TM Porrectum magno magnum spectare catino Vellem, ait Harpyiis gula digna rapacibus. At vos, "Præsentes Austri, coquite horum opsonia: quam quam Putet aper rhombusque recens, mala copia quando Ægrum solicitat stomachum; cùm rapula plenus Atque acidas mavult inulas. Necdum omnis abacta Pauperies epulis regum: nam vilibus ovis Nigrisque est oleis hodie locus. Haud ita pridem Gallonî præconis erat acipensere mensa Infamis. Quid? tum rhombos minus æquora alebant? P Tutus erat rhombus, tutoque ciconia nido, NOTES. Ver. 25. Oldfield] This eminent glutton ran through a fortune of fifteen hundred pounds a year in the simple luxury of good eating. Warburton. Ver. 26. Hog barbacued, &c.] A West Indian term of gluttony; a hog roasted whole, stuffed with spice, and basted with Madeira wine. Pope. He has happily introduced this large unwieldy instance of gluttony, supposed to be peculiar to the West Indies. But Athenæus speaks of a cook that could dress a whole hog with various puddings in his belly. Gulla is here used personally, as it is also by Juvenal, Sat. xiv. ver. 10. Warton. Ver. 28. rabbit's tail.] A very filthy and offensive image for the more happy and decent word coquite: so fond, it must be owned, was our author, as well as Swift, of such disgusting ideas. Warton. "Oldfield, with more than harpy throat endued, 25 Cries: "Send me, Gods! a whole hog barbecued!" Oh blast it, "south winds! till a stench exhale Rank as the ripeness of a rabbit's tail. By what criterion do ye eat, d'ye think, If this is prized for sweetness, that for stink? 30 He calls for something bitter, something sour, "The robin-red-breast till of late had rest, Till becaficos sold so devilish dear To one that was, or would have been, a peer. 40 "Let me extol a cat, on oysters fed, I'll have a party at the Bedford-head ; Or e'en to crack live crawfish recommend ; NOTES. Ver. 41. Let me extol] To dine upon a cat fattened with oysters, and to crack live crawfish, is infinitely more pleasant and ridiculous than to eat mergos assos. But then the words, extol and recommend, fall far below edixerit, give out a decree. So Virgil, Geor. iii. line 295, does not advise, but raises his subject, by saying: In the lines above, 37 and 38, he has dexterously substituted for the stork two birds that among us are vulgarly held to be sacred. Semp. Rufus first taught the Romans to eat storks, for which he lost the prætorship. Ver. 42. Bedford-head;] A famous eating-house. Warton. 'Sordidus à tenui victu distabit, Ofello Judice: nam frustrà vitium vitaveris illud, Si te aliò pravum detorseris. 'Avidienus 'Cui Canis ex vero ductum cognomen adhæret, Quinquennes oleas est et sylvestria corna; "Ac, nisi mutatum, parcit defundere vinum; et Cujus odorem olei nequeas perferre (licebit Ille repotia, natales, aliosve dierum W Festos albatus celebret) cornu ipse bilibri Caulibus instillat, veteris non parcus aceti. Quali igitur victu sapiens utetur, et horum Utrum imitabitur? hâc urget lupus, hâc canis, aiunt. a * Mundus erit, qui non offendat sordidus, atque In neutram partem cultûs miser. Hic neque servis Albutî senis exemplo, dum munia didit, b Savus erit; nec sit ut simplex Nævius, unctam Convivis præbebit aquam: vitium hoc quoque mag num. "Accipe nunc, victus tenuis quæ quantaque secum Afferat. In primis valeas bene; nam variæ res Ut noceant homini, credas, memor illius escæ, NOTES. Ver. 50. For him you'll call a dog,] Warburton observes, "that Pope had the art of giving wit and dignity to Billingsgate!" Bowles. Ver. 55. But on some lucky] Much heightened and improved on the original, by two such supposed occasions of the unnatural festivity and joy of a true miser. The 68th line is useless and redundant. Warton. 'Tis yet in vain, I own, to keep a pother 45 About one vice, and fall into the other: Between excess and famine lies a mean; Plain, but not sordid; though not splendid, clean. 'Avidien, or his wife, (no matter which, For him you'll call a 'dog, and her a bitch,) 50 But on some "lucky day (as when they found 55 Is what two souls so generous cannot bear : y " He knows to live, who keeps the middle state, And neither leans on this side, nor on that; a Nor stops, for one bad cork, his butler's pay, 65 "Now hear what blessings temperance can bring: (Thus said our friend, and what he said I sing :) First, health: the stomach (cramm'd from every dish, A tomb of boil'd and roast, and flesh and fish, 70 Where bile, and wind, and phlegm, and acid jar, And all the man is one intestine war) Quæ simplex olim tibi sederit. At simul assis Membra dedit, vegetus præscripta ad munia surgit. "Hic tamen ad melius poterit transcurrere quondam; Sive diem festum rediens advexerit annus, Imbecilla volet. Tibi quidnam accedet ad istam, NOTES. Ver. 76. Rise from] A strange instance of false grammar and false English, in using rise for rises. Such a mistake in an inferior writer would not have been worth notice. I cannot forbear adding a note of much humour with which the History of English Poetry is enlivened; vol. iii. p. 204. "In an old dieterie for the clergy, by Cranmer, an archbishop is allowed to have two swans, or two capons in a dish; a bishop, two; an archbishop, six blackbirds at once; a bishop, five; a dean, four; an archdeacon, two. If a dean has four dishes in the first course, he is not afterwards to have custards or fritters. An archbishop may have six snipes; an archdeacon, only two. A canon residentiary is to have a swan only on Sunday. A rector of sixteen marks, only three blackbirds in a week," Warton. Ver. 79, 80. The soul subsides, and wickedly inclines To seem but mortal even in sound divines.] Horace was an Epicurean, and laughed at the immortality of the soul. And therefore, to render the doctrine more ridiculous, de scribes |