287–8. search it … the history: The parish register recorded the simple facts of their births and deaths.
290. ends of being: True purposes of living.
292. a candle’s end: The miser kept partly burned candles for reuse.
293. Should’ring God’s altar: Hopkins’s pompous tomb crowds against the church altar.
295. Gorgon: Female monster with snakes for hair, the sight of whom would turn a person to stone.
296. buckle: Curled hair. Parian stone: Superb marble from the Greek island of Paros.
300. walls of dung: Animal dung was mixed with straw and plaster to construct cheap masonry.
301. flock-bed: Bed stuffed with cloth or wool.
303. George and Garter: An image of St George appears in the insignia of the Order of the Garter.
305. Villiers: George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, a glamorous figure in the court of Charles II; Pope follows an erroneous tradition that he died miserably. how changed from him: Echoing Satan’s address to the fallen angel Beelzebub: ‘But O how fall’n! how changed / from him … (Paradise Lost, I, 84–5).
307. Cliveden: ‘a delightful palace on the banks of the Thames, built by the Duke of Buckingham’ (Pope’s note).
308. wanton Shrewsbury: ‘the Countess of Shrewsbury, a woman abandoned to gallantries; the Earl her husband was killed by the Duke of Buckingham in a duel, and it has been said that during the combat she held the Duke’s horses in the habit of a page’ (Pope’s note).
309. Council: The king’s closest advisers, the privy council.
310. their merry king: Charles II: see ‘Essay on Criticism’, 536n.
312. fool … valued more: i.e. he enjoyed mockery of fools more than genuine witticisms.
314. useless thousands: The fortune he squandered.
315. Cutler: Sir John Cutler, miserly merchant.
323. break: Go broke.
326. could not pay a dow’r: Could not afford a dowry to provide his daughter with a good marriage.
328. sold them: Cutter was reduced to selling his hair to a wigmaker.
329. cordial: ‘a medicine that increases the force of the heart’ (Dictionary).
332. Yet numbers … he had: Many people are so poor that they would be glad to have what still remained to him.
333. Brutus: The patriotic Roman who assassinated Julius Caesar.
339–40. London’s column … lies: ‘the Monument, built in memory of the Fire of London, with an inscription importing the city to have been burnt by the Papists’ (Pope’s note).
341. Citizen: City-dweller, a London merchant.
342. Balaam: Biblical name from the Book of Numbers, and castigated in 2 Peter 2:15 because he ‘loved the ways of unrighteousness’ (used here to suggest someone who uses religion self-servingly).
344. more than he was worth: Balaam was so trustworthy that he could have borrowed more than he actually owned.
346. the Lord’s: The Lord’s Day, Sunday.
347. Change: The Royal Exchange, where business transactions took place.
348. farthings: The smallest denomination of coin, worth one-quarter of a penny.
350. Job: God agrees to let Satan test the faith of the upright man Job.
353. Prince of Air: The Devil.
354. plunge his father: Balaam’s father’s drowning permits him to inherit a fortune.
356. lucky: The coastal inhabitants of Cornwall were thought to look forward to the plunder from shipwrecks.
358. chirping: Cheerful.
359. Live like yourself: Live in a style befitting your wealth.
362. factor: Mercantile agent in the colonies.
364. the rogue was bit: Outwitted, tricked, with a hint that ‘the rogue was Pitt’. Thomas Pitt, a British administrator in India, acquired the fabulously valuable 400-carat Pitt Diamond from a Madras merchant, who in turn had got it from a sea captain who had stolen it from a slave.
366. groat: ‘a piece valued at four pence; a proverbial name for a small sum’ (Dictionary). Nor is the sixpence at all generous.
367–8. twice … other vice: By going twice to church, he expects to be cleared of all possible sins.
369. Tempter: Satan.
370. subscriptions: Shares in commercial ventures.
372. cent per cent: A profit of one hundred per cent.
374. Director: Member of a corporation’s board of directors, for which he has in effect sold his soul.
377. wit: Balaam’s own cleverness, rather than a blessing from Heaven.
380. compting-house: Counting house, commercial bookkeeping office.
382. family: Household servants as well as relatives.
385. nymph of quality: Well-born young woman.
