No more his mention shall my verse degrade,—
To him my tribute is already paid.[1]120
High, through those elms with hoary branches crown'd[2]
Fair Ida's bower adorns the landscape round;
There Science, from her favour'd seat, surveys
The vale where rural Nature claims her praise;
To her awhile resigns her youthful train,
- ↑ This alludes to a character printed in a former private edition [P. on V. Occasions] for the perusal of some friends, which, with many other pieces, is withheld from the present volume. To draw the attention of the public to insignificance would be deservedly reprobated; and another reason, though not of equal consequence, may be given in the following couplet:—
"Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a Butterfly upon a wheel?"Prologue to the Satires: Pope.[Hours of Idleness, p. 154, note.] [(See the lines "On a Change of Masters at a Great Public School," ante, p. 16.)
The following lines, attached to the Newstead MS. draft of "Childish Recollections," are aimed at Pomposus:—
"Just half a Pedagogue, and half a Fop,
Not formed to grace the pulpit, but the Shop;
The Counter, not the Desk, should be his place,
Who deals out precepts, as if dealing Lace;
Servile in mind, from Elevation proud,
In argument, less sensible than loud,
Through half the continent, the Coxcomb's been,
And stuns you with the Wonders he has seen:
'How in Pompeii's vault he found the page,
Of some long lost, and long lamented Sage,
And doubtless he the Letters would have trac'd,
Had they not been by age and dust effac'd;'
This single specimen will serve to shew,
The weighty lessons of this reverend Beau,
Bombast in vain would want of Genius cloke,
For feeble fires evaporate in smoke;
A Boy, o'er Boys he holds a trembling reign,
More fit than they to seek some School again."] - ↑ [Lines 121-243 were added in Hours of Idleness.]
