Alexander Pope

One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight. A Dialogue Something Like Horace

DIALOGUE.
A.
ot twice a twelvemonth you appear in Print,
And when it comes, the Court see nothing in't.
You grow correct that once with Rapture writ,
And are, besides, too Moral for a Wit.
Decay of Parts, alas! we all must feel—
Why now, this moment, don't I see you steal?
'Tis all from Horace: did not Horace say
"Lord Fanny spun a thousand lines a day?
And long before you, in much better metre,
"Laugh at those Fools who put their trust in Peter?
But Horace, Sir, was delicate, was nice;
Bubo observes, he lash'd no sort of Vice:
Horace would say, Sir Billy serv'd the Crown,
Blunt could do Bus'ness, H—ggins knew the Town,
Sir George of some slight Gallantries suspect,
In rev'rend S———n note a small Neglect,
And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing,

War of Jenkins' Ear

Captain Jenkins' ear was cut off by Spanish coast guards in 1731, becoming a casus belli. 'Waggish' is savage irony.

Who cropt our Ears, and sent them to the King.
His sly, polite, insinuating stile
Could please at Court, and made Augustus smile:
An artful Manager, that crept between
His Friends and Shame, and was a kind of Screen.
But 'faith your very Friends will soon be sore;
Patriots there are, who wish you'd jest no more—
And where's the Glory? 'twill be only thought
The Great man never offer'd you a Groat.
Go see Sir Robert—

Sir Robert Walpole

Sir Robert Walpole, Britain's first Prime Minister (1721-42), master of political patronage. Pope refused his bribes.

B. See Sir Robert!—hum—
And never laugh—for all my life to come?
Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of Social Pleasure, ill-exchang'd for Pow'r.
Would he oblige me? let me only find,
He thinks one Poet of no venal kind.
Come, come, at all I laugh He laughs, no doubt,
The only diff'rence is, I dare laugh out.
A. Why yes: with Scripture still you may be free;
A Horse-laugh, if you please, at Honesty;
A Joke on Jekyl, or some odd Old Whig,
Who never chang'd his Principle, or Wig:
A Patriot is a Fool in ev'ry age,
Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the Stage:
These nothing hurts; they keep their Fashion still,
And wear their strange old Virtue as they will.
If any ask you, "Who's the Man, so near
"His Prince, that writes in Verse, and has his Ear?

George Lyttelton

Lyttelton was a Whig politician and Pope's friend—proof Pope could distinguish honest politicians from corrupt ones.

Why answer Lyttelton, and I'll engage
The worthy Youth shall ne'er be in a rage:
But were his Verses vile, his Whisper base,
You'd quickly find him in Lord Fanny's case.
Ægysthus, Verres, hurt not honest Fleury,

Classical villains

Aegisthus murdered Agamemnon; Verres was a corrupt Roman governor prosecuted by Cicero. Pope's using ancient names for modern targets.

But well may put some Statesmen in a fury.
Laugh then at any, but at Fools or Foes;
These you but anger, and you mend not those:
Laugh at your Friends, and if your Friends are sore,
So much the better, you may laugh the more.
To Vice and Folly to confine the jest,
Sets half the World, God knows, against the rest;
Did not the Sneer of more impartial men
At Sense and Virtue, balance all agen.
Judicious Wits spread wide the Ridicule,
And charitably comfort Knave and Fool.
B. Dear Sir, forgive the Prejudice of Youth:
Adieu Distinction, Satire, Warmth, and Truth!
Come harmless Characters that no one hit,
Come Henley's Oratory, Osborn's Wit!

Dashes = censorship

The dashes hide real names Pope couldn't print safely. Readers would've filled them in—a satirical game of Mad Libs.

The Honey dropping from Ty———l's tongue,
The Flow'rs of Bub———ton, the Flow of Y—ng!
The gracious Dew of Pulpit Eloquence;
And all the well-whipt Cream of Courtly Sense,
That first was H———vy's, F———'s next, and then
The S———te's, and then H———vy's once agen.
O come, that easy Ciceronian stile,
So Latin, yet so English all the while,
As, tho' the Pride of Middleton and Bland,
All Boys may read, and Girls may understand!
Then might I sing without the least Offence,
And all I sung should be the Nation's Sense.
So—Satire is no more—I feel it die—
No Gazeteer more innocent than I!
And let, a God's-name, ev'ry Fool and Knave
Be grac'd thro' Life, and flatter'd in his Grave.
A. Why so? if Satire know its Time and Place,
You still may lash the Greatest—in Disgrace:
For Merit will by turns forsake them all;
Would you know when? exactly when they fall.
But let all Satire in all Changes spare
Immortal S———k, and grave De———re!
Silent and soft, as Saints remove to Heav'n,
All Tyes dissolv'd, and ev'ry Sin forgiv'n,
These, may some gentle, ministerial Wing
Receive, and place for ever near a King!
There, where no Passion, Pride, or Shame transport,
Lull'd with the sweet Nepenthe of a Court;

