Vulgar words in The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 1 (Page 1)

This book at a glance

ass x 12
blockhead x 8
damn x 32
make love x 2
pimp x 4
            
whore x 30
            

Page 1

~   ~   ~   Sentence 804   ~   ~   ~

Some neither can for wits nor critics pass, As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 856   ~   ~   ~

The author after this verse originally inserted the following, which he has however omitted in all the editions:-- Zoilus, had these been known, without a name Had died, and Perault ne'er been damn'd to fame; The sense of sound antiquity had reign'd, And sacred Homer yet been unprofaned.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 911   ~   ~   ~

Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied To one small sect, and all are damn'd beside.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 921   ~   ~   ~

The vulgar thus through imitation err; As oft the learn'd by being singular: So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng By chance go right, they purposely go wrong: So schismatics the plain believers quit, And are but damn'd for having too much wit.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 985   ~   ~   ~

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always listening to himself appears.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,268   ~   ~   ~

damn the lock!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,752   ~   ~   ~

the knave's repute, the whore's good name, The only honour of the wishing dame; Thy very want of tongue makes thee a kind of fame.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,141   ~   ~   ~

Or with his hound comes hallooing from the stable, Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table; Whose laughs are hearty, though his jests are coarse, And loves you best of all things--but his horse.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,169   ~   ~   ~

4 The learn'd themselves we book-worms name, The blockhead is a slow-worm; The nymph whose tail is all on flame, Is aptly term'd a glow-worm: 5 The fops are painted butterflies, That flutter for a day; First from a worm they take their rise, And in a worm decay.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,598   ~   ~   ~

Peleus' great son, or Brutus, who had known, Had Lucrece been a whore, or Helen none!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,605   ~   ~   ~

B---- for his prince, or ---- for his whore?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,612   ~   ~   ~

a whore!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,907   ~   ~   ~

Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings, That thou may'st be by kings, or whores of kings, Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race, In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece: But by your fathers' worth if yours you rate, Count me those only who were good and great.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,937   ~   ~   ~

Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife: 280 If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind: Or, ravish'd with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell,[93] damn'd to everlasting fame!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,016   ~   ~   ~

Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws, Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause: Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope, And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,052   ~   ~   ~

let the secret pass, That secret to each fool, that he's an ass: 80 The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?)

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,062   ~   ~   ~

And has not Colly still his lord, and whore?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,107   ~   ~   ~

but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; 200 Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; 210 While wits and Templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise-- Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,138   ~   ~   ~

But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace, Insults fallen worth, or beauty in distress, Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about, Who writes a libel, or who copies out: 290 That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name, Yet, absent, wounds an author's honest fame: Who can your merit selfishly approve, And show the sense of it without the love; Who has the vanity to call you friend, Yet wants the honour, injured, to defend; Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say, And, if he lie not, must at least betray: Who to the dean, and silver bell[106] can swear, And sees at Canons what was never there; 300 Who reads, but--with a lust to misapply, Make satire a lampoon, and fiction, lie; A lash like mine no honest man shall dread, But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,141   ~   ~   ~

that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,166   ~   ~   ~

Yet why that father held it for a rule, It was a sin to call our neighbour fool: That harmless mother thought no wife a whore: Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,291   ~   ~   ~

Could Laureate Dryden pimp and friar engage, Yet neither Charles nor James be in a rage?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,300   ~   ~   ~

Envy must own, I live among the great, No pimp of pleasure, and no spy of state, With eyes that pry not, tongue that ne'er repeats, Fond to spread friendships, but to cover heats; To help who want, to forward who excel;-- This, all who know me, know; who love me, tell; And who unknown defame me, let them be Scribblers or peers, alike are mob to me.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,377   ~   ~   ~

You see it alter From you to me, from me to Peter Walter; Or, in a mortgage, prove a lawyer's share; 170 Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir; Or in pure equity (the case not clear) The Chancery takes your rents for twenty year: At best, it falls to some ungracious son, Who cries, 'My father's damn'd, and all's my own.'

