35. Pope's Translations or Imitations of Horace (Vol. i., p. 230.).
—As you have, I hope, very largely increased the number of readers and contributors since I asked the question above referred to, and as it has as yet received no answer, I hope you will allow me to repeat it, in the hope that some of your new correspondents may be able to tell me what satirical "Imitation of Horace" can have been, so early as 1716, attributed to Pope?
I would also, on the same grounds, beg leave to repeat another question, formerly proposed by P. C. S. S. and by myself (Vol. i, pp. 201. 246.): What is the precise meaning of the last couplet of these lines of Pope:
"The hero William, and the martyr Charles,
One knighted Blackmore and one pensioned Quarles,
Which made old Ben and surly Dennis swear,
'No Lord's anointed, but a Russian bear.'"
That Pope had a precise meaning cannot be doubted; but I have never heard a reasonable guess at what it might be.
C.