Nepenthe

Greek drug of forgetfulness from the Odyssey. Court life as narcotic stupor—you forget family, conscience, everything.

There, where no Father's, Brother's, Friend's Disgrace
Once break their Rest, or stir them from their Place;
But past the Sense of human Miseries,
All Tears are wip'd for ever from all Eyes;
No Cheek is known to blush, no Heart to throb,
Save when they lose a Question, or a Job.
B. Good Heav'n forbid, that I shou'd blast their Glory,
Who know how like Whig-Ministers to Tory,

Three dead kings

William III (1702), Queen Anne (1714), George I (1727)—politicians who survived all three regime changes by having no principles.

And when three Sov'reigns dy'd, could scarce be vext,
Consid'ring what a Gracious Prince was next.
Have I in silent wonder seen such things
As Pride in Slaves, and Avarice in Kings,
And at a Peer, or Peeress shall I fret,
Who starves a Mother, or forswears a Debt?
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast;
But shall the Dignity of Vice be lost?
Ye Gods! shall Cibber's Son, without rebuke

Colley Cibber's son

Theophilus Cibber, terrible actor and Pope's enemy. The point: even low-class vice imitates aristocratic vice now.

Swear like a Lord? or Rich out-whore a Duke?
A Fav'rite's Porter with his Master vie,
Be brib'd as often, and as often lie?
Is it for W———rd or Peter (paltry Things!)
To pay their Debts or keep their Faith like Kings?
If Blount destroy'd himself, he play'd the man,
And so may'st Thou, Illustrious Passeran!
But shall a Printer, weary of his life,
Learn from their Books to hang himself and Wife?
This, this, my friend, I cannot, will not bear;
Vice thus abus'd, demands a Nation's care;
This calls the Church to deprecate our Sin,

Gin crisis

The Gin Act of 1736 tried to stop the epidemic. Pope's saying: you prosecute gin but not corruption? Priorities.

And hurls the Thunder of the Laws on Gin.
Let humble Foster, if he will, excell
Ten Metropolitans in preaching well;
A simple Quaker, or a Quaker's Wife,
Out-do L—d—ffe, in Doctrine—yea, in Life;
Let low-born Allen, with an aukward Shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it Fame.

Ralph Allen

Postal reformer and Pope's friend who funded charities anonymously. The line became famous—'blush to find it fame.'

Virtue may chuse the high or low Degree,
'Tis just alike to Virtue, and to me;
Dwell in a Monk, or light upon a King,
She's still the same, belov'd, contented thing.
Vice is undone, if she forgets her Birth,
And stoops from Angels to the Dregs of Earth:

Vice as whore

Extended allegory: Vice is a fallen angel turned prostitute, but when the Great accept her, she becomes respectable again.

But 'tis the Fall degrades her to a Whore;
Let Greatness own her, and she's mean no more:
Her Birth, her Beauty, Crowds and Courts confess,
Chaste Matrons praise her, and grave Bishops bless:
In golden Chains the willing World she draws,
And hers the Gospel is, and hers the Laws:
Mounts the Tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,
And sees pale Virtue carted in her stead!

Carted whores

Prostitutes were paraded through streets in carts as punishment. Pope reverses it: Virtue gets carted while Vice rides in triumph.

Lo! at the Wheels of her Triumphal Car,
Old England's Genius rough with many a Scar,
Dragg'd in the Dust! his Arms hang idly round,
His Flag inverted trails along the ground!
Our Youth, all liv'ry'd o'er with foreign Gold,
Before her dance; behind her crawl the Old!

Pagoda

Eastern idol worship—England's treating Corruption like a foreign god, sacrificing family and country to it.

