University of Virginia Library

Joan of Arc.

The River Poddle winds under ground from near the old Episcopal Palace to the Castle, not wholly unlike the course of some, who have been inmates of the aforeaaid Palace.

Pope.

Mr. A*******, the preceding treasurer of the Ordnance retired on his full salary to make room for him.—The Gentleman is well known as Author of Love in a Blaze.

Imitated from Addison—

The culinary talents of this gentleman have been celebrated by other writers, much yet remains unsung.

Lest commentators should be in doubt an hundred years hence, why ten pence was the precise modicum added, you are to know it was on account of the most current coin at that time—ten penny tokens. The pittance allowed at present to performers in Dublin, is well calculated to qualify them for acting ghosts. The players are not unaptly called Vassal train, to express the sovereign authority exercised by his Most Despotic Highness the Manager.

A kind of Deity much worshipped by the wild Irish, and which is supposed to have the power of looking into futurity and telling fortunes. Its temple is situated between two banking houses and the Irish treasury.

Sheet—A large Chart on which the ichnography of the Boxes is deli eated, and according to which they are engaged from the box-keeper.

Virgil.

Right to left—The author here shews consummate judgment, scit reddere convenientia cuique—when he comes to speak of a General's Lady, and describe the croud making way for her, he employs terms applicable to military evolutions.

Lacs and Crores—Indian terms for sums of money.

I cannot sufficiently admire the discretion of the poet in drawing in the reins of imagination which else might have run away with him at full gallop, into the paradise of Mabomet and all the luxuriance of Asiatic description.—Gauts mountain passes to the hill country.

Meaning, perhaps, the Box-keeper's Benefit.

Virgil.

A gentleman of prepossessing looks and manners, of singular urbanity and singleness of heart. It must gratify the public to know, that he has accumulated an estate of four or five thousand a year, through the mere blessing of Providence on disinterested virtue, without any exertion of his own.

There is great beauty in this passage; the character is edmirably preserved. As Dennira had used military terms, so the fair and noble pleader shows much technical knowledge. Wheu a Decree has been obtained, an Injunction goes to put the party in possession. Before a decree is enrolled, a re-hearing is graned on petition. I refer the female reader to Mitford's Chancery practice, for information on this abstruse subject.

Such is the maxim of the law—the King can do no wrong. The argument of the Lady is close and unanswerable. The King can do no wrong, therefore is inseparable from his conscience, ergo, inseparable from the keeper of it, his C*********, ergo inseparable from the C*********'s wife, who is the better half of the C********* ergo, he who separates the C*********'s wife from the King would separate the King and his conscience, or insinuate that they may be separated, and is no good subject.—Q. E. D.

See the description of the prodigies that anounced the death of Julius Cæsar.—Virgil's Georgics, Book the first.

The Board of Green Cloth, which has been long disused, was restored.

Apollo, God of physic as well as of poetry.

I mean no accusation here against their manhood.

Let not the author be misunderstood—He means no unclean allusion to the professional pursuits and applications of the Doctor, as though the poet of his praise should be put in sudden motion by the operation of a C*****r Pipe, that would be a silly, preposterous, unsavoury and misplaced joke, a joke a posteriori—minus aptus acutis naribus horum hominum.

“With submissive resignation to the sovereign comp- “troller of events,” could the pious M--- say more when he was appointed at last to the twice promised and long expected Bishopric? I am happy at having an opportunity of congratulating this evangelic character, on the reward of his patience and long suffering,

Gathering Digitalis or Fox glove—The apothecaries of Dablin assemble for the purpose, at a certain time of the year, and repair to a pass in the mountains called the Scalp, where the plant is found.

As there was a great round of cabinet dinners, on a certain late change, to drink success to the new administration, so, there was a great round of medical, surgical, and apothecarial dinners, to welcome the Doctor to Ireland, and drink a feverisb spring, a sickly summer, and aguisb autumn,—pia vota! they had all the good things above enumerated, with many other dainties prepared according to the London Art of Cookery—Pbarmacopœia Londinensis.

