University of Virginia Library

Ver. 1. The Mighty Mother, and her Son, &c.] The Reader ought here to be cautioned, that the Mother, and not the Son, is the principal Agent of this Poem: The latter of them is only chosen as her Collegue (as was anciently the custom in Rome before some great Expedition) the main action of the Poem being by no means the Coronation of the Laureate, which is performed in the very first book, but the Restoration of the Empire of Dulness in Britain, which is not accomplished 'till the last.

Ibid. —her Son who brings, &c.] Wonderful is the stupidity of all the former Critics and Commentators on this work! It breaks forth at the very first line. The author of the Critique prefixed to Sawney, a Poem, p. 5. hath been so dull as to explain the Man who brings, &c. not of the Hero of the piece, but of our Poet himself, as if he vaunted that Kings were to be his readers; an honour which though this Poem hath had, yet knoweth he how to receive it with more modesty.

We remit this Ignorant to the first lines of the Æneid, assuring him that Virgil there speaketh not of himself, but of Æneas:

I cite the whole three verses, that I may by the way offer a Conjectural Emendation, purely my own, upon each: First, oris should be read aris, it being, as we see Æn. ii. 513. from the altar of Jupiter Hercæus that Æneas fled as soon as he saw Priam slain. In the second line I would read flatu for fato, since it is most clear it was by Winds that he arrived at the shore of Italy. Jactatus, in the third, is surely as improperly applied to terris, as proper to alto; to say a man is tost on land, is much at one with saying he walks at sea: Risum teneatis, amici? Correct it, as I doubt not it ought to be, vexatus. Scriblerus

Ver. 2. The Smithfield Muses] Smithfield is the place where Bartholomew Fair was kept, whose shews, 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 Covent-garden, Lincolns-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 3.

Ver. 4. By Dulness, Jove, and Fate:] i. e. By their Judgments, their Interests, and their Inclinations.

Ver. 12. Daughter of Chaos, &c.] The beauty of this whole Allegory being purely of the poetical kind, we think it not our proper business, as a Scholiast, to meddle with it: But leave it (as we shall in general all such) to the reader; remarking only, that Chaos (according to Hesiod's Θεογονια) was the Progenitor of all the Gods. Scriblerus.

Ver. 15. Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, &c.] I wonder the learned Scriblerus has omitted to advertise the Reader, at the opening of this Poem, that Dulness here is not to be taken contractedly for mere Stupidity, but in the enlarged sense of the word, for all Slowness of Apprehension, Shortness of Sight, or imperfect Sense of things. It includes (as we see by the Poet's own words) Labour, Industry, and some degree of Activity and Boldness: a ruling principle not inert, but turning topsy-turvy the Understanding, and inducing an Anarchy or confused State of Mind. This remark ought to be carried along with the reader throughout the work; and without this caution he will be apt to mistake the Importance of many of the Characters, as well as of the Design of the Poet. Hence it is that some have complained he chuses too mean a subject, and imagined he employs himself, like Domitian, in killing flies; whereas those who have the true key will find he sports with nobler quarry, and embraces a larger compass; or (as one saith, on a like occasion)

Ver. 16. She rul'd, in native Anarchy, the mind.] The native Anarchy of the mind is that state which precedes the time of Reason's assuming the rule of the Passions. But in that state, the uncontrolled violence of the Passions would soon bring things to confusion, were it not for the intervention of Dulness in this absence of Reason; who, though she cannot regulate them like Reason, yet blunts and deadens their Vigour, and, indeed, produces some of the good effects of it: Hence it is that Dulness has often the appearance of Reason. This is the only good she ever did; and the Poet takes particular care to tell it in the very introduction of his Poem. It is to be observed indeed, that this is spoken of the universal rule of Dulness in ancient days, but we may form an idea of it from her partial Government in later times.

Ver. 17. Still her old Empire to restore] This Restoration makes the Completion of the Poem. Vide Book 4.

Ver. 23. Or praise the Court, or magnify Mankind,] Ironicè, alluding to Gulliver's representations of both.—The next line relates to the papers of the Drapier against the currency of Wood's Copper coin in Ireland, which, upon the great discontent of the people, his Majesty was graciously pleased to recal.

Ver. 28. To hatch a new Saturnian age of Lead.] The ancient Golden Age is by Poets styled Saturnian; but in the Chemical language Saturn is Lead. She is said here only to be spreading her wings to hatch this age; which is not produced completely till the fourth book.

Ver. 31. By his fam'd 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 monuments of his fame as an Artist.

Ver. 33. One Cell there is,] The cell of poor Poetry is here very properly represented as a little unendowed Hall in the neighbourhood of the Magnific College of Bedlam; and as the surest Seminary to supply those learned walls with Professors. For there cannot be a plainer indication of madness than in mens persisting to starve themselves and offend the public by scribling,

when they might have benefited themselves and others in profitable and honest employments. The Qualities and Productions of the students of this private Academy are afterwards described in this first book; as are also their Actions throughout the second; by which it appears, how near allied Dulness is to Madness. This naturally prepares us for the subject of the third book, where we find them in union, and acting in conjunction to produce the Catastrophe of the fourth; a mad poetical Sibyl leading our Hero through the Regions of Vision, to animate him in the present undertaking, by a view of the past triumphs of Barbarism over Science.

Ver. 34. Poverty and Poetry] I cannot here omit a remark that will greatly endear our Author to every one, who shall attentively observe that Humanity and Candor, which every where appears in him towards those unhappy objects of the ridicule of all mankind, the bad Poets. He here imputes all scandalous rhymes, scurrilous weekly papers, base flatteries, wretched elegies, songs, and verses (even from those sung at Court to ballads in the streets) not so much to malice or servility as to Dulness; and not so much to Dulness as to Necessity. And thus, at the very commencement of his Satyr, makes an apology for all that are to be satyrized.

Ver. 37. Hence Bards, like Proteus]

Neither Palæphatus, Phurnutus, nor Heraclides give us any steddy light into the mythology of this mysterious fable. If I be not deceived in a part of learning which has so long exercised my pen, by Proteus must certainly be meant a hacknied Town scribler; and by his Transformations, the various disguises such a one assumes, to elude the pursuit of his irreconcilable enemy, the Bailiff. Proteus is represented as one bred of the mud and slime of Ægypt, the original soil of Arts and Letters: And what is a Town-scribler, but a creature made up of the excrements of luxurious Science? By the change then into a Boar is meant his character of a furious and dirty Party-writer; the Snake signifies a Libeller; and the Horns of the Bull, the Dilemmas of a Polemical Answerer. These are the three great parts he acts under; and when he has completed his circle, he sinks back again, as the last change into a Stone denotes, into his natural state of immoveable Stupidity. If I may expect thanks of the learned world for this discovery, I would by no means deprive that excellent Critic of his share, who discovered before me, that in the character of Proteus was designed Sophistam, Magum, Politicum, præsertim rebus omnibus sese accommodantem. Which in English is, A Political writer, a Libeller, and a Disputer, writing indifferently for or against every party in the State, every sect in Religion, and every character in private life. See my Fables of Ovid explained. Abbe Banier.

Ver. 40. Curl's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post:] Two Booksellers, of whom see Book 2. The former was fined by the Court of King's Bench for publishing obscene books; the latter usually adorned his shop with titles in red letters.

Ver. 41. Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines,] It is an ancient English custom for the Malefactors to sing a Psalm at their execution at Tyburn; and no less customary to print Elegies on their deaths, at the same time, or before.

Ver. 41, 42. Hence hymning Tyburn's—Hence, &c.]

Ver. 42. Magazines,] Miscellanies in prose and verse, in which at some times

at others, dead-born Dulness appears in a thousand shapes. These were thrown out weekly and monthly by every miserable scribler; or picked up piece-meal and stolen from any body, under the title of Papers, Essays, Queries, Verses, Epigrams, Riddles, &c. equally the disgrace of human Wit, Morality, and Decency.

Ver. 43. Sepulchral Lyes,] Is a just satyr on the Flatteries and Falshoods admitted to be inscribed on the walls of Churches, in Epitaphs.

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. 45. In clouded Majesty here Dulness shone;] See this Cloud removed, or rolled back, or gathered up to her head, book iv. ver. 17, 18. It is worth while to compare this description of the Majesty of Dulness in a state of peace 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. Scribl.

Ver. 45. In clouded Majesty]

Ver. 48. ------ that knows no fears Of hisses, blows, or want, or loss of ears:]

V. 50. Who hunger, and who thirst, &c.] “This is an allusion to a text in Scripture, which shews, in Mr. Pope, a delight in prophaneness,” said Curl upon this place. But it is very familiar with Shakespear to allude to passages of Scripture: Out of a great number I will select a few, in which he not only alludes to, but quotes the very Texts from holy Writ. In All's well that ends well, I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, I have not much skill in grass. Ibid. They are for the flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire. Mat. vii. 13. In Much ado about nothing. All, all, and moreover God saw him when he was hid in the garden. Gen. iii. 8. (in a very jocose scene.) In Love's labour lost, he talks of Sampson's carrying the gates on his back; in the Merry wives of Windsor, of Goliah and the weaver's beam; and in Henry IV, Falstaff's soldiers are compared to Lazarus and the prodigal son.

The first part of this note is Mr. Curl's, the rest is Mr. Theobald's, Appendix to Shakespeare Restored, p. 144.

Ver. 55. Here she beholds the Chaos dark and deep, Where nameless Somethings, &c.] That is to say, unformed things, which are either made into Poems or Plays, as the Booksellers or the Players bid most. These lines allude to the following in Garth's Dispensary, Cant. vi.

Ver. 63. Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes,] It may not be amiss to give an instance or two of these operations of Dulness out of the Works of her Sons, celebrated in the Poem. A great Critic formerly held these clenches in such abhorrence, that he declared “he that would pun would pick a pocket.” Yet Mr. Dennis's works afford us notable examples in this kind: “Alexander Pope hath sent abroad into the world as many Bulls as his namesake Pope Alexander. —Let us take the initial and final letters of his Name, viz. A. P---E, and they give you the idea of an Ape.— Pope comes from the Latin word Popa, which signifies a little Wart; or from poppysma, because he was continually popping out squibs of wit, or rather Popysmata, or Popisms.” Dennis on Hom. and Daily Journal, June 11, 1728.

Ver. 64. And ductile Dulness, &c.] A parody on a verse in Garth, Cant. I.

Ver. 70, &c. How Farce and Epic—How Time himself, &c.] Allude to the transgressions of the Unities in the Plays of such poets. For the miracles wrought upon Time and Place, and the mixture of Tragedy and Comedy, Farce and Epic, see Pluto and Proserpine, Penelope, &c. if yet extant.

Ver. 73. Ægypt glads with show'rs,] In the lower Ægypt Rain is of no use, the overflowing of the Nile being sufficient to impregnate the soil.—These six verses represent the Inconsistencies in the descriptions of poets, who heap together all glittering and gawdy images, though incompatible in one season, or in one scene.

See the Guardian, No. 40. parag. 6. See also Eusden's whole works, if to be found. It would not have been unpleasant to have given Examples of all these species of bad writing from these Authors, but that it is already done in our Treatise of the Bathos.

Ver. 79. The cloud-compelling Queen] From Homer's Epithet of Jupiter, νεφεληγερετα Ζευς.

Ver. 85, 86. 'Twas on the Day, when --- rich and grave, Like Cimon, triumph'd] Viz. a Lord Mayor's Day; his name 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. Bentl.

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. 88. Glad chains,] The Ignorance of these Moderns! This was altered in one edition to Gold chains, shewing more regard to the metal of which the chains of Aldermen are made, than to the beauty of the Latinism and Græcism, nay of figurative speech itself: Lætas segetes, glad, for making glad, &c. Scribl.

Ver. 90. But liv'd, in Settle's numbers, one day more.] A beautiful manner of speaking, usual with poets in praise of poetry, in which kind nothing is finer than those lines of Mr. Addison:

Ibid. But liv'd, in Settle's numbers, one day more.] Settle was poet to the City of London. His office was to compose yearly panegyrics upon the Lord Mayors, and verses to be spoken in the Pageants: But that part of the shows being at length frugally abolished, the employment of City-poet ceased; so that upon Settle's demise there was no successor to that place.

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,

a great Mistake! for Daniel De Foe had parts, but Norton De Foe was a wretched writer, and never attempted Poetry. Much more justly is Daniel himself made successor to W. Pryn, both of whom wrote Verses as well as Politics; as appears by the Poem De jure divino, &c. of De Foe, and by these lines in Cowley's Miscellanies, on the other:

And both these authors had a resemblance in their fates as well as writings, having been alike sentenced to the Pillory.

