greater degree
relative terms in poetical description than is generally
recollected; and thirdly, that artificial objects and
manners are of so much importance in fiction, as to
make the exquisite description of them no less cha-
racteristic of genius than the description of simple
physical appearances. The poet is "creation's heir."
He deepens our social interest in existence. It is
surely by the liveliness of the interest which he ex-
cites in existence, and not by the class of subjects
which he chooses, that we most fairly appreciate the
genius or the life of life which is in him. It is no
irreverence to the external charms of nature to say,
that they are not more important to a poet's study
than the manners and affections of his species.
Nature is the poet's goddess; but by nature, no one
rightly understands her mere inanimate face, how-
ever charming it may be, or the simple landscape-
painting of trees, clouds, precipices, and flowers.
Why, then, try Pope, or any other poet, exclusively
by his powers of describing inanimate phenomena?
Nature, in the wide and proper sense of the word,
means life in all its circumstances-nature, moral
as well as external. As the subject of inspired fic-Hear him, ye deaf: and all ye blind, behold!

tion, nature includes artificial forms and manners.

Rapt into future times, the bard begun : A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a Son! From Jesse's root behold a branch arise, Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies: The ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move, And on its top descends the mystic Dove. Ye heavens! from high the dewy nectar pour, And in soft silence shed the kindly shower. The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid, From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade. All crimes shall cease, and ancient frauds snall fail; Returning Justice lift aloft her scale; Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend, And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend. Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn! Oh, spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born! See, nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring, With all the incense of the breathing spring! See lofty Lebanon his head advance! See nodding forests on the mountains dance! See spicy clouds from lowly Sharon rise, And Carmel's flowery top perfume the skies! Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers; Prepare the way! a God, a God appears! A God, a God! the vocal hills reply; The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity. Lo! earth receives him from the bending skies; Sink down, ye mountains; and ye valleys rise; With heads declined, ye cedars homage pay; Be smooth, ye rocks: ye rapid floods, give way! The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold: He from thick films shall purge the visual ray, Richardson is no less a painter of nature than Homer. Tis he the obstructed paths of sound shall clear, And on the sightless eyeball pour the day: Homer himself is a minute describer of works of And bid new music charm the unfolding ear: art; and Milton is full of imagery derived from it. The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego, Satan's spear is compared to the pine, that makes And leap exulting like the bounding roe. "the mast of some great ammiral;" and his shield is No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear ; like the moon, but like the moon artificially seen through the glass of the Tuscan artist. The "spirit-In adamantine chains shall death be bound, From every face he wipes off every tear. stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, the royal banner, and all the quality, pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war," are all artificial images. When Shakspeare groups into one view the most sublime objects of the universe, he fixes on “the cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples." Those who have ever witnessed the spectacle of the launching of a ship of the line, will perhaps forgive me for adding this to the examples of the sublime objects of artificial life. Of that spectacle I can never forget the impression, and of having witnessed it reflected from the faces of ten thousand spectators. They seem yet before me. I sympathise with their deep and silent expectation, and with their final burst of enthusiasm. It was not a vulgar joy, but an affecting national solemnity. When the vast bulwark sprang from her cradle, the calm water on which she swung majestically round, gave the imagination a contrast of the stormy element in which she was soon to ride. All the days of battle and nights of danger which she had to encounter, all the ends of the earth which she had to visit, and all that she had to do and to suffer for her country, rose in awful presentiment before the mind; and when the heart gave her a benediction, it was like one pronounced on a living being.'

The Messiah.

Ye nymphs of Solyma! begin the song:
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong.
The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades,
The dreams of Pindus and the Aonian maids,
Delight no more-0 thou my voice inspire,
Who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire!

And hell's grim tyrant feel the eternal wound.
As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care,
Seeks freshest pasture, and the purest air;
Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs,
By day o'ersees them, and by night protects;
The tender lambs he raises in his arms,
Feeds from his hand and in his bosom warms;
Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage,
The promised father of the future age.
No more shall nation against nation rise,
Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes;
Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er,
The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more:
But useless lances into scythes shall bend,
And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.
Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son
Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun;
Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield,
And the same hand that sowed, shall reap the field
The swain in barren deserts with surprise
Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise;
And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds to hear
New falls of water murmuring in his ear.
On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes,
The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods.
Waste sandy valleys, once perplexed with thorn,
The spiry fir and shapely box adorn:

To leafless shrubs the flowery palms succeed,
And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed.
The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead,
And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead:
The steer and lion at one crib shall meet,
And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet.
The smiling infant in his hand shall take
The crested basilisk and speckled snake;

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