Bleft in each science, bleft in ev'ry strain! S 10 Abfent or dead, ftill let a friend be dear, Who, careless now of Int'reft, Fame, or Fate, And fure, if aught below the feats divine 20 A foul NOTES. ufed to fay that it was originally written in Spanish: from the early connection between the Spaniards and Arabians, it may be fufpected that it was an Oriental tale. Voltaire has inferted it in his Zadig, without mentioning a fyllable of the place whence he borrowed it. VER. 21. And fure, if aught] Strength of mind appears to have been the predominant characteristic of Lord Oxford; of which he gave the most striking proofs when he was ftabbed, displaced, imprifoned. These noble and nervous lines allude to these circumftances; of his fortitude and firmness another ftriking proof remains, in a letter which the Earl wrote from the Tower to a friend, A foul fupreme, in each hard inftance try'd, 25 In vain to Deserts thy retreat is made; 30 She waits, or to the fcaffold, or the cell, NOTES. Ev'n friend, who advised him to meditate an escape, and which is worthy of the greatest hero of antiquity. This extraordinary letter I had the pleasure of reading, by the favour of the Earl's excellent. grand-daughter, the late Dutchefs Dowager of Portland, who inherited that love of literature and science, fo peculiar to her ancestors and family. I am well informed that Bolingbroke was greatly mortified at Pope's bestowing these praifes on his old antagonist, whom he mortally hated; yet I have seen two original letters in the hands of the fame Dutchefs of Portland, of Lord Bolingbroke to Lord Oxford, full of the most fulfome flattery of the man whom he affected to defpife, and of very idle and profane applications of Scripture. The vifions of Parnelle, at the end of his Poems, published in the Guardian, are in a rugged inharmonious ftyle; as indeed is the Life of Zoilus, printed 1717; and also the Effay on the Life of Homer, prefixed to our Author's tranflation: and his Effay on the Different Styles in Poetry is rather a mean performance. i.. Ev'n now, fhe fhades thy Ev'ning-walk with bays, Eyes the calm Sun-set of thy various Day, 36 40 EPISTLE ΤΟ A JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ. SECRETARY OF STATE. SOUL as full of Worth, as void of Pride, Which nothing feeks to fhew, or needs to hide, A face untaught to feign; a judging Eye, And strikes a blush through frontless Flattery. Know, Kings and Fortune cannot make thee more. Afham'd of any Friend, not ev'n of Me: 5 10 The NOTES. Secretary of State] In the year 1720. P. |