Did the dead letter unsuccessful prove?
The brisk example never fail'd to move.
Yet sure, had Heaven decreed to save the state,
Heaven had decreed these works a longer date.
Could Troy be saved by any single hand,
This gray-goose weapon must have made her stand. Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain.

Hold to the minister I more incline;
To serve his cause, O queen! is serving thine.
And see! thy very Gazetteers give o'er;
E'en Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more.
What then remains? Ourself. Still, still remain

What can I now ? my Fletcher cast aside,
Take up the Bible, once my better guide?
Or tread the path by venturous heroes trod,
This box my thunder, this right hand my god?
Or, chair'd at White's, amidst the doctors sit,
Teach oaths to gamesters, and to nobles wit?
Or bidst thou rather party to embrace ?
(A friend to party thou, and all her race;
'Tis the same rope at different ends they twist;
To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist.)
Shall I, like Curtius, desperate 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?

REMARKS.

220

This brazen brightness, to the 'squire so dear;
200 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.

210

Ver. 198. Gray-goose weapon.] Alluding to the old English weapon, the arrow of the long-bow, which was fletched with the feathers of the gray-goose.

Ver. 199. My Fletcher] A familiar manner of speaking, used by modern critics, of a favourite author. Bays might as justly speak this of Fletcher, as a French wit did of Tully, seeing his works in a library, Ah! mon cher Ciceron! je le connois bien: c'est le meme que Marc Tulle. But he had a better title to call Fletcher his own, having made so

free with him.

Ver. 200. Take up the Bible, once my better guide?] When, according to his father's intention, he had been a clergyman, or (as he thinks himself,) a bishop of the church of England. Hear his own words: At the time that the fate of King James, the prince of Orange, and myself, were on the anvil, Providence thought fit to postpone mine, till, theirs were determined: but had my father carried me a month sooner to the university, who knows but that purer fountain might have washed my imperfections into a capacity of writing, instead of plays and annual odes, sermons, and pastoral letters ?'-Apology for his Life, chap. iii.

Ver. 203. At White's amidst the doctors] These doctors had a modest and upright appearance, no air of overbearing; but, like true masters of art, were only habited in black and white: they were justly styled subtiles and graves, but not always irrefragabiles, being sometimes examined, and by a nice distinction, divided and laid open.

Scribl.

This learned critic is to be understood allegorically. The doctors in this place mean no more than false dice, a cant phrase used among gamesters. So the meaning of these four sonorous lines is only this, 'Shall I play fair or foul?' Ver. 208. Ridpath-Mist.] George Ridpath, author of a Whig paper, called the Flying-post; Nathaniel Mist of a famous Tory journal.

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, Æn. viii.

'Atque hic auratis volitans argenteus anser Porticibus, Gallos in limine adesse canebat,'

A 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 goose sings? canebut. 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,

O born in sin, and forth in folly brought! Works dain'd, or to be damn'd (your father's fault,)

Go, purified 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.
Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland,
Sent with a pass, and vagrant through the land:
Nor sail with Ward, to ape and monkey climes,
Where vile mundungus trucks for viler rhymes:
Not, sulphur tipt, emblaze an ale-house fire;
Nor wrap up oranges, to pelt your sire!

REMARKS.

230

Not out of any preference or affection to the Tories For
what Hobbes so ingeniously confesses of himself, is true of
all ministerial writers whatsoever: That he defends the
supreme powers, as the geese by their cackling defended the
Romans, who held the Capitol; for they favoured them no
more than the Gauls, their enemies; but were as ready to
have defended the Gauls if they had been possessed of the
Capitol.'
Epis. Dedic. to the Leviathan.

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

read; but I make no scruple to pronounce them all wrong, Ver. 218. Cibberian forehead.] So indeed all the MSS. the laureate being elsewhere celebrated by our poet for his great modesty-modest Cibber-Read, therefore, at my peril, Cerberian forehead. This is perfectly classical, and, what is more, Homerical; the dog was the ancient, as the bitch is the modern symbol of impudence: (Kuves p xv, says Achilles to Agamemnon:) which, when in a s perlative degree, may well be denominated from Cerberus, the dog with three heads-But as to the latter part of this verse, Cibberian brain, that is certainly the genuine reading.

