the said pretender, pseudo-poet, or phantom, utterly | You, by whose care, in vain decried and cursed, to vanish and evaporate out of this work; and do Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first; declare the said throne of poesy from henceforth to Say, how the goddess bade Britannia sleep, be abdicated and vacant, unless duly and lawfully And pour'd her spirit o'er the land and deep. supplied by the laureate himself. And it is hereby enacted that no other person do presume to fill the same. THE DUNCIAD. CC. CH. TO DR. JONATHAN SWIFT. BOOK THE FIRST. ARGUMENT. REMARKS. 175 marble; where (as may be seen on comparing the tomb with the book) in the space of five lines, two words and a whole verse are changed, and it is to be hoped will there stand, and outlast whatever hath been hitherto done in paper; as for the future, our learned sister university (the other eye of England) is taking care to perpetuate a total new Shakespeare at the Clarendon press. Bentl. It is to be noted that this great critic also has omitted one circumstance; which is, that the inscription with the name of Shakespeare was intended to be placed on the marble scroll to which he points with his hand; instead of which it is now placed behind his back, and that specimen of an edition is put on the scroll, which indeed Shakespeare hath great reason to point at. Anon. Though I have as just a value for the letter E, as any grammarian living, and the same affection for the name of The proposition, the invocation, and the inscription. induce me to agree with those who would add yet another this poem as any critic for that of his author; yet cannot it Then the original of the great empire of Dulness, and e to it, and call it the Dunceiade: which being a French cause of the continuance thereof. The college of the and foreign termination, is no way proper to a word entirely goddess in the city, with her private academy for poets English, and vernacular. One e therefore in this case is in particular: the governors of it, and the four cardi- right, and two ee's wrong. Yet upon the whole, I shall folnal virtues. Then the poem hastes into the midst of thereto by authority (at all times, with critics, equal, if not low the manuscript, and print it without any e at all; moved things, presenting her, on the evening of a lord-mayor's superior to reason.) In which method of proceeding, I can day, revolving the long succession of her sons, and the never enough praise my good friend the exact Mr. Thomas glory past and to come. She fixes her eyes on Bays to Hearne; who, if any word occur, which to him and all be the instrument of that great event which is the mankind is evidently wrong, yet keeps be it in the text with subject of the poem. He is described pensive among like manner we shall not amend this error in the title itself, due reverence, and only remarks in the margin, Sic MS. In his books, giving up the cause, and apprehending the but only note it obiter, to evince to the learned that it was period of her empire. After debating whether to be-not our fault, nor any effect of our ignorance or inattention. take himself to the church, or to gaming, or to partywriting, he raises an altar of proper books, and (making first his solemn prayer and declaration) purposes thereon to sacrifice all his unsuccessful writings. As the pile is kindled, the goddess beholding the flame from her seat, flies and puts it out, by casting upon it the poem of Thule. She forthwith reveals herself to him, transports him to her temple, unfolds her arts, and initiates him into her mysteries; then announcing the death of Eusden, the poet laureate, anoints him, carries him to court, and proclaims him successor. BOOK I. THE mighty mother, and her son, who brings REMARKS. Scribl. This poem was written in the year 1726. In the next printed at London in twelves; another at Dublin, and year an imperfect edition was published at Dublin, and reanother at London, in octavo; and three others in twelves the same year. But there was no perfect edition before that of London, in quarto; which was attended with notes. We are willing to acquaint posterity, that this poem was hands of Sir Robert Walpole, on the 12th of March, 1728-9. presented to King George the Second and his queen, by the Schol. Vet. It was expressly confessed in the preface to the first edition, that this poem was not published by the author himself. It was printed originally in a foreign country: and what foreign country? Why, one notorious for blunders; where finding blauks only instead of proper names, these blunderers filled them up at their pleasure. The very hero of the poem hath been mistaken to this hour; so that we were obliged to open our notes with a discovery