Shall I, like Curtius, desp'rate in my zeal,

O'er head and ears plunge for the common-weal?
Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,
And cackling save the monarchy of tories?

Hold-to the minister I more incline ;

209

To serve his cause, O Queen! is serving thine.
And see! thy very gazetteers give o'er,

Even Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more.

215

What

VER. 211. Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,] Relates to the well-known story of the geese that saved the capitol; of which Virgil Æneid. viii.

A

"Atque hic auratis volitans argenteus anser

Porticibus, Gallos in limine adesse canebat."

passage I have always suspected. Who sees not the antithesis of auratis and argenteus to be unworthy the Virgilian majesty? And what absurdity to say a goese sings? canebat. Virgil gives a contrary character of the voice of this silly bird, in Ecl. ix.

-“ argutos inter strepere anser olores."

Read it, therefore, adesse strepebat. And why auratis porticibus? does not the very verse preceding this inform us,

"Romuleoque recens horrebat regia culmo.".

Is this thatch in one line, and gold in another, consistent? I scruple not (repugnantibus omnibus manuscriptis) to correct it auritis. Horace uses the same epithet in the same sense,

"Auritas fidibus canoris
Ducere quercus."

And to say that walls have ears is common even to a proverb.

SCRIBLERUS.

VER. 213. Hold to the minister-] In the former edit.
Yes, to my country I my pen consign,

Yes, from this moment, mighty Mist! am thine.

WARBURTON.

VER. 215. Gazetteers] A band of ministerial writers, hired at the price mentioned in the note on book ii. ver. 316. who, on the very day their patron quitted his post, laid down their paper, and declared they would never more meddle in politics. WARBURTON.

What then remains? Ourself.

Still, still remain

220

Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain.
This brazen brightness, to the 'squire so dear;
This polish'd hardness, that reflects the peer:
This arch absurd, that wit and fool delights;
This mess, toss'd up of Hockley-hole and White's ;
Where dukes and butchers join to wreathe my crown,
At once the bear and fiddle of the town.

O born in sin, and forth in folly brought!

225

Works damn'd, or to be damn'd! (your father's fault)

Go, purify'd by flames, ascend the sky,

My better and more christian progeny !

Unstain'd, untouch'd, and yet in maiden sheets; While all your smutty sisters walk the streets. 230 Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland,

Sent with a pass, and vagrant thro' the land;

VER. 225. O born in sin, &c] In the former edit.
Adieu, my children! better thus expire
Unstall'd, unsold; thus glorious mount in fire,
Fair without spot; than greas'd by grocers hands,
Or shipp'd with Ward to ape-and-monkey lands,
Or wafting ginger, round the streets to run,
And visit ale-house, where ye first begun,
With that he lifted thrice the sparkling brand,
And thrice he dropp'd it, &c.·

Nor

WARBURTON.

Var. And visit ale-bouse, Waller on the navy,
"Those tow'rs of oak o'er fertile plains may go,
And visit mountains where they once did grow."

WARBURTON.

VER. 225. O born in sin, &c.] This is a tender passionate apostrophe to his own works, which he is going to sacrifice, agreeable to the nature of man in great affliction; and reflecting like a parent on the many miserable fates to which they would otherwise be subject. WARBURTON.

Nor sail with Ward, to ape-and-monkey climes,
Where vile Mundungus trucks for viler rhymes:
Not sulphur-tipt, emblaze an alehouse fire;

Not wrap up oranges, to pelt your sire!
O! pass more innocent, in infant state,
To the mild limbo of our father Tate:
Or peaceably forgot, at once be blest
In Shadwell's bosom with eternal rest!
Soon to that mass of nonsense to return,

235

240

Where things destroy'd are swept to things unborn.
With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace!)
Stole from the master of the sev❜nfold face:
And thrice he lifted high the birth-day brand,
And thrice he dropt it from his quiv'ring hand;
Then lights the structure with averted eyes :
The rolling smoke involves the sacrifice.

245

The

VER. 231. gratis-given Bland- Sent with a pass,] It was a practice so to give the Daily Gazetteer and ministerial pamphlets (in which this B. was a writer), and to send them post free to all the towns in the kingdom. WARTON.