Bentl

Ver. 225. O born in sin, &c.] This is a tender and to sacrifice, agreeable to the nature of man in great affe passionate apostrophe to his own works, which he is going tion: and reflecting, like a parent, on the many miserable fates to which they would otherwise be subject. Ver. 228. My better and more christian progeny!] 'It may be observable, that my muse and my spouse were equally prolific! that the one was seldom the mother of a child, but in the same year the other made me the father of a play. I think we had a dozen of each sort between us of both which kinds, some died in their infancy, &c.' Life of C. C. p. 217, 8vo. edit.

Ver. 131. 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.

Ver. 233. With Ward, to ape and monkey climes.] 'Edward Ward, a very voluminous poet in Hudibrastie has of late years kept a public-house in the city (but in a verse, but best known by the London Spy, in prose. He 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 Plautations.-Ward, in a book, called And to say that walls have ears is common even to a Apollo's Maggot, declared this account to be a great falsity, proverb. Scribl. protesting that his public-house was not in the city, but in Ver. 212. And cackling save the monarchy of Tories?] Moorfields.

'Auritas fidibus canoris

Ducere quercus.'

How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail:
How, with less reading than makes felons 'scape,
240 Less human genius than God gives an ape,

O! pass more innocent, in infant state,
To the mild limbo of our father Tate:
Or peaceably forgot, at once be bless'd
In Shadwell's bosom with eternal rest!
Soon to that mass of nonsense to return,
Where things destroy'd are swept to things unborn.
With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace!)
Stole from the master of the seven-fold face :
And thrice he lifted high the birth-day brand,
And thrice he dropp'd it from his quivering hand:
Then lights the structure, with averted eyes:
The rolling smoke involves the sacrifice.
The opening clouds disclose each work by turns,
Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns;
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.

250

260

Roused by the light, old Dulness heaved the head,
Then snatch'd a sheet of Thule 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;
A veil of fogs dilates her awful face:
Great in her charms! as when on shrieves and mayors
She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.
She bid him wait her to her sacred dome :
Well pleased he enter'd, and confess'd his home.
So spirits, ending their terrestrial race,
Ascend, and recognize their native place.
This the great mother dearer held than all
The club of quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall :
Here stood her opium, here she nursed her owls,
And here she plann'd the imperial seat of fools.
Here to her chosen all her works she shows;
=Prose swell'd to verse, verse loitering into prose:
How random thoughts now meaning chance to find,
Now leave all memory of sense behind:
How prologues into prefaces decay,

And these to notes are fritter'd quite away:

REMARKS.

280

Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece,
A past, vamp'd, future, old, revived, new piece,
'Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakspeare, and Corneille,
Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell.

The goddess then, o'er his anointed head,
With mystic words the sacred opium shed;
And lo! her bird (a monster of a fowl,
Something betwixt a heidegger and owl)
Perch'd on his crown. 'All hail! and hail again,
My son! the promised land expects thy reign.
Know, Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise;
He sleeps among the dull of ancient days;
Safe, where no critics damn, nor duns molest,
Where wretched Withers, Ward, and Gildon rest,
And high-born Howard, more majestic sire,
With Fool of Quality completes the quire.

REMARKS.

290

Ver. 286. Tibbald.] Lewis Tibbald (as pronounced) or Theobald (as written) was bred an attorney, and son to an attorney, says Mr. Jacob, of Sittenburn, in Kent. He was the author of some forgotten plays, translations, and other pieces. He was concerned in a paper called the Censor, and a translation of Ovid. There is a notorious idiot, one hight Wachum, who from an under-spur-leather to the law, is become an understrapper to the playhouse, who has lately burlesqued the Metamorphoses of Ovid by a vile translation, &c. This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Censor.'-Dennis, Rem. on Pope's Homer, p. 9, 10.