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,416   ~   ~   ~

True, conscious honour is to feel no sin, He's arm'd without that's innocent within; Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of brass; Compared to this, a minister's an ass.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,438   ~   ~   ~

Well, but the poor--the poor have the same itch; They change their weekly barber, weekly news, Prefer a new japanner to their shoes, Discharge their garrets, move their beds, and run (They know not whither) in a chaise and one; They hire their sculler, and when once aboard, Grow sick, and damn the climate--like a lord.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,521   ~   ~   ~

And shall we deem him ancient, right and sound, Or damn to all eternity at once, At ninety-nine, a modern and a dunce?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,536   ~   ~   ~

Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book, Like slashing Bentley with his desperate hook, Or damn all Shakspeare, like the affected fool At court, who hates whate'er he read at school.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,599   ~   ~   ~

The play stands still; damn action and discourse, Back fly the scenes, and enter foot and horse; Pageants on pageants, in long order drawn, Peers, heralds, bishops, ermine, gold, and lawn; The champion too; and, to complete the jest, Old Edward's armour beams on Cibber's breast[153] With laughter, sure, Democritus had died, 320 Had he beheld an audience gape so wide.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,684   ~   ~   ~

Have you not seen, at Guildhall's narrow pass, Two aldermen dispute it with an ass?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,712   ~   ~   ~

Him, the damn'd doctors and his friends immured, They bled, they cupp'd, they purged; in short, they cured: Whereat the gentleman began to stare-- 'My friends!' he cried, 'pox take you for your care!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,767   ~   ~   ~

The shops shut up in every street, And funerals blackening all the doors, And yet more melancholy whores: 10 And what a dust in every place!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,855   ~   ~   ~

(It was by Providence they think, For your damn'd stucco has no chink.)

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,894   ~   ~   ~

as early as I knew This town, I had the sense to hate it too: Yet here, as ev'n in Hell, there must be still One giant-vice, so excellently ill, That all beside, one pities, not abhors; As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,906   ~   ~   ~

One, one man only breeds my just offence; Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave impudence: Time, that at last matures a clap to pox, Whose gentle progress makes a calf an ox, And brings all natural events to pass, Hath made him an attorney of an ass.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,945   ~   ~   ~

The Doctor's wormwood style, the hash of tongues A pedant makes, the storm of Gonson's lungs, The whole artillery of the terms of war, And (all those plagues in one) the bawling Bar: These I could bear; but not a rogue so civil, Whose tongue will compliment you to the devil; A tongue, that can cheat widows, cancel scores, Make Scots speak treason, cozen subtlest whores, With royal favourites in flattery vie, 60 And Oldmixon and Burnet both outlie.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,984   ~   ~   ~

When the queen frown'd, or smiled, he knows; and what A subtle minister may make of that: Who sins with whom: who got his pension rug, Or quicken'd a reversion by a drug: Whose place is quarter'd out, three parts in four, And whether to a bishop, or a whore: Who, having lost his credit, pawn'd his rent, Is therefore fit to have a government: Who, in the secret, deals in stocks secure, 140 And cheats the unknowing widow and the poor: Who makes a trust or charity a job, And gets an act of parliament to rob: Why turnpikes rise, and now no cit nor clown Can gratis see the country, or the town: Shortly no lad shall chuck, or lady vole, But some excising courtier will have toll.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,999   ~   ~   ~

A vision hermits can to Hell transport, 190 And forced ev'n me to see the damn'd at court.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,005   ~   ~   ~

Thou, who since yesterday hast roll'd o'er all The busy, idle blockheads of the ball, Hast thou, O Sun!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,012   ~   ~   ~

where the British youth, engaged no more At Fig's,[174] at White's, with felons, or a whore, Pay their last duty to the court, and come All fresh and fragrant, to the drawing-room; In hues as gay, and odours as divine, As the fair fields they sold to look so fine.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,090   ~   ~   ~

shall Cibber's son,[195] without rebuke, Swear like a lord, or Rich[195] out-whore a duke?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,099   ~   ~   ~

140 Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth, And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth: But 'tis the fall degrades her to a whore; Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more: Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess, Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless: In golden chains the willing world she draws, And hers the gospel is, and hers the laws, Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head, And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,109   ~   ~   ~

The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,137   ~   ~   ~

not damn the sharper, but the dice?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 804   ~   ~   ~

Some neither can for wits nor critics pass, As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 856   ~   ~   ~

