[Page 205]

An EPISTLE to Mr. POPE.

1 HEAVEN in the human breast implants
2 Fit appetites for all our wants;
3 With hunger prompts to strength'ning food,
4 With love of praise to publick good;
5 These to their object straight convey,
6 While reason winds her tardy way.
7 Yet in one center should unite,
8 Faith, instinct, reason, appetite:
9 One perfect plan ordain'd to trace,
10 And nature dignify with grace;
11 In one great system meant to roll,
12 To move, support, and guide the whole.
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13 But some there are who rigid blame
14 The mind that thirsts for righteous fame;
15 And with weak lights presumptuous scan
16 The springs which move predestin'd man.
17 And some there are, accurs'd their art,
18 Tho' all the nine their charms impart,
19 Who in false forms of great and just,
20 Cloath av'rice, treachery, rage and lust:
21 As if superior beings suit
22 Those attributes which sink the brute.
23 But vainly chime the partial lays,
24 Chaste Fame rejects all spurious praise.
25 She, fairest offspring of the skies,
26 The goddess of the brave and wise,
27 Whose sacred impulse prompts the best
28 To succour and preserve the rest,
29 Is deaf to ev'ry private call,
30 And wakes but at the voice of all.
31 From heaps of ill-collected gain,
32 From hecatombs by heroes slain,
33 From courts where guilty greatness dwells,
34 She flys to penury and cells;
35 With Erskine, pious exile, goes,
36 To sooth a drooping father's woes;
37 Or mingling with the orphan-train,
38 She sings the bounties of Germain.
39 Nor pow'r, nor policy of state,
40 Can ever give intrinsick weight:
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41 And shou'd fallacious art display
42 O'er titled dross a golden ray,
43 Still baser thro' detecting years,
44 The speckled counterfeit appears.
45 But when from proof, far issuing forth,
46 The ore asserts its native worth;
47 Then, sov'reign bard, 'tis justly thine
48 To stamp the well-attested coin;
49 And consecrated with thy name,
50 To treasure in the stores of Fame.

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Title (in Source Edition): An EPISTLE to Mr. POPE.
Themes: virtue; vice
Genres: epistle
References: DMI 22416

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Dodsley, Robert, 1703-1764. A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. II. London: printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley, 1763 [1st ed. 1758], pp. 205-207. 6v.: music; 8⁰. (ESTC T131163; OTA K104099.002) (Page images digitized by the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive from a copy in the archive's library.)

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