Ibid. Ozell.] 'Mr. John Ozell, if we credit Mr. Jacob, did go to school in Leicestershire, where somebody left him 270 something to live on, when he shall retire from business. He was designed to be sent to Cambridge, in order for priesthood; but he chose rather to be placed in an office of accounts, in the city, being qualified for the same by his skill in arithmetic, and writing the necessary hands. He has obliged the world with many translations of French

plays.'--Jacob, Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 198.

Mr. Jacob's character of Mr. Ozell seems vastly short of his merits, and he ought to have further justice done him, having since confuted all sarcasms on his learning and genius, by an advertisement of Sept. 20, 1729, in a paper called the Weekly Medley, &c. As to my learning, this envious wretch knew, and every body knows, that the whole bench of bishops, not long ago, were pleased to give me a purse of guineas, for discovering the erroneous transla

Ver. 238. 240. Tate-Shadwell.] Two of his predecessors tions of the Common-prayer in Portuguese, Spanish, French, in the laurel.

Italian, &c. As for my genius, let Mr. Cleland show better Ver. 250. Now flames the Cid, &c.] In the first notes verses in all Pope's works, than Ozell's version of Boileau's on the Dunciad it was said, that this author was particular- Lutrin, which the late lord Halifax was so pleased with, that ly excellent at tragedy. This,' says he, is as unjust as to he complimented him with leave to dedicate it to him, &c. say I could not dance on a rope.' But certain it is, that he Let him show better and truer poetry in the Rape of the had attempted to dance on this rope, and fell most shame- Lock, than in Ozell's Rape of the Bucket, (la Secchia fully, having produced no less than four tragedies (the rapita.) And Mr. Toland and Mr. Gildon publicly declared names of which the poet preserves in these few lines ;) the Ozell's translation of Homer to be, as it was prior, so likethree first of them were fairly printed, acted, and damned; the fourth suppressed in fear of the like treatment.

Ver. 253,254. The dear Nonjuror-Moliere's old stubble.] A comedy thrashed 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 govern ment. 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.'

wise superior to Pope's.-Surely, surely, every man is free to deserve well of his country!'-John Özell.

We cannot but subscribe to such reverend testimonies, as those of the bench of bishops, Mr. Toland, and Mr. Gildon.

Ver. 290. A heidegger] A strange bird from Switzerland, and not, as some have supposed, the name of an eminent person who was a man of parts, and, as was said of Petronius, arbiter elegantiarum."

Ver. 296. Withers.] See on ver. 146.

Ibid. Gildon] Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels in the last age, bred at St. Omer's with the Jesuits; Ver. 258. Thule] An unfinished poem of that name, of but renouncing popery, he published Blount's books against which one sheet was printed many years ago, by Ambrose the divinity of Christ, the Oracles of Reason, &c. He signaPhillips, a northern author. It is an usual method of putting lized himself as a critic, having written some very bad plays; out a fire, to cast wet sheets upon it. Some critics have abused Mr. P. very scandalously in an anonymous pamphlet been of opinion that this sheet was of the nature of the of the life of Mr. Wycherley, printed by Curil; in another, asbestos, which cannot be consumed by fire; but I rather called the New Rehearsal, printed in 1744; in a third, entithink it an allegorical allusion to the coldness and heaviness tied the Complete Art of English Poetry, in two volumes: of the writing.

Ver. 269. Great mother] Magna mater here applied to Dulness. The quidnuncs, a name given to the ancient members of several political clubs, who were constantly in quiring quid nunc? What news?

and others.

Ver. 297. Howard] Hon. Edward Howard, author of the British Princes, and a great number of wonderful pieces, celebrated by the late earls of Dorset and Rochester, duke lof Buckingham, Mr. Waller, &c.