Ver. 104. And Eusden eke out, &c.] Laurence Eusden Poet laureate. Mr. Jacob gives a catalogue of some few only of his works, which were very numerous. Mr. Cook, in his Battle of Poets, saith of him,

Mr. Oldmixon, in his Arts of Logic and Rhetoric, p. 413, 414. affirms, “That of all the Galimatia's he ever met with, none comes up to some verses of this poet, which have as much of the Ridiculum and the Fustian in them as can well be jumbled together, and are of that sort of nonsense, which so perfectly confounds all ideas, that there is no distinct one left in the mind.” Farther he says of him, “That he hath prophecied his own poetry shall be sweeter than Catullus, Ovid, and Tibullus; but we have little hope of the accomplishment of it, from what he hath lately published.” Upon which Mr. Oldmixon has not spared a reflection, “That the putting the Laurel on the head of one who writ such verses, will give futurity a very lively idea of the judgment and justice of those who bestowed it.” Ibid. p. 417. But the well-known learning of that Noble Person, who was then Lord Chamberlain, might have screened him from this unmannerly reflection. Nor ought Mr. Oldmixon to complain, so long after, that the Laurel would have better become his own brows, or any others: It were more decent to acquiesce in the opinion of the Duke of Buckingham upon this matter:

The same plea might also serve for his successor, Mr. Cibber; and is further strengthened in the following Epigram, made on that occasion:

Of Blackmore, see Book 2. Of Philips, Book 1. ver. 262. and Book 3. prope fin.

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 Absalom 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] This is by no means to be understood literally, as if Mr. Dennis were really mad, according to the Narrative of Dr. Norris in Swift and Pope's Miscellanies, vol. 3. No—it is spoken of that Excellent and Divine Madness, so often mentioned by Plato; that poetical rage and enthusiasm, with which Mr. D. hath, in his time, been highly possessed; and of those extraordinary hints and motions whereof he himself so feelingly treats in his preface to the Rem. on Pr. Arth. [See notes on Book 2. ver. 268.]

Ver. 106. And all the mighty Mad in Dennis rage.] Mr. Theobald, in the Censor, vol. ii. N. 33. calls Mr. Dennis by the name of Furius. “The modern Furius is to be looked upon as more 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 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 cotemporaries 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 the same reason as some Ladies do their commendations of a dead beauty, who would never have had their good word, but that a living one happened to be mentioned in their company. His applause is not the tribute of his Heart, but the 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 his 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 human shape as his unthinking immaterial part does from human understanding.—He is as stupid and as venomous as a hunch-back'd toad.—A book through which folly and ignorance, those brethren so lame and impotent, do ridiculously look very big and very dull, and strut and hobble, cheek by jowl, with their arms on kimbo, being led and supported, and bully-back'd by that blind Hector, Impudence.” Reflect. on the Essay on Criticism, p. 26. 29, 30.

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 frolicksome, and the epidemic 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 assertor, &c. I look upon it as my duty, I say, to do—you shall see what—to pull the lion's skin from his little Ass, which popular error has thrown round him; and to shew that this Author, who has been lately so much in vogue, has neither sense in his thoughts, nor English in his expressions.” Dennis Rem. on Hom. Pref. p. 2. 91, &c.

Besides these public-spirited reasons, Mr. D. had a private one; which, by his manner of expressing it in p. 92. appears to have been equally strong. He was even in bodily fear of his life from the machinations of the said Mr. P. “The story (says he) is too long to be told, but who would be acquainted with it, may hear it from Mr. Curl, my bookseller.—However, what my reason has suggested to me, that I have with a just confidence said, in defiance of his two clandestine weapons, his Slander and his Poison.” Which last words of his book plainly discover Mr. D.'s suspicion was that of being poisoned, in like manner as Mr. Curl had been before him; of which fact see A full and true account of a horrid and barbarous revenge, by poison, on the body of Edmund Curl, printed in 1716, the year antecedent to that wherein these Remarks of Mr. Dennis were published. But what puts it beyond all question, is a passage 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 administring 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 rendered him a terror, not to Mr. Dennis only, but to all christian people.

For the rest; Mr. John Dennis was the son of a Sadler in London, born in 1657. He paid court to Mr. Dryden: and having obtained some correspondence with Mr. Wycherly 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 kept private. For his character, as a writer, it is given us as follows: “Mr. Dennis is excellent at Pindaric writings, perfectly regular in all his performances, and a person of sound Learning. That he is master of a great deal of Penetration and Judgment, his criticisms, (particularly on Prince Arthur) do sufficiently demonstrate.” From the same account it also 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, formd 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 wonderful 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! am I only to be dull, and dull still, and again, and for ever?” He then solemnly appealed to his own conscience, that “he could not think himself so, nor believe that our poet did; but that he spoke worse of him than he could possibly think; and concluded it must be merely to shew his Wit, or for some Profit or Lucre to himself.” Life of C. C. chap. vii. and Letter to Mr. P. pag. 15. 40. 53.

Ver. 113. shame to Fortune!] Because she usually shews favour to persons of this Character, who have a three-fold pretence to it.

Ver. 115. supperless the Hero sate,] It is amazing how the sense of this hath been mistaken by all the former commentators, who most idly suppose it to imply that the Hero 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, is 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 encompassed 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 castigates, and often totally neglects for the greater improvement of the other. Scribl.

But since the discovery of the true Hero of the poem, may we not add that nothing was so natural, after so great a loss of Money at Dice, or of Reputation by his Play, as that the Poet should have no great stomach to eat a supper? Besides, how well has the Poet consulted his Heroic Character, in adding that he 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 linnen, when she has not better employment.” Life, p. 217. octavo.

Ver. 133. hapless Shakespear, &c.] It is not to be doubted but Bays was a subscriber to Tibbald's Shakespear. He was frequently liberal this way; and, as he tells us, “subscribed to Mr. Pope's Homer, out of pure Generosity and Civility; but when Mr. Pope did so to his Nonjuror, he concluded it could be nothing but a joke.” Letter to Mr. P. p. 24.

This Tibbald, or Theobald, published an edition of Shakespear, 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 in another, April 27, “That whatever care might for the future be taken by any other Editor, he would still give above 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 Shakespear, “that he never blotted a line.” Ben Johnson honestly wished he had blotted a thousand; and Shakespear would certainly have wished the same, if he had lived to see those 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 Out-side merit, &c.] This Library is divided into three parts; the first consists of those authors from whom he stole, and whose works he mangled; the second, of such as fitted the shelves, or were gilded for shew, or adorned with pictures; the third class our author calls solid learning, old bodies of Divinity, old Commentaries, old English Printers, or old English Translations; all very voluminous, and fit to erect altars to Dulness.

Ver. 141. Ogilby the great;] “John Ogilby was one, who, from a late initiation into literature, made such a progress as might well style him the prodigy of his time! sending into the world so many large Volumes! His translations of Homer and Virgil done to the life, and with such excellent sculptures! And (what added great grace to his works) he printed them all on special good paper, and in a very good letter.” Winstanly, Lives of Poets.

Ver. 142. There, stamp'd with arms, Newcastle shines complete:] “The Duchess 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.” Winstanly, ibid. Langbaine reckons up eight Folios of her Grace's; which were usually adorned with gilded covers, and had her coat of arms upon them.

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 (tho' more successful in one of his Tragedies, the Earl of Essex, which is yet alive: Anna Boleyn, the Queen of Scots, and Cyrus the Great, are dead and gone. These he drest in a sort of Beggars Velvet, or a happy mixture of the thick Fustian and thin Prosaic; exactly imitated in Perolla and Isidora, Cæsar in Ægypt, and the Heroic Daughter. 3. Broome was a serving-man of Ben. Johnson, who once picked up a Comedy from his Betters, or from some cast scenes of his Master, not entirely contemptible.

Ver. 147. More solid Learning] Some have objected, that books of this sort suit not so well the library of our Bays, which they imagine consisted of Novels, Plays, and obscene books; but they are to consider, that he furnished his shelves only for ornament, and read these books no more than the Dry bodies of Divinity, which, no doubt, were purchased by his Father when he designed him for the Gown. See the note on v 200.

Ver. 149. Caxton] A Printer in the time of Ed. IV, Rich. III, and Hen. VII; Wynkyn de Word, his successor, in that of Hen. VII and VIII. The former translated into prose Virgil's Æneis, as a history; of which he speaks, in his Proeme, in a very singular manner, as of a book hardly known. “Happened that to my hande cam a lytyl book in frenche, whiche late was translated out of latyn by some noble clerke of fraunce, whiche booke is named Eneydos (made in latyn by that noble poete & grete clerk Vyrgyle) whiche booke I sawe over and redde therein, How after the general destruccyon of the grete Troy, Eneas departed berynge his olde fader anchises upon his sholdres, his lytyl son yolas on his hande, his wyfe with moche other people followynge, and how he shipped and departed; wyth alle thystorye of his adventures that he had er he came to the atchievement of his conquest of ytalye, as all alonge shall be shewed in this present booke. In whiche booke I had grete playsyr, by cause of the fayr and honest termes & wordes in frenche, whiche I never sawe to fore lyke, ne none so playsaunt ne so well ordred; whiche booke as me semed sholde be moche requysite to noble men to see, as wel for the eloquence as the hystoryes. How wel that many hondred yerys passed was the sayd booke of Eneydos wyth other workes made and lerned dayly in scolis, especyally in ytayle and other places, which historye the sayd Vyrgyle made in metre.”

Ver. 153. Nich. de Lyra, or Harpsfield, a very voluminous 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. Winstanl.

Ver. 166. With whom my Muse began, with whom shall end.]

Ver. 167. E'er since Sir Fopling's Periwig] The first visible cause of the passion of the Town for our Hero, was a fair flaxen full-bottom'd Periwig, which, he tells us, he wore in his first play of the Fool in fashion. It attracted, in a particular manner, the Friendship of Col. Brett, who wanted to purchase it. “Whatever contempt (says he) Philosophers may have for a fine Periwig, my friend, who was not to despise the world but to live in it, knew very well that so material an article of dress upon the head of a man of sense, if it became him, could never fail of drawing to him a more partial Regard and Benevolence, than could possibly be hoped for in an ill-made one. This perhaps, may soften the grave censure which so youthful a purchase might otherwise have laid upon him. In a word, he made his attack upon this Periwig, as your young fellows generally do upon a lady of pleasure, first by a few familiar praises of her person, and then a civil enquiry into the price of it; and we finished our bargain that night over a bottle.” See Life, octavo p. 303. This remarkable Periwig usually made its entrance upon the stage in a sedan, brought in by two chairmen, with infinite approbation of the audience.

Ver. 178, 179. Guard the sure barrier—Or quite unravel, &c.] For Wit or Reasoning are never greatly hurtful to Dulness, but when the first is founded in Truth, and the other in Usefulness.

Ver. 195. Had Heav'n decreed, &c.

Ver. 196, 197. Could Troy be sav'd—This grey-goose weapon]

Ver. 199. my Fletcher] A familiar manner of speaking, used by modern Critics, of a favourite author. Bays might as justly speak thus 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 même 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. 202. This Box my Thunder, this Right hand my God.]

Virgil of the Gods of Mezentius.

V. 203. at White's amidst the Doctors ] “These Doctors had a modest and fair Appearance, and, like true Masters of Arts, were habited in black and white; they were justly styled subtiles and graves, but not always irrefragabiles, being sometimes examined, laid open, and split.” Scribl.

This learned Critic is to be understood allegorically: The Doctors in this place mean no more than false Dice, a Cant phrase used amongst Gamesters. So the meaning of these four sonorous Lines is only this, “Shall I play fair, or foul?”

Ver. 206. Ridpath—Mist.] George Ridpath, author of a Whig paper, called the Flying post; Nathanael 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.

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? canebat. Virgil gives a contrary character of the voice of this silly bird, in Ecl. ix.

Read it, therefore, adesse strepebat. And why auratis porticibus? does not the very verse preceding this inform us,

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,

And to say that walls have ears is common even to a proverb.

Ver. 212. And cackling save the Monarchy of Tories?] Not out of any presence or affection to the Tories. For what Hobbes so ingenuously confesses of himself, is true of all Party-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.” Epist. Dedic. to the Leviathan.

Ver. 219. Gazetteers] A band of ministerial writers, hired at the price mentioned in the note on book ii. ver. 316. who on the very day their Patron quitted his post, laid down their paper, and declared they would never more meddle in Politics.

Ver. 218. Cibberian forehead] So indeed all the MSS. read; but I make no scruple to pronounce them all wrong, 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: (Κυνος ομματ' εχων, says Achilles to Agamemnon) which, when in a superlative 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 passionate Apostrophe to his own works, which he is going to sacrifice, agreeable to the nature of man in great affliction; 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. 229. Unstain'd, untouch'd, &c.

Ver. 231. 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 Hudibrastic verse, but best known by the London Spy, in prose. He has of late years kept a public house in the City, (but in a 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 Plantations.—Ward, in a book called Apollo's Maggot, declared this account to be a great falsity, protesting that his public house was not in the City, but in Moorfields.

Ver. 238 & 240. Tate—Shadwell] Two of his predecessors in the Laurel.

