Pregnant with thousands flits the fcrap unfeen, "NOT one of my works" (faid POPE to Mr. Spence) was more laboured than my epiftle on the Ufe of Riches." It does indeed abound in knowledge of life, and in the juftest satire. The lines above quoted have also the additional merit of touching on a subject that never occurred to former satirifts. And though it was difficult to say any thing new about avarice, a vice that has been fo pelted (fays CowLEY) with good fentences," yet has our author done it fo fuccefsfully, that this epiftle, together with Lord BACON's thirtythird Essay, contains almost all that can be faid on the use and abuse of riches, and the abfurd extremes of avarice and profufion. But our poet has enlivened his precepts with fo many various characters, pictures, and images, as may entitle him to claim the preference over all that have The word flits heightens the fatire, by giving us the arong idea of an obfcene and ill-omened bird. + Of the use of Riches, v. 39. treated treated on this tempting subject, down from the time of the Plutus of Ariftophanes That very lively and amiable old nobleman, the late Lord BATHURST, told me, “ that he was much surprized to see what he had with repeated pleasure so often read as an epiftle addreffed to himself, in this edition converted into a dialogue; in which," faid he, "I perceive I really make but a fhabby and indifferent figure, and contribute very little to the spirit of the dialogue, if it must be a dialogue; and I hope I had generally more to say for myself in the many charming converfations I used to hold with POPE and Swift, and my old poetical friends." 18. A Statefman's flumbers how this fpeech would spoil! "Sir, Spain has fent a thousand jars of oil s Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door; A hundred oxen at your levée roar ** NOTHING can exceed this ridicule of the many inconveniences that would have encumbered villainy, by bribing and by paying in kind. The following examples • Ver. 55. carry carry the fatire still higher, and can hardly be thought to be excelled by any strokes of irony and humour in the bost parts of Horace, Juvenal, or Boileau. His Grace will game; to White's a bull be led, ? 'We can only lament that our author did not live long enough to be a witness of the midnight (or morning) orgies of the gamefters at BROOKS's. What a subject for the severity of his fatire! Perhaps we might have feen men, Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, As a confecrated beast to a facrifice; and alluding to Virgil, with much pleasantry, Jam cornu petat, & pedibus qui fpargat arenam. + Alluding to the prizes that Achilles beftows in the games of Homer. Iliad. 23. b. * Ver. 67. For For furely that vice deserves the keenelt invective, which, more than any other, has a natural and invincible tendency to narrow and to harden the heart, by impressing and keeping up babits of felfifbness. "I foresee, (faid MONTESQUIEU to a friend vifiting him at La Brede) that gaming will, one day, be the ruin of Europe. During play, the body is in a state of indolence, and the mind in a state of vicious activity.”. 19. Damn'd to the mines, an equal fate betides The flave that digs it, and the flave that hides. THIS is plainly taken from the causes of the decay of Chriftian Piety. "It has always been held, fays this excellent writer, the fevereft treatment of flaves and malefactors, damnare ad metalla, to force them to dig in the mines: now this is the covetous man's lot, from which he is never to expect a release." And the character of Helluo the glutton, who exclaimed even * Ver. 109. + See the Adventurer, N° 63, published 1753. The reflection with which CHARTRES's epitaph, in this epiftle, concludes, is from LA BRUYERE. in in his last agonies (at the end of the first of these epistles) then bring the jow!! is clearly borrowed from the conclufion of one of the tales of LA FONTAINE : Puis qu'il faut que je meure Sans faire tant de façon, Qu'on m' apporte tout à l'heure So true is that candid acknowledgment which our author makes in his fenfible preface, "I fairly confefs that I have ferved myself all I could by reading." But the noble paffage I shall next quote, he has not borrowed from any writer. It is intended to illuftrate the usefulness, in the hands of a gracious Providence, that results from the extremes of avarice and profufion; and it recurs to the leading principle of our author's philosophy, namely, that contrarieties and varieties, and exceffes, in the moral as well as the natural world, by counter-poizing and counter-working each VOL. II. M other, |