Milton.

Sir Cbarles Vernon blunted the edge of their appetite, not with a billet doux, but billet amer, or lettre de cachet, apprising them that at the Castle they would be considered as persons of an agreeable absence—Anglice, their room would be more pleasing than their company.

The Dutchess insisted that Sir C****** should attend her on horse-back on an excursion. He remonstrated, and declared on the faith of a true knight, he had never rode in his life. Her Grace answered, it was time he should begin.— No excuse would be admitted. He was set on a fiery charger.—But this adventure deserves a separate poem.

“Who can be wise, amazed, temperate, and furious, loyal, and neutral in a moment?—No man.” Shakespeare.

This is a just anticipation, generally adopted, and indicatory of the public sense of this accomplished and polite attorney's high deserts and pretensions. He is not yet knighted, but he has long been the companion of the great and noble. He is truly a consequential man. The term scrivener seems to have been admitted for the sake of the rhyme, not in contempt of this most important attorney.

A Belle Esprit of an uncommon ease and elegance in his manners. He had fair pretensions to be received at the Castle by prescription, as he was formerly a member of the Irisb Parliament and must have dined at the alphabet dinners.

The admirable Creighton of the Attorney's Corps. I have seen him preside at a court martial with real dignity.

The Secretary is considered as the domestic genius, the Lar or household God of the Castle, therefore, the crowd is with peculiar propriety made to follow him, particularly as there was a great demand for places at this juncture.

I need not dwell on the character here introdnced, not to know him would argue my Reader unknown, no visitant at the Castle, no inmate of polite houses—But if this poem should fall into the hands of the vulgar and ignorant, contrary to my intentions, I will condescend to refer them for further information to a publication, called Familiar Epistles, and ascribed to one hundred different authors.

Ulster King at Arms, a necessary person on this occasion to marshal the triumphal procession, to proclaim the victory over the Gotbs and Vandals, and to declare war with them according to the terms and stipulations of the red and black lists and Joyeuse Entree of the Castle. Sir C********* keeps his shop of honours and College of arms in the house formerly occupied by Mrs. Mayne, better known by the name of Sally M`Laine.

The term Grace here most happily admits of a double sense to denote not only the elegance of manner, but the purity of intention, with which this carpet knight, dubb'd with un-hack'd rapier, performs his various and confidential carnival functions.

So Grey in his Elegy—

Commentators conjecture that this passage is descriptive of a young Abbe of fair hopes, who had formerly a situation in the Embassy to Constantinople. Quere—Whether lawn here means lawn Sbifts or lawn Sleeves? Perhaps the young gemman may make a shift to combine them.

That the reader may comprehend this passage, I must inform him that on various turnpike gates and—posts in the vicinity of Dublin a programma or affiche has appeared, denouncing death and destruction to all “who may trespass on the demesne late the propetty of Mr. Maber, and now the residence of the Lord**** &c.” and apprising them that men in arms are stationed all night in said demesne! I do not find that other Noblemen and Gentlemen in the County of Dublin are driven to adopt similar measures.

There was in former ages, when Pigs were Swine, a certain Sir Henry who had a finger in the Treasury pie. In his accounts was a certain Hiatus valde deflendus. I would recommend the history of the business to Mr. Cobbet.

The rank of Ensign newly bestowed to qualify him to be Aid du Camp.

Omnia suspendens naso adunco, is the motto of these witty Ladies, who cut and carve the foolish, blundering Irish, at an unmerciful rate.

More foolish in nothing than in their indiscriminate Hospitality to Strangers, who laugh at them and their disregard of their own country.