The author after this verse originally inserted the following, which he has however omitted in all the editions:-- Zoilus, had these been known, without a name Had died, and Perault ne'er been damn'd to fame; The sense of sound antiquity had reign'd, And sacred Homer yet been unprofaned.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 911   ~   ~   ~

Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied To one small sect, and all are damn'd beside.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 921   ~   ~   ~

The vulgar thus through imitation err; As oft the learn'd by being singular: So much they scorn the crowd, that if the throng By chance go right, they purposely go wrong: So schismatics the plain believers quit, And are but damn'd for having too much wit.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 985   ~   ~   ~

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learnèd lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always listening to himself appears.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,268   ~   ~   ~

damn the lock!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 1,752   ~   ~   ~

the knave's repute, the whore's good name, The only honour of the wishing dame; Thy very want of tongue makes thee a kind of fame.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,141   ~   ~   ~

Or with his hound comes hallooing from the stable, Makes love with nods, and knees beneath a table; Whose laughs are hearty, though his jests are coarse, And loves you best of all things--but his horse.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,169   ~   ~   ~

4 The learn'd themselves we book-worms name, The blockhead is a slow-worm; The nymph whose tail is all on flame, Is aptly term'd a glow-worm: 5 The fops are painted butterflies, That flutter for a day; First from a worm they take their rise, And in a worm decay.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,598   ~   ~   ~

Peleus' great son, or Brutus, who had known, Had Lucrece been a whore, or Helen none!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,605   ~   ~   ~

B---- for his prince, or ---- for his whore?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,612   ~   ~   ~

a whore!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,907   ~   ~   ~

Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings, That thou may'st be by kings, or whores of kings, Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race, In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece: But by your fathers' worth if yours you rate, Count me those only who were good and great.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 2,937   ~   ~   ~

Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife: 280 If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind: Or, ravish'd with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell,[93] damn'd to everlasting fame!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,016   ~   ~   ~

Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws, Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause: Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope, And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,052   ~   ~   ~

let the secret pass, That secret to each fool, that he's an ass: 80 The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?)

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,062   ~   ~   ~

And has not Colly still his lord, and whore?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,107   ~   ~   ~

but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; 200 Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; 210 While wits and Templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise-- Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,138   ~   ~   ~

But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace, Insults fallen worth, or beauty in distress, Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about, Who writes a libel, or who copies out: 290 That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name, Yet, absent, wounds an author's honest fame: Who can your merit selfishly approve, And show the sense of it without the love; Who has the vanity to call you friend, Yet wants the honour, injured, to defend; Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say, And, if he lie not, must at least betray: Who to the dean, and silver bell[106] can swear, And sees at Canons what was never there; 300 Who reads, but--with a lust to misapply, Make satire a lampoon, and fiction, lie; A lash like mine no honest man shall dread, But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,141   ~   ~   ~

that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,166   ~   ~   ~

Yet why that father held it for a rule, It was a sin to call our neighbour fool: That harmless mother thought no wife a whore: Hear this, and spare his family, James Moore!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,291   ~   ~   ~

Could Laureate Dryden pimp and friar engage, Yet neither Charles nor James be in a rage?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,300   ~   ~   ~

Envy must own, I live among the great, No pimp of pleasure, and no spy of state, With eyes that pry not, tongue that ne'er repeats, Fond to spread friendships, but to cover heats; To help who want, to forward who excel;-- This, all who know me, know; who love me, tell; And who unknown defame me, let them be Scribblers or peers, alike are mob to me.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,377   ~   ~   ~

You see it alter From you to me, from me to Peter Walter; Or, in a mortgage, prove a lawyer's share; 170 Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir; Or in pure equity (the case not clear) The Chancery takes your rents for twenty year: At best, it falls to some ungracious son, Who cries, 'My father's damn'd, and all's my own.'