who he really was. We learn from the former editor, that this piece was presented by the hands of sir Robert Walpole to King George II. Now the author directly tells us, his hero is the man -who brings The Smithfield muses to the ear of kings. The Dunciad, sic MS.] It may well be disputed whe-And it is notorious who was the person on whom this ther this be a right reading. Ought it not rather be spelled prince conferred the honour of the laurel. Dunceiad, as the etymology evidently demands? Dunce with an e, therefore Dunceiad with an e. It appears as plainly from the apostrophe to the great in That accurate the third verse, that Tibbald could not be the person, who and punctual man of letters, the restorer of Shakespear, was never an author in fashion, or caressed by the great; constantly observes the preservation of this very letter e, whereas this single characteristic is sufficient to point out in spelling the name of his beloved author, and not like his the true hero: who, above all other poets of his time, was common careless editors, with the omission of one, nay, the peculiar delight and chosen companion of the nobility sometimes of two ee's (as Shakspear,) which is utterly un-of England; and wrote, as he himself tells us, certain of his pardonable. "Nor is the neglect of a single letter so trivial works at the earnest desire of persons of quality. as to some it may appear; the alteration whereof in a learn- Lastly, the sixth verse affords full proof; this poet being ed language is an achievement that brings honour to the the only one who was universally known to have had a son critic who advances it; and Dr. Bentley will be remembered so exactly like him, in his poetical, theatrical, political, and to posterity for his performances of this sort, as long as the moral capacities, that it could justly be said of him, world shall have any esteem for the remains of Menander and Philemon.' 'Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first.' This is surely a slip in the learned author of the foregoing Theobald. Bentl. note; there having been since produced by an accurate an-reader ought here to be cautioned, that the mother, and not Ver. 1. The mighty mother, and her son, &c.] The tiquary, an autograph of Shakespeare himself, whereby it the son, is the principal agent of this poem, the latter of appears that he spelled his own name without the first e. them is only chosen as her colleague (as was anciently the And upon this authority it was, that those most critical custom in Rome before some great expedition,) the main curators of his monument in Westminster Abbey erased the action of the poem being by no means the coronation of the former wrong reading, and restored the true spelling on a laureate, which is performed in the very first book, but the new piece of old Egyptian granite. Nor for this only do restoration of the empire of Dulness in Britain, which is not they deserve our thanks, but for exhibiting on the same accomplished till the last. monument the first specimen of an edition of an author in Ver. 2. The Smithfield Muses.] Smithfield is the ple In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read, Still her old empire to restore she tries, Oh thou! whatever title please thine ear- One cell there is, conceal'd from vulgar eye, 10 The cave of poverty and poetry. 40 Keen, hollow winds howl through the bleak recess, 'Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne, And laughs to think Monroe would take her down, 30 Where o'er the gates, by his famed father's hand, Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers stand; REMARKS. where Bartholomew fair was kept, whose shows, machines, and dramatical entertainments, formerly agreeable only to the taste of the rabble, were by the hero of this poem, and others of equal genius, brought to the theatres of Coventgarden, Lincoln's inn-fields, and the Hay-market, to be the reigning pleasures of the court and town. This happened in the reigns of King George I. and II. See Book iii. Ver. 4. By Dulness, Jove, and Fate:] i. e. by their judg ments, their interests, and their inclinations. Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs, Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep, REMARKS. 60 base Ver. 34. Poverty and poetry.] I cannot here omit a reVer. 15. Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, &c.] I wonder mark that will greatly endear our author to every one, who the learned Scriblerus has omitted to advertise the reader, shall attentively observe that humanity and candour, which at the opening of this poem, that Dulness here is not to be every where appears in him towards those unhappy objects taken contractedly for mere stupidity, but in the enlarged of the ridicule of all mankind, the bad poets. He there in sense of the word, for all slowness of apprehension, short-putes all scandalous rhymes, scurrilous weekly papers, ness of sight, or imperfect sense of things. It includes (as flatteries, wretched elegies, songs, and verses (even from we see by the poet's own words) labour, industry, and some those sung at court, to ballads in the street,) not so much to degrees of activity and boldness; a ruling principle not malice or servility as to dulness, and not so much to dulness inert, but turning topsy-turvy the understan ing, and indu-as to necessity. And thus, at the very commencement of cing an anarchy or confused state of mind. This remark his satire, makes an apology for all that are to be satirized. ought to be carried along with the reader throughout the Ver. 40. Curll's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post:] work; and without this caution he will be apt to mistake Two booksellers, of whom see Book ji. The former was the importance of many of the characters, as well as of the fined by the Court of King's Bench for publishing obscene design of the poet. Hence it is that some have complained books; the latter usually adorned his shop with titles in red he chooses too mean a subject, and imagined he employs letters. himself like Domitian, in killing flies; whereas those who Ver. 41. Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines.] It is an have the true key will find he sports with nobler quarry, and ancient English custom for the malefactors to sing a psalm embraces a larger compass; or (as one saith on a like oc-at their execution at Tyburn; and no less customary to casion,) Will see his work, like Jacob's ladder rise, Bentl. Ver. 17. Still her old empire to restore.] This restoration makes the completion of the poem. Vide Book iv. Ver. 22. Laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair.] The imagery is exquisite; and the equivoque in the last words, gives a peculiar elegance to the whole expression. The easy chair suits his age: Rabelais' easy chair marks his character; and he filled and possessed it as the right heir and successor of that original genius. Ver. 23. Or praise the court, or magnify mankind.] Ironice, alluding to Gulliver's representations of both. The next line relates to the papers of the Draper against the cur rency of Wood's copper coin in Ireland, which, upon the great discontent of the people, his majesty was most graciously pleased to recall. print elegies on their deaths, at the same time, or before. Ver. 43. Sepulchral lies,] is a just satire on the flatteries and falsehoods admitted to be inscribed on the walls of churches, in epitaphs; which occasioned the following epigram: "Friend in your epitaphs, I'm grieved So very much is said; One half will never be believed, The other never read.' Ver. 44. New-year odes.] Made by the poet-laureate for the time being, to be sung at court on every new-year's day, the words of which are happily drowned in the voices and instruments. The new-year odes of the hero of this work were of a cast distinguished from all that preceded him, and made a conspicuous part of his character as a writer, which doubtless induced our author to mention them here so particularly. Ver. 26. Mourn not, my Swift, at aught our realm ac- Ver. 45. In clouded majesty here Dulness shone.] See quires.] Ironice iterum. The politics of England and Ire-this cloud removed or rolled back, or. gathered up to her land were at this time by some thought to be opposite, or head, Book iv. ver. 17, 18. It is worth while to compare interfering with each other. Dr. Swift of course was in the this description of the majesty of Dulness in a state of peace interest of the latter, our author of the former. Ver. 31. By his famed father's hand.] Mr. Caius Gabriel Cibber, father of the poet-laureate. The two statues of the lunatics over the gates of Bedlam-hospital were done by him, and (as the son justly says of them) are no ill monunts of his fame as an artist. and tranquillity, with that more busy scene where she mounts the throne in triumph, and is not so much supported by her own virtues, as by the princely consciousness of having destroyed all other. Ver. 57. Genial Jacob] Tonson. The famous race of book sellers of that name Here one poor word a hundred clenches makes, She sees a mob of metaphors advance, She saw slow Phillips creep like Tate's poor page, In each she marks her image full exprest, REMARKS. some lines in Cowley's Miscellanies on the other. And 70 both these authors had a resemblance in their fates as well as their writings, having been alike sentenced to the pillory. Ver. 104. And Eusden eke out, &c.] Lawrence Eusden, poet laureate. Mr. Jacob gives a catalogue of some few only of his works, which were very numerous. Mr. Cooke, in his Battle of Poets, saith of him, All these, and more, the cloud-compelling queen Beholds through fogs, that magnify the scene. She, tinsel'd o'er in robes of varying hues, With self-applause her wild creation views; Sees momentary monsters rise and fall, And with her own fools' colours gilds them all. 