Ver. 241. And thrice he lifted high the Birth-day brand,] Ovid of Althæa on a like occasion, burning her offspring:

Ver. 243. With that, a Tear (portentous sign of Grace!) &c.] It is to be observed that our Poet hath made his Hero, in imitation of Virgil's, obnoxious to the tender Passions. He was indeed so given to weeping, that he tells ut, when Goodman the player swore, if he did not make a good actor, he'd be damn'd; “the surprise of being commended by one who had been himself so eminent on the stage, and in so positive a manner, was more than he could support. In a word (says he) it almost took away my breath and (laugh if you please) fairly drew tears from my eyes.” P. 149. of his Life, octavo.

Ver. 250. Now flames the Cid, &c.] In the first notes on the Dunciad it was said, that this Author was particularly excellent at Tragedy. “This (says he) is as unjust as to say I could not dance on a Rope.” But certain it is that he had attempted to dance on this Rope, and fell most shamefully, having produced no less than four Tragedies (the names of which the Poet preserves in these few lines) the three first of them were fairly printed, acted, and damned; the fourth suppressed, in fear of the like treatment.

Ver. 250. Now flames the Cid, &c.]

Ver. 254. the dear Nonjuror—Moliere's old stubble] A Comedy threshed 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 Government;

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.”

Ver. 256. When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies.] See Virgil, Æn. ii. where I would advise the reader to peruse the story of Troy's destruction, rather than in Wynkyn. But I caution him alike in both to beware of a most grievous error, that of thinking it was brought about by I know not what Trojan Horse; there never having been any such thing. For, first, it was not Trojan, being made by the Greeks; and, secondly, it was not a horse, but a mare. This is clear from many verses in Virgil:

Can a horse be said Utero gerere? Again,

Nay, is it not expresly said

How is it possible the word fœta can agree with a horse? And indeed can it be conceived that the chaste and virgin Goddess Pallas would employ herself in forming and fashioning the Male of that species? But this shall be proved to a demonstration in our Virgil restored.

Ver. 258. Thulè] An unfinished poem of that name, of which one sheet was printed many years ago, by Amb. Philips, a northern author. It is an usual method of putting out a fire, to cast wet sheets upon it. Some critics have been of opinion that this sheet was of the nature of the Asbestos, which cannot be consumed by fire: But I rather think it an allegorical allusion to the coldness and heaviness of the writing.

Ver. 263. Great in her charms! as when on Shrieves and May'rs She looks and breathes herself into their airs.]

Ver. 265. sacred Dome:] Where he no sooner enters, but he reconnoitres the place of his original; as Plato says the spirits shall, at their entrance into the celestial regions.

Ver. 269. Great Mother] Magna mater, here applied to Dulness. The Quid-nuncs, a name given to the ancient members of certain political clubs, who were constantly enquiring quid nunc? what news?

Ver. 269. This the Great Mother, &c.]

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 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 Whachum, who, from an under-spur-leather to the Law, is become an under-strapper to the Play-house, who hath 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 Hom. p. 9, 10. Ibid. Ozell.]

“Mr. John Ozell (if we credit Mr. Jacob) did go to school in Leicestershire, where somebody left him 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 fully 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, 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 translations of the Common-prayer in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, &c. As for my genius, let Mr. Cleland shew better verses in all Pope's works, than Ozell's version of Boileau's Lutrin, which the late Lord Halifax was so pleased with, that he complimented him with leave to dedicate it to him, &c. &c. Let him shew better and truer Poetry in the Rape of the Lock, than in Ozell's Rape of the Bucket (la Secchia rapita.) And Mr. Toland and Mr. Gildon publicly declared Ozell's translation of Homer to be, as it was prior, so likewise superior to Pope's.—Surely, surely, every man is free to deserve well of his country! John Ozell.

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

Ver. 290. A Heideggre] 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,] “George Withers was a great Pretender to Poetical Zeal, and abused the greatest Personages in power, which brought upon him frequent correction. The Marshalsea and Newgate were no strangers to him.” Winstanly, Lives of Poets.

Ibid. Gildon] Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels of the last age, bred at St. Omer's with the Jesuits; but renouncing popery, he published Blount's books against the divinity of Christ, the Oracles of Reason, &c. He signalized himself as a critic, having written some very bad plays; abused Mr. P. very scandalously in an anonymous pamphlet of the Life of Mr. Wycherley, printed by Curl; in another, called the New Rehearsal, printed in 1714; in a third, entituled the Complete Art of English Poetry, in two volumes; 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 of Buckingham, Mr. Waller, &c.

Ver. 309, 310. Under Archer's wing,—Gaming, &c.] When the Statute against Gaming was drawn up, it was represented, that the King, by ancient custom, plays at Hazard one night in the year; and therefore a clause was inserted, with an exception as to that particular. Under this pretence, the Groomporter had a Room appropriated to Gaming all the summer the Court was at Kensington, which his Majesty accidentally being acquainted of, with a just indignation prohibited. It is reported, the same practice is yet continued wherever the Court resides, and the Hazard Table there open to all the professed Gamesters in town.

Ver. 311. O when shall rise a Monarch, &c.] Boileau, Lutrin, Chant. 2.

Ver. 319. Chapel-royal] The Voices and Instruments used in the service of the Chapel-royal being also employed in the performance of the Birth-day and New-year Odes.

Ver. 324. But pious Needham] A Matron of great fame, and very religious in her way; whose constant prayer it was, that she might “get enough by her profession to leave it off in time, and make her peace with God.” But her fate was not so happy; for being convicted, and set in the pillory, she was (to the lasting shame of all her great Friends and Votaries) so ill used by the populace, that it put an end to her days.

Ver. 325. Back to the Devil] The Devil Tavern in Fleet-street, where these Odes are usually rehearsed before they are performed at Court.

Ver. 328. —Ogilby)—God save king Log!] See Ogilby's Æsop's Fables, where, in the story of the Frogs and their King, this excellent hemistic is to be found.

Our Author manifests here, and elsewhere, a prodigious tenderness for the bad writers. We see he selects the only good passage, perhaps, in all that ever Ogilby writ; which shews how candid and patient a reader he must have been. What can be more kind and affectionate than these words in the preface to his Poems, where he labours to call up all our humanity and forgiveness toward these unlucky men, by the most moderate representation of their case that has ever been given by any author? “Much may be said to extenuate the fault of bad poets: What we call a genius is hard to be distinguished, by a man himself, from a prevalent inclination: And if it be never so great, he can at first discover it no other way than by that strong propensity which renders him the more liable to be mistaken. He has no other method but to make the experiment, by writing, and so appealing to the judgment of others: And if he happens to write ill (which is certainly no sin in itself) he is immediately made the object of ridicule! I wish we had the humanity to reflect, that even the worst authors might endeavour to please us, and, in that endeavour, deserve something at our hands. We have no cause to quarrel with them, but for their obstinacy in persisting, and even that may admit of alleviating circumstances: For their particular friends may be either ignorant, or unsincere; and the rest of the world too well bred to shock them with a truth which generally their booksellers are the first that inform them of.”

But how much all indulgence is lost upon these people may appear from the just reflection made on their constant conduct, and constant fate, in the following Epigram:

Two things there are, upon the supposition of which the very basis of all Verbal criticism is founded and supported: The first, that an Author could never fail to use the best word on every occasion; the second, that a Critic cannot chuse but know which that is. This being granted, whenever any word doth not fully content us, we take upon us to conclude, first, that the author could never have used it; and, secondly, that he must have used that very one which we conjecture in its stead.

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

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 so much as to mention the former; for which assertion of the just right of a Critic, he merits the acknowledgment of all sound Commentators.

Ver. 1. High on a gorgeous seat] Parody of Milton, book 2.

Ver. 2. Henley's gilt tub,] The pulpit of a Dissenter is usually called a Tub; but that of Mr. Orator Henley was covered with velvet, and adorned with gold. He had also a fair altar, and over it is this extraordinary inscription, The Primitive Eucharist. See the history of this person, book 3.

Ibid. or Fleckno's Irish throne,] Richard Fleckno was 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 him in respect to the Poem of Mr. Dryden, to which this bears some resemblance, though of a character more different from it than that of the Æneid from the Iliad, or the Lutrin of Boileau from the Defait de Bouts rimées of Sarazin.

It may be just worth mentioning, that the Eminence from whence the ancient Sophists entertained their auditors, was called by the pompous name of a Throne; —επι θρονον τινος υψηλου μαλα σοφιστικως και σοβαρως. Themistius, Orat. i.

Ver. 3. Or that where on her Curls the Public pours,] Edmund Curl stood in the pillory at Charing-cross, in March 1727–8.

Mr. Curl loudly complained of this note, as an untruth; protesting “that he stood in the pillory, not in March, but in February.” And of another on ver. 152. saying, “he was not tossed in a Blanket, but a Rug.” Curliad, duodecimo, 1729, p. 19, 25. Much in the same manner Mr. Cibber remonstrated that his Brothers at Bedlam, mentioned Book i. were not Brazen, but Blocks; yet our author let it pass unaltered, as a trifle, that no way lessened the Relationship.

Ver. 15. Rome in her Capitol saw Querno sit,] Camillo Querno was of Apulia, who hearing the great Encouragement which Leo X. gave to poets, travelled to Rome with a harp in his hand, and sung to it twenty thousand verses of a poem called Alexias. He was introduced as a Buffoon to Leo, and promoted to the honour of the Laurel; a jest which the court of Rome and the Pope himself entered into so far, as to cause him to ride on an elephant to the Capitol, and to hold a solemn festival on his coronation; at which it is recorded the Poet himself was so transported as to weep for 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. lxxxii. Some idea of his poetry is given by Fam. Strada, in his Prolusions.

See Life of C. C. chap. vi. p. 149.

Ver. 35. A Poet's form she plac'd before their eyes,] This is what Juno does to deceive Turnus, Æn. x.

Ver. 39. But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise,]

Ver. 44. A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead;] i. e.

as the poet, book 4. describes the accomplished Sons of Dulness; of whom this is only an Image, or Scarecrow, and so stuffed out with these corresponding materials. Scribl.

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.

The reader will observe how exactly some of these verses suit with their allegorical application here to a Plagiary: There seems to me a great propriety in this Episode, where such an one is imaged by a phantom that deludes the grasp of the expecting Bookseller.

Ver. 50. and call'd the phantom More.] Curl, in his Key to the Dunciad, affirmed this to be James-More Smith esq. and it is probable (considering what is said of him in the Testimonies) that some might fancy our author obliged to represent this gentleman as a plagiary, or to pass for one himself. His case indeed was like that of a man I have heard of, who, as he was sitting in company, perceived his next neighbour had stolen his handkerchief. “Sir (said the thief, finding himself detected) do not expose me, I did it for mere want; be so good but to take it privately out of my pocket again, and say nothing.” The honest man did so, but the other cry'd out, “See, gentlemen, what a thief we have among us! look, he is stealing my handkerchief!”

The plagiarisms of this person gave occasion to the following Epigram:

His only work was a Comedy called the Rival Modes; the town condemned it in the action, but he printed it in 1726/27, with this modest Motto,

Ver. 50. the phantom More.] It appears from hence, that this is not the name of a real person, but fictitious. More from μωρος, stultus, μωρια, stultitia, to represent the folly of a plagiary. Thus Erasmus, Admonuit me Mori cognomen tibi, quod tam ad Moriæ vocabulum accedit quam es ipse a re alienus. Dedication of Moriæ Encomium to Sir Tho. More; the farewell of which may be our author's to his plagiary, Vale, More! & moriam tuam gnaviter defende. Adieu, 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 on a Bull. This eminent Bookseller printed the Rival Modes before mentioned.

Ver. 58. Stood dauntless Curl;] We come now to a character of much respect, that of Mr. Edmund Curl. As a plain repetition of great actions is the best praise of them, we shall only say of this eminent man, that he carried the Trade many lengths beyond what it ever before had arrived at; and that he was the envy and admiration of all his profession. He possessed himself of a command over all authors whatever; he caused them to write what he pleased; they could not call their very Names their own. He was not only famous among these; he was taken notice of by the State, the Church, and the Law, and received particular marks of distinction from each.

It will be owned that he is here introduced with all possible dignity: He speaks like the intrepid Diomed; he runs like the swift-footed Achilles; if he falls, 'tis like the beloved Nisus; and (what Homer makes to be the chief of all praises) he is favoured of the Gods; he says but three words, and his prayer is heard; a Goddess conveys it to the seat of Jupiter: Though he loses the prize, he gains the victory; the great Mother herself comforts him, she inspires him with expedients, she honours him with an immortal present (such as Achilles receives from Thetis, and Æneas from Venus) at once instructive and prophetical: After this he is unrivalled and triumphant.

The tribute our author hore 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 ever he owed two verses to any other, he owed Mr. Curl some thousands. He was every day extending his fame, and enlarging his Writings: Witness innumerable instances; but it shall suffice only to mention the Court Poems, which he meant to publish as the work of the true writer, a Lady of quality; but being first threatned, and afterwards punished for it by Mr. Pope, he generously transferred it from her to him, and ever since printed it in his name. The single time that ever he spoke to C. was on that affair, and to that happy incident he ow'd all the favours since received from him: So true is the saying of Dr. Sydenham, “that any one shall be, at some time or other, the better or the worse, for having but seen or spoken to a good or bad man.”