That fiction is the soul of Poetry, the honest Author in the abundance of his love for Truth, must acknowledge, that it is only by poetic licence that he has made Major B. and Sir C. inseparable companions in the Viceregal train.—Truth is, let them scent and essence themselves, as they will, they are in bad odour with the bonny Lass. Sir C. has incurred her incurable displeasure by his pious love of Castle etiquette, and manful resistance to the dancing propensity of the fair and noble Lady, in defence of ancient ceremonial. She seems to regard him much as Sancbo did the dread Doctor, with his wand, or rather as a kind of male Duenna, stationed to be a restraint on mirth, a damper of pleasures. She looks upon him, as a man of an agreeable absence, whose presence may well be dispensed with at the private parties where mirth and jollity—

Poor B. poor C. virtuous martyrs to the righteous love of forms. Ye are laid under an interdict—no coach allowed to carry you—ye are excluded from the private parties, amerced of the joyous suppers, forced to wear livery; but to us— “Quis talia fando temperet a Lachrymis?”

Not perpendicular lines—they are not in the General' way—but lines military.

Before the introduction of wigs, (a fashion which has conduced much to cleanliness) the use of white precipitate was well known to ladies who were blest with fine heads of hair.

It is a most delectable story how the company were invited on a long notice, by my Lady J—y—how they all expected a ball and supper, took their measures accordingly, and sent off their carriages and servants, desiring them to return at three in the morn—How Lady J—y marched off to Lady Van's ball, to see the Duchess, and left her caro sposo to bow the company out of the house supperless as well as he could.

Commentators are in great doubt who is meant by Van, some think Vanhomrigh, others Vansittart, some Vanneck, some Vanbutchell, some Vandeput, &c. &c.

I am in doubt as to the person here meant, perhaps it may mean some wealthy merchant, or thriving haberdasher, perhaps some clerk in a public office, who possesses a comfortable opacity of intellect, and a moderate knowledge of vulgar arithmetic.

It is highly in character that the daughter of an Attorney and the wife of a General should be trained in the science of offence and defence, should know all the value of anticipation, and be ready to seize on every advantage.

This was her Point D'Appui, to speak in the military phrase. But quere, what post? a military or an architectural post? a post in the army, or a post under government?

Author of Ricciardetto, a mock heroic poem.

The Lutrin of Boileau.

Ariosto—O gran bonta de cavalieri antiche.—

There are some vile, vulgar words adopted in modern politics—Budget and Broad-bottomed administration—Budget is borrowed from the avocation of a tinker: It supposes the minister to be an itinerant hireling, who deals in the basest metal, proposes more than he can do, and undertakes to stop the chinks and cracks of the leaky state, ruinous and rusty as an old kettle.—Broad bottomed administration is a vile phrase, it is meant to express an administration of weight, pondere fixa suo, but it may be turned to denote one that shews its a—, according to the passage in Shakspeare (Measure for Measure) “Esc. What's your name, master Tapster? Pom.—Pompey. Esc.—What else? Pom.—Bum, sir. Esc. —Troth and your bum is the greatest thing about you, so that in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the great.”—No bad description of a broad-bottomed administration.

The reader will find a very luxurious description of the dancing girls in Abbe Raynal's book. The good Abbe sometimes indulged himself, like his brother philosopher Darwin, in a strain of grave philosophical pruriency. He is truly cloquent on the subject of those bosom cases.

Alluding to a curious story of Dennira's ejecting certain beaus from a party at a late entertainment given by her to their Excellencies, she went up to two Gentlemen, (one a Mr. C—n, the name of the other I have forgot) and expressed her surprise, how Gentlemen would come uninvited: they asserted they got Tickets; she said she wrote all the Tickets herself and sent them, and that they were not of the number. The Gentlemen retired, and enclosed their Tickets the following day to her Ladyship, when she recollected she gave six Tickets to Sir C— V—, for his friends, and supposed these two were of the number.

Instrument of death.—Let not this expression be thought hyperbolical, when applied to an Orange.—We are told that Anacreon was choaked by a much smaller substance, a grape stone. The Poet has very properly adapted the weapons with which his Ladies fought to the delicacy of the female frame.

Eolists, a sect of ancient philosophers, who dealt much in puffing and ventosity.—See Swift's Essay on the mechanical operation of the spirit.

So Pope—“Half-reasoning Elephant.”

