Search -
The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, With a Life, by A. Dyce (3)
The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope With a Life by A Dyce - 3 Author:Alexander Pope Volume: 3 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1863 Original Publisher: Little, Brown Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com wher... more »e you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE SECOND SATIRE OF THE SECOND BOOK OF HORACE. TO MR. BETHEL.1 What, and how great, the virtue and the art To live on little with a cheerful heart! (A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine) Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine; Not when a gilt buffet's reflected pride Turns you from sound philosophy aside; Not when from plate to plate your eyeballs roll, And the brain dances to the mantling bowl. Hear Bethel's sermon, one not vers'd in schools, But strong in sense, and wise without the rules. " Go work, hunt, exercise! (he thus began) Then scorn a homely dinner if you can. Your wine lock'd up, your butler stroll'd abroad, Or fish denied (the river yet unthaw'd) ; If then plain bread and milk will do the feat, The pleasure lies in you, and not the meat." Preach as I please, I doubt our curious men Will choose a pheasant still before a hen ; Yet hens of Guinea full as good I hold, Except you eat the feathers green and gold. 1 See note 8, vol. ii. p. 75. Of carps and mullets why prefer the great, (Though cut in pieces ere my lord can eat) Yet for small turbots such esteem profess ? Because God made these large, the other less. Oldfleld,2 with more than harpy throat endued, Cries, " Send me, gods! a whole hog barbecued!" O blast it, south winds! till a stench exhale Rank as the ripeness of a rabbit's tail. By what criterion do you eat, d'ye think, If this is priz'd for sweetness, that for stink ? When the tir'd glutton labours through a treat, He finds no relish in the sweetest meat; He calls for something...« less