Ver. 60. So take the hindmost, Hell.]

Ver. 61. &c. Something like this is in Homer, Il. x. v 220. of Diomed. Two different manners of the same author in his similies are also imitated in the two following; the first, of the Bailiff, is short, unadorned, and (as the Critics well know) from familiar life; the second, of the Water-fowl, more extended, picturesque, and from rural life. The 59th verse is likewise a literal translation of one in Homer.

Ver. 64, 65.

Ver. 67, 68.

Milton, of the motion of the Swan,

And Dryden, of another's,

Ver. 70. Curl's Corinna] This name, it seems, was taken by one Mrs. T---, who procured some private letters of Mr. Pope's, while almost a boy, to Mr. Cromwell, and sold them without the consent of either of those Gentlemen to Curl, who printed them in 12mo, 1727. He discovered her to be the publisher, in his Key, p. 11. We only take this opportunity of mentioning the manner in which those letters got abroad, which the author was ashamed of as very trivial things, full not only of levities, but of wrong judgments of men and books, and only excusable from the youth and inexperience of the writer.

Ver. 70. And Bernard! Bernard!]

Ver. 73. Here fortun'd Curl to slide;]

Ver. 75. Obscene with filth, &c.] Though this incident may seem too low and base for the dignity of an Epic poem, the learned very well know it to be but a copy of Homer and Virgil; the very words ονθος and fimus are used by them, though our poet (in compliance to modern nicety) has remarkably enriched and coloured his language, as well as raised the versification, in this Episode, and in the following one of Eliza. Mr. Dryden in Mack-Fleckno, has not scrupled to mention the Morning Toast at which the fishes bite in the Thames, Pissing Alley, Reliques of the Bum, &c. but our author is more grave, and (as a fine writer says of Virgil in his Georgics) tosses about his Dung with an air of Majesty. If we consider that the exercises of his Authors could with justice to be no higher than tickling, chattering, braying, or diving, it was no easy matter to invent such games as were proportioned to the meaner degree of Booksellers. In Homer and Virgil, Ajax and Nisus the persons drawn in this plight are Heroes; whereas here they are such with whom it had been great impropriety to have joined any but vile ideas; besides the natural connection there is between Libellers and common Nusances. Nevertheless I have heard our author own, that this part of his Poem was (as it frequently happens) what cost him most trouble and pleased him least; but that he hoped it was excusable, since levelled at such as understand no delicate satyr: Thus the politest men are sometimes oliged to swear, when they happen to have to do with porters and oyster-wenches.

Ver. 82. Down with the Bible, up with the Pope's Arms.] The Bible, Curl's sign; the Cross-keys, Lintot's.

Ver. 83. See Lucian's Icaro-Menippus; where this fiction is more extended. Ibid. A place there is, betwixt earth, air, and seas,]

Ver. 92. Alludes to Homer, Iliad v.

Ver. 93. Cloacina] The Roman Goddess of the common-sewers.

Ver. 101. Where as he fish'd, &c.] See the preface to Swift's and Pope's Miscellanies.

Ver. 104. As oil'd with magic juices] Alluding to the opinion that there are ointments used by witches to enable them to fly in the air, &c.

Ver. 108. Nor heeds the brown dishonours of his face.]

Ver. 111. A shapeless shade, &c.]

Ver. 114. His papers light, fly diverse, tost in air;] Virgil, Æn. vi. of the Sibyls leaves,

Ver. 116. Evans, Young, and Swift.] Some of those persons whose writings, epigrams, or jests he had owned. See Note on ver. 50.

Ver. 118. an unpay'd taylor] This line has been loudly complained of in Mist, June 8, Dedic. to Sawney, and others, as a most inhuman satyr on the poverty of Poets: But it is thought our author would be acquitted by a jury of Taylors. To me this instance seems unluckily chosen; if it be a satyr on any body, it must be on a bad paymaster, since the person to whom they have here applied it, was a man of fortune. Not but poets may well be jealous of so great a prerogative as non-payment; which Mr. Dennis so far asserts, as boldly to pronounce that “if Homer himself was not in debt, it was because nobody would trust him.” Pref. to Rem. on the Rape of the Lock, p. 15.

Ver. 124. like Congreve, Addison, and Prior;] These authors being such whose names will reach posterity, we shall not give any account of them, but proceed to those of whom it is necessary.— Besaleel Morris was author of some satyrs on the translators of Homer, with many other things printed in news-papers.— “Bond writ a satyr against Mr. P---. Capt. Breval was author of The Confederates, an ingenious dramatic performance to expose Mr. P. Mr. Gay, Dr. Arb. and some ladies of quality,” says Curl, Key, p. 11.

Ver. 125. Mears, Warner, Wilkins] Booksellers, and Printers of much anonymous stuff.

Ver. 126. Breval, Bond, Besaleel,] I foresee it will be objected from this line, that we were in an error in our assertion on ver. 50. of this book, that More was a fictitious name, since these persons are equally represented by the poet as phantoms. So at first sight it may seem; but be not deceived, reader; these also are not real persons. 'Tis true, Curl declares Breval, a captain, author of a piece called The Confederates; but the same Curl first said it was written by Joseph Gay: Is his second assertion to be credited any more than his first? He likewise affirms Bond to be one who writ a satyr on our poet: But where is such a satyr to be found? where was such a writer ever heard of? As for Besaleel, it carries forgery in the very name; nor is it, as the others are, a surname. Thou may'st depend upon it, no such authors ever lived: all phantoms. Scribl.

Ver. 128. Joseph Gay, a fictitious name put by Curl before several pamphlets, which made them pass with many for Mr. Gay's.

Ver. 132. And turn this whole illusion on the town:] It was a common practice of this bookseller to publish vile pieces of obscure hands under the names of eminent authors.

Ver. 138. Cook shall be Prior,] The man here specified writ a thing called The Battle of Poets, in which Philips and Welsted were the Heroes, and Swift and Pope utterly routed. He also published some malevolent things in the British, London, and Daily Journals; and at the same time wrote letters to Mr. Pope, protesting his innocence. His chief work was a translation of Hesiod, to which Theobald writ notes and half-notes, which he carefully owned.

Ver. 138. and Concanen, Swift:] In the first edition of this poem there were only asterisks in this place, but the names were since inserted, merely to fill up the verse, and give ease to the ear of the reader.

Ver. 140. And we too boast our Garth and Addison.] Nothing is more remarkable than our author's love of praising good writers. He has in this very poem celebrated Mr. Locke, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Barrow, Dr. Atterbury, Mr. Dryden, Mr. Congreve, Dr. Garth, Mr. Addison; in a word, almost every man of his time that deserved it; even Cibber himself (presuming him to be author of the Careless Husband.) It was very difficult to have that pleasure in a poem on this subject, yet he has found means to insert their panegyric, and has made even Dulness out of her own mouth pronounce it. It must have been particularly agreeable to him to celebrate Dr. Garth; both as his constant friend, and as he was his predecessor in this kind of satyr. The Dispensary attacked the whole body of Apothecaries, a much more useful one undoubtedly than that of the bad Poets; if in truth this can be a body, of which no two members ever agreed. It also did what Mr. Theobald says is unpardonable, drew in parts of private character, and introduced persons independent of his subject. Much more would Boileau have incurred his censure, who left all subjects whatever, on all occasions, to fall upon the bad poets (which, it is to be feared, would have been more immediately his concern.) But certainly next to commending good writers, the greatest service to learning is to expose the bad, who can only that way be made of any use to it. This truth is very well set forth in these lines addressed to our author:

Ver. 141, 142. ------ piteous of his case, Yet smiling at his rueful length of face.)]

Ver. 142. rueful length of face)] “The decrepid person or figure of a man are no reflections upon his Genius: An honest mind will love and esteem a man of worth, though he be deformed or poor. Yet the author of the Dunciad hath libelled a person for his rueful length of face!” Mist's Journal, June 8. This Genius and man of worth, whom an honest mind should love, is Mr. Curl. True it is, he stood in the Pillory, an incident which will lengthen the face of any man tho' it were ever so comely, therefore is no reflection on the natural beauty of Mr. Curl. But as to reflections on any man's face, or figure, Mr. Dennis saith excellently; “Natural deformity comes not by our fault; 'tis often occasioned by calamities and diseases, which a man can no more help than a monster can his deformity. There is no one misfortune, and no one disease, but what all the rest of mankind are subject to. —But the deformity of this Author is visible, present, lasting, unalterable, and peculiar to himself. 'Tis the mark of God and Nature upon him, to give us warning that we should hold no society with him, as a creature not of our original, nor of our species: and they who have refused to take this warning which God and nature have given them, and have in spite of it by a senseless presumption ventured to be familiar with him, have severely suffered, &c. 'Tis certain his original is not from Adam, but from the Devil,” &c. Dennis, Charact. of Mr. P. octavo, 1716.

Admirably it is observed by Mr. Dennis against Mr. Law, p. 33. “That the language of Billingsgate can never be the language of charity, nor consequently of Christianity.” I should else be tempted to use the language of a Critic; for what is more provoking to a commentator, than to behold his author thus portrayed? Yet I consider it really hurts not him; whereas to call some others dull, might do them prejudice with a world too apt to believe it: Therefore, though Mr. D. may call another a little ass or a young toad, far be it from us to call him a toothless lion or an old serpent. Indeed, had I written these notes (as was once my intent) in the learned language, I might have given him the appellations of balatro, calceatum caput, scurra in triviis, being phrases in good esteem and frequent usage among the best learned: But in our mother-tongue, were I to tax any gentleman of the Dunciad, surely it should be in words not to the vulgar intelligible; whereby christian charity, decency, and good accord among authors, might be preserved. Scribl.

The good Scriblerus here, as on all occasions, eminently shews his humanity. But it was far otherwise with the gentlemen of the Dunciad, whose scurrilities were always personal, and of that nature which provoked every honest man but Mr. Pope; yet never to be lamented, since they occasioned the following amiable Verses:

Ver. 143. A shaggy Tap'stry,] A sorry kind of Tapestry frequent in old Inns, made of worsted or some coarser stuff; like that which is spoken of by Donne— Faces as frightful as theirs who whip Christ in old hangings. The imagery woven in it alludes to the mantle of Cloanthus, in Æn. v.

Ver. 144. On Codrus' old, or Dunton's modern bed;] Of Codrus the poet's bed, see Juvenal, describing his poverty very copiously, Sat. iii. ver. 103, &c.

But Mr. Concanen, in his dedication of the letters, advertisements, &c. to the author of the Dunciad, assures us that “Juvenal never satyrized the Poverty of Codrus.”

John Dunton was a broken bookseller and abusive scribler; he writ Neck or Nothing, a violent satyr on some ministers of state; a libel on the Duke of Devonshire and the Bishop of Peterborough, &c.

Ver. 148. And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge] John Tutchin, author of some vile verses, and of a weekly paper called the Observator: He was sentenced to be whipped through several towns in the west of England, upon which he petitioned King James II. to be hanged. When that prince died in exile, he wrote an invective against his memory, occasioned by some humane elegies on his death. He lived to the time of Queen Anne.

Ver. 149. There Ridpath, Roper,] Authors of the Flying-post and Post-boy, two scandalous papers on different sides, for which they equally and alternately deserved to be cudgelled, and were so.

Ver. 151. Himself among the story'd chiefs he spies,] The history of Curl's being tossed in a blanket, and whipped by the scholars of Westminster, is well known. Of his purging and vomiting, see a full and true Account of a horrid Revenge on the body of Edm. Curl, &c. in Swift and Pope's Miscell.

Ver. 151. Himself among the story'd chiefs he spies,]

Ver. 156. And the fresh vomit run for ever green!] A parody on these of a late noble author:

Ver. 157. See in the circle next, Eliza plac'd,] In this game is exposed, in the most contemptuous manner, the profligate licentiousness of those shameless scriblers (for the most part of that Sex, which ought least to be capable of such malice or impudence) who in libellous Memoirs and Novels, reveal the faults or misfortunes of both sexes, to the ruin of public fame, or disturbance of private happiness. Our good poet (by the whole cast of his work being obliged not to take off the Irony) where he could not shew his indignation, hath shewn his contempt, as much as possible; having here drawn as vile a picture as could be represented in the colours of Epic poesy. Scribl. Ibid.

Eliza Haywood; this woman was authoress of those most scandalous books called the court of Carimania, and the New Utopia. For the two babes of love, see Curl, Key, p. 22. But whatever reflection he is pleased to throw upon this Lady, surely it was what from him she little deserved, who had celebrated Curl's undertakings for Reformation of manners, and declared herself “to be so perfectly acquainted with the sweetness of his disposition, and that tenderness with which he considered the errors of his fellow creatures; that, though she should find the little inadvertencies of her own life recorded in his papers, she was certain it would be done in such a manner as she could not but approve.” Mrs. Haywood, Hist. of Clar. printed in the Female Dunciad, p. 18.

