[1490] This seems not to be proper; the words "flaunt" and "flutter" might with more propriety have changed places.—Johnson.
The satirical aggravation here is conducted with great dexterity by an interchange of terms: the gaudy word "flaunt" properly belongs to the sumptuous dress, and that of "flutter" to the tattered garment.—Wakefield.
Wakefield did not perceive that the language no longer fitted the facts; for though flimsy rags flutter, the stiff brocade did not. Pope avoided the inconsistency in his first draught:
Oft of two brothers one shall be surveyed
Flutt'ring in rags, one flaunting in brocade.
[1491] This must be understood as if Pope had written, "The cobbler is aproned."
[1492] MS.:
What differs more, you cry, than gown and hood?
A wise man and a fool, a bad and good.
The miserable rhyme in the text had the authority of a pun in Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI. Act v. Sc. 6:
Why what a peevish fool was that of Crete
That taught his son the office of a fowl?
And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drowned.
[1493] He alluded to Philip V. of Spain, who resigned his crown to his son, Jan. 10, 1724, and retired to a monastery. The son died in August, and on Sept. 5, 1724, Philip reascended the throne. Weak-minded, hard-hearted, superstitious, and melancholy mad, he was a just instance of a man who owed all his consideration to the trappings of royalty.