Hogs-lard, or the grease of a Cartwheel—it may be applied, to signify any thick black, gross, fetid, unctiuous substance.

Alludes to some projected or rumoured judicial arrange. ments in the Island of Baraiaria.

I believe we should read plaice here, in allusion to some obscure story about Fishmonger's contracts.

He was peculiarly fit for the ranks of Themis, both as having a shop in the Four Courts, and being a conservator.

The Dragoon Guards or Green Horse.

The Picket guard, which is always ready against cases of emergency.

Kilmainbam, now an hospital for invalids, and also the residence of some general officer, was formerly a commandery of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.

A famous army surgeon and member of the medical board and hospital staff, in the time of the Trojan war. See Gazette d'Homere.

This alludes to an incident which actually took place at Mrs. Peter's collation.—The worthy General fell over some tubs of beer or porter and spoiled his uniform, particularly his small-cloaths.

Some copies read, “anterior,” Baudius Arsenius prefers it, and it is sanctioned by the Toledo manuscript; I should therefore be inclined to let it stand in the text.

“Ornaments to crown thy brow.” That was calculated to excite a variety of ideas, and applied equally to his hopes of honour and his fears of disgrace. The abruptness of the address has great energy and spirit.

Angelica, the daughter of Galafron—See Orlando Furioso.— Book the first.

Questo Brunel si pratico e si astuto.

Something is here omitted.—The author has not expressed himself clearly. Quere; for what purpose Mr. M— was conveyed to the chop-house? was it to eat, or to be eaten? I suspect the latter.—I have heard it whispered, that his Calipash or Calipee were made into Turtle soup.

The composed and dignified character of the judge, so fond of order and decorum, so full of phlegm on every occasion, is well delineated here.

An Hibernicism.—The combatants were not killed dead; but destined to live a little longer, more Hibernorum.

Virgil.

Fiat justitia, ruat cælum.

Divorces, so called in the nomenclature of female dress, are certain articles or instruments, stiffened with iron and steel, which are applied to the Ladies breasts, to give them a proper degree of consistency and projection, by preventing their collapsing, or coming too closely in contact with each other.— The Purgatory is a part of female dress, worn lower down.— Various conjectures may be formed as to the origin of the name.

This episode is in the true Homeric spirit. The man-ners of the heroic ages are well observed in the conversation which takes place in the heat of battle, in the idea of stripping the spoils, and in the employments destined for captive ladies.

A part of female dress which has superseded the use of petticoats, and somewhat resembles a pair of small-cloaths. It is usually made of some very elastic materials.

Also a part of female dress or rather of the embodied female substance; something like it was formerly used under the name of mont en ciel; it is stationed in the rear, as the term imports.

Let not the malicious reader take an improper meaning from this line, as if the fair Dennira ever thought of adorning or fortifying the brows of her husband in a manner contrary to the Articles of War, with Hornworks, Halfmoons or the like, introduced by French engineers.

The habiliments of Episcopacy.

This is highly in character.—Papinian, who is a mighty hunter before the Lord, has a view hollow of his wig breakng cover, and very properly pursues it in a grand style, as is here described.

The going off thus in the middle of the fight was a truly politic stroke; this is what is called backing one's friends—as Falstaff says. This passage deserves to be studied, as containing a most excellent and instructive moral lesson.

So Virgil—“Et trepidæ matres presserunt ad ubera natos.”

Observe here a dignus vindice nodus, To make the triumph of her favorite complete Bellona contrives to draw off the hunters.

See Eneid, Book 5th Line 685.

Apollo was endowed with perpetual youth, vid. Pantheon.

Thus happily ended this great contest for the present; but as the ladies are so apt to put themselves into heats, I would advise, in order to keep them cool, that to the present refreshments at the drawing-rooms of the Duchess, such as lemonade, orangeade, and orgeat, ices may be added.

This seems an odd association of ideas.—Was a piper, or a piper's son, ever made a bishop.

Exegi Monumentum Ære-perennius.

