With taste superior scorn'd the venal tribe,
Whom fear can sway, or guilty Greatness bribe;
At Fancy's call, who rear the wanton sail,
Sport with the stream, and trifle in the gale:
Sublimer views thy daring Spirit bound;
Thy mighty Voyage was Creation's round;
;
Intent new Worlds of Wisdom to explore,
And bless Mankind with Virtue's sacred store:
A nobler joy than Wit can give, impart;
And pour a moral transport o'er the heart.
Fantastic Wit shoots momentary fires,

480

485

495

And, like a Meteor, while we gaze, expires:
Wit kindled by the sulph'rous breath of Vice,
Like the blue Lightning, while it shines, destroys:
But Genius, fir'd by Truth's eternal ray, 491
Burns clear and constant, like the source of day:
Like this, its beam prolific and refin`d,"
Feeds, warms, inspirits, and exalts the mind;
Mildly dispels each wintry Passion's gloom,
And opens all the Virtues into bloom.
This Praise, immortal POPE, to thee be giv'n:
Thy Genius was indeed a Gift from Heav'n.
Hail, Bard unequall'd, in whose deathless line
Reason and Wit, with strength collected shine; 500
Where matchless Wit but wins the second praise,
Lost, nobly lost, in Truth's superior blaze.
Did FRIENDSHIP e'er mislead thy wand'ring Muse?
That Friendship sure may plead the great excuse:
That sacred Friendship which inspir'd thy Song,
Fair in defect, and amiably wrong.

Error like this ev'n Truth can scarce reprove;

"Tis almost Virtue when it flows from Love.

506

Ye deathless Names, ye Sons of endless praise,

By Virtue crown'd with never-fading bays!

510

Say, shall an artless Muse, if you inspire,
Light her pale lamp at your immortal fire?
Or if, O WARBURTON, inspir'd by You,
The daring Muse a nobler path pursue,
By you inspir'd, on trembling pinion soar,
The sacred founts of social bliss explore,
In her bold numbers chain the Tyrant's rage,
And bid her Country's Glory fire her page:
If such her fate, do thou, fair Truth, descend,
And watchful guard her in an honest end:
Kindly severe, instruct her equal line

To court no Friend, nor own a Foe but thine.
But if her giddy eye should vainly quit

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520

525

Thy sacred paths, to run the maze of wit;
If her apostate heart should e'er incline
To offer incense at Corruption's shrine;
Urge, urge thy pow'r, the black attempt confound,
And dash the smoking Censer to the ground.
Thus aw'd to fear instructed Bards may see,

That Guilt is doom'd to sink in Infamy.

530

A LETTER'

ΤΟ

A NOBLE LORD,

ON OCCASION OF SOME LIBELS WRITTEN AND PROPAGATED AT COURT, IN THE YEAR 1732-3.

MY LORD,

Nov. 30, 1733.

YOUR Lordship's epistle has been published some days, but I had not the pleasure and pain of seeing it till yesterday: Pain to think your Lordship should attack me at all; Pleasure, to find that you can attack me so weakly. As I want not the humility, to think myself in every way but one your inferior, it

'This Letter (which was first printed in the Year 1733) bears the same place in our Author's prose that the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot does in his poetry. They are both Apologetical, repelling the libellous slanders on his Reputation: with this difference, that the Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, his friend, was chiefly directed against Grub-street Writers, and this letter to the Noble Lord, his enemy, against Court Scribblers. For the rest, they are both Masterpieces in their kinds; That in verse, more grave, moral, and sublime; This in prose, more lively, critical, and pointed; but equally conducive to what he had most at heart, the vindication of his moral Character: the only thing he thought worth his care in literary altercations; and the first thing he would expect from the good offices of a surviving Friend. W.

2

Intitled, An Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton-Court, Aug. 28, 1733, and printed the November following for J. Roberts. Fol. W.

seems but reasonable that I should take the only method either of self-defence or retaliation, that is left me against a person of your quality and power. And as by your choice of this weapon, your pen, you generously (and modestly too, no doubt) meant to put yourself upon a level with me; I will as soon believe that your Lordship would give a wound to a man unarmed, as that you would deny me the use of it in my own defence.

I presume you will allow me to take the same liberty in my answer to so candid, polite, and ingenious, a Nobleman, which your Lordship took in yours, to so grave, religious, and respectable, a clergyman3: As you answered his Latin in English, permit me to answer your Verse in Prose.. And though your Lordship's reasons for not writing in Latin might be stronger than mine for not writing in Verse, yet I may plead Two good ones, for this conduct: the one that I want the talent of spinning a thousand lines in a Day (which, I think, is as much Time as this subject deserves), and the other, that I take your Lordship's Verse to be as much Prose as this letter. But no doubt it was your choice, in writing to a friend, to renounce all the pomp of Poetry, and give us this excellent model of the familiar.

When I consider the great difference betwixt the rank your Lordship holds in the World, and the rank which your writings are like to hold in the learned world, I presume that distinction of style is but ne

3 Dr. S.

And Pope with justice of such lines may say,

His Lordship spins a thousand in a day.-Epist. p. 6.

cessary, which you will see observed through this letter. When I speak of you, my Lord, it will be with all the deference due to the inequality which Fortune has made between you and myself: but when I speak of your writings, my Lord, I must, I can do nothing but trifle.

I should be obliged indeed to lessen this Respect, if all the Nobility (and especially the elder brothers) are but so many hereditary fools3, if the privilege of Lords be to want brains, if noblemen can hardly -write or read', if all their business is but to dress and vote, and all their employment in court, to tell lies, flatter in public, slander in private, be false to each other, and follow nothing but self-interest. Bless me, my Lord, what an account is this you give of them? and what would have been said of me, had I immolated, in this manner, the whole body of the Nobility, at the stall of a well-fed Prebendary?

Were it the mere Ercess of your Lordship's Wit, that carried you thus triumphantly over all the bounds of decency, I might consider your Lordship on your Pegasus, as a sprightly hunter on a mettled horse;

C.

That to good blood by old prescriptive rules,
Gives right hereditary to be Fools.

• Nor wonder that my Brain no more affords,
But recollect the privilege of Lords.

' And when you see me fairly write my name;

For England's sake wish all could do the same.

• Whilst all our business is to dress and vote. -Epist. p. 6.

Courts are only larger families,

The growth of each, few truths, and many lies:

Who do in private satyrize, in public flatter.

Few to each other, all to one point true;

Which one I shan't, nor need explain. Adieu.-P. ult.