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"Who broke no promise, ferv'd no private end, "Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend; "Ennobled by himself, by all approv❜d,

"And prais'd unenvy'd, by the Muse he lov'd."

NOTES.

70

favourite maxim, that, however factious men thought proper to distinguish themselves by names, yet, when they got into power, they all acted much in the fame manner; saying,

"I know how like Whig minifters to Tory."

And among his manuscripts were four very fenfible, though not very poetical lines, which contain the most folid apology that can be made for a minifter of this country:

"Our ministers like gladiators live:

'Tis half their business blows to ward, or give:

The good their virtue would effect, or sense,
Dies between exigents and felf-defence."

Yet he appears fometimes to have forgotten this candid reflection.

WARTON.

VER. 72. And prais'd unenvy'd, by the Mufe he lov'd.] It was not likely that men acting in fo different fpheres, as were those of Mr. Craggs and Mr. Pope, fhould have their friendship disturbed by Envy. We muft fuppofe then that fome circumftances in the friendship of Mr. Pope and Mr. Addison are hinted at in this place. WARBURTON.

WHO that reads this highly finished compofition, but must lament to find the fame perfon, here celebrated, addreffed in very different tones by the fame Author:

"Who would not weep if Atticus were he !"

I am myself satisfied, that the breach between Addison and Pope was certainly owing to Pope's jealousy, and not to any indirect and unhandsome conduct in Addison. Some reasons for this opinion, the reader will fee in Volume IV., where the fubject is mentioned. Pope, confidering Addison as the author of the translation of the first book of Homer, which came out at a time when it could be only confidered as the rival to his own, felt no doubt aggrieved: but there is no evidence that the tranflation was Addifon's, farther

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than Pope's furmife and affertion; and a candid perfon will confider what credit is due, when the teftimony is against a perfon, in all other points of moft exemplary character, to fuch proof as Pope fums up his accufation with." Tickel himself, who is a fair man, has fince, in a manner, as good as, owned it to me !"--Pope's own words to Spence, on which he seems to reft the certainty of the fact. But what was mentioned many years fince the death of the perfon accused, what Tickel, “in a manner, as good as, "own'd," furely is not entitled to much credit. But be this as it may, the beauty of this Poem, both in verfification and imagery, is in its kind unrivalled, dignified, melodious, and poetical. It is to be lamented, that, like the Effay on Criticism, it contains any stroke of ill-nature. VADIUS here is introduced with the fame effect, as APPIUS in the Effay. Nothing can fo ftrongly evince Pope's turn to Satire,

APPENDIX.

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