See thronging Millions to the Pagod run,
And offer Country, Parent, Wife, or Son!
Hear her black Trumpet thro' the Land proclaim,
That "Not to be corrupted is the Shame."
In Soldier, Churchman, Patriot, Man in Pow'r,
'Tis Av'rice all, Ambition is no more!
See, all our Nobles begging to be Slaves!
See, all our Fools aspiring to be Knaves!
The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore,
Are what ten thousand envy and adore.
All, all look up, with reverential Awe,
On Crimes that scape, or triumph o'er the Law:
While Truth, Worth, Wisdom, daily we decry—
"Nothing is Sacred now but Villany."
Yet may this Verse (if such a Verse remain)

Final couplet

The parenthesis admits doubt: will this poem even survive? But if it does, it proves one person resisted.

Show there was one who held it in disdain.
DIALOGUE.
A.
ot twice a twelvemonth you appear in Print,
And when it comes, the Court see nothing in't.
You grow correct that once with Rapture writ,
And are, besides, too Moral for a Wit.
Decay of Parts, alas! we all must feel—
Why now, this moment, don't I see you steal?
'Tis all from Horace: did not Horace say
"Lord Fanny spun a thousand lines a day?
And long before you, in much better metre,
"Laugh at those Fools who put their trust in Peter?
But Horace, Sir, was delicate, was nice;
Bubo observes, he lash'd no sort of Vice:
Horace would say, Sir Billy serv'd the Crown,
Blunt could do Bus'ness, H—ggins knew the Town,
Sir George of some slight Gallantries suspect,
In rev'rend S———n note a small Neglect,
And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing,

War of Jenkins' Ear

Captain Jenkins' ear was cut off by Spanish coast guards in 1731, becoming a casus belli. 'Waggish' is savage irony.

Who cropt our Ears, and sent them to the King.
His sly, polite, insinuating stile
Could please at Court, and made Augustus smile:
An artful Manager, that crept between
His Friends and Shame, and was a kind of Screen.
But 'faith your very Friends will soon be sore;
Patriots there are, who wish you'd jest no more—
And where's the Glory? 'twill be only thought
The Great man never offer'd you a Groat.
Go see Sir Robert—

Sir Robert Walpole

Sir Robert Walpole, Britain's first Prime Minister (1721-42), master of political patronage. Pope refused his bribes.

B. See Sir Robert!—hum—
And never laugh—for all my life to come?
Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of Social Pleasure, ill-exchang'd for Pow'r.
Would he oblige me? let me only find,
He thinks one Poet of no venal kind.
Come, come, at all I laugh He laughs, no doubt,
The only diff'rence is, I dare laugh out.
A. Why yes: with Scripture still you may be free;
A Horse-laugh, if you please, at Honesty;
A Joke on Jekyl, or some odd Old Whig,
Who never chang'd his Principle, or Wig:
A Patriot is a Fool in ev'ry age,
Whom all Lord Chamberlains allow the Stage:
These nothing hurts; they keep their Fashion still,
And wear their strange old Virtue as they will.
If any ask you, "Who's the Man, so near
"His Prince, that writes in Verse, and has his Ear?

George Lyttelton

Lyttelton was a Whig politician and Pope's friend—proof Pope could distinguish honest politicians from corrupt ones.

Why answer Lyttelton, and I'll engage
The worthy Youth shall ne'er be in a rage:
But were his Verses vile, his Whisper base,
You'd quickly find him in Lord Fanny's case.
Ægysthus, Verres, hurt not honest Fleury,

Classical villains

Aegisthus murdered Agamemnon; Verres was a corrupt Roman governor prosecuted by Cicero. Pope's using ancient names for modern targets.

But well may put some Statesmen in a fury.
Laugh then at any, but at Fools or Foes;
These you but anger, and you mend not those:
Laugh at your Friends, and if your Friends are sore,
So much the better, you may laugh the more.
To Vice and Folly to confine the jest,
Sets half the World, God knows, against the rest;
Did not the Sneer of more impartial men
At Sense and Virtue, balance all agen.
Judicious Wits spread wide the Ridicule,
And charitably comfort Knave and Fool.
B. Dear Sir, forgive the Prejudice of Youth:
Adieu Distinction, Satire, Warmth, and Truth!
Come harmless Characters that no one hit,
Come Henley's Oratory, Osborn's Wit!

Dashes = censorship

The dashes hide real names Pope couldn't print safely. Readers would've filled them in—a satirical game of Mad Libs.