Ver. 156. Two babes of love close clinging to her waist;]

Ver. 160. Kirkall, the name of an Engraver. Some of this Lady's works were printed in four volumes in 12mo, with her picture thus dressed up before them.

Ver. 163. ------ yon Juno ------ With cow-like udders, and with ox-like eyes.] In allusion to Homer's Βοωπις ποτνια Ηρη.

Ver. 165. This China Jordan]

In the games of Homer, Il. xxiii. there are set together, as prizes, a Lady and a Kettle, as in this place Mrs. Haywood and a Jordan. But there the preference in value is given to the Kettle, at which Mad. Dacier is justly displeased. Mrs. H. is here treated with distinction, and acknowledged to be the more valuable of the two.

Ver. 167. Osborne] A Bookseller in Grays-Inn, very well qualified by his impudence to act this part; and therefore placed here instead of a less deserving Predecessor. This man published advertisements for a year together, pretending to sell Mr. Pope's Subscription books of Homer's Iliad at half the price: Of which books he had none, but cut to the size of them (which was Quarto) the common books in folio, without Copper-plates, on a worse paper, and never above half the value.

Upon this Advertisement the Gazetteer harangued thus, July 6, 1739. “How melancholy must it be to a Writer to be so unhappy as to see his works hawked for sale in a manner so fatal to his fame! How, with Honour to your self, and Justice to your Subscribers, can this be done? What an Ingratitude to be charged on the Only honest Poet that lived in 1738! and than whom Virtue has not had a shriller Trumpeter for many ages! That you were once generally admired and esteemed can be denied by none; but that you and your works are now despised, is verified by this fact:” which being utterly false, did not indeed much humble the Author, but drew this just chastisement on the Bookseller.

Ver. 173, 174. So Jove's bright bow ------ (Sure sign ------ The words of Homer, of the Rain-bow, in Iliad xi.

Que le fils de Saturn a fondez dans les nües, pour être dans tous les âges une signe à tous les mortels. Dacier.

Ver. 181, 182. So (fam'd like thee for turbulence and horns) Eridanus] Virgil mentions these two qualifications of Eridanus, Georg. iv.

Ver. 183. Thro' half the heav'ns he pours th'exalted urn;] In a manuscript Dunciad (where are some marginal corrections of some gentlemen some time deceased) I have found another reading of these lines, thus,

This I cannot but think the right: For first, though the difference between burn and glow may seem not very material to others, to me I confess the latter has an elegance, a je ne sçay quoy, which is much easier to be conceived than explained. Secondly, every reader of our poet must have observed how frequently he uses this word glow in other parts of his works: To instance only in his Homer:

(1.) Iliad. ix. v 726.—With one resentment glows.

(2.) Iliad. xi. v 626.—There the battle glows.

(3.) Ibid. v 985.—The closing flesh that instant ceas'd to glow.

(4.) Iliad. xii. v 45.—Encompass'd Hector glows.

(5.) Ibid. v 475.—His beating breast with gen'rous ardour glows.

(6.) Iliad. xviii. v 591.—Another part glow'd with refulgent arms.

(7.) Ibid. v 654.—And curl'd on silver props in order glow.

I am afraid of growing too luxuriant in examples, or I could stretch this catalogue to a great extent, but these are enough to prove his fondness for this beautiful word, which, therefore, let all future editions replace here.

I am aware, after all, that burn is the proper word to convey an idea of what was said to be Mr. Curl's condition at this time: But from that very reason I infer the direct contrary. For surely every lover of our author will conclude he had more humanity than to insult a man on such a misfortune or calamity, which could never befal him purely by his own fault, but from an unhappy communication with another. This Note is half Mr. Theobald, half Scribl.

The Poets fabled of this river Eridanus, that it flowed through the skies. Denham, Cooper's Hill:

Ver. 187. The high-wrought day,] Some affirm, this was originally, well p---st day; but the Poet's decency would not suffer it.

Here the learned Scriblerus manifests great anger; he exclaims against all such Conjectural Emendations in this manner: “Let it suffice, O Pallas! that every noble Ancient, Greek or Roman, hath suffered the impertinent correction of every Dutch, German, and Switz Schoolmaster! Let our English at least escape, whose intrinsic is scarce of marble so solid, as not to be impaired or soiled by such rude and dirty hands. Suffer them to call their works their own, and after death at least to find rest and sanctuary from Critics! When these men have ceased to rail, let them not begin to do worse, to comment! Let them not conjecture into nonsense, correct out of all correctness, and restore into obscurity and confusion. Miserable fate! which can befal only the sprightliest wits that have written, and will befal them only from such dull ones as could never write!”

Ver. 203. Paolo Antonio Rolli, an Italian Poet, and writer of many Operas in that language, which, partly by the help of his genius, prevailed in England near twenty years. He taught Italian to some fine Gentlemen, who affected to direct the Operas.

Ver. 205. Bentley his mouth, &c. Not spoken of the famous Dr. Richard Bentley, but of one Thom. Bentley, a small critic, who aped his uncle in a little Horace. The great one was intended to be dedicated to the Lord Hallifax, but (on a change of the Ministry) was given to the Earl of Oxford; for which reason the little one was dedicated to his son the Lord Harley. A taste of this Classic Elocution may be seen in his following Panegyric on the Peace of Utrecht. Cupimus Patrem tuum, fulgentissimum illud Orbis Anglicani jubar, adorare. O ingens Reipublicæ; nostræ columen! O fortunatam tanto Heroe Britanniam! Illi tali tantoque viro Deum per Omnia adfuisse, manumque ejus & mentem direxisse, Certissimum est. Hujus enim Unius ferme opera, æquissimis & perhonorificis conditionibus, diuturno, heu nimium! bello, finem impositum videmus. O Diem æterna memoria dignissimam! qua terrores Patriæ omnes excidit, Pacemque diu exoptatam toti fere Europæ restituit, ille Populi Anglicani Amor, Harleius.

Thus critically (that is verbally) translated:

“Thy Father, that most refulgent star of the Anglican Orb, we much desire to adore! Oh mighty Column of our Republic! Oh Britain, fortunate in such an Hero! That to such and so great a Man God was ever present, in every thing, and all along directed both his hand and his heart, is a Most Absolute Certainty! For it is in a manner by the operation of this. Man alone, that we behold a War (alas! how much too long an one!) brought at length to an end, on the most just and most honourable Conditions. Oh Day eternally to be memorated! wherein All the Terrors of his Country were ended, and a Peace (long wish'd for by almost all Europe) was restored by Harley, the Love and Delight of the People of England.”

But that this Gentleman can write in a different style, may be seen in a letter he printed to Mr. Pope, wherein several Noble Lords are treated in a most extraordinary language, particularly the Lord Bolingbroke abused for that very Peace which he here makes the single work of the Earl of Oxford, directed by God Almighty.

Ver. 207. Welsted] Leonard Welsted, author of The Triumvirate, or a Letter in verse from Palæmon to Celia at Bath, which was meant for a satyr on Mr. P. and some of his friends, about the year 1718. He writ other things which we cannot remember. Smedley in his Metamorphosis of Scriblerus, mentions one, the Hymn of a Gentleman to his Creator: And there was another in praise either of a Cellar, or a Garret. L. W. characterized in the treatise Περι Βαθους, or the Art of Sinking, as a Didapper, and after as an Eel, is said to be this person, by Dennis, Daily Journal of May 11, 1728. He was also characterized under another animal, a Mole, by the author of the ensuing Simile, which was handed about at the same time:

You have him again in book 3. ver. 169.

Ver. 213. A youth unknown to Phœbus, &c.] The satyr of this Episode being levelled at the base flatteries of authors to worthless wealth or greatness, concludes here with an excellent lesson to such men: That altho' their pens and praises were as exquisite as they conceit of themselves, yet (even in their own mercenary views) a creature unlettered, who serveth the passions, or pimpeth to the pleasures, of such vain, braggart, puft Nobility, shall with those patrons be much more inward, and of them much higher rewarded. Scribl.

Ver. 223, 225.

Ver. 226. With Thunder rubling from the mustard bowl,] The old way of making Thunder and Mustard were the same; but since, it is more advantageously performed by troughs of wood with stops in them. Whether Mr. Dennis was the inventor of that improvement, I know not; but it is certain, that being once at a Tragedy of a new author, he fell into a great passion at hearing some, and cried, “'Sdeath! that is my Thunder.”

Ver. 228. —with a tolling bell;] A mechanical help to the Pathetic, not unuseful to the modern writers of Tragedy.

Ver. 231. Three Cat-calls] Certain musical instruments used by one sort of Critics to confound the Poets of the Theatre.

Ver. 238. Norton,] See ver. 417.—J. Durant Breval, Author of a very extraordinary Book of Travels, and some Poems. See before, Note on ver. 126.

Ver. 243. A Cat-call each shall win, &c.]

Ver. 247. As when the, &c.] A Simile with a long tail, in the manner of Homer.

Ver. 258. Webster—and Whitfield] The one the writer of a News-paper called the Weekly Miscellany, the other a Field-preacher. This thought the only means of advancing Christianity was by the New-birth of religious madness; That, by the old death of fire and faggot: And therefore they agreed in this, though in no other earthly thing, to abuse all the sober Clergy. From the small success of these two extraordinary persons, we may learn how little hurtful Bigotry and Enthusiasm are, while the Civil Magistrate prudently forbears to lend his power to the one, in order to the employing it against the other.

Ver. 260. bray back to him again] A figure of speech taken from Virgil:

The poet here celebrated, Sir R. B. delighted much in the word bray, which he endeavoured to ennoble by applying it to the sound of Armour, War, &c. In imitation of him, and strengthened by his authority, our author has here admitted it into Heroic poetry.

Ver. 262. Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze;

The progress of the sound from place to place, and the scenery here of the bordering regions, Tottenham-fields, Chancery-lane, the Thames, Westminster-hall, and Hungerford-stairs, are imitated from Virgil, Æn. vii. on the sounding the horn of Alecto:

Ver. 263. Long Chanc'ry-lane] The place where the offices of Chancery are kept. The long detention of Clients in that Court, and the difficulty of getting out, is humourously allegorized in these lines.

Ver. 268. Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long.] A just character of Sir Richard Blackmore knight, who (as Mr. Dryden expresseth it)

and whose indefatigable Muse produced no less than six Epic poems: Prince and King Arthur, twenty books; Eliza, ten; Alfred, twelve; the Redeemer, six; besides Job, in folio; the whole Book of Psalms; the Creation, seven books; Nature of Man, three books; and many more. 'Tis in this sense he is styled afterwards the everlasting Balckmore. Notwithstanding all which, Mr. Gildon seems assured, that “this admirable author did not think himself upon the same foot with Homer.” Comp. Art of Poetry, vol. i. p. 108.

But how different is the judgment of the author of Characters of the times? p. 25. who says, “Sir Richard Blackmore is unfortunate in happening to mistake his proper talents; and that he has not for many years been so much as named, or even thought of among writers.” Even Mr. Dennis differs greatly from his friend Mr. Gildon: “Blackmore's Action (saith he) has neither unity, nor integrity, nor morality, nor universality; and consequently he can have no Fable, and no Heroic Poem: His Narration is neither probable, delightful, nor wonderful; his Characters have none of the necessary qualifications; the things contained in his Narration are neither in their own nature delightful, nor numerous enough, nor rightly disposed, nor surprising, nor pathetic.”—Nay he proceeds so far as to say Sir Richard has no Genius; first laying down, that “Genius is caused by a furious joy and pride of soul, on the conception of an extraordinary Hint. Many Men (says he) have their Hints, without these motions of fury and pride of soul, because they want fire enough to agitate their spirits; and these we call cold writers. Others who have a great deal of fire, but have not excellent organs, feel the forementioned motions, without the extraordinary hints; and these we call fustian writers. But he declares that Sir Richard had neither the Hints, nor the Motions.” Remarks on Pr. Arth. octavo, 1696. Preface.