'Twas on the day, when ** rich and grave, Like Cimon triumph'd both on land and wave: (Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces, Glad chains, warm furs, broad banners, and broad faces,) 'Eusden, a laurel'd bard by fortune rais'd, Mr. Oldmixon, in his Arts of Logic and Rhetoric, p. 413, Now night descending, the proud scene was o'er, REMARKS. 90 100 Ver. 85, 86. 'Twas on the day, when rich and grave -Like Cimon triumph'd] Viz. a lord mayor's day; his same the author had left in blanks, but most certainly could never be that which the editor foisted in formerly, and which no way agrees with the chronology of the poem. The procession of a lord mayor is made partly by land and partly by water-Cimon, the famous Athenian general, obtained a victory by sea, and another by land on the same day, over the Persians and Barbarians. Ver. 90. But lived, in Settle's numbers, one day more.] A beautiful manner of speaking, usual with poets, in praise But vow'd that till then he ne'er heard of his name.' Session of Poets. The same plea might also serve for his successor, Mr. Cib ber: and is further strengthened in the following epigram made on that occasion: In merry Old England it once was a rule But now we're so frugal, I'd have you to know it, Nahum Tate was poet laureate, a cold writer of no invention; but sometimes translated tolerably when befriended by Mr. Dryden. In his second part of Absolam and Achitophel are above two hundred admirable lines together, of that great hand, which strongly shine through the insipidity of the rest. Something parallel may be observed of another author here mentioned. Ver. 106. And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.] Mr. by the name of Furius. The modern Furius is to be looked Theobald, in the Censor, vol. ii. No. 33, calls Mr. Dennis upon more as an object of pity, than of that which he daily provokes, laughter and contempt. Did we really know how much this poor man' [I wish that reflection on poverty Bentl. had been spared] suffers by being contradicted, or which is the same thing in effect, by hearing another praised; we should, in compassion sometimes attend to him with a silent nod, and let him go away with the triumphs of his ill-nature. -Poor Furius, (again) when any of his contemporaries are spoken well of, quitting the ground of the present dispute, steps back a thousand years to call in the succour of the ancients. His very panegyric is spiteful, and he uses it for Ibid. But lived, in Settle's numbers, one day more.] Set- the same reason as some ladies do their commendation of a tle was poet to the city of London. His office was to com- that a living one happened to be mentioned in their comdead beauty, who would never have their good word, but pose yearly panegyrics upon the lord mayors, and verses to be spoken in the pageants: but that part of the shows being pany. His applause is not the tribute of his heart, but the at length frugally abolished, the employment of City-poet sacrifice of his revenge,' &c. Indeed, his pieces against our poet are somewhat of an angry character, and as they are now scarce extant, a taste of this style may be satisfactory to the curious. A young, squab, short gentleman, whose outward form, though it should be that of downright monkey, would not differ so much from the human shape as his unthinking immaterial part does from human understanding.-He is as stupid and as venomous as a hunchback'd toad. A book through which folly and ignorance, of poetry. ceased; so that to that place. upon Settle's demise, there was no successor Ver. 98. John Heywood, whose interludes were printed in the time of Henry VIII. Ver. 103. Old Pryn in restless Daniel.] The first edition had it, 'She saw in Norton all his father shine:" a great mistake! for Daniel de Foe had parts, but Norton those brethren so lame and impotent, do ridiculously look de Foe was a wretched writer, and never attempted poetry. big and very dull, and strut and hobble, cheek by jowl, Much more justly is Daniel himself, made successor to W. with their arms on kimbo, being led and supported, and Pryn, both of whom wrote verses as well as Politics; as ap-bully-hack'd by that blind Hector, Impudence.' Reflect. on pears by the poem de Jure Divino, &c. of De Foe, and by the Essay on Criticism, p. 26, 29, 30. Ꮓ Bays, form'd by nature stage and town to bless, REMARKS. Swearing and supperless the hero sat, 110 Blasphemed his gods, the dice, and damn'd his fate; It would be unjust not to add his reasons for this fury, they are so strong and so coercive. 