And the hoarse nation croak'd, 'God save king Log.' HIGH on a gorgeous seat, that far out-shone
Henley's gilt tub, or Fleckno's Irish throne,

Ver. 324. But pious Needham.] A matron of great fame, Two things there are, upon the supposition of which the and very religious in her way; whose constant prayer it was, very basis of all verbal criticism is founded and supported: that she might get enough by her profession to leave it off The first, that an author could never fail to use the best in time, and make her peace with God.' But her fate was word on every occasion: the second, that a critic cannot not so happy; for being convicted, and set in the pillory, she choose but know which that is. This being granted, whenwas, (to the lasting shame of all her great friends and vota-ever any word doth not fully content us, we take upon us to ries) so ill used by the populace, that it put an end to her days. conclude, first, that the author could never have used it; Ver. 325. Back to the Devil.] The Devil Tavern in and, secondly, that he must have used that very one, which Fleet-street, where these odes are usually rehearsed before we conjecture, in its stead. they are performed at court. Upon which a wit of those times makes this epigram:

We cannot, therefore, enough admire the learned Scriblerus, for his alteration of the text in the last two verses of the preceding book, which in all the former editions stood thus:

Hoarse thunder to its bottom shook the bog,

And the loud nation croak'd, 'God save king Log" He has, with great judgment, transposed these two epithets; putting hoarse to the nation, and loud to the thunder; and this being evidently the true reading, he vouchsafed not Our author manifests here, and elsewhere, a prodigious so much as to mention the former: for which assertion of tenderness for the bad writers. We see he selects the only the just right of a critic he merits the acknowledgment of good passage, perhaps, in all that ever Ogilby writ! which all sound commentators.

shows how candid and patient a reader he must have been. Ver. 2. Henley's gilt tub,] The pulpit of a dissenter is What can be more kind and affectionate than the words in usually called a tub; but that of Mr. Orator Henley was co the preface to his poems, where he labours to call upon all vered with velvet, and adorned with gold. He had also our humanity and forgiveness towards these unlucky men, fair altar, and over it this extraordinary inscription: The oy the most moderate representation of their case that has primitive eucharist. See the history of this person, book ii. ever been given by any author? Ver. 2. or Fleckno's Irish throne,] Richard Fleckno was

With authors, stationers obey'd the call:

Or that where on her Curlls the public pours,
All bounteous, fragrant grains and golden showers,The field of glory is a field for all.

Great Cibber sat: the proud Parnassian sneer,
The conscious simper, and the jealous leer,
Mix on his look: all eyes direct their rays

On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze.
His peers shine round him with reflected grace,
New edge their dulness, and new bronze their face.
So from the sun's broad beam, in shållow urns, 10
Heaven's twinkling sparks draw light, and point their
horns.

Not with more glee, by hands pontific crown'd,
With scarlet hats wide waving circled round,
Rome in her Capitol saw Querno sit,
Throned on seven hills, the Antichrist of wit.
And now the queen, to glad her sons, proclaims
By herald hawkers, high heroic games.

Glory and pain the industrious tribe provoke ;
And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.
A poet's form she placed before their eyes,
And bade the nimblest racer seize the prize;
No meagre, muse-rid mope, adust and thin,
In a dun night-gown of his own loose skin,
But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise,
Twelve starving bards of these degenerate days. 40
All as a partridge plump, full-fed and fair,
She form'd this image of well-bodied air;
With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head;
A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead:
And empty words she gave, and sounding strain,
But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!
Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit,
A fool, so just a copy of a wit;

20 So like, that critics said, and courtiers swore,
A wit it was, and call'd the phantom More.

They summon all her race: an endless band
Pours forth, and leaves unpeopled half the land.
A motley mixture! in long wigs, in bags,
In silks, in crapes, in garters, and in rags,
From drawing-rooms, from colleges, from garrets,
On horse, on foot, in hacks, and gilded chariots:
All who true Dunces in her cause appear'd,
And all who knew those Dunces to reward.
Amid that area wide they took their stand,
Where the tall may-pole once o'erlook'd the Strand,
But now (so Anne and piety ordain)

A church collects the saints of Drury-lane.

REMARKS.

30

REMARKS.

50

joy. He was ever after a constant frequenter of the pope's table, drank abundantly, and poured forth verses without number. Paulus Jovius, Elog. Vir. Doct. chap. lxxxiii. Some idea of his poetry is given by Fam. Strada in his Prolusions.