Meaning only of the contending parties, mentioned in the former Cantos; not insinuating that the legislative Uxien between England and Ireland is likely to end in discord.

A multitude of Union pamphiets by Judges and Barristers.

To members whose Terms were—Cash!

The effects of certain colours on the organs of certain animals is truly surprising. We know what paroxysms scarlet excites in the turkey-cock; certain brutes are equally annoyed by the colour—Green.

εκατης Δειπνον This was a very public kind of entertainment, being usually laid out at a placè where three roads met.

Alluding to the foolish old proverb, “He who eats with the Devil must have a long spoon.”

Beware, reader, not to read this word amiss—Traitor. It is a French word, and means a furnisher of entertainments. By a false pronunciation you might make me say that traitors were employed at the secretary's breakfast.

Wigs.—The near connexion between wigs and the principles which fill the head of the wearer, has been already noticed by Pope in these lines:

The classical name for the city of Dablin.

Made Paddy D. vicegerent of the one—made the other a Dominican friar. They are short and zealous, though unlovely in their lives; in their deaths they should not be divided.

This may surprize the reader, at first glance; but flesh to flesh is a natural principle of production and encrease. All systems of organized matter naturally coalesce with their like; it is therefore reasonable to presume that human flesh should be nutritious food to human creatures: and that a lady who has her belly full of it will be apt to encrease in size.

This gentleman was a conspicuous figure at the last birth day levee. The old Castle stagers were astonished at the apparition.

Quere. What Doctor?—I presume some physician. The author seems partial to the profession. It cannot be Doctor Plunket. He is rather sly and sardonic than noisy.

See Ovid. Metamorph. book 12th, at the nuptials of Piritbous and Hippodamia.

Saltees are islands near the coast in the county of Wexford, from whence great store of Lobsters is sent to Dublin.

Observe here some fine touches of nature, and beautiful delineations of character. The manly --- listens, with much patience, to the law arguments of his noble friend, but when he comes to asperse the character of Irish cyder, the patriotic feelings of the houest gentleman flame out, and he bellows with a becoming indignation.

I know no such place in Dublin. Edit.

The impatient character of the redoubtable doctor alluded to, is well preserved hers. It is a pity he interrupted the prosing discourse of the sober orator.

This line is a beautiful example of alliteration.

This is just specimen of D*******'s manner.

This meeting and familiar conference in the midst of a battle is perfectly Homeric. The reader, who is generally fond of indulging his ingenuity, at the expence of an author's reputation will perhaps endeavour to apply what is mere fiction, and the creation of the poet's brain, to some living characters, with whom the anthor is in habits of great intimacy, and for whom he feels the utmost reverence. But if he should, the fault is in the reader, not the writer, and my highly exalted, and much respected friends will know how to put the saddle on the right horse.

Interdum bonus domitat Homerus.---The author's memory seems here to have been somewhat treacherous; a few lines before he calls one of his interlocutors W---, and now, behold he terms him M---: verily, master poet here is a slip of the pen. But liars, they say, have need of good memories. Aristarchus.

“Cui male si palpere recalcitrat undique tutus.” Horacd.

This passage gives an admirable picture of human life and contains an excellent moral lesson. The friendships of courtiers are fleeting and transitory indeed.

Sans Culottes.—This comparison not only illustrates the appearance of the combatants, divested of a certain superfluity of dress, but also the rage, with which they were inspired, resembling that which possest the Parisian mob, or Sans-Culottes, as they affected to call themselves. The author might also wish to intimate, that his reverend champions had attained to eminence on the principles of Sans-Culotterie, the rule and principle of which has ever been to abase the Castle and the Palace, and exalt the pig-sty and the dung-hill. I yow to Jnpiter I mean no personal allusion.

Ovid. Metam. lib. 8. li. 8.

Let it not be supposed that the poet here means to allude to Miss F. although that very facetious and satyrical young lady assumed the appropriate dress and character, at a late fancy ball, which (proh pudor) was very thinly attended. The bard has too much reverence even for a broomstick from the Castle stables.

