The dismissal of Lord Oxford, the death of Queen Anne immediately afterwards, on August 1, 1714, and the overthrow of Bolingbroke, were events which had recently happened when Pope published his poem, and there never was a time when "changes in the state," "the falls of favourites," and "old mismanagements" were a more universal topic of conversation.
But such a grete congregation
Of folke as I saw roame about,
Some within, and some without.
Was never seen, ne shall be eft—
And every wight that I saw there
Rowned everich in others ear
A newe tyding privily,
Or elles he told it openly
Right thus, and said, Knowst not thou
That is betide to night now?
No, quoth he, tell me what
And then he told him this and that, &c.—Pope.
Thus north and south
Went every tiding fro mouth to mouth,
And that encreasing evermo,
As fire is wont to quicken and go
From a sparkle sprong amiss,
Till all the citee brent up is.—Pope.
[127] Dryden, Ovid, Met. xii.:
Fame sits aloft.
In Ovid the scene is laid in the house of Fame. Pope lays it in the house of Rumour, and having left Fame enthroned in her own temple, he now represents her as permanently "sitting aloft" in a totally different edifice.
And sometime I saw there at once,
A lesing and a sad sooth saw
That gonnen at adventure draw
Out of a window forth to pace—
And no man be he ever so wrothe,
Shall have one of these two, but bothe, &c.—Pope.