EPISTLE

TO ROBERT EARL OF OXFORD, AND EARL OF MORTIMER.

SUCH were the notes thy once-lov'd Poet sung, Till Death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue. Oh just beheld, and lost! admir'd and mourn'd! With softest manners, gentlest arts adorn'd!

NOTES.

Epistle to Robert Earl of Oxford,] This Epistle was sent to the Earl of Oxford with Dr. Parnelle's Poems published by our Author, after the said Earl's imprisonment in the Tower, and retreat into the country, in the Year 1721.

P.

Ver. 1. Such were the notes] The notes were charming indeed! We have few pieces of Poetry superior to Parnelle's Rise of Woman; the Fairy Tale; the Hymn to Contentment; Health, an Eclogue; the Vigil of Venus; the Night-piece on Death; the Allegory on Man; and the Hermit; of which Johnson speaks too contemptuously. The best account of the original of this last exquisite poem is given in the third volume of the History of English Poetry, p. 31; from whence it appears that it was taken from the eightieth chapter of that curious repository of ancient tales, the Gesta Romanorum. The story is related in the fourth volume of Howel's Letters, who says he found it in Sir Philip Herbert's Conceptions; but this fine Apologue was much better related in the Divine Dialogues of Dr. Henry More, Dial. ii. part 1; and Parnelle seems to have copied it chiefly from this Platonic Theologist, who had not less imagination than learning. Pope used to say, that it was originally written in Spanish from the early connexion between the Spaniards and Arabians, it may be suspected that it was an Oriental tale. Voltaire has inserted it in his Zadig, without mentioning a syllable of the place whence he borrowed it.

Blest in each science, blest in ev'ry strain!
Dear to the Muse! to HARLEY dear-in vain!
For him, thou oft hast bid the World attend,
Fond to forget the Statesman in the Friend;
For SWIFT and him, despis'd the farce of state,
The sober follies of the wise and great;
Dextrous, the craving, fawning crowd to quit,
And pleas'd to 'scape from Flattery to Wit.

5

10

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear
(A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear),
Recall those nights that clos'd thy toilsome days, 15
Still hear thy Parnelle in his living lays,

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

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

20

NOTES.

Ver. 21. And sure, 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 stabbed, displaced, imprisoned. These noble and nervous lines allude to these circumstances of his fortitude and firmness another striking proof remains, in a letter which the Earl wrote from the Tower to a 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 granddaughter, the late Dutchess Dowager of Portland, who inherited that love of literature and science, so peculiar to her ancestors and family.

I am well informed that Bolingbroke was greatly mortified at Pope's bestowing these praises on his old antagonist, whom he mortally hated; yet I have seen two original letters in the hands of the same Dutchess of Portland, of Lord Bolingbroke to Lord

A soul supreme, in each hard instance try'd,
Above all Pain, all Passion, and all Pride,
The rage of Pow'r, the blast of public breath,
The lust of Lucre, and the dread of Death.

In vain to Deserts thy retreat is made;
The Muse attends thee to thy silent shade:
"Tis her's, the brave man's latest steps to trace,
Rejudge his acts, and dignify disgrace.
When Int'rest calls off all her sneaking train,
And all th' oblig'd desert, and all the vain:
She waits, or to the scaffold, or the cell,
When the last ling'ring friend has bid farewell.
Ev'n now, she shades thy Ev'ning-walk with bays
(No hireling she, no prostitute to praise),
Ev'n now, observant of the parting ray,
Eyes the calm Sun-set of thy various Day,

Through fortune's cloud one truly great can see,
Nor fears to tell, that MORTIMER is he.

NOTES.

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Oxford, full of the most fulsome flattery of the man whom he affected to despise, and of very idle and profane applications of Scripture.

The visions of Parnelle, at the end of his Poems, published in the Guardian, are in a rugged inharmonious style; as indeed is the Life of Zoilus, printed 1717; and also the Essay on the Life of Homer, prefixed to our Author's translation: and his Essay on the Different Styles in Poetry is rather a mean performance.

EPISTLE

ΤΟ

JAMES CRAGGS, ESQ.

SECRETARY OF STATE.

A SOUL as full of Worth, as void of Pride, Which nothing seeks to shew, or needs to hide, Which nor to Guilt nor Fear its caution owes, And boasts a Warmth that from no Passion flows. A face untaught to feign; a judging Eye, That darts severe upon a rising Lie,

5

And strikes a blush through frontless Flattery.

All this thou wert; and being this before,

Know, Kings and Fortune cannot make thee more. Then scorn to gain a Friend by servile ways,

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Nor wish to lose a Foe these Virtues raise;
But candid, free, sincere, as you began,
Proceed-a Minister, but still a Man.
Be not (exalted to whate'er degree)
Asham'd of any Friend, not ev'n of Me;

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The Patriot's plain, but untrod, path pursue :

If not, 'tis I must be asham'd of You.

NOTES.

Secretary of State] In the year 1720. P.

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

genuine :

POPE.

"Since my old friend is grown so great,

As to be Minister of State,

I'm told, but 'tis not true I hope,

That Craggs will be asham'd of Pope."

CRAGGS.

"Alas! if I am such a creature,

To grow the worse for growing greater;
Why, faith, in spite of all my brags,
'Tis Pope must be asham'd of Craggs."