The Honey dropping from Ty———l's tongue,
The Flow'rs of Bub———ton, the Flow of Y—ng!
The gracious Dew of Pulpit Eloquence;
And all the well-whipt Cream of Courtly Sense,
That first was H———vy's, F———'s next, and then
The S———te's, and then H———vy's once agen.
O come, that easy Ciceronian stile,
So Latin, yet so English all the while,
As, tho' the Pride of Middleton and Bland,
All Boys may read, and Girls may understand!
Then might I sing without the least Offence,
And all I sung should be the Nation's Sense.
So—Satire is no more—I feel it die—
No Gazeteer more innocent than I!
And let, a God's-name, ev'ry Fool and Knave
Be grac'd thro' Life, and flatter'd in his Grave.
A. Why so? if Satire know its Time and Place,
You still may lash the Greatest—in Disgrace:
For Merit will by turns forsake them all;
Would you know when? exactly when they fall.
But let all Satire in all Changes spare
Immortal S———k, and grave De———re!
Silent and soft, as Saints remove to Heav'n,
All Tyes dissolv'd, and ev'ry Sin forgiv'n,
These, may some gentle, ministerial Wing
Receive, and place for ever near a King!
There, where no Passion, Pride, or Shame transport,
Lull'd with the sweet Nepenthe of a Court;

Nepenthe

Greek drug of forgetfulness from the Odyssey. Court life as narcotic stupor—you forget family, conscience, everything.

There, where no Father's, Brother's, Friend's Disgrace
Once break their Rest, or stir them from their Place;
But past the Sense of human Miseries,
All Tears are wip'd for ever from all Eyes;
No Cheek is known to blush, no Heart to throb,
Save when they lose a Question, or a Job.
B. Good Heav'n forbid, that I shou'd blast their Glory,
Who know how like Whig-Ministers to Tory,

Three dead kings

William III (1702), Queen Anne (1714), George I (1727)—politicians who survived all three regime changes by having no principles.

And when three Sov'reigns dy'd, could scarce be vext,
Consid'ring what a Gracious Prince was next.
Have I in silent wonder seen such things
As Pride in Slaves, and Avarice in Kings,
And at a Peer, or Peeress shall I fret,
Who starves a Mother, or forswears a Debt?
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast;
But shall the Dignity of Vice be lost?
Ye Gods! shall Cibber's Son, without rebuke

Colley Cibber's son

Theophilus Cibber, terrible actor and Pope's enemy. The point: even low-class vice imitates aristocratic vice now.

Swear like a Lord? or Rich out-whore a Duke?
A Fav'rite's Porter with his Master vie,
Be brib'd as often, and as often lie?
Is it for W———rd or Peter (paltry Things!)
To pay their Debts or keep their Faith like Kings?
If Blount destroy'd himself, he play'd the man,
And so may'st Thou, Illustrious Passeran!
But shall a Printer, weary of his life,
Learn from their Books to hang himself and Wife?
This, this, my friend, I cannot, will not bear;
Vice thus abus'd, demands a Nation's care;
This calls the Church to deprecate our Sin,

Gin crisis

The Gin Act of 1736 tried to stop the epidemic. Pope's saying: you prosecute gin but not corruption? Priorities.

And hurls the Thunder of the Laws on Gin.
Let humble Foster, if he will, excell
Ten Metropolitans in preaching well;
A simple Quaker, or a Quaker's Wife,
Out-do L—d—ffe, in Doctrine—yea, in Life;
Let low-born Allen, with an aukward Shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it Fame.

Ralph Allen

Postal reformer and Pope's friend who funded charities anonymously. The line became famous—'blush to find it fame.'

Virtue may chuse the high or low Degree,
'Tis just alike to Virtue, and to me;
Dwell in a Monk, or light upon a King,
She's still the same, belov'd, contented thing.
Vice is undone, if she forgets her Birth,
And stoops from Angels to the Dregs of Earth:

Vice as whore

Extended allegory: Vice is a fallen angel turned prostitute, but when the Great accept her, she becomes respectable again.

But 'tis the Fall degrades her to a Whore;
Let Greatness own her, and she's mean no more:
Her Birth, her Beauty, Crowds and Courts confess,
Chaste Matrons praise her, and grave Bishops bless:
In golden Chains the willing World she draws,
And hers the Gospel is, and hers the Laws:
Mounts the Tribunal, lifts her scarlet head,
And sees pale Virtue carted in her stead!

Carted whores

Prostitutes were paraded through streets in carts as punishment. Pope reverses it: Virtue gets carted while Vice rides in triumph.