This gentleman in his first works abused the character of Mr. Dryden; and in his last, of Mr. Pope, accusing him in very high and sober terms of profaneness and immorality (Essay on Polite Writing, vol. ii. p. 270.) on a mere report from Edm. Curl, that he was author of a Travestie on the first Psalm. Mr. Dennis took up the same report, but with the addition of what Sir Richard had neglected, an Argument to prove it; which being very curious, we shall here transcribe. “It was he who burlesqued the the Psalm of David. It is apparent to me that Psalm was burlesqued by a Popish rhymester. Let rhyming persons who have been brought up Protestants be otherwise what they will, let them be rakes, let them be scoundrels, let them be Atheists, yet education has made an invincible impression on them in behalf of the sacred writings. But a Popish rhymester has been brought up with a contempt for those sacred writings; now shew me another Popish rhymester but he.” This manner of argumentation is usual with Mr. Dennis; he has employed the same against Sir Richard himself, in a like charge of Impiety and Irreligion. “All Mr. Blackmore's celestial Machines, as they cannot be defended so much as by common received opinion, so are they directly contrary to the doctrine of the church of England; for the visible descent of an Angel must be a miracle. Now it is the doctrine of the Church of England that miracles had ceased a long time before Prince Arthur came into world. Now if the doctrine of the church of England be true, as we are obliged to believe, then are all the celestial machines in Prince Arthur unsufferable, as wanting not only human, but divine probability. But if the machines are sufferable, that is if they have so much as divine probability, then it follows of necessity that the doctrine of the Church is false. So I leave it to every impartial Clergyman to consider,” &c. Preface to the Remarks on Prince Arthur.

Ver. 270. (As morning pray'r, and flagellation end.) It is between eleven and twelve in the morning, after church service, that the criminals are whipt in Bridewell.—This is to mark punctually the time of the day: Homer does it by the circumstance of the Judges rising from court, or of the Labourer's dinner; our author by one very proper both to the Persons and the Scene of his poem, which we may remember commenced in the evening of the Lord-mayor's day: The first book passed in that night; the next morning the games begin in the Strand, thence along Fleet-street (places inhabited by Booksellers) then they proceed by Bridewell toward Fleet-ditch, and lastly thro' Ludgate to the City and the Temple of the Goddess.

Ver. 273. The King of dykes! &c.]

Ver. 276, 277, 278. —dash thro' thick and thin,—love of dirt—dark dexterity] The three chief qualifications of Party-writers; to stick at nothing, to delight in flinging dirt, and to slander in the dark by guess.

Ver. 280. the Weekly Journals] Papers of news and scandal intermixed, on different sides and parties, and frequently shifting from one side to the other, called the London Journal, British Journal, Daily Journal, &c. the concealed writers of which for some time were Oldmixon, Roome, Arnall, Concanen, and others; persons never seen by our author.

Ver. 282. “A peck of coals a-piece] Our indulgent Poet, whenever he has spoken of any dirty or low work, constantly puts us in mind of the Poverty of the offenders, as the only extenuation of such practices. Let any one but remark, when a Thief, a Pick-pocket, an Highwayman, or a Knight of the post are spoken of, how much our hate to those characters is lessened, if they add a needy Thief, a poor Pick-pocket, an hungry Highwayman, a starving Knight of the post, &c.

Ver. 283. In naked majesty Oldmixon stands,] Mr. John Oldmixon, next to Mr. Dennis, the most ancient Critic of our Nation; an unjust censurer of Mr. Addison in his prose Essay on Criticism, whom also in his imitation of Bouhours (called the Arts of Logic and Rhetoric) he misrepresents in plain matter of fact; for in p. 45. he cites the Spectator as abusing Dr. Swift by name, where there is not the least hint of it; and in p. 304. is so injurious as to suggest, that Mr. Addison himself writ that Tatler, N. 43. which says of his own Simile, that “'Tis as great as ever entered into the mind of man. In Poetry he was not so happy as laborious, and therefore characterised by the Tatler, N. 62. by the name of Omicron the Unborn Poet.” Curl, Key, p. 13. “He writ Dramatic works, and a volume of Poetry, consisting of heroic Epistles, &c. some whereof are very well done,” faith that great Judge Mr. Jacob, in his Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 303.

In his Essay on Criticism, and the Arts of Logic and Rhetoric, he frequently reflects on our Author. But the top of his character was a Perverter of History, in that scandalous one of the Stuarts, in folio, and his Critical History of England, two volumes, octavo. Being employed by bishop Kennet, in publishing the Historians in his Collection, he falsified Daniel's Chronicle in numberless places. Yet this very man, in the preface to the first of these books, advanced a particular Fact to charge three eminent persons of falsifying the lord Clarendon's History; which fact has been disproved by Dr. Atterbury, late bishop of Rochester, then the only survivor of them; and the particular part he pretended to be falsified, produced since, after almost ninety years, in that noble author's original manuscript. He was all his life a virulent Party-writer for hire, and received his reward in a small place, which he enjoyed to his death.

He is here likened to Milo, in allusion to that verse of Ovid,

either with regard to his Age, or because he was undone by trying to pull to pieces an Oak that was too strong for him.

Ver. 286. “Ah why, ye Gods! should two and two make four?”] Very reasonably doth this ancient Critic complain: Without doubt it was a fault in the Constitution of things. For the World, as a great writer saith, being given to man for a subject of disputation, he might think himself mock'd with a penurious gift, were any thing made certain. Hence those superior masters of wisdom, the Sceptics and Academics, reasonably conclude that two and two do not make four. Scribl.

But we need not go so far, to remark what the Poet principally intended, the absurdity of complaining of old age, which must necessarily happen, as long as we are indulged in our desires of adding one year to another.

Ver. 291. Next Smedley div'd;] The person here mentioned, an Irishman, was author and publisher of many scurrilous pieces, a weekly Whitehall Journal, in the year 1722. in the name of Sir James Baker; and particularly whole volumes of Billingsgate against Dr. Swift and Mr. Pope, called Gulliveriana and Alexandriana, printed in octavo, 1728.

Ver. 293. and call on Smedley lost; &c.]

Ver. 295. Then --- essay'd;] A Gentleman of genius and spirit, who was secretly dipt in some papers of this kind, on whom our Poet bestows a panegyric instead of a satyr, as deserving to be better employed than in Party-quarrels and personal invectives.

Ver. 299. Concanen] Matthew Concanen, an Irishman, bred to the law. Smedley (one of his brethren in enmity to Swift) in his Metamorphosis of Scriblerus, p. 7. accuses him of “having boasted of what he had not written, but others had revised and done for him.” He was author of several dull and dead scurrilities in the British and London Journals, and in a paper called the Speculatist. In a pamphlet, called a Supplement to the Profund, he dealt very unfairly with our Poet, not only frequently imputing to him Mr. Broome's verses (for which he might indeed seem in some degree accountable, having corrected what that gentleman did) but those of the duke of Buckingham, and others: To this rare piece somebody humourously caused him to take for his motto, De profundis clamavi. He was since a hired scribler in the Daily Courant, where he poured forth much Billingsgate against the lord Bolingbroke, and others; after which this man was surprisingly promoted to administer Justice and Law in Jamaica.

Ver. 302. Not everlasting Blackmore]

Ver. 306, 307. With each a sickly brother at his back: Sons of a day, &c.] These were daily Papers, a number of which, to lessen the expence, were printed one on the back of another.

Ver. 311. like Niobe] See the story in Ovid, Met. vii. where the miserable Petrefaction of this old Lady is pathetically described.

Ver. 312. Osborne] A name assumed by the eldest and gravest of these writers, who at last being ashamed of his Pupils, gave his paper over, and in his age remained silent.

Ver. 314. Gazetteers] We ought not to suppress that a modern Critic here taxeth the Poet with an Anachronism, affirming these Gazetteers not to have lived within the time of his poem, and challenging us to produce any such paper of that date. But we may with equal assurance assert, these Gazetteers not to have lived since, and challenge all the learned world to produce one such paper at this day. Surely therefore, where the point is so obscure, our author ought not to be censured too rashly. Scribl.

Notwithstanding this affected ignorance of the good Scriblerus, the Daily Gazetteer was a title given very properly to certain papers, each of which lasted but a day. Into this, as a common sink, was received all the trash, which had been before dispersed in several Journals, and circulated at the public expence of the nation. The authors were the same obscure men; though sometimes relieved by occasional essays from Statesmen, Courtiers, Bishops, Deans, and Doctors. The meaner sort were rewarded with Money; others with Places or Benefices, from an hundred to a thousand a year. It appears from the Report of the Secret Committee for enquiring into the Conduct of R. Earl of O. “That no less than fifty-thousand, seventy-seven pounds, eighteen shillings, were paid to Authors and Printers of News-papers, such as Free-Britons, Daily-Courants, Corn-Cutter's Journals, Gazetteers, and other political papers, between Feb. 10, 1731. and Feb. 10, 1741.” Which shews the Benevolence of One Minister to have expended, for the current dulness of ten years in Britain, double the sum which gained Louis XIV. so much honour, in annual Pensions to Learned men all over Europe. In which, and in a much longer time, not a Pension at Court, nor Preferment in the Church or Universities, of any Consideration, was bestowed on any man distinguished for his Learning separately from Party-merit, or Pamphlet-writing.

It is worth a reflection, that of all the Panegyrics bestowed by these writers on this great Minister, not one is at this day extant or remembred; nor even so much credit done to his Personal character by all they have written, as by one short occasional compliment of our Author.

Ver. 317. Arnall;] William Arnall, bred an Attorney, was a perfect Genius in this sort of work. He began under twenty with furious Party-papers; then succeeded Concanen in the British Journal. At the first publication of the Dunciad, he prevailed on the Author not to give him his due place in it, by a letter professing his detestation of such practices as his Predecessor's. But since, by the most unexampled insolence, and personal abuse of several great men, the Poet's particular friends, he most amply deserved a niche in the Temple of Infamy: Witness a paper, called the Free Briton, a Dedication intituled To the Genuine Blunderer, 1732, and many others. He writ for hire, and valued himself upon it; not indeed without cause, it appearing by the aforesaid Report, that he received “for Free Britons, and other writings, in the space of four years, no less than ten thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven pounds, six shillings, and eight pence, out of the Treasury.”

Ver. 329. Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares;] Virg. Æn. vi. of the Sibyl:

Ver. 336. As Hylas fair] Who was ravished by the water-nymphs and drawn into the river. The story is told at large by Valerius Flaccus, lib. 3. Argon. See Virgil, Ecl. vi.

Ver. 338. A branch of Styx, &c.]

Of the land of Dreams in the same region, he makes mention, Odyss. xxiv. See also Lucian's True History. Lethe and the Land of Dreams allegorically represent the Stupefaction and visionary Madness of Poets, equally dull and extravagant. Of Alphæus's waters gliding secretly under the sea of Pisa, to mix with those of Arethuse in Sicily, see Moschus, Idyll. viii. Virg. Ecl. x.

And again, Æn. 3.

Ver. 349. Thence to the banks, &c.]

Ver. 349. And Milbourn] Luke Milbourn a Clergyman, the fairest of Critics; who, when he wrote against Mr. Dryden's Virgil, did him justice in printing at the same time his own translations of him, which were intolerable. His manner of writing has a great resemblance with that of the Gentlemen of the Dunciad against our author, as will be seen in the Parallel of Mr. Dryden and him. Append

Ver. 355. Around him wide, &c. It is to be hoped that the satyr in these lines will be understood in the confined sense in which the Author meant it, of such only of the Clergy, who, tho' solemnly engaged in the service of Religion, dedicate themselves for venal and corrupt ends to that of Ministers or Factions; and tho' educated under an entire ignorance of the world, aspire to interfere in the government of it, and, consequently, to disturb and disorder it; in which they fall short only of their Predecessors, when invested with a larger share of power and authority, which they employed indifferently (as is hinted at in the lines above) either in supporting arbitrary power, or in exciting rebellion; in canonizing the vices of Tyrants, or in blackening the virtues of Patriots; in corrupting religion by superstition, or betraying it by libertinism, as either was thought best to serve the ends of Policy, or flatter the follies of the Great.

Ver. 359. Lud's fam'd gates,] “King Lud repairing the City, called it, after his own name, Lud's Town; the strong gate which he built in the west part he likewise, for his own honour, named Ludgate. In the year 1260. this gate was beautified with images of Lud and other Kings. Those images in the reign of Edward VI. had their heads smitten off, and were otherwise defaced by unadvised folks. Queen Mary did set new heads upon their old bodies again. The 28th of Queen Elizabeth the same gate was clean taken down, and newly and beautifully builded, with images of Lud and others, as afore.” Stow's Survey of London.

Ver. 374. See Hom. Odyss. xii. Ovid, Met. i.

Ver. 380, 381. The same their talents,—Each prompt, &c.]

Ver. 382. And smit with love of Poetry and Prate.]

Ver. 384. The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring;]

Ver. 388. Thro' the long, heavy, painful page, &c.] “All these lines very well imitate the slow drowziness with which they proceed. It is impossible to any one, who has a poetical ear, to read them without perceiving the heaviness that lags in the verse, to imitate the action it describes. The simile of the Pines is very just and well adapted to the subject;” says an Enemy, in his Essay on the Dunciad, p. 21.

Ver. 397. Thrice Budgel aim'd to speak,] Famous for his speeches on many occasions about the South Sea scheme, &c. “He is a very ingenious gentleman, and hath written some excellent Epilogues to Plays, and one small piece on Love, which is very pretty.” Jacob, Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 289. But this gentleman since made himself much more eminent, and personally well-known to the greatest Statesmen of all parties, as well as to all the Courts of Law in this nation.