'I regard him,' saith he, as an enemy, not so much to me, as to my king, to my country, to my religion, and to that liberty which has been the sole felicity of my life. A vagary of fortune, who is sometimes pleased to be frolicsome, and the epidemie madness of the times, have given him reputation, and "reputation," as Hobbes says, "is power," and that has made him dangerous. Therefore I look on it as my duty to King George, whose faithful subject I am; to my country, of which I have appeared a constant lover; to the laws, under whose protection I have so long lived; and to the liberty of my country, more dear to me than life, of which I have now for forty years been a constant asserter, &c. I look upon it as any duty, I say, to do-you shall see what-to pull the lion's skin from this little ass, which populer error has thrown around him; and to show that this author, who has been lately so much in vogue, has neither sense in his thoughts, nor English in his expression.' Dennis, Rem. on Hom. Pref. p. 2, 91, &c. There hapless Shakspeare, yet of Tibbald sore, REMARKS. 130 am I only to be dull, and dull still, and again, and for ever? Besides these public-spirited reasons, Mr. D. had a pri- He then solemnly appealed to his own conscience, that the vate one; which, by his manner of expressing it in p. 92, could not think himself so, nor believe that our poet did; appears to have been equally strong. He was even in bodily but that he spake worse of him than he could possibly think; fear of his life, from the machinations of the said Mr. P. and concluded it must be merely to show his wit, or for some The story,' says he, 'is too long to be told, but who would profit or lucre to himself.' Life of C. C. chap. vii. and Letbe acquainted with it, may hear it from Mr. Curll, my book-ter to Mr. P. page 15, 40, 53. And to show his claim to seller. However, what my reason has suggested to me, what the poet was so unwilling to allow him, of being pert which that I have with a just confidence said, in defiance of his as well as dull, he declares he will have the last word; two clandestine weapons, his slander and his poison.' occasioned the following epigram: Which last words of his book plainly discover Mr. D's sus- Quoth Cibber to Pope, "Though in verse you foreclose, picion was that of being poisoned, in like manner as Mr. I'll have the last word; for, by G-, I'll write prose." Curl had been before him: of which fact, see a full and Poor Colly, thy reasoning is none of the strongest, true account of the horrid and barbarous revenge, by poison,! For know, the last word is the word that lasts longest. on the body of Edmund Curll, printed in 1716, the year ante- Ver. 115. Supperless the hero sat.] It is amazing how cedent to that wherein these remarks of Mr. Dennis were the sense of this hath been mistaken by all the former com published. But what puts it beyond all question, is a pas-mentators, who most idly suppose it to imply, that the here sage in a very warm treatise, in which Mr. D. was also concerned, price two-pence, called, A true character of Mr. Pope and his Writings, printed for S. Popping, 1716; in the tenth page whereof he is said to have insulted people on those calamities and diseases which he himself gave them, by administering poison to them;' and is called (p. 4.) a lurking way-laying coward, and a stabber in the dark.' Which (with many other things most lively set forth in that piece) must have tendered him a terror, not to Mr. Dennis only, but to all Christian people. This charitable warning only provoked our incorrigible poet to write the following epigram: 'Should Dennis publish you had stabb'd your brother, of the poem wanted a supper. In truth, a great absurdity. Not that we are ignorant that the hero of Homer's Odyssey is frequently in that circumstance, and, therefore, it can no way derogate from the grandeur of epic poem to represent such hero under a calamity, to which the greatest, not only of critics and poets, but of kings and warriors, have been subject. But much more refined, I will venture to say, the meaning of our author: it was to give us obliquely a curious precept, or what Bossu calls a disguised sentence, that 'Temperance is the life of study. The language of poesy brings all into action; and to represent a critic encom passed with books but without a supper, is a picture which lively expresseth how much the true critic prefers the diet of the mind to that of the body, one of which he always cas tigates, and