Our sons shall see it leisurely decay,

First turn plain rash, then vanish quite away. 45 This thing has travell'd, speaks each language

too,

And knows what's fit for every state to do;
Of whose best phrase and courtly accent join'd,
He forms one tongue, exotic and refined.
Talkers I've learn'd to bear; Motteux I knew, 50
Henley himself I've heard, and Budgel too.
The doctor's wormwood style, the hash of tongues
A pedant makes, the storm of Gonson's lungs,
The whole artillery of the terms of war,

And (all those plagues in one) the bawling bar: 55
These I could bear; but not a rogue so civil,
Whose tongue will compliment you to the devil;
A tongue, that can cheat widows, cancel scores,
Make Scots speak treason, cozen subtlest whores,
With royal favourites in flattery vie,

And Oldmixon and Burnet both outlie.

60

He spies me out; I whisper, Gracious God! What sin of mine could merit such a rod? That all the shot of dulness now must be From this thy blunderbuss discharged on me? 65 Permit (he cries) no stranger to your fame

To crave your sentiment, if's your name. What Speech esteem you most? "The King's,"

said I.

But the best words?" O, Sir, the Dictionary." You miss my aim; I mean the most acute,

And perfect Speaker?" Onslow, past dispute."

70

Good pretty linguists; so Panurgas was,
Yet a poor gentleman; all these may pass
By travail. Then, as if he would have sold
His tongue, he praised it, and such wonders told,
That I was fain to say, If you had lived, Sir,
Time enough to have been interpreter

To Babel's bricklayers, sure the tower had stood.
He adds, If of court life you knew the good,
You would leave loneness. I said, Not alone,
My loneness is; but Spartanes' fashion

NOTES.

Ver. 71. "Onslow,] By an affected gravity, and a solemn and important air, he presided for many years over the House of Commons; but not with the ability, knowledge, patience, prudence, and amiable manners, of the present Speaker, Mr. Addington, 1795. It is a curious fact in the history of English liberty, that the very first person who was raised by the Commons to the dignity of their Speaker, was a member who had been imprisoned by Edward the Third, for attacking his ministers and his mistress in parliament. Warton.

Ver. 73. But Hoadly for a period] Party occasioned this censure on a writer, whose style, it must be confessed, was sometimes but not always, (as for instance, in his Treatise on the Sacrament,) languid and diffuse: but who, having spent his life in defending the British Constitution, the Revolution, and the Succession of the House of Hanover, certainly did, by no means, deserve to be styled, as he hath lately been, "That Republican Prelate, Bishop Hoadly." The late excellent Bishop of London, Dr. Lowth, thought very differently of him, and calls him, in his admirable Life of Wickham, "The great advocate of civil and religious liberty."

Warton.

No name is more obnoxious to the Roman Catholics than that of Hoadly, whose manly and liberal principles were as remote from Republicanism, as from Popery and arbitrary power.

Bowles.

Ver. 73. a period of a mile."] A stadium of Euripides was a

standing

But, Sir, of writers? "Swift for closer style,
But Ho**y for a period of a mile."

Why yes, 'tis granted, these indeed may pass :
Good common linguists, and so Panurge was; 75
Nay, troth, the Apostles (though perhaps too rough)
Had once a pretty gift of tongues enough:
Yet these were all poor gentlemen! I dare
Affirm, 'twas travel made them what they were.
Thus others' talents having nicely shown,
He came by sure transition to his own:

NOTES.

80

standing joke amongst the Greeks. By the same kind of pleasantry, Cervantes has called his hero's countenance, a face of half a league long; which, because the humour, as well as the measure of the expression, was excessive, all his translators have judiciously agreed to omit; without doubt paying due attention to that sober rule of Quintilian, licet omnes hyperbole sit ultra fidem, non tamen debet esse ultra Modum. Scribl.

Ver. 75. so Panurge was;] It is surprizing that Rabelais, whose book is the most cutting satire on the Pope, the Church, and the principal events of his time, should have escaped severe censure and punishment. Garagantua is decisively Francis I., and Henry II. is Pantagruel; and Charles V. Pierocole. Swift, who formed himself on Rabelais, has exactly copied the famous speech of Panurge, in the Tale of the Tub, where Lord Peter, giving to Martin and John a piece of dry bread, tells them, it contains beef, partridge, capons, and the best wine of Burgundy. Rabelais, like Swift, loved politics. See his Letters from Rome, when he accompanied the Cardinal Bellay, embassador of Francis I. to Pope Paul III. Rabelais imitated, in many passages, the Literæ Virorum Obscurorum. Warton.

Ver. 78. Yet these were all poor gentlemen!] Our Poet has here added to the humour of his original. Donne makes his threadbare Traveller content himself under his poverty, with the reflection, that even Panurge himself (the great Traveller and Linguist in Rabelais) went a begging. There is infinite wit in this passage

of

To teach by painting drunkards doth not last Now, Aretine's pictures have made few chaste; No more than princes' courts (though there be few Better pictures of vice) teach me virtue.

He like to a high-stretcht lutestring squeaks, O
Sir,

'Tis sweet to talk of kings. At Westminster,
Said I, the man that keeps the abbey-tombs,
And for his price, doth with whoever comes
Of all our Harrys and our Edwards talk,

From king to king, and all their kin can walk :
Your ears shall hear nought but kings; your eyes

meet

Kings only the way to it is King's-street.

He smack'd, and cry'd, He's base, mechanique,

coarse,

So are all your Englishmen in their discourse.

NOTES.

of Donne, yet very licentious, in coupling the Apostles and Panurge in this buffoon manner. Warburton.

By adding the words, "a pretty gift of tongues," Pope has made it still more licentious.

Warton.

Ver. 95. Aretine has made;] Alluding to the infamous Sonnets which this celebrated Italian wit composed to accompany the sixteen obscene figures that were designed by Julio Romano, who, as well as Titian, was his friend; and engraved by Marc Antonio Raimondi. By writing which, Aretine lost the favour and countenance of Leo X. and Clement VII., but was afterwards restored to the favour of the Medici family, and wrote some books of devotion. The lines written for his epitaph shew his character sufficiently:

Qui giace l'Aretin, poeta Tosco,

Che disse mal d'ogn'un, fuor chè di Dio,

Scusandosi col dir Non lo conosco.

Mazzuchelli, vol. i. p. 1012. Warton.

Till I cried out, You prove yourself so able,
Pity! you was not Druggerman at Babel;
For had they found a linguist half so good,
I make no question but the tower had stood.
"Obliging Sir! for courts you sure were made:

Why then for ever buried in the shade?

85

90

Spirits like you, should see and should be seen,
The king would smile on you-at least the queen."
Ah, gentle Sir! you courtiers so cajole us-
But Tully has it Nunquam minus solus:
And as for courts, forgive me, if I say
No lessons now are taught the Spartan way:
Though in his pictures lust be full displayed,
Few are the converts Aretine has made;
And though the court show vice exceeding clear,
None should, by my advice, learn virtue there.

95

At this entranced, he lifts his hands and eyes, Squeaks like a high-stretched lutestring, and re

plies;

"Oh, 'tis the sweetest of all earthly things 100
To gaze on princes, and to talk of kings!"
Then, happy man who shows the tombs! said I,
He dwells amidst the Royal Family;

He every day, from king to king can walk,
Of all our Harries, all our Edwards talk,
And get by speaking truth of monarchs dead,
What few can of the living, ease and bread.

NOTES.

105

Ver. 104. from king to king] Much superior to the original, where is a vile conceit :

"The way to it is King-street."

VOL. VI.

Y

Warton.