Ver. 399. Toland and Tindal,] Two persons, not so happy as to be obscure, who writ against the Religion of their Country.

Ver. 400. Christ's No kingdom, &c.] This is said by Curl, Key to Dunc. to allude to a sermon of a reverend Bishop.

Ver. 405. As what a Dutchman, &c.] It is a common and foolish mistake, that a ludicrous parody of a grave and celebrated passage is a ridicule of that passage. The reader therefore, if he will, may call this a parody of the author's own Similitude in the Essay on Man, Ep. iv.

but will any body therefore suspect the one to be a ridicule of the other? A ridicule indeed there is in every parody; but when the image is transferred from one subject to another, and the subject is not a poem burlesqued (which Scriblerus hopes the reader will distinguish from a burlesque poem) there the ridicule falls not on the thing imitated, but imitating. Thus, for instance, when

it is, without doubt, an object ridiculous enough. But I think it falls neither on old king Edward, nor his armour, but on his armour-bearer only. Let this be said to explain our Author's Parodies (a figure that has always a good effect in a mock epic poem) either from profane or sacred writers.

Ver. 410. O'er all the sea of heads.]

Ver. 411. Centlivre] Mrs. Susanna Centlivre, wife to Mr. Centlivre, Yeoman of the Mouth to his Majesty. She writ many Plays, and a Song (says Mr. Jacob, vol. i. p. 32.) before she was seven years old. She also writ a Ballad against Mr. Pope's Homer, before he begun it.

Ver. 413. Boyer the State, and Law the Stage gave o'er,] A. Boyer, a voluminous compiler of Annals, Political Collections, &c.—William Law A. M. wrote with great zeal against the Stage; Mr. Dennis answered with as great: Their books were printed in 1726. Mr. Law affirmed, that “The Playhouse is the temple of the Devil; the peculiar pleasure of the Devil; where all they who go, yield to the Devil; where all the laughter is a laughter among Devils; and all who are there are hearing Music in the very Porch of Hell.” To which Mr. Dennis replied, that “There is every jot as much difference between a true Play, and one made by a Poetaster, as between two religious books, the Bible and the Alcoran.” Then he demonstrates, that “All those who had written against the Stage were Jacobites and Non-jurors; and did it always at a time when something was to be done for the Pretender. Mr. Collier published his Short View when France declared for the Chevalier; and his Dissuasive, just at the great storm, when the devastation which that hurricane wrought, had amazed and astonished the minds of men, and made them obnoxious to melancholy and desponding thoughts. Mr. Law took the opportunity to attack the Stage upon the great preparations he heard were making abroad, and which the Jacobites flattered themselves were designed in their favour. And as for Mr. Bedford's Serious remonstrance, though I know nothing of the time of publishing it, yet I dare to lay odds it was either upon the Duke d'Aumont's being at Somerset-house, or upon the late Rebellion.” Dennis, Stage defended against Mr. Law, p. ult.

Ver. 414. Morgan] A writer against Religion, distinguished no otherwise from the rabble of his tribe than by the pompousness of his Title; for having stolen his Morality from Tindal, and his Philosophy from Spinoza, he calls himself, by the courtesy of England, a Moral Philosopher.

Ibid. Mandevil] This writer, who prided himself as much in the reputation of an Immoral Philosopher, was author of a famous book called the Fable of the Bees; which may seem written to prove, that Moral Virtue is the invention of knaves, and Christian Virtue the imposition of fools; and that Vice is necessary, and alone sufficient to render Society flourishing and happy.

Ver. 415. Norfton] Norton De Foe, offspring of the famous Daniel. Fortes creantur fortibus. One of the authors of the Flying Post, in which well-bred work Mr. P. had sometime the honour to be abused with his betters; and of many hired scurrilities and daily papers, to which he never set his name.

Ver. 418. And all was hush'd, as Folly's self lay dead.] Alludes to Dryden's verse in the Indian Emperor;

Ver. 426. And to mere mortals seem'd a Priest in drink;] This line presents us with an excellent moral, that we are never to pass judgment merely by appearances; a lesson to all men who may happen to see a reverend Person in the like situation, not to determine too rashly: since not only the Poets frequently describe a Bard inspired in this posture,

and the like) but an eminent Casuist tells us, that “if a Priest be seen in any indecent action, we ought to account it a deception of sight, or illusion of the Devil, who sometimes takes upon him the shape of holy men on purpose to cause scandal.” Scribl.

Ver. 427. Fleet] A prison for insolvent Debtors on the bank of the Ditch.

Ver. 5, 6, &c. Hereby is intimated that the following Vision is no more than the chimera of the dreamer's brain, and not a real or intended satyr on the present Age, doubtless more learned, more enlightened, and more abounding with great Genius's in Divinity, Politics, and whatever arts and sciences, than all the preceding. For fear of any such mistake of our Poet's honest meaning, he hath again at the end of the Vision repeated this monition, saying that it all past through the Ivory gate, which (according to the Ancients) denoteth Falsity. Scribl.

How much the good Scriblerus was mistaken, may be seen from the Fourth book, which, it is plain from hence, he had never seen. Bent.

Ver. 7, 8.

Ver. 15. A slip-shod Sibyl] This allegory is extremely just, no conformation of the mind so much subjecting it to real Madness, as that which produces real Dulness. Hence we find the religious (as well as the poetical) Enthusiasts of all ages were ever, in their natural state, most heavy and lumpish; but on the least application of heat, they run like lead, which of all metals falls quickest into fusion. Whereas fire in a Genius is truly Promethean, it hurts not its constituent parts, but only fits it (as it does well-tempered steel) for the necessary impressions of art. But the common people have been taught (I do not know on what foundation) to regard Lunacy as a mark of Wit, just as the Turks and our modern Methodists do of Holiness. But if the cause of Madness assigned by a great Philosopher be true, it will unavoidably fall upon the dunces. He supposes it to be the dwelling over long on one object or idea: Now as this attention is occasioned either by Grief or Study, it will be fixed by Dulness; which hath not quickness enough to comprehend what it seeks, nor force and vigour enough to divert the imagination from the object it laments.

Ver. 19. Taylor,] John Taylor the Water-poet, an honest man, who owns he learned not so much as the Accidence: A rare example of modesty in a Poet!

He wrote fourscore books in the reign of James I. and Charles I. and afterwards (like Edward Ward) kept an Alehouse in Long-Acre. He died in 1654.

Ver. 21. Benlowes,] A country gentleman, famous for his own bad Poetry, and for patronizing bad Poets, as may be seen from many Dedications of Quarles and others to him. Some of these anagram'd his name, Benlowes into Benevolus: to verify which, he spent his whole estate upon them.

Ver. 22. And Shadwell nods the Poppy, &c.] Shadwell took Opium for many years, and died of too large a dose, in the year 1692.

Ver. 23. Here in a dusky vale, &c.]

Ver. 24. Old Bavius sits,] Bavius was an ancient Poet, celebrated by Virgil for the like cause as Bays by our author, though not in so christian-like a manner: For heathenishly it is declared by Virgil of Bavius, that he ought to be hated and detested for his evil works; Qui Bavium non odit; whereas we have often had occasion to observe our Poet's great Good nature and Mercifulness thro' the whole course of this Poem. Scribl.

Mr. Dennis warmly contends, that Bavius was no inconsiderable author; nay, that “He and Mævius had (even in Augustus's days) a very formidable party at Rome, who thought them much superior to Virgil and Horace: For (saith he) I cannot believe they would have fixed that eternal brand upon them, if they had not been coxcombs in more than ordinary credit.” Rem. on Pr. Arthur, part ii. c. 1. An argument which, if this poem should last, will conduce to the honour of the gentlemen of the Dunciad.

Ver. 24. Old Bavius sits, to dip poetic souls,] Alluding to the story of Thetis dipping Achilles to render him impenetrable:

Ver. 28. Brown and Mears] Booksellers, Printers for any body.—The allegory of the souls of the dull coming forth in the form of books, dressed in calf's leather, and being let abroad in vast numbers by Booksellers, is sufficiently intelligible.

Ver. 28. Unbar the gates of Light,] An Hemistic of Milton.

Ver. 31, 32. Millions and millions—Thick as the stars, &c.

Ver. 34. Ward in Pillory.] John Ward of Hackney Esq. Member of Parliament, being convicted of forgery, was first expelled the House, and then sentenced to the Pillory on the 17th of February 1727. Mr. Curl (having likewise stood there) looks upon the mention of such a Gentleman in a satyr, as a great act of barbarity, Key to the Dunc. 3d edit. p. 16. And another author reasons thus upon it. Durgen. 8vo. p. 11, 12. “How unworthy is it of Christian Charity to animate the rabble to abuse a worthy man in such a situation? what could move the Poet thus to mention a brave sufferer, a gallant prisoner, exposed to the view of all mankind! It was laying aside his Senses, it was committing a Crime, for which the Law is deficient not to punish him! nay, a Crime which Man can scarce forgive, or Time efface! Nothing surely could have induced him to it but being bribed by a great Lady, &c.” (to whom this brave, honest, worthy Gentleman was guilty of no offence but Forgery, proved in open Court.) But it is evident this verse could not be meant of him; it being notorious, that no Eggs were thrown at that Gentleman. Perhaps therefore it might be intended of Mr. Edward Ward the Poet when he stood there.

Ver. 36. And length of ears,] This is a sophisticated reading. I think I may venture to affirm all the Copyists are mistaken here: I believe I may say the same of the Critics; Dennis, Oldmixon, Welsted have passed it in silence. I have also stumbled at it, and wondered how an error so manifest could escape such accurate persons. I dare assert it proceeded originally from the inadvertency of some Transcriber, whose head run on the Pillory, mentioned two lines before; it is therefore amazing that Mr. Curl himself should over-look it! Yet that Scholiast takes not the least notice hereof. That the learned Mist also read it thus, is plain from his ranging this passage among those in which our author was blamed for personal Satyr on a Man's face (whereof doubtless he might take the ear to be a part;) so likewise Concanen, Ralph, the Flying Post, and all the herd of Commentators. —Tota armenta sequuntur.

A very little sagacity (which all these Gentlemen therefore wanted) will restore us to the true sense of the Poet, thus,

See how easy a change; of one single letter! That Mr. Settle was old, is most certain; but he was (happily) a stranger to the Pillory. This note partly Mr. Theobald's, partly Scribl.

Ver. 37. Settle] Elkanah Settle was once a Writer in vogue, as well as Cibber, both for Dramatic Poetry and Politics. Mr. Dennis tells us that “he was a formidable rival to Mr. Dryden, and that in the University of Cambridge there were those who gave him the preference.” Mr. Welsted goes yet farther in his behalf: “Poor Settle was formerly the Mighty rival of Dryden; nay, for many years, bore his reputation above him.” Pref. to his Poems, 8vo. p. 31. And Mr. Milbourn cried out, “How little was Dryden able, even when his blood run high, to defend himself against Mr. Settle!” Notes on Dryd. Virg. p. 175. These are comfortable opinions! and no wonder some authors indulge them.

He was author or publisher of many noted pamphlets in the time of king Charles II. He answered all Dryden's political poems; and being cried up on one side, succeeded not a little in his Tragedy of the Empress of Morocco (the first that was ever printed with Cuts.) “Upon this he grew insolent, the Wits writ against his Play, he replied, and the Town judged he had the better. In short, Settle was then thought a very formidable rival to Mr. Dryden; and not only the Town but the University of Cambridge was divided which to prefer; and in both places the younger sort inclined to Elkanah.” Dennis Pref. to Rem. on Hom.

Ver. 50. Might from Bœotian, &c.] Bœotia lay under the ridicule of the Wits formerly, as Ireland does now; tho' it produced one of the greatest Poets and one of the greatest Generals of Greece:

Ver. 54. Mix'd the Owl's ivy with the Poet's bays,]

Ver. 61, 62.

This has a resemblance to that passage in Milton, book xi. where the Angel

There is a general allusion in what follows to that whole Episode.

Ver. 67. Ascend this hill, &c.] The scenes of this vision are remarkable for the order of their appearance. First, from ver. 67 to 73. those places of the globe are shewn where Science never rose; then from ver. 73 to 83, those where she was destroyed by Tyranny; from ver. 85 to 95, by inundations of Barbarians; from ver. 96 to 106, by Superstition. Then Rome, the Mistress of Arts, described in her degeneracy; and lastly Britain, the scene of the action of the poem; which furnishes the occasion of drawing out the Progeny of Dulness in review.

Ver. 69. See round the Poles, &c.] Almost the whole Southern and Northern Continent wrapt in ignorance.

Ver. 73. Our author favours the opinion that all Sciences came from the Eastern nations.

Ver. 75. Chi Ho-am-ti Emperor of China, the same who built the great wall between China and Tartary, destroyed all the books and learned men of that empire.

Ver. 81, 82. The Caliph, Omar I. having conquered Ægypt, caused his General to burn the Ptolemæan library, on the gates of which was this inscription, ΨΥΧΗΣ ΙΑΤΡΕΙΟΝ, the Physic of the Soul.