often totally neglects, for the greater improve ment of the other. Scribl. But since the discovery of the true hero of the poem, way we not add, that nothing was so natural, after so great a lost of money at dice, or of reputation by his play, as that the poet should have no great stomach to eat a super? Be sides, how well has the poet consulted his heroic character, in adding that he has swore all the time? Bentl. Ver. 131. Poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes.] A great number of them taken out to patch up his plays. Ver. 132. The frippery.] When I fitted up an old play it was as a good housewife will mend old linen, when she has not better employment.' Life, p. 217, Evo. For the rest; Mr. John Dennis was the son of a saddler, in London, born in 1657. He paid court to Mr. Dryden; and having obtained some correspondence with Mr. Wycherley and Mr. Congreve, he immediately obliged the public with their letters. He made himself known to the government by many admirable schemes and projects, which the ministry, for reasons best known to themselves, constantly Ver. 133. Hapless Shakspeare, &c.] It is not to be kept private. For his character as a writer, it is given us as doubted but Bays was a subscriber to Tibbald's Shakspeare follows: Mr. Dennis is excellent at Pindaric writings, per- He was frequently liberal in this way; and, as he tells us, fectly regular in all his performances, and a person of sound subscribed to Mr. Pope's Homer out of pure generosity and learning. That he is master of a great deal of penetration civility; but when Mr. Pope did so to his Non-juror, he con and judgment, his criticisms (particularly on Prince Arthur) cluded it could be nothing but a joke,' Letter to Mr. P. p. 24. do sufficiently demonstrate.' From the same account it This Tibbald, or Theobald, published an edition of Shakalso appears that he writ plays more to get reputation than money. Dennis of himself. See Giles Jacob's Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 68, 69, compared with p. 286. Ver. 109. Bays, form'd by nature, &c.] It is hoped the poet here hath done full justice to his hero's character, which it were a great mistake to imagine was wholly sunk in stupidity; he is allowed to have supported it with a won derful mixture of vivacity. This character is heightened according to his own desire, in a letter he wrote to our author: "Pert and dull at least you might have allowed me. What speare, of which he was so proud himself as to say, in one of Mist's Journals, June 8, 'That to expose any errors in it was impracticable.' And to another, April 27, That whatever care might for the future be taken by any other editor, he would still give about five hundred emendations, that shall escape them all.' Ver. 134. Wish'd he had blotted.] It was a ridiculous praise which the players gave to Shakspeare, that he never blotted a line. Ben Jonson honestly wished he had blotted thousand; and Shakspeare would certainly have wished a The rest on outside merit but presume, 149 Well purged, and worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome. De Lyra there a dreadful front extends, And here the groaning shelves Philemon bends. REMARKS. Of these, twelve volumes, twelve of amplest size, A hecatomb of pure unsullied lays That altar crowns: a folio common-place 140 Founds the whole pile, of all, his works the base: 160 the same, if he had lived to see the alterations in his works, which not the actors only (and especially the daring hero of this poem) have made on the stage, but the presumptuous critics of our days in their editions. Ver. 135. The rest on outside merit, &c.] This library And hang some curious cobweb in its stead' is divided into three parts; the first consists of those authors As forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly, from whom he stole, and whose works he mangled; the se- And ponderous slugs cut swiftly through the sky : cond of such as fitted the shelves, or were gilded for show, or acorned with pictures: the third class our author calls As clocks to weight their nimble motions owe, solid learning, old bodies of divinity, old commentaries, old The wheels above urged by the load below : English printers, or, old English translations; all very volu-Me Emptiness and Dulness could inspire, minous, and fit to erect altars to Dulness. Ver. 141. Ogilby the great:] 'John Ogilby was one, And were my elasticity and fire. who, from a late initiation into literature, made such a pro- Some demon stole my pen (forgive the offence) gress as might well style him the prodigy of his time! send-And once betray'd me into common sense: ing into the world so many large volumes! His translations of Homer and Virgil done to the