For shrubs, when nothing else at top is,
Can only constitute a coppice.
But if you will not take my word,
See anno quint. of Richard Third;
And that's a coppice call'd, when dock'd,
Witness an. prim. of Harry Oct.
If this a wood you will maintain,
Merely because it is no plain,
Holland, for all that I can see,
May e'en as well be term'd the sea,
Or C[onings]by be fair harangued
An honest man, because not hang'd.'

MACER

A CHARACTER

This was first printed in 1727 in the Miscellanies of Pope and Swift, but was probably written in 1715. Macer is supposed to be Ambrose Philips. The borrow'd Play' of the eighth line would then have been The Distrest Mother, adapted by Philips from Racine.

WHEN simple Macer, now of high renown, First sought a poet's fortune in the town,

She went to plain-work, and to purling brooks,

Old-fashion'd halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks:

She went from Op'ra, Park, Assembly, Play,

To morning walks, and prayers three hours a day;

To part her time 'twixt reading and Bohea, To muse, and spill her solitary tea;

Or o'er cold coffee trifle with the spoon, Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon;

Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
Hum half a tune, tell stories to the squire;
Up to her godly garret after sev'n,
There starve and pray, for that's the way
to Heav'n.

21

Soft Bs and rough C[ragg]s, adieu!

Earl Warwick, make your moan; The lively H[inchenbroo]k and you May knock up whores alone.

To drink and droll be Rowe allow'd

Till the third watchman's toll; Let Jervas gratis paint, and Froude Save threepence and his soul.

Farewell Arbuthnot's raillery

On every learned sot;

And Garth, the best good Christian he,
Although he knows it not.

Lintot, farewell! thy bard must go;

Farewell, unhappy Tonson!
Heav'n gives thee for thy loss of Rowe,
Lean Philips and fat Johnson.

Why should I stay? Both parties rage;
My vixen mistress squalls;
The Wits in envious feuds engage;

And Homer (damn him!) calls.

The love of arts lies cold and dead
In Halifax's urn;

And not one Muse of all he fed

Has yet the grace to mourn.

My friends, by turns, my friends confound,

Betray, and are betray'd:
Poor Younger's sold for fifty pounds,
And Bicknell is a jade.

Why make I friendships with the great,
When I no favour seek?

Or follow girls seven hours in eight? —
I need but once a week.

Adieu to all but Gay alone,

Whose soul sincere and free, Loves all mankind but flatters none, And so may starve with me.

IMITATION OF MARTIAL

Referred to in a letter from Trumbull to Pope dated January, 1716. The epigram imitated is the twenty-third of the tenth book.

AT length, my Friend (while Time, with still career,

Wafts on his gentle wing his eightieth year),

Sees his past days safe out of Fortune's

power,

Nor dreads approaching Fate's uncertain hour;

Reviews his life, and in the strict survey, Finds not one moment he could wish away, Pleased with the series of each happy day. Such, such a man extends his life's short space,

And from the goal again renews the race; For he lives twice, who can at once employ The present well, and ev'n the past enjoy.

IMITATION OF TIBULLUS

See the fourth elegy of Tibullus, lines 55, 56. In the course of his high-flown correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, after her departure for the East, Pope often suggests the possibility of his travelling to meet her. 'But if my fate be such,' he says on the occasion which brought forth this couplet, 'that this body of mine (which is as ill matched to my mind as any wife to her husband) be left behind in the journey, let the epitaph of Tibullus be set over it!'

HERE, stopt by hasty Death, Alexis lies, Who cross'd half Europe, led by Wortley's eyes.

THE BASSET-TABLE

AN ECLOGUE

This mock pastoral was one of three which made up the original volume of Town Eclogues, published anonymously in 1716. Three more appeared in a later edition. It is now known that only the Basset-Table is Pope's, the rest being the work of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

could guess

19

This fatal stroke, this unforeseen distress? SMIL. See Betty Lovet! very àpropos; She all the cares of love and play does know.

Dear Betty shall th' important point decide;

Betty! who oft the pain of each has tried; Impartial she shall say who suffers most, By cards' ill usage, or by lovers lost.

Lov. Tell, tell your griefs; attentive will I stay,

Though time is precious, and I want some tea.

CARD. Behold this equipage, by Mathers wrought,

With fifty guineas (a great pen'worth) bought.

30

She was my friend; I taught her first to spread

Upon her sallow cheeks enlivening red;
I introduced her to the park and plays,
And by my int'rest Cozens made her Stays.
Ungrateful wretch! with mimic airs grown
pert,

She dares to steal my favourite lover's heart.

CARD. Wretch that I was, how often have I swore,

When Winnall tallied, I would punt no

more!

I know the bite, yet to my ruin run,
And see the folly which I cannot shun. 70