So proud, fo grand; of that stupendous air, 101
Soft and Agreeable come never there.
Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a draught
As brings all Brobdignag before your thought.
To compass this, his building is a Town,
His pond an Ocean, his parterre a Down:
Who but must laugh, the Master when he sees,
A puny infect, shiv'ring at a breeze!

Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!

105

The whole, a labour'd Quarry above ground, I 19

COMMENTARY.

or between learning and pedantry. But what then? fays the poet, here refuming the great principle of his Philofophy (which thefe moral Epiftles were written to illuftrate, and consequently on which they are all regulated) tho'

Heav'n vifits with a Taste the wealthy Fool,

And needs no Rad

Yet the punishment is confined as it ought; and the evil is turned to the benefit of others: For

--hence the Poor are cloath'd, the Hungry fed;

Health to himself, and to his Infants bread,
The Lab'rer bears; what his hard heart denies,
His charitable vanity fupplies.

NOTES.

VER. 104. all Brobdignag] A region of giants, in the fatires of Gulliver.

VER. 109. Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!] Grandeur in building, as in the human frame, does not take its denomination from the body, but the foul of the work; when the foul therefore is loft or incuinber'd in its invelope, the unanimated parts, how huge foever, are not members of grandeur, but mere heaps of littleness

Two Cupids fquirt before: a Lake behind
Improves the keennefs of the Northern wind.
His Gardens next your admiration call,

On ev'ry fide you look, behold the Wall!
No pleasing Intricacies intervene,

No artful wildness to perplex the scene;

115

Grove nods at grove, each Alley has a brother, And half the platform just reflects the other. The fuff'ring eye inverted Nature fees,

120

Trees cut to Statues, Statues thick as trees;
With here a Fountain, never to be play'd;
And there a Summer-house, that knows no fhade;
Here Amphitrite fails thro' myrtle bow'rs;
There Gladiators fight, or die in flow'rs;

NOTES,

VER. 117, 118. Grove nods at grove, each Alley has a brather, And half the platform just reflects the other.] This is exactly the two puddings of the citizen in the foregoing fable, only ferved up a little more magnificently: But both on the fame abfurd principle of wrong tafte, viz. that one can never have too much of a good thing.

Ibid. Grove nods at grove, &c.] The exquifite humour of this expreffion arifes folely from its fignificancy. Thefe groves, that have no meaning, but very near relation-fhip, can exprefs themselves only like twin-ideots by nods;

-nutant ad mutua Palmæ Fœdera

as the Poet fays, which juft ferves to let us understand, that they know one another, as having been nurfed, and brought up by one common parent.

VER. 124. The two Statues of the Gladiator pugnans and Gladiator moriens. P.

3

Un-water'd fee the drooping fea-horfe mourn, 125 And swallows rooft in Nilus' dufty Urn.

My Lord advances with majestic mien, Smit with the mighty pleasure, to be seen: But foft-by regular approach-not yetFirst thro' the length of yon hotTerrace fweat; 130 And when up ten steep flopes you've drag'd your thighs,

Juft at his Study-door he'll bless your eyes.

His Study! with what Authors is it ftor'd? In Books, not Authors, curious is my Lord; To all their dated backs he turns you round; 135 Thefe Aldus printed, thofe Du Suëil has bound. Lo fome are Vellom, and the reft as good For all his Lordship knows, but they are Wood. For Locke or Milton 'tis in vain to look, These shelves admit not any modern book. 140

NOTES.

VER. 130. The Approaches and Communication of houfe with garden, or of one part with another, ill judged, and inconvenient. P.

VER. 133. His Study! &c.] The falfe Taste in Books; a fatire on the vanity in collecting them, more frequent in men of Fortune than the ftudy to understand them. Many delight chiefly in the elegance of the print, or of the binding; fome have carried it fo far, as to cause the upper shelves to be filled with painted books of wood; others pique themselves so much upon books in a language they do not understand, as to exclude the most useful in one they do. P.

And now the Chapel's filver bell you hear, That fummons you to all the Pride of Pray'r: Light quirks of Music, broken and uneven, Make the foul dance upon a Jig to Heav'n. On painted Cielings you devoutly ftare, Where sprawl the Saints of Verrio or Laguerre,

NOTES.

145

VER. 142. The false taste in Mufic, improper to the subjects, as of light airs in churches, often practifed by the organifts, etc.

VER. 142. That fummons you to all the Pride of Pray'r:] This abfurdity is very happily expreffed; Pride, of all human follies, being the firft we fhould leave behind us when we approach the facred altar. But he who could take Meannefs for Magnificence, might easily mistake Humility for Meannefs.

VER. 145. And in Painting (from which even Italy is not free) of naked figures in Churches, &c. which has obliged fome Popes to put draperies on fome of thofe of the beft mafters.

P.

VER. 146. Where fprawl the Saints of Verrio or Laguerre,] This was not only faid to deride the indecency and aukward pofition of the figures, but to infinuate the want of dignity in the fubjects. Raphael's pagans, as the devils in Milton, act a nobler part than the Gods and Saints of ordinary poets and painters. The cartons at Hampton-Court are talked of by every body; they have been copied, engraved, and criticifed; and yet fo little ftudied or confidered, that in the nobleft of them, of which more, too, has been faid than of all the reft, we are as much ftrangers to St. Paul's audience in the Areopagus, as to thofe he preached before at Theffalonica or Berœa.

The story from whence the painter took his fubjects is this, "St. Paul came to Athens, was encountered by the "Epicureans and Stoics, taken up by them to the court of "Areopagus, before which he made his apology; and amongst "his converts at this time, were Dionyfius the Areopagite,

On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,

And bring all Paradife before your eye.

NOTES.

❝and a woman named Damaris." On this fimple plan he exercises his invention. Paul is placed on an eminence in the act of speaking, the audience round him in a circle; and a ftatue of Mars in the front of his temple denotes the scene of Action.

The first figure has been taken notice of for the force of its expreffion. We fee all the marks of conviction, and refignation to the will of the divine Meflenger. But I do not know, that it has been fufpected, that a particular character was here reprefented. And yet the Platonic countenance, and the female attendant, fhew plainly, that the painter defigned DIONYSIUS, whom Ecclefiaftical story makes of this fect, and to whom facred hiftory has given this companion. For the woman is DAMARIS mentioned, with him, in the Acts, as a joint convert. Either the Artist mistook his text, and fuppofed her converted with him at this audience; or, what is more likely, he purpofely committed the indecorum of bringing a woman into the Areopagus, the better to mark out his Dionyfius; a character of great fame in the Romish Church, from a voluminous myftic impoftor who has affumed his titles. Next to this PLATONIST of open vifage and extended arms, is a figure deeply collected within himself, immerfed in thought, and ruminating on what he hears. Conformable to his ftate, his arms are buried in his garment, and his chin repofing on his bofom; in a word, all his lineaments denote the STOIC; the fymbol of which fect was, Ne te quafiveris extra. Adjoining to him is an old man with a fqualid beard and habit, leaning on his crouch, and turning his eyes upwards on the Apostle; but with a countenance fo four and canine, that one cannot hesitate a moment in pronouncing him a CYNIC. The next that follows, by his elegance of drefs, and placid air of raillery and neglect, betrays the EPICUREAN: As the other which ftands close by him, with his finger on his lips denoting filence, plainly marks out a follower of PYTHAGORAS. After thefe come a groupe of figures caviling in all the rage of difputation, and criticifing the divine Speaker. Thefe plainly defign the ACADEMICS,