Page:An Epistle from Mr Pope to Dr Arbuthnot - Pope (1735).djvu/25

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Yet why? that Father held it for a rule
It was a Sin to call our Neighbour Fool, 365
That harmless Mother thought no Wife a Whore,—
Hear this! and spare his Family, James M*
Unspotted Names! and memorable long,
If there be Force in Virtue, or in Song.

 Of gentle Blood (part shed in Honour's Cause, 370
While yet in Britain Honour had Applause)
Each Parent sprung—"What Fortune, pray?—Their own,
And better got than Bestia's from a Throne.
Born to no Pride, inheriting no Strife,
Nor marrying Discord in a Noble Wife, 375

^[1]Stran-

tick an Abuse; and expected that any man that knew him self Author of what he was slander'd for, would have justify'd him on that Article.

1. His Father, Mother, &c] In some of Curl's and other Pamphlets, Mr. Pope's Father was said to he a Mechanic, a Hatter, a Farmer, nay a Bankrupt. But what is stranger, a Nobleman (if such a Reflection can he thought to come from a Noblemen) has dropt an Allusion to this pitiful Untruth, in his Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity; And the following Line,
   Hard as thy Heart, and as thy Birth obscure,
   had fallen from or a like Courtly pen, in the Verses to the Imitator of Horace. Mr. Pope's Father was of a Gentleman's Family in Oxfordshire, the Head of which was the Earl of Downe, whose sole Heiress married the Earl of Lindsey.—His Mother was the Daughter of William Turnor, Esq; of York: She had three Brothers, one of whom was kill'd, another died in the Service of King Charles, the eldest following his Fortunes, and becoming a General Officer in Spain, left her what Estate remain'd after the Sequestrations and Forfeiture of her Family.—Mr. Pope died in 1717, aged 75; She in 1733, aged 93, a very few Weeks after this Poem was finished.