Lo! at the Wheels of her Triumphal Car,
Old England's Genius rough with many a Scar,
Dragg'd in the Dust! his Arms hang idly round,
His Flag inverted trails along the ground!
Our Youth, all liv'ry'd o'er with foreign Gold,
Before her dance; behind her crawl the Old!

Pagoda

Eastern idol worship—England's treating Corruption like a foreign god, sacrificing family and country to it.

See thronging Millions to the Pagod run,
And offer Country, Parent, Wife, or Son!
Hear her black Trumpet thro' the Land proclaim,
That "Not to be corrupted is the Shame."
In Soldier, Churchman, Patriot, Man in Pow'r,
'Tis Av'rice all, Ambition is no more!
See, all our Nobles begging to be Slaves!
See, all our Fools aspiring to be Knaves!
The Wit of Cheats, the Courage of a Whore,
Are what ten thousand envy and adore.
All, all look up, with reverential Awe,
On Crimes that scape, or triumph o'er the Law:
While Truth, Worth, Wisdom, daily we decry—
"Nothing is Sacred now but Villany."
Yet may this Verse (if such a Verse remain)

Final couplet

The parenthesis admits doubt: will this poem even survive? But if it does, it proves one person resisted.

Show there was one who held it in disdain.
Omne vaser vitium ridenti Flaccus amico
Tanit, & admissus circum præcordia ludit.
Omne vaser vitium ridenti Flaccus amico
Tanit, & admissus circum præcordia ludit.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Dialogue Form as Trap

CONTEXT This is Horatian imitation—Pope modeling a poem on Horace's Satires while updating the targets to 1738 England. But it's also a dialogue between two speakers: A (the worldly advisor) and B (Pope himself).

Speaker A opens by criticizing Pope's satire as too moral, too infrequent, too dangerous. He advises Pope to write like Horace—polite, insinuating, a 'Screen' between powerful friends and their shame. The argument sounds reasonable: why make enemies? Why not get paid? 'Go see Sir Robert' (Walpole, the Prime Minister who could make Pope rich).

But notice what A is actually recommending: satirize only the powerless. Mock 'odd Old Whigs' who keep their principles. Laugh at virtue, not vice. Make fun of your friends, not your enemies. This is satire as court entertainment—toothless, safe, profitable.

Pope's response (as B) starts sarcastically: 'Come harmless Characters that no one hit.' He lists mediocrities in dashed names—people so bland they offend nobody. The dashes themselves are Pope's joke: he's pretending to write the safe satire A recommends, but the concealment is so obvious it becomes another form of attack. Readers filled in the blanks. Then comes the turn: 'So—Satire is no more—I feel it die.' Pope performs the death of real satire, showing exactly what's lost when you play it safe.

The dialogue structure lets Pope voice the opposition's best arguments (through A) before demolishing them (through B). It's not a debate—it's a demonstration of how corruption defends itself by calling honesty 'impractical.'

The Final Vision of Vice Triumphant

CONTEXT The poem's last 50 lines abandon dialogue for apocalyptic allegory. Vice becomes a personified goddess in a Roman triumph, with Virtue carted like a criminal and England's spirit dragged in chains.

Pope builds the vision systematically. First, the premise: 'Vice is undone, if she forgets her Birth'—vice only works when it stays low-class. But when 'Greatness own her,' when kings and bishops bless corruption, it becomes respectable. The scarlet-headed Vice (scarlet = both whore and cardinal) mounts the tribunal and makes laws.

Then the procession: England's 'Genius rough with many a Scar' dragged in dust, flag inverted (the military signal of surrender). Youth 'liv'ry'd o'er with foreign Gold'—wearing corruption like a uniform. Millions running to worship the 'Pagod' (idol), sacrificing 'Country, Parent, Wife, or Son.' The black trumpet proclaiming 'Not to be corrupted is the Shame.'

The vision works because it's concrete. Not 'corruption is bad' but: here's Vice in a triumphal car, here's what she's wearing, here's what the crowd is doing. Pope learned this from Dante—make hell visible.

Notice the final catalogue: 'In Soldier, Churchman, Patriot, Man in Pow'r, / 'Tis Av'rice all, Ambition is no more!' Even ambition (wanting power, glory, achievement) has degraded into simple greed. The institutions that should resist—church, military, patriots—have joined the parade.

The poem ends with a couplet that's both defiant and uncertain: 'Yet may this Verse (if such a Verse remain) / Show there was one who held it in disdain.' The parenthesis matters—Pope knows the poem might not survive, that he might lose. But he's writing it anyway. That's the point.