All who true dunces in her cause appear'd,
And all who knew those dunces to reward.

Amid that area wide she took her 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.

With authors, stationers obey'd the call,

The field of glory is a field for all;

Glory, and gain, th' industrious tribe provoke ;
And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.

A poet's form she plac'd 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 starveling bards of these degen❜rate days.

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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,

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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;

So like, that critics said, and courtiers swore,

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A wit it was, and call'd the phantom More.
All gaze with ardour: some, a poet's name,
Others, a sword-knot and lac'd suit inflame.

But

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 Curl, "Behold that rival here!
The race by vigor, not by vaunts, is won;

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So take the hindmost, Hell!"-He said, and run.

Swift as a bard the bailiff leaves behind,

He left huge Lintot, and out-strip'd the wind.
As when a dab-chick waddles thro' the copse,

On feet, and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops;
So lab'ring on, with shoulders, hands, and head, 61
Wide as a wind-mill all his figure spread,

With arms expanded Bernard urg'd the race,
And seem'd to emulate great Jacob's pace.

Full in the middle way there stood a lake,

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Which Curl's Corinna chanc'd that morn to make:

(Such was her wont, at early dawn to drop

Her evening cates before his neighbour's shop,)
Here fortun'd Curl to slide; loud shout the band,
And Bernard! Bernard! rings thro' all the Strand.
Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewray'd,

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Fall'n in the plash his wickedness had laid:

Then first (if poets aught of truth declare)
The caitiff Vaticide conceiv'd a prayer.

Hear, Jove! whose name my bards and I adore,

As much at least as any god's, or more ;

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And

And him and his if more devotion warms,
Down with the Bible, up with the Pope's Arms.

A place there is, betwixt earth, air, and seas,
Where from Ambrosia, Jove retires for ease.
There in his seat two spacious vents appear,
On this he sits, to that he leans his ear,
And hears the various vows of fond mankind;
Some beg an eastern, some a western wind:
All vain petitions, mounting to the sky,
With reams abundant this abode supply;

Amus'd he reads, and then returns the bills
Sign'd with that ichor which from gods distils.

In office here fair Cloacina stands,

And ministers to Jove with purest hands;

Forth from the heap she pick'd her vot'ry's pray'r,
And plac'd it next him, a distinction rare!
(Oft, as he fish'd her nether realms for wit,
The Goddess favour'd him, and favours yet)
Renew'd by ordure's sympathetic force,
As oil'd with magic juices for the course,
Vig'rous he rises, from th' effluvia strong
Imbibes new life, and scours and stinks along :
Re-passes Lintot, vindicates the race,

Nor heeds the brown dishonours of his face.

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And now the victor stretch'd his eager hand Where the tall Nothing stood, or seem'd to stand; A shapeless shade, it melted from his sight,

Like forms in clouds, or visions of the night!

To

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To seize his papers, Curl, was next thy care;
His papers light, fly diverse, tost in air:
Songs, sonnets, epigrams, the winds uplift,
And whisk 'em back to Evans, Younge, and Swift.
Th' embroider'd suit, at least, he deem'd his prey;
That suit, an unpay'd taylor snatch'd away!
No rag, no scrap, of all the beau, or wit,

That once so flutter'd, and that once so writ.

Heav'n rings with laughter: Of the laughter vain, Dulness, good Queen, repeats the jest again.

Three wicked imps of her own Grub-street choir, 115
She deck'd like Congreve, Addison, and Prior;
Mears, Warner, Wilkins run: delusive thought!
Breval, Besaleel, Bond, the varlets caught.
Curl stretches after Gay, but Gay is gone,
He grasps an empty Joseph for a John :
So Proteus, hunted in a nobler shape,
Became, when seiz'd, a puppy, or an ape.

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To him the Goddess. Son! thy grief lay down, And turn this whole illusion on the town. As the sage dame, experienc'd in her trade, By names of toasts retails each batter'd jade, (Whence hapless Monsieur much complains at Paris Of wrongs from Duchesses and Lady Mary's) Be thine, my stationer! this magic gift; Cook shall be Prior, and Concanen, Swift:

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So shall each hostile name become our own,

And we too boast our Garth and Addison.

With

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With that, she gave him (piteous of his case, Yet smiling at his rueful length of face) A shaggy tap'stry, worthy to be spread On Codrus' old, or Dunton's modern bed; Instructive work! whose wry-mouth'd portraiture Display'd the fates her confessors endure. Ear-less on high, stood un-abash'd Defoe, And Tuchin flagrant from the scourge, below: There Ridpath, Roper, cudgell'd might ye view, The very worsted still look'd black and blue : Himself among the story'd chiefs he spies, As from the blanket high in air he flies, And oh! (he cry'd) what street, what lane but know s Our purgings, pumpings, blanketings, and blows? In ev'ry loom our labours shall be seen, And the fresh vomit run for ever green!

See in the circle next, Eliza plac'd;

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Two babes of love close clinging to her waist; 150
Fair as before her works she stands confess'd,
In flow'rs and pearls by bounteous Kirkall dress'd.
The Goddess then: "Who best can send on high
The salient spout, far-streaming to the sky:
His be yon Juno of majestic size,

With cow-like udders, and with ox-like eyes.
This China-Jordan, let the chief o'ercome
Replenish, not ingloriously, at home."

Chapman and Curl accept the glorious strife, (Tho' one his son dissuades, and one his wife)

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This