So quick retires each flying course, you'd fwear Sancho's dread Doctor, and his Wand were there. Between each Act the trembling falvers ring, 160 From foup to sweet-wine, and God bless the King. And complaifantly help'd to all I hate, Yet hence the Poor are cloath'd, the Hungry fed; Health to himself, and to his Infants bread 170 The Lab'rer bears: What his hard Heart denies, His charitable Vanity supplies. Another Age shall fee the golden Ear Imbrown the Slope, and nod on the Parterre, COMMENTARY. VER. 173. Another age, &c.] But now a difficulty sticks with me (answers an objector) this load of evil ftill remains a monument of folly to future ages; an incumbrance NOTES. VER. 160. Sancho's dread Doctor] See Don Quixote, chap. xlvii. P. VER. 169. Yet hence the poor, &c.] The Moral of the whole, where PROVIDENCE is juftified in giving Wealth to those who squander it in this manner. A bad Tafte employs more hands, and diffufes Expence more than a good one. This recurs to what is laid down in Book I. Ep. ii. Ver. 230 -7, and in the Epistle preceding this, Ver. 161, &c. P. VER. 173. Another age, &c.] Had the Poet lived but three Deep Harvests bury all his pride has plann'd, 175 And laughing Ceres re-affume the land. COMMENTARY. to the plain on which it ftands; and a nufance to the neighbourhood round about, filling it For men are apt to take the example next at hand; and apteft of all to take a bad one. No fear of that, replies the Poet, (from Ver. 172 to 177.) Nothing abfurd or wrong is exempt from the jurisdiction of Time; which is always fure to do full justice on it; "Another age fhall fee the golden Ear "Imbrown the Slope, and nod on the Parterre, For the prerogative of -Time fhall make it grow,” is only due to the defigns of true Taffe joined to use: And ""Tis ufe alone that fanctifies expence;" and nothing but the fanctity of that can arrest the justice of Time: And thus the fecond part concludes: which, confifting of an example of falfe Taste in every attempt to Mag nificence, is full of concealed precepts for the true: As the first part, which contains precepts for true Tafte, is full of examples of the false. NOTE 9. years longer, he had seen his general prophecy against all illjudged magnificence fulfilled in a very particular inftance. VER. 176. And laughing Ceres re-affume the land.] The great beauty of this line is an inftance of the art peculiar to our Poet; by which he has fo difpofed a trite claffical figure, as not only to make it do its vulgar office, of representing a Who then shall grace, or who improve the Soil? Who plants like BATHURST, or who builds like BOYLE. "Tis Use alone that fanctifies Expence, And Splendor borrows all her rays from Senfe. 180 COMMENTARY. III. VER. 177. Who then fhall grace, &c.] We come now to the third and laft part (from Ver. 176 to the end) and, as in the first, the Poet had given examples of wrong judged Magnificence, in things of Tafte, without Sense; and, in the fecond, an example in others, without either Senfe or Tafte; fo the third prefents two examples of Magnificence in Planting and Building; where both Senfe and Tafte highly prevail: The one in him, to whom this Epiftle is addreffed; and the other, in the truly noble person whose amiable character bore fo confpicuous a part in the foregoing. "Who then shall grace, or who improve the Soil? "Who plants like BATHURST, or who builds like Boyle." Where, in the fine description he gives of these two species of Magnificence, he artfully infinuates, that though, when executed in a true Tafte, the great end and aim of both be the fame, viz. the general good in ufe or ornament; yet that their progrefs to this end is carried on in direct contrary NOTES. very plentiful harvest, but alfo to affume the perfonage of Nature, re-establishing herself in her rights, and mocking the vain efforts of magnificence, which would keep her out of them. VER. 179, 180. 'Tis ufe alone that fanctifies Expence, And Splendor borrows all her rays from Senfe.] Here the Poet, to make the examples of good Tafte the better understood, introduces them with a fummary of his Pre cepts, in these two fublime lines; for, the confulting Use is His Father's Acres who enjoys in peace, You too proceed! make falling Arts your care, COMMENTARY. courfes; that, in Planting, the private advantage of the neighbourhood is firft promoted, till, by time, it rifes up to a public benefit: "Whofe ample Lawns are not afram'd to feed On the contrary, the wonders of Architecture ought first to NOTES. beginning with Sense, and the making Splendor or Täfte borrow Jones and Palladio to themselves restore, And be whate'er Vitruvius was before: Till Kings call forth th' Ideas of your mind, 195 (Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd) Bid Harbors open, public Ways extend, Bid Temples, worthier of the God, ascend; COMMENTARY. Bid Harbors open, public Ways extend, "Bid Temples, worthier of the God, afcend; "Bid the broad Arch the dang'rous flood contain; "The Mole projected break the roaring main." And when the public hath been properly accommodated and adorned, then, and not till then, the works of private Magnificence may take place. This was the order obferved by thofe two great Empires, from whom we received all we have of this polite art: We do not read of any Magnificence in the private Buildings of Greece or Rome, till the generofity of their public spirit had adorned the State with Temples, Emporiums, Council-houfes, Common porticos, Baths, and Theatres. NOTES. perly confidered for wealth employed according to the intention of Providence, is its true confecration; and the real ufes of humanity were certainly first in its intention. VER. 195, 197, &c. Till Kings--Bid Harbers open, &c] The Poet, after having touched upon the proper objects of Magnificence and Expence, in the private works of great men, comes to thofe great and public works which become a prince. This Poem was published in the year 1732, when fome of the new-built churches, by the act of Queen of Anne, |