EPISTLE IX.

ΤΟ

MISS BLOUNT,'

WITH THE WORKS OF VOITURE.2

In these gay thoughts the Loves and Graces shine,
And all the writer lives in ev'ry line;
His easy Art may happy Nature seem,
Trifles themselves are elegant in him.
Sure to charm all was his peculiar fate,

Who without flattery pleased the fair and great;
Still with esteem no less conversed than read;
With wit well-natured, and with books well-bred:
His heart, his mistress and his friend did share!
His time, the Muse, the witty, and the fair.

In the octavo edition of 1735, after the inscription, the following words are added, "Written at 17 years old."

The lines were first published in Lintot's Miscellany for 1712, and entitled "To a Young Lady, with the works of Voiture."

It is very certain that, if the lines were really written, as Pope says in the edition referred to, when he was only seventeen, they could not have been addressed in the first instance to Martha Blount, who would have been a mere child. But the probability is that here, as else

where, Pope fixed on a date for the

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composition which would illustrate the precocity of his genius. See Introductory Remarks to the following Epistle.

Vincent Voiture, son of a winemerchant, born at Amiens, 1598, died in 1648. He is now chiefly remembered for his letters. "Voiture," says Voltaire, "gave some idea of the superficial graces of that epistolary style, which is by no means the best, because it aims at nothing higher than pleasantry and amusement. His two volumes of letters are the mere pastime of a wanton imagination, in which we meet not with one that is instinctive, not one

trice

Thus wisely careless, innocently gay,
Cheerful he played the trifle, Life, away;'
Till Fate scarce felt his gentle breath supprest,
As smiling infants sport themselves to rest.❜
Ev'n rival wits did Voiture's death deplore,

And the gay mourned who never mourned before.'
The truest hearts for Voiture heaved with sighs,
Voiture was wept by all the brightest eyes;

The Smiles and Loves had died in Voiture's death,"
But that for ever in his lines they breathe.
Let the strict life of graver mortals be
A long, exact, and serious Comedy;
In every scene some moral let it teach,

And, if it can, at once both please and preach.
Let mine an innocent gay farce appear,

And more diverting still than regular,

Have humour, wit, a native ease and grace,
Though not too strictly bound to time and place :
Critics in wit, or life, are hard to please,

Few write to those, and none can live to these.

Too much your sex is by their forms confined,
Severe to all, but most to womankind;

Custom, grown blind with age, must be your guide;
Your pleasure is a vice, but not your pride;

that flows from the heart, that paints the manners of the times, or the characters of men they are rather an abuse than an exercise of wit."

1 So Dryden, Don Sebastian :

To make the trifle, Death, a thing of moment.-WAKEFIELD.

2 In the edition of 1717, "death" stood in the place of "fate." In the Miscellanies the lines stand :

Till death, scarce felt, did o'er his pleasure creep,

As smiling infants sport themselves to sleep.

By nature yielding, stubborn but for fame;
Made slaves by honour, and made fools by shame.
Marriage may all those petty tyrants chase,
But sets up one, a greater, in their place:

Well might you wish for change by those accursed,
But the last tyrant ever proves the worst.
Still in constraint your suffering sex remains,

Or bound in formal, or in real chains :

Whole years neglected, for some months adored,

The fawning servant turns a haughty lord.
Ah, quit not the free innocence of life

For the dull glory of a virtuous wife;

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Nor let false shows nor empty titles please:
Aim not at joy, but rest content with ease.

The gods, to curse Pamela' with her prayers,
Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares,
The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state,
And, to complete her bliss, a fool for mate.
She glares in balls, front-boxes, and the Ring,
A vain, unquiet, glittering, wretched thing!
Pride, pomp, and state but reach her outward part;
She sighs, and is no duchess at her heart.

But, Madam, if the Fates withstand, and you
Are destined Hymen's willing victim too;
Trust not too much your now resistless charms,
Those, age or sickness soon or late disarms :
Good humour only teaches charms to last,'

Still makes new conquests, and maintains the past;
Love raised on beauty will like that decay,
Our hearts may bear its slender chain a day;
As flowery bands in wantonness are worn,
A morning's pleasure, and at evening torn ;

1 The ordinary pronunciation of the name is "Paměla," from the Greek Tav μéλos. The name of Richardson's heroine has always been pronounced

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in that way.
It is difficult to see
what the name can have meant pro-
nounced as in Pope's verse.

2 Compare Moral Essays, ii, 257,292.

This binds in ties more easy, yet more strong,
The willing heart, and only holds it long.

Thus Voiture's early care still shone the same,'
And Montausier was only changed in name;'
By this ev'n now they live, ev'n now they charm,
Their wit still sparkling, and their flames still warm.
Now crowned with myrtle on the Elysian coast,
Amid those lovers, joys his gentle ghost:

Pleased, while with smiles his happy lines you view,
And finds a fairer Rambouillet in you.'

The brightest eyes of France inspired his Muse;
The brightest eyes of Britain now peruse;

And dead, as living, 'tis our author's pride

Still to charm those who charm the world beside.

1 Mademoiselle Paulet.-POPE.

2 Madame de Montausier was the name under which Voiture celebrated Mlle. de Rambouillet.

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3 Daughter of the Marquise de Rambouillet, at whose hotel Voiture obtained his first introduction into aristocratic society.