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,416   ~   ~   ~

True, conscious honour is to feel no sin, He's arm'd without that's innocent within; Be this thy screen, and this thy wall of brass; Compared to this, a minister's an ass.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,438   ~   ~   ~

Well, but the poor--the poor have the same itch; They change their weekly barber, weekly news, Prefer a new japanner to their shoes, Discharge their garrets, move their beds, and run (They know not whither) in a chaise and one; They hire their sculler, and when once aboard, Grow sick, and damn the climate--like a lord.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,521   ~   ~   ~

And shall we deem him ancient, right and sound, Or damn to all eternity at once, At ninety-nine, a modern and a dunce?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,536   ~   ~   ~

Not that I'd lop the beauties from his book, Like slashing Bentley with his desperate hook, Or damn all Shakspeare, like the affected fool At court, who hates whate'er he read at school.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,599   ~   ~   ~

The play stands still; damn action and discourse, Back fly the scenes, and enter foot and horse; Pageants on pageants, in long order drawn, Peers, heralds, bishops, ermine, gold, and lawn; The champion too; and, to complete the jest, Old Edward's armour beams on Cibber's breast[153] With laughter, sure, Democritus had died, 320 Had he beheld an audience gape so wide.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,684   ~   ~   ~

Have you not seen, at Guildhall's narrow pass, Two aldermen dispute it with an ass?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,712   ~   ~   ~

Him, the damn'd doctors and his friends immured, They bled, they cupp'd, they purged; in short, they cured: Whereat the gentleman began to stare-- 'My friends!' he cried, 'pox take you for your care!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,767   ~   ~   ~

The shops shut up in every street, And funerals blackening all the doors, And yet more melancholy whores: 10 And what a dust in every place!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,855   ~   ~   ~

(It was by Providence they think, For your damn'd stucco has no chink.)

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,894   ~   ~   ~

as early as I knew This town, I had the sense to hate it too: Yet here, as ev'n in Hell, there must be still One giant-vice, so excellently ill, That all beside, one pities, not abhors; As who knows Sappho, smiles at other whores.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,906   ~   ~   ~

One, one man only breeds my just offence; Whom crimes gave wealth, and wealth gave impudence: Time, that at last matures a clap to pox, Whose gentle progress makes a calf an ox, And brings all natural events to pass, Hath made him an attorney of an ass.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,945   ~   ~   ~

The Doctor's wormwood style, the hash of tongues A pedant makes, the storm of Gonson's lungs, The whole artillery of the terms of war, And (all those plagues in one) the bawling Bar: These I could bear; but not a rogue so civil, Whose tongue will compliment you to the devil; A tongue, that can cheat widows, cancel scores, Make Scots speak treason, cozen subtlest whores, With royal favourites in flattery vie, 60 And Oldmixon and Burnet both outlie.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,984   ~   ~   ~

When the queen frown'd, or smiled, he knows; and what A subtle minister may make of that: Who sins with whom: who got his pension rug, Or quicken'd a reversion by a drug: Whose place is quarter'd out, three parts in four, And whether to a bishop, or a whore: Who, having lost his credit, pawn'd his rent, Is therefore fit to have a government: Who, in the secret, deals in stocks secure, 140 And cheats the unknowing widow and the poor: Who makes a trust or charity a job, And gets an act of parliament to rob: Why turnpikes rise, and now no cit nor clown Can gratis see the country, or the town: Shortly no lad shall chuck, or lady vole, But some excising courtier will have toll.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 3,999   ~   ~   ~

A vision hermits can to Hell transport, 190 And forced ev'n me to see the damn'd at court.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,005   ~   ~   ~

Thou, who since yesterday hast roll'd o'er all The busy, idle blockheads of the ball, Hast thou, O Sun!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,012   ~   ~   ~

where the British youth, engaged no more At Fig's,[174] at White's, with felons, or a whore, Pay their last duty to the court, and come All fresh and fragrant, to the drawing-room; In hues as gay, and odours as divine, As the fair fields they sold to look so fine.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,090   ~   ~   ~

shall Cibber's son,[195] without rebuke, Swear like a lord, or Rich[195] out-whore a duke?

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,099   ~   ~   ~

140 Vice is undone, if she forgets her birth, And stoops from angels to the dregs of earth: But 'tis the fall degrades her to a whore; Let greatness own her, and she's mean no more: Her birth, her beauty, crowds and courts confess, Chaste matrons praise her, and grave bishops bless: In golden chains the willing world she draws, And hers the gospel is, and hers the laws, Mounts the tribunal, lifts her scarlet head, And sees pale virtue carted in her stead.

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,109   ~   ~   ~

The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore!

~   ~   ~   Sentence 4,137   ~   ~   ~

not damn the sharper, but the dice?

Page 1