Ver. 34. And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.] This species of mirth, called a joke, arising from a mal-entendu may be well supposed to be the delight of Dulness.

Ver. 47. Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit.] Our author here seems willing to give some account of the possibility of Dulness making a wit (which could be done no other way than by chance.) The fiction is the more reconciled to probability by the known story of Apelles, who, being at a loss to express the foam of Alexander's horse, dashed his pencil in despair at the picture, and happened to do it by that fortunate stroke.

an Irish priest, but had laid aside (as himself expressed it) the mechanic part of priesthood. He printed some plays, poems, letters, and travels. I doubt not, our author took occasion to mention bim in respect to the poem of Mr. Dry- Ver. 50. And call'd the phantom More.] Curll, in his den, to which this bears some resemblance, though of a cha-Key to the Dunciad, affirmed this to be James Moore racter more different from it than that of the Eneid from the Smith, Esq. and it is probable (considering what is said of Iliad, or the Lutrin of Boileau from the Defait de Bouts Ri-him in the testimonies) that some might fancy our author mées of Sarazin. obliged to represent this gentleman as a plagiary, or to pass

It may be just worth mentioning, that the eminence from for one himself. His case, indeed, was like that of a man I whence the ancient sophists entertained their auditors, was have heard of, who, as he was sitting in company, perceivcalled by the pompous name of a throne, Themistius, ed his next neighbour had stolen his handkerchief: 'Sir,' Orat. i. said the thief, finding himself detected, 'do not expose me, I Ver. 3. Or that whereon her Curlls the public pours.] did it for mere want; be so good but to take it privately out Edmund Curll stood in the pillory at Charing-cross, in March, of my pocket again, and say nothing.' The honest man did 1727-8. This, saith Edmund Curll, 'is a false assertion-so, but the other cried out, 'See, gentlemen, what a thief I had, indeed, the corporal punishment of what the gentle- we have among us! look, he is stealing my handkerchief!" men of the long robe are pleased jocosely to call mounting Some time before, he had borrowed of Dr. Arbuthnot a the rostrum for one hour: but that scene of action was not paper called a Historico-physical account of the South Sea; in the month of March, but in February.' (Curliad, 12mo. and of Mr. Pope the memoirs of a Parish Clerk, which for p. 19.) And of the history of his oeing tossed in a blanket, two years he kept, and read to the Rev. Dr. Young, F. Bilhe saith, Here, Scriblerus! thou leesest in what thou as-lers, Esq. and many others, as his own. Being applied to wertest concerning the blanket: it was not a blanket but a for them, he pretended they were lost; but there happening rug, p. 25. Much in the same manner Mr. Cibber remon-to be another copy of the latter, it came out in Swift's and strated, that his brothers, at Bedlam, mentioned Book i. Pope's Miscellanies. Upon this, it seems, he was so far were not brazen, but blocks; yet our author let it pass un-mistaken as to confess his proceeding by an endeavour to altered, as a trifle that no way altered the relationship. hide it: unguardedly printing (in the Daily Journal of April We should think, gentle reader, that we but ill performed 3, 1723,) That the contempt which he and others had for our part, if we corrected not as well our own errors now, as formerly those of the printer; since what moved us to this work, was solely the love of truth, not in the least any vain glory, or desire to contend with great authors. And further, our mistakes, we conceive, will the rather be pardoned, as scarce possible to be avoided in writing of such persons and works as do ever shun the light. However, that we may not any how soften or extenuate the same, we give them thee in the very words of our antagonists; not defend*ing, but retracting them from our heart, and craving excuse of the parties offended: for surely in this work, it hath been above all things our desire to provoke no man. Scribl. Ver. 15. Rome in her Capitol saw Querno sit.] Camillo dinate a passion to be thought a wit. Here is a very strong Querno was of Apulia, who hearing the great encourage who having shown some verses of his in manuscript to Mr. instance attested by Mr. Savage, son of the late Earl Rivers; ment which Leo X gave to poets, travelled to Rome with a harp in his hand, and sung to it twenty thousand verses of a Moore, wherein Mr. Pope was called first of the tuneful poem called Alexias. He was introduced as a buffoon to desire him to give those verses another turn, to wit, 'That train, Mr. Moore the next morning sent to Mr. Savage to Leo, and promoted to the honour of the laurel; a jest which Pope might now be the first, because Moore had left him the court of Rome and the pope himself entered into so far,

those pieces, (which only himself had shown, and handed
about as his own,) occasioned their being lost, and for that
canse only not returned.' A fact, of which as none but he
could be conscious, none but he could be the publisher of it.
The plagiarisms of this person gave occasion to the follow-
ing epigram:

'Moore always smiles whenever he recites;
He smiles (you think) approving what he writes.
And yet in this no vanity is shown;

A modest man may like what's not his own.'
This young gentleman's whole misfortune was too inor-

as to cause him to ride on an elephant to the Capitol, and unrivalled, in turning his style to comedy. This was during to hold a solemn festival on his coronation; at which it is the rehearsal of the Rival Modes, his first and only work; recorded the poet himself was so transported as to weep for! • See Life of C. C. chap. vi. p. 149.

All gaze with ardour: some a poet's name,
Others a sword-knot and laced suit inflame.
But lofty Lintot in the circle rose:

This prize is mine; who 'tempt it are my foes:
With me began this genius, and shall end.'
He spoke; and who with Lintot shall contend?
Fear held them mute. Alone, untaught to fear,
Stood dauntless Curll: Behold that rival here!

REMARKS.

The race by vigour, not by vaunts is won:
So take the hindmost, Hell!' he said, and run.
Swift as a bard the bailiff leaves behind,
He left huge Lintot, and out-stripp'd the wind.
As when a dab-chick waddles through the copse
On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops:
So labouring on, with shoulder, hands, and head,
Wide as a wind-mill all his figure spread,
With arms expanded Bernard rows his state,
And left-legg'd Jacob seems to emulate.
Full in the middle way there stood a lake

60

the town condemned it in the action, but he printed it in Which Curll's Corinna chanced that morn to make; 1726-7, with this modest motto:

'Hic cæstus, artemque repono.' The smaller pieces which we have heard attributed to this author are, An Epigram on the Bridge at Blenheim, by Dr. Evans: Cosmelia, by Mr. Pit, Mr. Jones, &c. The Mock Marriage of a mad Divine, with a Cl. for a Parson, by Dr. W. The Saw-pit, a Simile, by a Friend. Certain Physical Works on Sir James Baker; and some unowned Letters, Advertisements, and Epigrams against our author in the Daily Journal.

71

Notwithstanding what is here collected of the person imagined by Curll to be meant in this place, we cannot be of that opinion; since our poet had certainly no need of vindicating half a dozen verses to himself, which every reader had done for him; since the name itself is not spelled Moore, but More; and, lastly, since the learned Scriblerus has so well proved the contrary.

(Such was her wont, at early dawn to drop Her evening cates before his neighbour's shop) Here fortuned Curll to slide; loud shout the band, And Bernard! Bernard! rings through all the Strand Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewray'd, Fall'n in the plash his wickedness had laid:" Then first (if poets aught of truth declare) The caitiff vaticide conceived a prayer: 'Hear, Jove! whose name my bards and I adore, As much at least as any gods or more; And him and his if more devotion warms, Down with the Bible, up with the pope's arms. Ver. 50. The phantom More.] It appears from hence, A place there is, betwixt earth, air, and seas, that this is not the name of a real person, but fictitious. Where, from ambrosia, Jove retires for ease. More from pos stultus, uopin, stultitia, to represent the There in his seat two spacious vents appear, folly of a plagiary. Thus Erasmus: Admonuit me Mori cog On this he sits, to that he leans his ear, nomen tibi, quod tam ad Moriæ vocabulum accedit quam es ipse a re alienus. Dedication of Moria Encomium to And hears the various vows of fond mankind; sir Thomas More; the farewell of which may be our au- Some beg an eastern, some a western wind; thor's to his plagiary, Vale, More! et moriam tuam gnaviter defende. Adiet More! and be sure strongly to defend

thy own folly.

