XIII. On EDMUND Duke of BUCKINGHAM, who died in the 19th Year of his Age, 1735. If modest youth, with cool reflection crown'd, Pays the last tribute of a saint to heaven. 10 This epitaph Mr. Warburton prefers to the rest, but I know not for what reason. To crown with reflection is surely a mode of speech approaching to nonsense. Opening virtues blooming round is something like tautology; the six 20 following lines are poor and prosaic. Art is in another couplet used for arts, that a rhyme may be had to heart. The six last lines are the best, but not excellent. The rest of his sepulchral performances hardly deserve the notice of criticism. The contemptible Dialogue between He and She should have been suppressed for the author's sake. In his last epitaph on himself, in which he attempts to be jocular upon one of the few things that make wise men serious, he confounds the living man with the dead: Under this stone, or under this sill, Or under this turf, etc. When a man is once buried, the question, under what he is buried, is easily decided. He forgot that though he wrote the epitaph in a state of uncertainty, yet it could not be laid 30 over him till his grave was made. Such is the folly of wit when it is ill employed. The world has but little new; even this wretchedness seems to have been borrowed from the following tuneless lines:. Ludovici Areosti humantur ossa Sub hoc marmore, vel sub hac humo, seu Nam scire haud potuit futura, sed nec Ut utnam cuperet parare vivens, Vivens ista tamen sibi paravit. Quæ inscribi voluit suo sepulchro Olim si quod haberet is sepulchrum. Surely Ariosto did not venture to expect that his trifle would have ever had such an illustrious imitator. NOTES. Page 1, 1. 9. [general officer in Spain. In common with many Royalists who left England at the end of the Civil War. Property changed hands in consequence of the death or absence of Royalists, and in subsequent disputes as to ownership estates were often "sequestered by government, that is, taken from both disputants. Other estates were "forfeited" by Royalists and given to supporters of the Parliament. C. D. P.] 1. 11. This, and this only, is told by Pope. Johnson is relying here (a) on a passage in Pope's Epistle to Arbuthnot, (b) on one of Pope's own notes to that Epistle, and (c) on a communication made by Pope to Spence. But he has misquoted this last authority, and so given a wrong date for the birth of the poet. "Mr. Pope was born on the 21st day of May, 1688" (Spence, p. 196). "Of gentle blood (part shed in Honour's cause, Each parent sprung." Pope, Epistle to Arbuthnot (Globe edition, p. 283). Johnson has reproduced the note almost textually, except that he has suppressed the fact that the son of Mr. Turner mentioned third was the eldest. Compare the note below, on p. 3, 1. 26. 1. 14. whether in a shop or on the Exchange, whether as a tradesman or & merchant. [The Exchange, in Cornhill, first built in 1566-1567, was a market with shops of all descriptions. Later it became a meeting-place for merchants of all nations, and contained the offices of various important trading companies. C. D. P.] 1. 15. till Mr. Tyers told, on the authority of Mrs. Racket. This Mrs. Racket was the poet's half-sister, but it is not certain whether she was the daughter by a previous marriage of Pope's father or of his mother. Mr. Thomas Tyers was a friend of Johnson's, who published biographical sketches of Addison, Pope, and Johnson himself. See Boswell's Life of Johnson (Globe edition, p. 475). Page 2, 1. 1. Being not sent early to school, etc. "His first education was extremely loose and disconcerted. He began to learn Latin and Greek together (as is customary in the schools of the Jesuits, and which he seemed to think a good way) under Banister, their family priest, who, he said, was living about two years ago at Sir Harry Tichborne's. He then learned his accidence at Twiford, where he wrote a satire on some faults of his master. He was then, a little while, at Mr. Dean's seminary at Marylebone, and some time under the same, after he removed to Hyde Park Corner. After this he taught himself both Greek and Latin. ‘I did not follow the grammar; but rather hunted in the authors for a syntax of my own, and then began translating any parts that pleased me particularly in the best Greek and Latin poets; and by that means formed my taste, which, I think, verily, about sixteen, was very near as good as it is now. Spence, writing from information_supplied by Pope in 1742 (p. 196). Johnson takes the name Taverner, for the priest who was Pope's tutor, from Ruff head, who published a Life of Pope in 1769. There may, of course, have been two priests. 1. 7. [a Romish priest. In consequence of the laws against Roman Catholics, Pope was excluded from the ordinary schools. C. D. P.] 1. 10. [John Ogilby (1600-1676) translated both Virgil and Homer. C. D. P.] 1. 11. [Sandys (1577-1644), besides books on travel, published a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1626). C. D. P.] 1. 24. [Ajax, one of the heroes who fought against Troy. He is represented as second only to Achilles in bravery. C. D. P.] 1. 28. [lampoon, a scurrilous satire in writing. C. D. P.] 1. 32. that he "lisp'd in numbers." "Why did I write? what sin to me unknown I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came. I left no calling for this idle trade, No duty broke, no father disobey'd. The Muse but serv'd to ease some friend, not Wife, Epistle to Arbuthnot, 1. 35. [Pindar (B. C. 522-442), the greatest lyric poet of Greece, commenced his career as a poet at a very early age. C. D. P.] Page 3, 1. 2. the sudden blast, the ruin that suddenly overtook the prosperity which the Papists had enjoyed under James II. [The effect of the Revolution on the hopes of the Catholics is shown in the terms of the Declaration of Rights, accepted by William of Orange before his accession (1689). C. D. P.] 1. 3. [Binfield, a village about nine miles from Windsor, and near the south-west border of the Forest. C. D. P.] 1. 6. he found no better use than that of locking it up in a chest. This statement is taken from Ruffhead. Carruthers has shown that it must be pure fiction. "Besides Binfield, the elder Pope possessed property at Windsham, or Windlesham, in the county of Surrey, and a yearly rent-charge upon the manor of Ruston in Yorkshire. He had also money invested for himself on French securities, to all which father and son devoted prudent and zealous attention" (Carruthers' Life of Pope, p. 15). 1. 13. Tully's Offices, Cicero's De Officiis. "Mr. 1. 26. obliging him to correct his performances, etc. Pope's father (who was an honest merchant, and dealt in Holland's wholesale) was no poet, but he used to set him to make English verses when very young. He was pretty difficult in being pleased; and used often to send him back to new turn them. These are not good rhimes'; for that was my husband's word for verses (Spence, from Mr. Pope's mother, p. 6). Johnson is quoting Warburton, who, in a note on the passage from the Epistle to Arbuthnot given above, tells this story, but makes the last part of it read, "when they were to his mind, he took great pleasure in them, and would say, 'These are good rhymes.' “I 1. 29. he soon distinguished the versification of Dryden. learned versification wholly from Dryden's works; who had improved it much beyond any of our former poets; and would, probably, have brought it to its perfection, had not he been unhappily obliged to write so often in haste" (Pope, in Spence, p. 212). Page 4, 1. 7. [Cowley (1618-1667), a poet and writer of essays. He wrote much in support of the Restoration. His Poetical Blossoms was published when he was in his fifteenth year. C. D. P.] 1. 17. [more fashionable appearance. The language of Chaucer (1328-1400) contained many words and expressions which had become obsolete, and consequently unintelligible. The two works here mentioned are taken from the Canterbury Tales of I |