A Dialogue

TO THE MEMORY OF MR. ALEXANDER POPE.

"Non injussa cano." Virg.

POET. I sing of POPE--

FRIEND. What, POPE, the Twitnam Bard, Whom Dennis, Cibber, Tibbald push'd so hard! POPE of the Dunciad! POPE who dar'd to woo, And then to libel, Wortley-Montagu! POPE of the Ham-walks story--

P. Scandals all! Scandals that now I care not to recall. Surely a little, in two hundred Years, One may neglect Contemporary Sneers:-- Surely Allowance for the Man may make That had all Grub-street yelping in his Wake! And who (I ask you) has been never Mean, When urged by Envy, Anger or the Spleen? No: I prefer to look on POPE as one Not rightly happy till his Life was done; Whose whole Career, romance it as you please, Was (what he call'd it) but a "long Disease:" Think of his Lot,--his Pilgrimage of Pain, His "crazy Carcass" and his restless Brain; Think of his Night-Hours with their Feet of Lead, His dreary Vigil and his aching Head; Think of all this, and marvel then to find The "crooked Body with a crooked Mind!" Nay rather, marvel that, in Fate's Despite, You find so much to solace and delight,-- So much of Courage, and of Purpose high In that unequal Struggle not to die. I grant you freely that POPE played his Part Sometimes ignobly--but he lov'd his Art; I grant you freely that he sought his Ends Not always wisely--but he lov'd his Friends; And who of Friends a nobler Roll could show-- Swift, St. John, Bathurst, Marchmont, Peterb'ro', Arbuthnot--