387. cits: See Horace, Epistle, I, i, 89n. the fair: The fair sex.
388. St James’s: The fashionable world of the court.
389. commission: A commission in a fashionable army regiment had to be bought.
391. viscount: The daughter has acquired status by marrying a nobleman.
392. pox for life: Venereal disease, then incurable.
393. senate: Grandiose classical name for the House of Commons.
394. pensioner St Stephen: Sir Balaam has accepted a government pension; St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, where the House of Commons met.
395. play … chance: She has such bad luck in gambling.
397. Coningsby: Thomas, Earl Coningsby, a supporter of the Hanover monarchy who had moved the impeachment of Pope’s friend Robert Harley, the Tory prime minister under Queen Anne.
Epistle IV
To Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington
Dedication: Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington, was an architect of a number of much-admired buildings as well as patron of the arts. He published an edition of the works of the sixteenth-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio, whose attempt to recover the proportions of ancient Roman design had great influence in England, notably in Burlington’s own recently completed Chiswick House in London.
6. Artists: Connoisseurs.
7. He buys for Topham: Richard Topham, a well-known connoisseur and collector of drawings; the spendthrift prodigal buys ‘for’ himself pictures which Topham appreciates better than their owner can.
8. Pembroke: Thomas Herbert, eighth Earl of Pembroke, president of the Royal Society, and noted collector.
9. Hearne: Thomas Hearne, medieval scholar.
10. Mead … Sloane: Richard Mead and Sir Hans Sloane, ‘two eminent physicians; the one had an excellent library, the other the finest collection in Europe of natural curiosities; both men of great learning and humanity’ (Pope’s note). Sloane’s collection became the starting point for the British Museum.
12. wife … whore: i.e. both, like the art works, are enjoyed by other men besides himself.
13. Virro: Contemptible patron in the fifth satire of Juvenal.
14. wanted: Lacked.
15. Visto: Alluding to artfully calculated ‘vistas’ through avenues of trees in contemporary gardens.
16. demon: Supernatural spirit.
18. rod: ‘an instrument of correction, made of twigs tied together’ (Dictionary), with a pun on a carpenter’s measuring rod. Ripley: ‘This man [Thomas Ripley] was a carpenter employed by a First Minister [Walpole], who raised him to an architect without any genius in the art, and after some wretched proofs of his insufficiency in public buildings made him comptroller of the Board of Works’ (Pope’s note).
20. Bubo: George Bubb Dodington, Whig politician and literary patron, a frequent target of Pope’s satire. such a guide: As Ripley.
22. magnificence: ‘grandeur of appearance; splendour’ (Dictionary); in Aristotelian terms, avoiding the two extremes of shabbiness and vulgar ostentation.
23. You: Burlington, in his edition of Palladio.
27. sheets: Pages of Burlington’s book.
32. dog-hole: ‘a vile hole; a mean habitation’ (Dictionary, citing this line).
33. pilast
er: Rectangular column projecting from a wall.
34. rustic: Stone that is ‘rusticated’, left with a rough surface.
36. Venetian door: ‘a door or window, so called from being much practised at Venice by Palladio and others’ (Pope’s note); today called a French door.
37. Palladian part: i.e. with the classical simplicity of Palladio’s architectural style.
38. starve: ‘to kill with cold’ (Dictionary).
44. science: Knowledge of all kinds. the sev’n: The seven liberal arts in medieval education.
46. Jones: Inigo Jones, seventeenth-century architect, whose Banqueting House at Whitehall was an early example of Palladian style in England. Le Nôtre: André Le Nôtre, celebrated garden designer who landscaped Versailles for Louis XIV.
49. grot: See ‘Eloisa to Abelard’, 20n.
51. fair: Fair lady.
57. genius … of the place: Guardian spirit of a locale (genius loci).
58. or to: Either to.
60. theatres: Ascending tiers, like seats in a Roman theatre.
61. Calls in the country: Makes the surrounding countryside contribute to the aesthetic effect.
63. intending: Directing the eyes (intendere oculos).
64. Paints: i.e. landscape gardening is analogous to painting.
68. Start … from: Emerge from, originate in.
70. STOWE: The estate and gardens of Cobham in Buckinghamshire, much admired by Pope.
72. Nero’s terraces: Elaborate gardens at the emperor’s ‘golden house’.
73. parterres: Lawns with flower beds in them. a thousand hands: Of labourers.
