ADVICE TO THE GRUB-STREET VERSE-WRITERS 1726

Ye poets ragged and forlorn,
  Down from your garrets haste;
Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born,
  Not yet consign’d to paste;

I know a trick to make you thrive;
  O, ’tis a quaint device: 
Your still-born poems shall revive,
  And scorn to wrap up spice.

Get all your verses printed fair,
  Then let them well be dried;
And Curll[1] must have a special care
  To leave the margin wide.

Lend these to paper-sparing[2] Pope;
  And when he sets to write,
No letter with an envelope
  Could give him more delight.

When Pope has fill’d the margins round,
  Why then recall your loan;
Sell them to Curll for fifty pound,
  And swear they are your own.

[Footnote 1:  The infamous piratical bookseller.  See Pope’s Works, passim.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 2:  The original copy of Pope’s celebrated translation of Homer (preserved in the British Museum) is almost entirely written on the covers of letters, and sometimes between the lines of the letters themselves.]

A PASTORAL DIALOGUE

WRITTEN JUNE, 1727, JUST AFTER THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF GEORGE I, WHO DIED THE 12TH OF THAT MONTH IN GERMANY [1]

This poem was written when George II succeeded his father, and bore the following explanatory introduction: 

Richmond Lodge is a house with a small park belonging to the crown.  It was usually granted by the crown for a lease of years.  The Duke of Ormond was the last who had it.  After his exile, it was given to the Prince of Wales by the king.  The prince and princess usually passed their summer there.  It is within a mile of Richmond.

“Marble Hill is a house built by Mrs. Howard, then of the bedchamber, now Countess of Suffolk, and groom of the stole to the queen.  It is on the Middlesex side, near Twickenham, where Pope lives, and about two miles from Richmond Lodge.  Pope was the contriver of the gardens, Lord Herbert the architect, the Dean of St. Patrick’s chief butler, and keeper of the ice-house.  Upon King George’s death, these two houses met, and had the above dialogue.”—­Dublin Edition, 1734.

In spight of Pope, in spight of Gay,
And all that he or they can say;
Sing on I must, and sing I will,
Of Richmond Lodge and Marble Hill. 
  Last Friday night, as neighbours use,
This couple met to talk of news: 
For, by old proverbs, it appears,
That walls have tongues, and hedges ears.

MARBLE HILL

Quoth Marble Hill, right well I ween,
Your mistress now is grown a queen;
You’ll find it soon by woful proof,
She’ll come no more beneath your roof.

RICHMOND LODGE