Hogress.—A ferocious being described in the Arabian tales, who fed upon young men; and what added to her cruelty, gobbled up their members a live.

This passage is supposed to allude to an incident which took place in a certain great house, not a mile from the course of the Poddle, where the rape of the lock was travestied.

The officers of the Green Horse would not go to the Fancy Ball.

The author does not mean to insinuate, by the term of Picture, that the ingenious Gentleman who has deservedly obtained the appellation of the Belvedere Apollo, is a mere picture—a thing only to be looked at. He may resemble his namesake at all points—and Apollo was not only a male beauty, but a csnjurer.

Some superficial critics will be apt to exclaim “here is a Hysteron proteron—can these ladies be damned before they are dead?” Yes, my good sir, that is the very thing, They are to be tantalized, and suffer the torments of the damned, and at last to pine away, and die of hopeless love.

Nigrœ succus loliliginis!

See the inimitable philosophic poem, the Temple of Nature, by Doctor Darwin.

Bully Bottom. Nay, reader, I mean not any Judge or Cbairman—Bully Bottom was manager or deputy manager of a company of Atbenian clowns, and, as you may read in Sbakespeare, ambitiously aimed at shining in every character, and would, if he could, have engrossed them all to himself. He would have played Pyramus and Tbisbe both, and even Lion, Wall, and Moonsbine. I saw our Bully Bottom, play part of one character naturally. It was in the part of Moneses, where the poor Christian is to be strangled. The part of the mutes was assigned to two soldiers, and it being their first appearance, they fell to work with the bowstring in good carnest.

Sings or says. It is hard to determine which, for Tbalaba the Destroyer is written in a new manner, in a sort of periods or stanzas of measured prose, or irregular blank verse.

Such a partie quarree! The lady—the sage of the law —the dramatic hero—the caro sposo—all loved and loving. Amandas he—Amanda she! O rare instance of the liberal philosophy, and enlarged notions of our modern times! but there is something odd here. I cannot, for my life, guess why this philosophical party should visit the neighbourhood of the Dargle.

Mr. Hardy had adhered to the present ministry, while it was an opposition, and devoted his time, and his respectable talents, to their service, in the most honourable manner; and they were bound by positive promises to provide for him when they should come into power; but what then? There were fifty good reasons against his promotion. First, his friends—I will not call them, but his college of professions. were bound in honour to promcte him, so the doing it, they thought, would excite no surprise, nor extort no gratitude. Again—He was a gentleman.—Moreover, he was a man incapable of meanness.—Add to this, he was a man of pure morals and unblemished reputation. Lastly, the appointment of Mr. Hardy to some distinguished office would not have excited any outcry, any indignation, or disgraceful eclat.

The reader must understand, that in a certain collegiate church, not far from Winetavern-street, care was taken by our sapient antestors, to maintain the aforesaid aristocracy of prayer; for there is there a seat called the peeresses' seat, appropriated for the wives and daughters of our truly devout and virtuous nobility. The lady, so deservedly commemorated by the poet, who is now herself of the privileged cast, and was the daughter of an eminent wine-merchant, takes her station on a throne, assigned exclusively to herself, and keeps her eyes, like as Grimalkin does on the mouse's hole, on this sanctum sanctorum of nobility. Woe to the unwary female, who intrudes there, without a patent of nobility in her pocket. Shame awaits her. The vergeress is dispatched to dislodge her, without mercy, or remission.

How the learned justice was emancipated, or removed from the college of surgeons, is a story, fittest to be told by himself, and will be told by him, in the course of his being produced on the table—not for dissection (he is not dead yet,) but for examination. Feeling the great importance and obligation of an oath, he was willing to apply that test to his brother justice, whom he suspected of Fudaism. Foiled in his hope there, he was willing to resort to another and more certain criterion—a bit of fat.

He has convened a grand sanhedrim of the circumcised, with an intention of making all their Rabbins justices of the peace.

The facetious justice here attempted to imitate the Fewisb manner of speaking.