life, and with such excel- Else all my prose and verse were much the same, lent sculptures: and (what added great grace to his works) This, prose on stilts; that, poetry fall'n lame. he printed them all on special good paper, and in a very good Did on the stage my fops appear confined! My life gave ampler lessons to mankind. letter.' Winstanley, Lives of Poets. Ver. 142. There, stamp'd with arms, Newcastle shines complete:] The dutchess of Newcastle was one who busied herself in the ravishing delights of poetry; leaving to posterity in print three ample volumes of her studious endeavours. Winstanley, ibid. Langbane reckons up eight folios of her grace's, which were usually adorned with gilded covers, and had her coat of arms upon them. REMARKS. 170 180 190 nous commentator, whose works, in five vast folios, were printed in 1472. Ver. 154. Philemon Holland, doctor in physic. He translated so many books, that a man would think he had done nothing else; insomuch that he might be called translator general of his age. The books alone of his turning into English are sufficient to make a country gentleman a complete library. Winstanley. Ver. 146. Worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.] The poet has mentioned these three authors in particular, as they are parallel to our hero in his three capacities; 1. Settle was his brother laureate; only indeed upon half-pay, for the city instead of the court; but equally famous for unintelligible flights in his poems on public occasions, such as shows, birth-days, &c. 2. Banks was his rival in tragedy | Ver. 167. E'er since sir Fopling's periwig.] The first (though more successful) in one of his tragedies, the Earl visible cause of the passion of the town for our hero, was a of Essex, which is yet alive: Anna Boleyn, the Queen of fair flaxen full-bottomed periwig, which, he tells us, he wore Scots, and Cyrus the Great, are dead and gone. These he in his first play of the Fool in Fashion. It attracted, in a dressed in a sort of beggar's velvet, or a happy mixture of particular manner, the friendship of Col. Brett, who wanted the thick fustian and thin prosaic; exactly imitated in Pe- to purchase it. 'Whatever contempt,' says he, 'philoso rolla and Isidora, Caesar in Egypt, and the Heroic Daughter. phers may have for a fine periwig, my friend, who was not 3. Broome was a serving man of Ben Jonson, who once to despise the world, but to live in it, knew very well, that picked up a comedy from his letters, or from some cast so material an article of dress upon the head of a man of scenes of his master, not entirely contemptible. sense, if it became him, could never fail of drawing to him Ver. 147. More solid learning.] Some have objected, a more partial regard and benevolence, than could possibly that books of this sort suit not so well the library of our be hoped for in an ill-made one. This, perhaps, may soften Bays, which they imagined consisted of novels, plays, and the grave censure which so youthful a purchase might obscene books; but they are to consider that he furnished otherwise have laid upon him. In a word, he made his athis shelves only for ornament, and read these books no more tack upon this periwig, as your young fellows generally do than the dry bodies of divinity, which, no doubt, were pur-upon a lady of pleasure, first by a few familiar praises of chased by his father when he designed him for the gown. her person, and then a civil inquiry into the price of it; and See the note on ver. 200. we finished our bargain that night over a bottle.' See Life Ver. 149. Caxton] A printer in the time of Edw. IV. 8vo. p. 303. This remarkable periwig usually made its enRichard III. and Hen. VII.; Wynkyn de Work, his suc-trance upon the stage in a sedan, brought in by two chair. cessor, in that of Hen. VII. and VIII. The former trans-men, with infinite approbation of the audience. lated into prose Virgil's Æneis, as a history; of which he Ver. 178, 179. Guard the sure barrier-Or quite unravel, speaks, in his proeme, in a very singular manner, as of a &c.] For wit or reasoning are never greatly hurtful to dul book hardly known. Tibbald quotes a rare passage from ness, but when the first is founded in truth, and the other in him in Mist's Journal of March 16, 1723, concerning a usefulness. strange and marvallous beaste, called Sagittayre, which he would have Shakspeare to mean rather than Teucer, the archer celebrated by Homer. Ver. 153. Nich de Lyra, or Harpsfield, a very volumi Ver. 181. As, forced from wind-guns, &c.] The thought of these four verses is founded in a poem of our author's of a very early date (namely, written at fourteen years old, and Isoon after printed,) to the author of a poem called Successio. |