rage,
The good man walked innoxious through his age,
No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie.
Unlearned, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,
No language, but the language of the heart.
By nature honest, by experience wise,
Healthy by temperance, and by exercise;
His life, though long, to sickness passed unknown,
His death was instant, and without a groan.
O, grant me, thus to live, and thus to die!
Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.
O, friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!
Be no unpleasing melancholy mine:
Me, let the tender office long engage,
To rock the cradle of reposing age,
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep awhile one parent from the sky!
On cares like these if length of days attend,
May heaven, to bless those days, preserve my friend,
Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,
And just as rich as when he served a queen.
_A_. Whether that blessing be denied or given,
Thus far was right, the rest belongs to heaven.
[Footnote 198: Ambrose Philips translated a book called the _Persian
Tales_.]
[Footnote 199: Nahum Tate, the joint-author with Brady of the version
of the Psalms.]
[Footnote 200: Addison.]
[Footnote 201: Hopkins, in the 104th Psalm.]
[Footnote 202: Lord Halifax.]
[Footnote 203: Sir William Yonge.]
[Footnote 204: Bubb Dodington.]
[Footnote 205: Meaning the man who would have persuaded the Duke of
Chandos that Pope meant to ridicule him in the Epistle on _Taste_.]
[Footnote 206: Lord Hervey.]
XXXVIII. EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES.
The following piece represents the first dialogue in the Epilogue
to the Satires. Huggins mentioned in the poem was the jailer of the
Fleet Prison, who had enriched himself by many exactions, for which
he was tried and expelled. Jekyl was Sir Joseph Jekyl, Master of
the Rolls, a man of great probity, who, though a Whig, frequently
voted against the Court, which drew on him the laugh here
described. Lyttleton was George Lyttleton, Secretary to the Prince
of Wales, distinguished for his writings in the cause of liberty.
Written in 1738, and first published in the following year.
_Fr_[_iend_]. Not twice a twelvemonth you appear in print,
And when it comes, the court see nothing in 't.
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