76. You’ll wish … sheltered seat: i.e. after the trees are cut down, the country seat is exposed to cold winds.
78. Dr Clarke: Samuel Clarke, a clergyman whose bust was placed by Queen Caroline in a ‘hermitage’ constructed for her at Richmond Park.
79. Villario: i.e. the owner of a villa, a country house on the Roman model.
80. espaliers: Lattices on which fruit trees are trained to grow horizontally against a wall.
85. rills: Brooks.
89. Sabinus: Alluding to Horace’s farm: See ‘I Cobham’, 219n. strayed: Wandered.
94. dryads: Wood nymphs.
95. One … views: ‘The two extremes in parterres, which are equally faulty: a boundless green, large and naked as a field, or a flourished carpet, where the greatness and the nobleness of the piece is lessened by being divided into too many parts, with scrolled works and beds’ (Pope’s note).
96. mournful … yews: ‘such little ornaments as pyramids of dark green, continually repeated, not unlike a funeral procession’ (Pope’s note); yew trees were common in churchyards.
99. Timon’s villa: ‘This description is intended to comprise the principles of a false taste of magnificence, and to exemplify what was said before, that nothing but good sense can obtain it’ (Pope’s note). To Pope’s distress, Timon was wrongly thought to refer to the Duke of Chandos, who was deeply insulted: See ‘I Cobham’, 54 and note and ‘Arbuthnot’, 300.
103. draught: Design (as in a first draft).
104. Brobdingnag: Land of the giants in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
106. down: Grassy, rolling hill; everything at Timon’s estate is inappropriately grandiose.
111. squirt: Urinate.
112. Improves: An ironic allusion (since no one would want the north wind to be keener) to the claim of designers that they were ‘improving’ an estate.
118. platform: Terrace on top of a wall.
121. played: Made to spout water.
123. Amphitrite: Sea-goddess, wife of Poseidon (Roman Neptune). myrtle: The flower of Aphrodite (Venus).
124. gladiators … flow’rs: Copies of famous Roman statues of a fighting and a dying gladiator.
126. Nilus: Statue of the god of the Nile, with an ‘urn’ from which his waters flow.
127. mien: ‘air; look; manner’ (Dictionary).
136. Aldus: Aldus Manutius, fifteenth-century Venetian printer whose Aldine editions of the classics were much prized. Du Sueil: Augustin Deseuil, eighteenth-century Paris bookbinder of lavish editions.
137. vellum: Calfskin or sheepskin, of higher quality than parchment, prepared to be used for scrolls or books.
138. wood: ‘Many delight chiefly in the elegance of the print or of the binding; some have carried it so far as to cause the upper shelves to be filled with painted books of wood’ (Pope’s note).
141. chapel: A country house would have a private chapel.
143. quirks: ‘quirk: loose light tune’ (Dictionary, citing this line).
146. sprawl the saints: ‘in painting (from which even Italy is not free) of naked figures in churches’ (Pope’s note). Verrio … Laguerre: Painters of scenes on ceilings in British royal palaces.
150. Who … polite: ‘This is a fact; a reverend Dean, preaching at court, threatened the sinner with punishment in “a place which he thought it not decent to name in so polite an assembly” ’ (Pope’s note).
153. buffet: ‘a kind of cupboard, or set of shelves, where [silver] plate is set out to show in a place of entertainment’ (Dictionary, citing this line).
154. tritons: Mermen, half-man and half-fish, named for the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite. spew: Vomit.
155. genial: Cheerful, agreeable.
156. hecatomb: Sacrifice of a hundred animals (Greek).
158. to minutes eat: In strictly timed courses; ‘eat’ is pronounced ‘ate’.
160. Sancho’s … wand: In Don Quixote, a doctor orders each dish removed before Sancho Panza can taste it.
161. salvers: Trays.
162. God bless the King: A toast on drinking to the king’s health.
163. tantalized: As in the myth of Tantalus in the underworld, grasping at fruit that is always just out of reach.
164. complaisantly: ‘civilly; with desire to please; ceremoniously’ (Dictionary, citing this line).
