Pope, Imitations of Horace, Satire 2.1

P. There are (I scarce can think it, but am told)
There are to whom my Satire seems too bold:
Scarce to wise Peter complaisant enough,
And something said of Chartres much too rough.
The lines are weak, another’s pleas’d to say, [5]
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
Tim’rous by nature, of the Rich in awe,
I come to Council learned in the Law.
You’ll give me, like a friend both sage and free,
Advice; and (as you use)° without a Fee. [10]	as you usually do
F. I’d write no more.
P. Not write? but then I think,
And for my soul I cannot sleep a wink.
I nod° in company, I wake at night,	fall asleep
Fools rush into my head, and so I write. [15]
F. You could not do a worse thing for your life.
Why, if the nights seem tedious — take a wife:
Or rather truly, if your point be rest,
Lettuce and cowslip wine: Probatum est.°	it’s proven
But talk with Celsus, Celsus will advise [20]
Hartshorn, or something that shall close your eyes.
Or, if you needs must write, write Caesar’s praise:
You’ll gain at least a Knighthood, or the Bays.
P. What? like Sir Richard, rumbling, rough, and fierce,
With Arms, and George, and Brunswick, crowd the verse, [25]
Rend° with tremendous sound your ears asunder,	tear apart
With Gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss,° and thunder?	a kind of gun
Or nobly wild, with Budgell’s fire and force,
Paint Angels trembling round his falling Horse?
F. Then all your Muse’s softer art display, [30]
Let Carolina smooth the tuneful lay,
Lull with Amelia’s liquid name the nine,
And sweetly flow through all the Royal Line.
P. Alas! few verses touch their nicer ear;
They scarce can bear their Laureate twice a year: [35]
And justly Caesar scorns the Poet’s lays,
It is to History he trusts for Praise.
F. Better be Cibber, I’ll maintain it still,
Than ridicule all Taste, blaspheme Quadrille,
Abuse the City’s best good men in metre, [40]
And laugh at Peers that put their trust in Peter.
Ev’n those you touch not, hate you.
P. What should ail ’em?
F. A hundred smart° in Timon and in Balaam:	feel pain
The fewer still you name, you wound the more; [45]
Bond is but one, but Harpax is a score.°	twenty
P. Each mortal has his pleasure: none deny
Scarsdale his bottle, Darty his Ham-pye;
Ridotta sips and dances, till she see
The doubling Lustres dance as fast as she; [50]
F— loves the Senate, Hockley-hole his brother,
Like in all else, as one egg to another.
I love to pour out all my self, as plain
As downright Shippen, or as old Montagne.
In them, as certain to be lov’d as seen, [55]
The Soul stood forth, not kept a thought within;
In me, what spots (for spots I have) appear,
Will prove at least the Medium must be clear.
In this impartial glass,° my Muse intends	mirror
Fair to expose my self, my foes, my friends; [60]
Publish the present age; but where my text
Is vice too high, reserve it for the next:
My foes shall wish my life a longer date,
And ev’ry friend the less lament my fate.
My head and heart thus flowing thro’ my quill,° [65]	pen
Verse-man or Prose-man, term° me which you will,	call
Papist° or Protestant, or both between,	Catholic
Like good Erasmus in an honest mean,
In moderation placing all my glory,
While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory. [70]
Satire’s my weapon, but I’m too discreet
To run a muck, and tilt° at all I meet;	joust
I only wear it in a land of Hectors,°	bullies
Thieves, Supercargoes, Sharpers, and Directors,
Save but our Army! and let Jove incrust [75]
Swords, pikes, and guns, with everlasting rust!
Peace is my dear delight — not Fleury’s more:
But touch me, and no Minister so sore.
Whoe’er offends, at some unlucky time
Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme, [80]
Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,
And the sad burthen° of some merry song.	chorus
Slander or poyson dread from Delia’s rage,
Hard words or hanging, if your Judge be
From furious Sappho scarce a milder fate, [85]
P—x’d by her love, or libell’d by her hate.
Its proper° pow’r to hurt, each creature feels,	own
Bulls aim their horns, and asses lift their heels,
’Tis a bear’s talent not to kick but hug,
And no man wonders he’s not stung by Pug: [90]
So drink with Waters, or with Chartres eat,
They’ll never poyson you, they’ll only cheat.
Then, learned Sir! (to cut the matter short)
Whate’er my fate, or well or ill at Court,
Whether old age with faint, but chearful ray, [95]
Attends to gild° the Evening of my day,	cover with gold
Or death’s black wing already be display’d
To wrap me in the universal shade;
Whether the darken’d room to muse invite,
Or whiten’d wall provoke the skew’r to write; [100]
In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint,
Like Lee or Budgell, I will rhyme, and print.
F. Alas young man! your days can ne’er be long,
In flow’r of age you perish for a song!
Plums and Directors, Shylock and his Wife, [105]
Will club their testers, now, to take your life!
P. What? arm’d for Virtue when I point the pen,
Brand the bold front of shameless, guilty men,
Dash the proud Gamester° in his gilded car,	gambler
Bare the mean heart that lurks beneath a Star; [110]
Can there be wanting,° to defend Her cause,	lacking
Lights of the Church, or Guardians of the Laws?
Could pension’d Boileau lash in honest strain
Flatt’rers and bigots ev’n in Louis’ reign?
Could Laureate Dryden Pimp and Fry’r engage, [115]
Yet neither Charles nor James be in a rage?
And I not strip the gilding off a Knave,
Unplac’d, unpension’d, no man’s heir, or slave?
I will, or perish in the gen’rous cause:
Hear this and tremble! you who ’scape the laws. [120]
Yes, while I live, no rich or noble knave
Shall walk in peace, and credit, to his grave.
To Virtue only and her friends a friend,
The World beside may murmur, or commend.
Know, all the distant din that world can keep [125]
Rolls o’er my Grotto, and but sooths my sleep.
There, my retreat the best companions grace,
Chiefs out of war, and Statesmen out of place.
There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl,
The Feast of Reason and the Flow of soul: [130]
And He, whose lightning pierc’d th’Iberian lines,
Now forms my Quincunx, and now ranks my Vines,
Or tames the Genius of the stubborn plain,
Almost as quickly, as he conquer’d Spain.
Envy must own,° I live among the Great, [135]	admit
No Pimp of pleasure, and no Spy of state,
With eyes that pry not, tongue that ne’er repeats,
Fond to spread friendships, but to cover heats,
To help who want, to forward who excel;
This, all who know me, know; who love me, tell; [140]
And who unknown defame me, let them be
Scriblers or Peers, alike are Mob to me.
This is my plea, on this I rest my cause° —	case
What saith° my Council learned in the laws?	says
F. Your Plea is good; but still, I say, beware! [145]
Laws are explain’d by Men — so have a care.
It stands on record, that in Richard’s times
A man was hang’d for very honest rhymes.
Consult the Statute: quart. I think it is,
Edwardi sext. or prim. & quint. Eliz. [150]
See Libels, Satires — here you have it — read.
P. Libels and Satires! lawless things indeed!
But grave Epistles,° bringing vice to light,	serious letters
Such as a King might read, a Bishop write,
Such as Sir Robert would approve — [155]
F. Indeed?
The Case is alter’d — you may then proceed;
In such a cause the Plaintiff will be hiss’d,
My Lords the Judges laugh, and you’re dismiss’d.

