Yet lo! in me what authors have to brag on! The sure forerunner of her gentle sway; REMARKS. 300 litical principles. He was employed to hold the pen in the character of a popish successor, but afterwards printed his narrative on the other side.--He had managed the ceremony of a famous popeburning on Nov. 17, 1680; then became a trooper in king James's army, at Hounslow-heath. After the Revolution he kept a booth at Bartholomew-fair, where, in the droll called St. George for England,. he acted in his old age in a dragon of green leather of his own invention; he was at last taken into the Charter-house, and there died, aged sixty years. Ver. 297. Thee shall the patriot, thee the courtier taste,] It stood in the first edition with blanks, ** and **. Concanen was sure they must needs mean nobody but king George and queen Caroline; and said he would insist it was so, till the poet cleared himself by filling up the blanks otherwise, agreeably to the context, and consistent with his allegiance.' Pref. to a collection of verses, letters, &c. against Mr. P. printed for A. Moor, p. 6. Let her thy heart, next drabs and dice, engage, For new abortions, all ye pregnant fair! REMARKS. 310 Ver. 305. Polypheme] He translated the Italian opera of Polifemo; but unfortunately lost the whole jest of the story. The Cyclops asks Ulysses his name, who tells him his name is Noman: after his eye is put out, he roars and calls the brother Cyclops to his aid: they inquire who has hurt him? he answers Noman: whereupon they all go away again. Our ingenious translator nade Ulysses answer, I take no name; whereby all that followed became un. intelligible. Hence it appears that Mr. Cibber (who values himself on subscribing to the English translation of Homer's Iliad) had not that merit with re. spect to the Odyssey, or he might have been better instructed in the Greek Punnology. Ver. 308, 309. Faustus, Pluto, &c.] Names of miserable farces, which it was the custom to act at the end of the best tragedies, to spoil the digestion of the audience. Ver. 312. ensure it but from fire.] In Tibbald's farce of Proserpine, a corn-field was set on fire: whereupon the other playhouse had a barn burnt down for the recreation of the spectators. They also rivalled each other in showing the burnings of hellfire, in Dr. Faustus. Ver. 313. Another Eschylus appears!] It is re S20 In flames, like Semele's, be brought to bed, REMARKS. ported of Eschylus, that when his tragedy of the Furies was acted, the audience were so terrified that the children fell into fits, and the big-bellied women miscarried. Ver. 325. On poets' tombs see Benson's titles. writ!] Wm Benson (surveyor of the buildings to his majesty K. George I) gave in a report to the lords, that their house and the Painted-chamber adjoining were in immediate danger of falling. Whereupon the lords met in a committee to appoint some other place to sit in, while the house should be taken down. But it being proposed to cause some other builders first to inspect it, they found it in very good condition. The lords, upon this, were going upon an address to the king against Benson, for such a misrepresentation; but the earl of Sunderland, then secretary, gave them an assurance that his majesty would remove him, which was done according ly. In favour of this man, the famous sir Christopher Wren, who had been architect to the crown for above fifty years, who built most of the churches in London, laid the first stone of St. Paul's, and lived to finish it, had been displaced from his employment at the age of near ninety years. Ver. 326. Ambrose Philips] He was,' saith Mr. See under Ripley rise a new Whitehall, While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall: While Wren with sorrow to the grave descends, Gay dies unpension'd, with a hundred friends; 330 REMARKS. Jacob, one of the wits at Button's, and a justice of the peace:' but he hath since met with higher preferment in Ireland: and a much greater character we have of him in Mr. Gildon's Complete Art of Poetry, vol. i. p. 157. Indeed, he confesses, he dares not set him quite on the same foot with Vir gil, lest it should seem flattery, but he is much mistaken if posterity does not afford him a greater esteem than he at present enjoys.' He endeavoured to create some misunderstanding between our author and Mr. Addison, whom also soon after he abused as much. His constant cry was, that Mr. P. was an enemy to the government; and in particular he was the avowed author of a report very industriously spread, that he had a hand in a party-paper called the Examiner: a falsehood well known to those yet living, who had the direction and publication of it. Ver. 328. While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall:] At the time when this poem was written, the banqueting-house of Whitehall, the church and piazza of Covent-garden, and the palace and chapel of Somerset-house, the works of the famous Inigo Jones, had been for many years so neglected, as to be in danger of ruin. The portico of Covent-garden church had been just then restored and beautified, at the expense of the earl of Burlington; who, at the same time, by his publication of the designs of that great master and Palladio, as well as by many noble buildings of his own, revived the true taste of architecture in this kingdom. Ver. 330. Gay dies unpension'd, &c.] See Mr. Gay's fable of the Hare and many Friends. This gentleman was early in the friendship of our author, Hibernian politics, O Swift! thy fate; And Pope's, ten years to comment and translate. REMARKS. which continued to his death. He wrote several works of humour with great success, the Shepherd's Week, Trivia, the What d'ye call it, Fables, and lastly the celebrated Beggar's Opera; a piece of satire which hit all tastes and degrees of men, from those of the highest quality to the very rabble: that verse of Horace, Primores populi arripuit, populumque tributim, could never be so justly applied as to this. The vast success of it was unprecedented, and almost incredible: what is related of the wonderful effects of the ancient music or tragedy hardly came up to it: Sophocles and Euripides were less followed and famous. It was acted in London sixty-three days, uninterrupted; and renewed the next season with equal applauses. It spread into all the great towns of England, was played in many places to the thirtieth and fortieth time, and at Bath and Bristol fifty, &c. It made its progress into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, where it was performed twenty-four days together: it was last acted in Minorca. The fame of it was not confined to the author only; the ladies carried about with them the favourite songs of it in fans; and houses were furnished with it in screens. The person who acted Polly, till then obscure, became all at once the favourite of the town; her pictures were engraved, and sold in great numbers, her life written, books of letters and verses to her, published; and pamphlets made even of her sayings and jests. Furthermore, it drove out of England, for that season, the Italian opera, which had carried all before it for ten years. That idol of the nobility and people, which the great critic Mr. Dennis by the |