Scribl.

Ver. 53. But lofty Lintot.] We enter here upon the episode of the booksellers; persons, whose names being more known and famous in the learned world than those of the authors in this poem, do therefore need less explanation. The action of Mr. Lintot here imitates that of Dares in Virgil, rising just in this manner to lay hold of a bull. This eminent bookseller printed the Rival Modes before men

tioned.

All vain petitions mounting to the sky, With reams abundant this abode supply ; Amused he reads, and then returns the bills Sign'd with that ichor which from gods distills. In office here fair Cloacina stands, And ministers to Jove with purest hands. Forth from the heap she pick'd her votary's prayer, And placed it next him, a distinction rare! Ver. 58. Stood dauntless Curll:] We come now to a Oft had the goddess heard her servant's call, character of much respect, that of Mr. Edmund Curll. As a plain repetition of great actions is the best praise of them, From her black grottos near the Temple-wall, we shall only say of this eminent man, that he carried the Listening delighted to the jest unclean trade many lengths beyond what it ever before arrived at: Of link-boys vile, and waterman obscene; and that he was the envy and admiration of all his profession. He possessed himself of a command over all authors Where, as he fish'd her nether realms for wit, whatever he caused them to write what he pleased; they She oft had favour'd him, and favours yet. could not call their very names their own. He was not only Renew'd by ordure's sympathetic force, famous among these; he was taken notice of by the state, the church, and the law, and received particular marks of As oil'd with magic juices for the course, Vigorous he rises; from the effluvia strong, It will be owned that he is here introduced with all possi-Imbibes new life, and scours and stinks along: ble dignity. He speaks like the intrepid Diomede; he runs

distinction from each.

like the swift footed Achilles: if he falls, 'tis like the beloved Re-passes Lintot, vindicates the race,

Nisus; and (what Homer makes to be the chief of all praises) Nor heeds the brown dishonours of his face. he is favoured of the gods: be says but three words, and his And now the victor stretch'd his eager hand

prayer is heard; a goddess conveys it to the seat of Jupiter:

90

100

though he loses the prize, he gains the victory; the great Where the tall nothing stood or seem'd to stand: 110 mother herself comforts him, she inspires him with expe-A shapeless shade, it melted from his sight, dients, she honours him with an immortal present (such as Like forms in clouds, or visions of the night. Achilles receives from Thetis, and Æneas from Venus,) at once instructive and prophetical: after this he is unrivalled, and triumphant.

REMARKS.

Ver. 70. Curll's Corinna.] This name, it seems, was

The tribute our author here pays him is a grateful return for several unmerited obligations; many weighty animadversions on the public affairs, and many excellent and diverting pieces on private persons, has he given to his name. If taken by one Mrs. Thomas, who procured some private ever he owed two verses to any other, he owed Mr. Curll letters of Mr. Pope, while almost a boy, to Mr. Cromwell, some thousands. He was every day extending his fame, and sold them without the consent of either of those gentleand enlarging his writings: witness innumerable instances: men, to Curil, who printed them in 12mo, 1727. He disbut it shall suffice only to mention the Court Poems, which covered her to be the publisher, in his Key, p. 11. We only he meant to publish as the work of the true writer, a lady take this opportunity of mentioning the manner in which of quality; but being threatened first, and afterwards pun-those letters got abroad, which the author was ashamed of ished for it by Mr. Pope, he generously transferred it from as very trivial things, full not only of levities, but of wrong her to him, and ever since printed it in his name. The single judgments of men and books, and only excusable from the time that ever he spoke to Mr. C. was on that affair, and youth and inexperience of the writer. to that happy incident he owed all the favour since received Down with the Bible, up with the pope's arms.) from him so true is the saying of Dr. Sydenham, that The Bible, Curll's sign; the Cross Keys, Lintot's. any one shall be, at some time or other, the better or the Ver. 101. Where, as he fish'd, &c.] See the preface to worse, for having but seen or spoken to a good or bad man.' Swift's and Pope's Miscellanies.

Ver. 82.