Note 1498 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)
Reading edition
A bad rhyme to the preceding word "race." It is taken from Boileau, Sat. v.:
Et si leur sang tout pur, ainsi que leur noblesse, Est passé jusqu'à vous de Lucrèce en Lucrèce.—Warton.
The bad rhyme did not appear till the edition of 1743. The couplet had previously stood as follows:
Thy boasted blood, a thousand years or so May from Lucretia to Lucretia flow.