VER. 233. - with Ward, to ape-and-monkey climes,] « Edward Ward, a very voluminous poet in Hudibrastic verse, but best known by the London Spy, in prose. He has of late years kept a public house in the city, (but in a genteel way,) and with his wit, humour, and good liquor, (ale,) afforded his guests a pleasurable entertainment, especially those of the high-church party." JACOB, Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 225. Great numbers of his works were yearly sold into the plantations.Ward, in a book called Apollo's Maggot, declared this account to be a great falsity, protesting that his public house was not in the city, but in Moorfields.

WARBURTON. VER. 238-240. Tate—Shadwell] Two of his predecessors in the laurel. WARBURTON.

The op'ning clouds disclose each work by turns,
Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns;

250 Great

VER. 250. Now flames the Cid, c.] In the former edit.
Now flames old Memnon, now Rodrigo burns,
In one quick flash see Proserpine expire,
And last, his own cold Eschylus took fire.

Then gush'd the tears, as from the Trojan's eyes,
When the last blaze, &c.

Var. Now frames old Memnon, now Rodrigo burns,
In one quick flash see Proserpine expire.}

Memnon, a hero in the Persian Princess, very apt to take fire, as appears by these lines, with which he begins the play,"

"By Heav'n it fires my frozen blood with rage,

And makes it scald my aged trunk."

Rodrigo, the chief personage of the Perfidious Brother (a play writ ten between Tibbald and a watch-maker.) The Rape of Proserpine, one of the farces of this author, in which Ceres setting fire to a corn-field, endangered the burning of the play-house.

WARBURTON.

Var. And last, his own cold Eschylus took fire.] He had been (to use an expression of our poet) about Eschylus for ten years, and had received subscriptions for the same, but then went about other books. The character of this tragic poet is fire and boldness in a high degree, but our author supposes it very much cooled by the translation; upon sight of a specimen of which was made this epigram,

"Alas! poor Eschylus! unlucky dog!

Whom once a lobster kill'd, and now a log!"

But this is a grievous error, for Eschylus was not slain by the fall of a lobster on his head, but of a tortoise, teste Val. Max. 1. ix. cap. 12. SCRIBLERUS.

VER. 250. Now flames the Cid, &c.] In the first notes on the Dunciad it was said, that this author was particularly excellent at tragedy. "This (says he) is as unjust as to say I could dance on a rope." But certain it is that he had attempted to dance on this rope, and fell most shamefully, having produced no less than four tragedies, (the names of which the poet preserves in these few lines), the three first of them were fairly printed, acted, and damned; the fourth suppressed in fear of the like treatment. WARBURTON.

Great Cæsar roars, and hisses in the fires:
King John in silence modestly expires:
No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims,
Moliere's old stubble in a moment flames.

Tears gush'd again, as from pale Priam's eyes,
When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies..

255

Rouz'd by the light, old Dulness heav'd the head,

Then snatch'd a sheet of Thulè from her bed;
Sudden she flies, and whelms it o'er the pyre;
Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire.
Her ample presence fills up all the place;

260

A veil of fogs dilates her awful face:

Great in her charms! as when on shrieves and may'rs

She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.

265

She bids him wait her to her sacred dome :
Well-pleas'd he enter'd, and confess'd his home.

So,

VER. 253. the dear Nonjuror-Moliere's old stubble] A comedy threshed out of Moliere's Tartuffe, and so much the translator's favourite, that he assures us all our author's dislike to it could only arise from disaffection to the government :

"Qui meprise Cotin, n'estime point son Roi,

BOIL.

Et n'a, selon Cotin, ni Dieu, ni foi, ni loi.” He assures us, that " when he had the honour to kiss His Majesty's hand upon presenting his dedication of it, he was graciously pleased, out of his royal bounty, to order him two hundred pounds for it. And this he doubts not grieved Mr. P." WARBURTON.

VER. 258. Thulè] An unfinished poem of that name, of which one sheet was printed many years ago, by Ambrose Philips, a northern author. It is an usual method of putting out a fire, to cast wet sheets upon it. Some critics have been of opinion that this sheet was of the nature of the asbestos, which cannot be consumed by fire: but I rather think it an allegorical allusion to the coldness and heaviness of the writing. WARBURTON.