The Manor, Sir?" The Manor! hold," he cry'd, "Not that,—I cannot part with that”—and dy’d. And you! brave COBHAM, to the latest breath, Shall feel your Ruling Paffion strong in death: Such in thofe moments as in all the past; "Oh, fave my Country, Heav'n," shall be your 265 Iaft. NOTES. VER. 261. And dy'd.] Sir William Bateman used these very words on his death-bed. No comic nor fatyric writer has ever carried their descriptions of avarice or gluttony fo far as what has hap pened in real life. Other vices have been exaggerated; these two never have been. EPISTLE II. TO A LADY. Of the CHARACTERS of WOMEN. NOTHING fo true as what you once let fall, "Moft Women have no Characters at all." Matter too foft a lafting mark to bear, And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair. NOTES. How Of the Characters of WOMEN.] There is nothing in Mr. Pope's Works more highly finished, or written with greater spirit, than this Epiftle: Yet its fuccefs was in no proportion to the pains he took in compofing it, or the effort of genius displayed in adorning it. Something he chanced to drop in a short advertisement prefixed to it, on its firft publication, may perhaps account for the fmall attention the Public gave to it. He faid, that no one Character in it was drawn from the Life. They believed him on his word; and expreffed little curiofity about a satire in which there was nothing perfonal. W. VER. 1. Nothing so true] Bolingbroke, a judge of the subject, thought this Epistle the mafter-piece of Pope. But the bitterness of the fatire is not always concealed in a laugh. The characters are lively, though uncommon. I scarcely remember one of them in our comic writers of the best order. The ridiculous is heightened by many strokes of humour, carried even to the borders of extravagance, as much as the two laft lines of Boileau, quoted in the next page. The female foibles have been the subject of perhaps more wit, in every language, than any other topic that can be named. The fixth fatire of Juvenal, though deteftable for its obscenity, VOL. III. P How many pictures of one Nymph we view, NOTES. 5 Here obscenity, is undoubtedly the most witty of all his fixteen, and is curious for the picture it exhibits of the private lives of the Roman ladies. If this Epiftle yields, in any refpect, to the tenth fatire of Boileau on the fame fubject, it is in the delicacy and variety of the transitions by which the French writer paffes from one character to another, always connecting each with the foregoing. It was a common faying of Boileau, fpeaking of La Bruyere, that one of the most difficult parts of compofition was the art of tranfition. That we may fee how happily Pope has caught the manner of Boileau, let us furvey one of his portraits: it shall be that of his learned lady: 66 Qui s'offrira d'abord? c'eft cette Scavante, Qu'eftime Roberval, et que Sauveur frequente. D'où vient qu'elle a l'œil trouble, et le teint fi terni? Il fuivre Jupiter paffé le nuit entiere: Gardons de la troubler. Sa fcience, fe croy, Il faut chez Du Vernay voir la diffection." None of Pope's female characters excel the Doris of Congreve in delicate touches of raillery and ridicule. VER. 5. How many pictures] The Poet's purpose here is to shew, that the characters of Women are generally inconfiftent with themfelves and this he illuftrates by fo happy a fimilitude, that we fee the folly, defcribed in it, arifes from that very principle which gives birth to this inconfiftency of character. W. VER. 7, 8, 10, &c. Arcadia's Countefs,-Paftora by a fountain,— Leda with a Swan,-Magdalen,-Cecilia-] Attitudes in which feveral Here Fannia, leering on her own good man, With fimp'ring Angels, Palms, and Harps divine; Whether the Charmer finner it, or faint it, ΙΟ 15 Come then, the colours and the ground prepare! If Folly grow romantic, I must paint it. Dip in the Rainbow, trick her off in Air; Chufe a firm Cloud, before it fall, and in it 19 Catch, ere fhe change, the Cynthia of this minute. NOTES. Rufa, feveral ladies affected to be drawn, and fometimes one lady in them all.-The Poet's politenefs and complaifance to the fex is obfervable in this instance, amongst others, that whereas in the Characters of Men he has sometimes made use of real names, in the Characters of Women always fictitious. P. But notwithstanding all the Poet's caution and complaifance, this general fatire, or rather moral analysis of human nature, as it appears in the two fexes, will be always received very differently by them. The Men bear a general fatire moft heroically; the Women with the utmost impatience. This is not from any stronger consciousness of guilt, for I believe the fum of Virtue in the female world does (from many accidental caufes) far exceed the fum of Virtue in the male; but from the fear that such representations may hurt the sex in the opinion of the men: whereas the men are not at all apprehensive that their follies or vices would prejudice them in the opinion of the women. W. VER. 20. Catch, ere fhe change, the Cynthia of this minute.] Alluding in the expreffion to the precept of Frefnoy, -"formæ veneres captando fugaces." “Like a dove's neck she shifts her tranfient charms.” W. Young, Sat. 5. Rufa, whofe eye quick-glancing o'er the Park, With Sappho fragrant at an ev❜ning Mafk: 25 NOTES. So VER. 21. Inftances of contrarieties, given even from fuch characters as are moft ftrongly marked, and feemingly therefore moft confiftent: As, I. In the Affected, Ver. 21, &c. P. VER. 21. Rufa, whose eye] This character of Rufa, and the fucceeding ones of Silia, Papillia, Narciffa, and Flavia, are precifely and entirely in the style and manner of the portraits Young has given us in his Fifth Satire on Women. The pictures of Young are sketched with a lighter and more sportive pencil; thofe of our Author with a firmer hand and a chafter manner. Pope put forth all his ftrength to excel his witty rival in this the best part of the Univerfal Paffion; and he has fucceeded accordingly. Both Pope and Boileau (see his tenth fatire) have been cenfured for their severity on the fair fex. They have been reckoned as bad as Euripides; but furely they have not been quite so naughty as an old comic poet, Eubultus, in a fragment preserved in that most entertaining book, the Excerpta ex Trag. et Comoed. of Grotius; 4to, p. 659. who, after mentioning Medæa, Clytemneftra, and Phædra, fuddenly ftops, and wickedly pretends that his memory fails him in enabling him to mention any one good character among women. The ladies of France revenged themselves on Boileau, by faying he was made incapable of love and marriage, by an accident that befel him in his early youth. VER. 23. Agrees as ill] This thought is expreffed with great humour in the following ftanza, faid to mean Q. Caroline : "Tho' Artemefia talks, by fits, Of councils, claffics, fathers, wits; Reads Malbranche, Boyle, and Locke; Yet in fome things, methinks, the fails, 'were well, if she would pair her nails, |