169. Yet hence … fed: ‘The moral of the whole, where Providence is justified in giving wealth to those who squander it in this manner: a bad taste employs more hands and diffuses expense more than a good one’ (Pope’s note).
174. Imbrown: ‘to make brown; to darken; to obscure’ (Dictionary, citing this line).
176. Ceres: Goddess of the harvest.
178. Who: He who. BATHURST: Lord Bathurst, to whom Epistle III is addressed. BOYLE: See Dedication note.
186. heifer … steed: Farm animals are allowed to graze on the lawn.
188. navies: Warships made of oak from these woods.
189. plantations: Plantings of trees.
190. country: An area of countryside.
191. You: Burlington.
194. Vitruvius: Roman architect and author of the highly influential De Architectura.
197. ways: Roads.
200. mole: Stone breakwater protecting a harbour.
202. obedient rivers: Canals, then being constructed throughout England.
The Fourth Satire of Dr John Donne Versified Pope’s free adaptation of a satire by Donne, whose lyrics had been largely forgotten, first appeared anonymously in 1733 as ‘The Impertinent, Or a Visit to the Court. A Satire. By an Eminent Hand’. As Pope’s Latin epigraph indicates, by ‘versifying’ the original he intended to recast Donne’s jolting diction and casual rhyming into his own style of couplet elegance. Donne’s poem was itself an imitation, of Horace’s Satire, I, ix, in which the speaker is waylaid by a literary bore; Pope encounters instead a courtier whose conversation exposes the corruption of the court milieu.
Epigraph: ‘And as we read the writings of Lucilius, what forbids us to ask whether it was he himself, or the harsh nature of his subjects, that denied him more supple and better turned verses?’ (Horace, Satire, I, x, 56–9).
5. betimes: Early.
11. commission from his Grace: Military commission bestowed by a duke (addressed as ‘your Grace’).
12. benefice: Church living, appointment as vicar of an
income-producing parish. place: Political appointment; also 136.
15. reforming days: The early years of the Protestant Reformation.
17. pay his fine: The penal code prescribed a stiff fine for being present at a Catholic mass; the law was still in existence in Pope’s time, though seldom enforced.
25. Adam … name: After God created the animals, he ‘brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof’ (Genesis 2:19). posed: Puzzled, perplexed.
27–9. reptiles … Nilus: Reptiles and amphibians were thought to be spontaneously generated from the mud of the Nile. sun e’er got: Was ever begotten by the sun’s rays.
28. verier: Truer.
30. Sloane … Woodward: For Sloane, see ‘IV Burlington’, 10n. Dr John Woodward had a famous collection of miscellaneous ‘curiosities’; see also 152 and n.
32. watch: Watchman.
34. make: i.e. invent.
35. popish plot: Recalling the scare of 1678, when it was falsely claimed that there was a Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II.
37. by your priesthood: A judge might mistake the courtier’s odd black costume for a priest’s.
38. wight: ‘a person, a being; obsolete’ (Dictionary).
39. bare: Threadbare.
41. good Queen Bess: Elizabeth I.
42. tuff-taffety: Taffeta (silk) with the nap in shaggy tufts.
45. rash: ‘satin’ (Dictionary); i.e. the nap will be worn down until it is as smooth as satin.
50. Motteux: Peter Anthony (born Pierre Antoine) Motteux, a French Huguenot who lived in England, wrote plays, and translated Rabelais and Cervantes.
51. Henley: John Henley, preacher whose histrionic style earned him the nickname ‘Orator Henley’. Budgell: Eustace Budgell, a minor writer, a cousin of Addison, mentioned with contempt in ‘Arbuthnot’, 378 and note; see also Horace, Satire, II, i, 27–8. and 100. and notes.
52. doctor’s wormwood style: Scholar’s bitter tone.
53. Gonson: Sir John Gonson, justice of the peace famous for delivering stern charges to juries and punitive sentences; also 256.
55. bar: Law courts.
58. scores: Debts.
59. Make Scots speak treason: Scots, even if disaffected from the Hanover monarchy, were proverbially cautious about exposing themselves to risk. cozen: ‘to cheat; to trick; to defraud’ (Dictionary).
The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings Page 47