Notes

Wise Peter . . . Chartres: References to Pope’s other satirical poems.
Lord Fanny: Lord Hervey, whom Pope also attacks in the Epistle to Arbuthnot.
Friend: William Fortescue, Pope’s friend. In the poem, P. indicates Pope is speaking, F. Fortescue.
Probatum est: Latin for "It is proven."
Celsus: A Roman physician. Pope refers to Fortescue’s doctor, Hollins.
Hartshorn: Hartshorn was used as a medical stimulant.
The Bays: The crown of laurel traditionally rewarded to the poet laureate. The poet laureate at the time was Colley Cibber, whom Pope, who never received the honor, later savaged in The Dunciad.
Sir Richard: Sir Richard Blackmore, a second-rate poet.
George, and Brunswick: References to George I and II, monarchs during Pope’s career. Pope did not often praise the powerful in his poems.
Budgell: Eustace Budgell, whose Poem upon His Majesty’s Late Journey to Cambridge and Newmarket describes the death of George II’s horse.
Carolina: Queen Caroline, wife of George II.
Amelia: Princess Sophia Eleanora, daughter of George II and Queen Caroline.
Laureate twice a year: The poet laureate’s official duties included writing odes on the new year and on the king’s birthday.
Cibber: Colley Cibber, actor, playwright, and poet, and then poet laureate.
Quadrille: A fashionable card game which Pope had ridiculed.
Peter: Peter Walter, a wealthy moneylender.
In Timon and in Balaam: Pope had used these names — Timon is classical, Balaam biblical — to satirize his enemies in his Moral Essays.
F— loves the Senate, Hockley-hole his brother: Politicians, Stephen Fox and his brother Henry. Hockley Hole was a disreputable "bear-garden" in London, known for its violent sports.
Erasmus: Desiderius Erasmus, sixteenth-century Dutch scholar and author of The Praise of Folly. He was renowned for his integrity and moderation.
Tories call me Whig: The two political parties in eighteenth-century Britain.
Hectors: Hector, "A bully; a blustering, turbulent, pervicacious, noisy fellow" (Johnson).
Delia’s rage: A coded reference to Mary Howard, the Countess of Delorain.
Sappho: Sappho is Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Pope’s former friend.
P—x’d: That is, "poxed" — infected with venereal disease.
Pug: A common name for a dog.
Waters: Another reference to Peter Walter; Pope insisted on the misspelling.
Bedlam, or the Mint: Bedlam, "Corrupted from Bethlehem, the name of a religious house in London, converted afterwards into an hospital for the mad and lunatick. A madhouse; a place appointed for the cure of lunacy" (Johnson). The Mint was a section in London where people could not be arrested for debt; it was naturally filled with lowlife of all sorts.
Lee or Budgell: Bad poets.
Plums: A plum was a fortune of £100,000, or a person who has such a fortune. The word was used like the modern word millionaire.
Wanting: Wanting here means "lacking."
Boileau: A seventeenth-century French poet, during the reign of Louis XIV.
Dryden: John Dryden lived during the reigns of Charles II and James II.
Grotto: Pope built an underground grotto at his estate at Twickenham.
St. John: Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke. Pronounced "SIN-jun."
Quincunx: An arrangement of trees, with four in the corners of a square and one at the center.
Own: Own, "To acknowledge; to avow for one’s own" (Johnson) — in other words, to admit.
Hang’d for very honest rhymes: The first law against libel was passed in the reign of Edward I.
Edwardi sext. or prim. & quint. Eliz.: The usual way of citing law books, by the year of a monarch’s reign.
Sir Robert: Sir Robert Walpole, the prime minister.

Imitations of Horace

Alexander Pope

Edited and annotated by Jack Lynch

The First Satire of the Second
Book of Horace, Imitated

Notes

Imitations of Horace

Alexander Pope

Edited and annotated by Jack Lynch

The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace, Imitated

Notes

The First Satire of the Second
Book of Horace, Imitated