Bleft in each science, bleft in ev'ry strain!
Dear to the Mufe! to HARLEY dear-in vain!
For him, thou oft haft bid the World attend,
Fond to forget the Statesman in the Friend;
For SWIFT and him, defpis'd the farce of state,
The fober follies of the wife and great ;
Dextrous, the craving, fawning crowd to quit,
And pleas'd to 'fcape from Flattery to Wit.

S

10

Abfent or dead, ftill let a friend be dear,
(A figh the absent claims, the dead a tear)
Recall thofe nights that clos'd thy toilfome days, 15
Still hear thy Parnelle in his living lays,

Who, careless now of Int'reft, Fame, or Fate,
Perhaps forgets that OXFORD e'er was great;
Or deeming meaneft what we greatest call,
Beholds thee glorious only in thy fall.

And fure, if aught below the feats divine
Can touch Immortals, 'tis a Soul like thine:

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,
Above all Pain, all Paffion, and all Pride,
The rage of Pow'r, the blast of public breath,
The luft of Lucre, and the dread of Death.

25

In vain to Deserts thy retreat is made;
The Muse attends thee to thy filent shade:
'Tis her's, the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Rejudge his acts, and dignify difgrace.
When Int'rest calls off all her fneaking train,
And all th' oblig'd defert, and all the vain;

30

She waits, or to the fcaffold, or the cell,
When the last ling'ring friend has bid farewell.

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,
(No hireling the, no prostitute to praise)
Ev'n now, obfervant of the parting ray,

Eyes the calm Sun-set of thy various Day,
Through Fortune's cloud one truly great can fee,
Nor fears to tell, that MORTIMER is he.

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,
Which nor to Guilt nor Fear, its Caution owes,
And boafts a Warmth that from no Paffion flows.

A face untaught to feign; a judging Eye,
That darts fevere upon a rifing Lie,

And strikes a blush through frontless Flattery.
All this thou wert; and being this before,

Know, Kings and Fortune cannot make thee more.
Then fcorn to gain a Friend by fervile ways,
Nor wish to lose a Foe these Virtues raise ;
But candid, free, fincere, as you began,
Proceed-a Minifter, but ftill a Man.
Be not (exalted to whate'er degree)

Afham'd of any Friend, not ev'n of Me:

5

10

The

NOTES.

Secretary of State] In the year 1720.

P.

The Patriot's plain, but untrod, path purfue;
If not, 'tis I must be afham'd of You.

I SHALL add a dialogue by Mr. Pope, in verse, that is