The editor confesses himself at a loss as to the person here meant. He finds no data, on which he may found conjecture. The word perquisite is taken, in a large sense, the thing itself is taken in a larger manner, by various classes of the community. Clerks in office.—Guagers, excisemen and other gentlemen of the Cuftom-bouse—menial servants—whoever ********* may be, or to whatsoever description of active citizens he may belong, it is plairt that he must be some person of no very nice palate, of greedy appetite, strong stomach, and powerful digestion. The editor would be inclined to suppose him an Israelite indeed, were it not that be manifests no kind of antipathy to the swinish multitude.

Fronti nulla fides. This character, by a holiday speech and a smooth exterior, recommended himself to the parliamentary opposition. He afterwards turned and vamped his coat, and made a figure at court.

Observe the harsh alliteration in this line, expressive of the thing signified.

O qualis facies, & quali digna tabella!

This pun is borrowed from Switt.

The fair Dennira was sometimes fond of showing her arbitrary power. There is a distinction, between an invitation to Cards, and one to Spend the evening: the one is exclusive, the other inclusive of Supper. It so happened, that old lady R******b had received an invitation to Cards at K*l****l*m, and, not having a carriage of her own, accepted of a seat from a lady who was invited to spend the evening. The night became wet; Lady R. was unable to get away, until the carriage of her companion arrived: in the interim, she ventured to place herself at a supper table; but was reprimanded by Dennira.

See Milton:

Camilla. See Virgil's Æneid, Book II.

From the expressions—vital stream—perfect love, let not the malicious reader suppose, that the wounded Dennira bled aqua vitæ or parfait amour. No, no—the meaning is, that her heart was formed for love, that it flowed through her veins with the vital blood.

The apple.

As Spenser contrives to introduce Gloriana occasionally, and shews her. as the principal figure in his poem, though she does not constantly appear; so has our author, with great propriety, contrived to make the beautiful duchess occupy the place of honour in his poem, by setting her in the most favourable point of view, and making her appear, as the benevolent patroness of peace and good humour.

Quere. What Hell? Whether metaphorical or literal? There is actually in Dublin a place of nightly resort, called Hell, with which the person here alluded to may not be unscquainted.

The birth place of the satyrical slave, Fuvenal, as Sbakespeare calls him. He describes the vicious excesses of the Roman ladies, with an honest indignation, but a colouring muck too warm.

Reader, I beseech thee, let not this expression excite any improper or irreverent idea—in one sense, the Amazon might be so called.

Observe here, I pray thee, reader, what a fine picture is given of a good and faithful steward, ever vigilant— ever saving of the public scraps and crumbs (whatever he may be of the large joints of meat, or the purse.) He is always attentive—always at his post, to detect and punish petty pilfevers (whatever may become of the big wholesale robbers.) He no sooner hears, that the dogs of office were prowling, to look for crumbs, than out he turns to protect the cheese parings and candle ends. While he was thus laudably employed, bowever, it unluckily happened, that the pet cats, the baboon, the lap dogs, and some other favourite animals not into the larder, and devoured, without interruption, a delicate loin of veal, a dozen of capons, a haunch of venison, and a baron of beef.

Hanaper. The Hanaper, Anglice Hamper, was a large basket, which, in the ancient times of laudable simplicity, sometimes contained the king's papers and records, and sometimes his provisions; and sometimes conveyed writings to his courts of justice—sometimes conveyed away the soiled dishes and plates from the royal table. The custody of this utensil was often entrusted to one of the king's fools.

Author of a book full of gross improbable lies, called, if I remember, the Seven Cbampions of Cbristendom, He is often quoted by Mr. Roscoe.

I suppose the author means here some prating gossiping old beldam, notorious for veracity.

See the Rebearsal.

The Dance of Death, by Hans Holbein.

This noble lord here alluded to, seems to have been in a somewhat aukward situation at Paris. I am glad to find that he will again be at leisure to employ his metaphysics in the praise of prodigality.