Ver. 96. (The soil that arts and infant letters bore)] Phœnicia, Syria, &c. where Letters are said to have been invented. In these countries Mahomet began his conquests.

Ver. 102. thund'ring against heathen lore;] A strong instance of this pious rage is placed to Pope Gregory's account. John of Salisbury gives a very odd encomium of this Pope, at the same time that he mentions one of the strangest effects of this excess of zeal in him: Doctor sanctissimus ille Gregorius, qui melleo prædicationis imbre totam rigavit & inebriavit ecclesiam; non modo Mathesin jussit ab aula, sed, ut traditur a majoribus, incendio dedit probatæ lectionis scripta, Palatinus quæcunque tenebat Apollo. And in another place: Fertur beatus Gregorius bibliothecam combussisse gentilem; quo divinæ paginæ gratior esset locus, & major authoritas, et diligentia studiosior. Desiderius Archbishop of Vienna was sharply reproved by him for teaching Grammar and Literature, and explaining the Poets; because (says this Pope) In uno se ore cum Jovis laudibus Christi laudes non capiunt: Et quam grave nesandumque sit Episcopis canere quod nec Laico religioso conveniat, ipse considera. He is said, among the rest, to have burned Livy; Quia in superstitionibus et sacris Romanorum perpetuo versatur. The same Pope is accused by Vossius, and others, of having caused the noble monuments of the old Roman magnificence to be destroyed, lest those who came to Rome should give more attention to Triumphal Arches, &c. than to holy things. Bayle, Dict.

Ver. 109. 'Till Peter's keys some christ'ned Jove adorn,] After the government of Rome devolved to the Popes, their zeal was for some time exerted in demolishing the heathen Temples and Statues, so that the Goths scarce destroyed more monuments of Antiquity out of rage, than these out of devotion. At length they spared some of the Temples, by converting them to Churches; and some of the Statues, by modifying them into images of Saints. In much later times, it was thought necessary to change the statues of Apollo and Pallas, on the tomb of Sannazarius, into David and Judith; the Lyre easily became a Harp, and the Gorgon's head turned to that of Holofernes.

Ver. 117, 118. Happy!—had Easter never been!] Wars in England anciently, about the right time of celebrating Easter.

Ver. 117, 118. Happy!—had Easter never been!]

Ver. 126. Dove-like, she gathers] This is fulfilled in the fourth book.

Ver. 127, 129. Now look thro' Fate!—See all her Progeny, &c.

Ver. 128. What aids, what armies to assert her cause!] i. e. Of Poets, Antiquaries, Critics, Divines, Free-thinkers. But as this Revolution is only here set on foot by the first of these Classes, the Poets, they only are here particularly celebrated, and they only properly fall under the Care and Review of this Collegue of Dulness, the Laureate. The others, who finish the great work, are reserved for the fourth book, when the Goddess herself appears in full Glory.

Ver. 131. As Berecynthia, &c.

Ver. 139. Mark first that Youth, &c.

Ver. 141. With all thy Father's virtues blest, be born!] A manner of expression used by Virgil, Ecl. viii.

As also that of patriis virtutibus, Ecl. iv.

It was very natural to shew to the Hero, before all others, his own Son, who had already begun to emulate him in his theatrical, poetical, and even political capacities. By the attitude in which he here presents himself, the reader may be cautioned against ascribing wholly to the Father the merit of the epithet Cibberian, which is equally to be understood with an eye to the Son.

Ver. 145. From the strong fate of drams if thou get free,]

Ver. 147. Thee shall each ale-house, &c.]

Virgil again, Ecl. x.

Ver. 149. Jacob, the scourge of Grammar, mark with awe,] “This Gentleman is son of a considerable Maltster of Romsey in Southamptonshire, and bred to the Law under a very eminent Attorney: Who, between his more laborious studies, has diverted himself with Poetry. He is a great admirer of Poets and their works, which has occasion'd him to try his genius that way.—He has writ in prose the Lives of the Poets, Essays, and a great many Law-Books, The Accomplish'd Conveyancer, Modern Justice, &c.” Giles Jacob of himself, Lives of Poets, vol. 1. He very grossly, and unprovok'd, abused in that book the Author's Friend, Mr. Gay.

Ver. 149, 150. Jacob, the scourge of Grammar, mark with awe; Nor less revere him, blunderbuss of Law.] There may seem some error in these verses, Mr. Jacob having proved our author to have a Respect for him, by this undeniable argument. “He had once a Regard for my Judgment; otherwise he would never have subscribed Two Guineas to me, for one small Book in octavo.” Jacob's Letter to Dennis, printed in Dennis's Remarks on the Dunciad, pag. 49. Therefore I should think the appellation of Blunderbuss to Mr. Jacob, like that of Thunderbolt to Scipio, was meant in his honour.

Mr. Dennis argues the same way. “My writings having made great impression on the minds of all sensible men, Mr. P. repented, and to give proof of his Repentance, subscribed to my two volumes of select Works, and afterward to my two Volumes of Letters.” Ibid. pag. 80. We should hence believe, the Name of Mr. Dennis hath also crept into this poem by some mistake. But from hence, gentle reader! thou may'st beware, when thou givest thy money to such Authors, not to flatter thyself that my motives are Good-nature or Charity.

Ver. 150.

Ver. 152. Horneck and Roome] These two were virulent Party-writers, worthily coupled together, and one would think prophetically, since, after the publishing of this piece, the former dying, the latter succeeded him in Honour and Employment. The first was Philip Horneck, Author of a Billingsgate paper call'd The High German Doctor. Edward Roome was son of an Undertaker for Funerals in Fleetstreet, and writ some of the papers call'd Pasquin, where by malicious Innuendos he endeavoured to represent our Author guilty of malevolent practices with a great man then under prosecution of Parliament. P---le was the author of some vile Plays and Pamphlets. He published abuses on our author in a Paper called the Prompter.

Ver. 153. Goode,] An ill-natur'd Critic, who writ a Satyr on our Author, call'd The mock Æsop, and many anonymous Libels in News-papers for hire.

Ver. 156. Whose tuneful whistling makes the waters pass:] There were several successions of these sort of minor poets, at Tunbridge, Bath, &c. singing the praise of the Annuals flourishing for that season; whose names indeed would be nameless, and therefore the Poet slurs them over with others in general.

Ver. 165. Ralph] James Ralph, a name inserted after the first editions, not known to our author till he writ a swearing-piece called Sawney, very abusive of Dr. Swift, Mr. Gay, and himself. These lines allude to a thing of his, intitled, Night, a Poem:

This low writer attended his own works with panegyricks in the Journals, and once in particular praised himself highly above Mr. Addison, in wretched remarks upon that Author's Account of English Poets, printed in a London Journal, Sept. 1728. He ended at last in the common Sink of all such writers, a political News-paper, to which he was recommended by his friend Arnall, and received a small pittance for pay.

Ver. 168. Morris] Besaleel, see Book 2.

Ver. 169. Flow Welsted, &c.] Of this Author see the Remark on Book 2. ver. 209. But (to be impartial) add to it the following different character of him:

Mr. Welsted had, in his youth, rais'd so great expectations of his future genius, that there was a kind of struggle between the most eminent in the two Universities, which should have the honour of his education. To compound this, he (civilly) became a member of both, and after having pass'd some time at the one, he removed to the other. From thence he return'd to town, where he became the darling Expectation of all the polite Writers, whose encouragement he acknowledg'd in his occasional poems, in a manner that will make no small part of the Fame of his protectors. It also appears from his Works, that he was happy in the patronage of the most illustrious characters of the present age—Encourag'd by such a Combination in his favour, he—publish'd a book of poems, some in the Ovidian, some in the Horatian manner, in both which the most exquisite Judges pronounce he even rival'd his masters—His Love verses have rescued that way of writing from contempt—In his Translations, he has given us the very soul and spirit of his author. His Ode—his Epistle—his Verses—his Love tale—all, are the most perfect things in all poetry. Welsted of Himself, Char. of the Times, 8vo 1728. pag. 23, 24. It should not be forgot to his honour, that he received at one time the sum of 500 pounds for secret service, among the other excellent authors hired to write anonymously for the Ministry. See Report of the Secret Committee, &c. in 1742.

Ver. 199. Flow Welsted, flow! &c.] Parody on Denham, Cooper's Hill.

Ver. 173. Ah Dennis, &c.] The reader, who has seen thro' the course of these notes, what a constant attendance Mr. Dennis paid to our Author and all his works, may perhaps wonder he should be mention'd but twice, and so slightly touch'd, in this poem. But in truth he look'd upon him with some esteem, for having (more generously than all the rest) set his Name to such writings. He was also a very old man at this time. By his own account of himself in Mr. Jacob's Lives, he must have been above three-score, and happily lived many years after. So that he was senior to Mr. Durfey, who hitherto of all our Poets enjoy'd the longest Bodily life.

Ver. 177. Embrace, embrace my sons! be foes no more!] Virg. Æn. vi.

Ver. 179. Behold yon Pair, &c.] One of these was Author of a weekly paper call'd The Grumbler, as the other was concerned in another call'd Pasquin, in which Mr. Pope was abused with the Duke of Buckingham and Bishop of Rochester. They also joined in a piece against his first undertaking to translate the Iliad, intitled Homerides, by Sir Iliad Doggrel, printed 1715.

Of the other works of these Gentlemen the world has heard no more, than it would of Mr. Pope's, had their united laudable endeavours discourag'd him from pursuing his studies. How few good works had ever appear'd (since men of true merit are always the least presuming) had there been always such champions to stifle them in their conception? And were it not better for the publick, that a million of monsters should come into the world, which are sure to die as soon as born, than that the Serpents should strangle one Hercules in his Cradle?

After many Editions of this poem, the Author thought fit to omit the names of these two persons, whose injury to him was of so old a date. In the verses he omitted, it was said that one of them had a pious passion for the other. It was a literal translation of Virgil, Nisus amore pio pueri—and there, as in the original, applied to Friendship: That between Nisus and Euryalus is allowed to make one of the most amiable Episodes in the world, and surely was never interpreted in a perverse sense. But it will astonish the reader to hear, that on no other occasion than this line, a Dedication was written to that Gentleman to induce him to think something further. “Sir, you are known to have all that affection for the beautiful part of the creation which God and Nature design'd.—Sir, you have a very fine Lady—and, Sir, you have eight very fine Children,”—&c. [Dedic. to Dennis Rem. on the Rape of the Lock.] The truth is, the poor Dedicator's brain was turn'd upon this article: He had taken into his head, that ever since some books were written against the Stage, and since the Italian Opera had prevail'd, the nation was infected with a vice not fit to be nam'd: He went so far as to print upon the subject, and concludes his argument with this remark, “That he cannot help thinking the Obscenity of Plays excusable at this juncture; since, when that execrable sin is spread so wide, it may be of use to the reducing mens minds to the natural desire of women.” Dennis, Stage defended against Mr. Law, p. 20. Our author solemnly declared, he never heard any creature but the Dedicator mention that Vice and this Gentleman together.

Ver. 179. Behold yon Pair, in strict embraces join'd;] Virg. Æn. vi.

And in the fifth,

Ver. 184. That shines a Consul, this Commissioner.] Such places were given at this time to such sort of Writers.

Ver. 185. But who is he, &c.] Virg. Æn. vi. questions and answers in this manner, of Numa:

Ver. 187. arede] Read, or peruse; though sometimes used for counsel. “Reade thy read, take thy Counsaile. Thomas Sternhold, in his translation of the first Psalm into English metre, hath wisely made use of this word,

But in the last spurious editions of the singing Psalms the word read is changed into men. I say spurious editions, because not only here, but quite throughout the whole book of Psalms, are strange alterations, all for the worse; and yet the Title-page stands as it used to do! and all (which is abominable in any book, much more in a sacred work) is ascribed to Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins, and others; I am confident, were Sternhold and Hopkins now living they would proceed against the innovators as cheats. —A liberty, which, to say no more of their intolerable alterations, ought by no means to be permitted or approved of by such as are for Uniformity, and have any regard for the old English Saxon tongue.” Hearne, Gloss. on Rob. of Gloc. artic. Rede.

I do herein agree with Mr. Hearne: Little is it of avail to object, that such words are become unintelligible; since they are truly English, men ought to understand them; and such as are for Uniformity should think all alterations in a language, strange, abominable, and unwarrantable. Rightly therefore, I say, again, hath our Poet used ancient words, and poured them forth as a precious ointment upon good old Wormius in this place. Scribl.

Ibid. myster wight,] Uncouth mortal.

Ver. 188. Wormius hight.] Let not this name, purely fictitious, be conceited to mean the learned Olaus Wormius; much less (as it was unwarrantably foisted into the surreptitious editions) our own Antiquary Mr. Thomas Hearne, who had no way aggrieved our Poet, but on the contrary published many curious tracts which he hath to his great contentment perused.

Most rightly are ancient Words here employed, in speaking of such who so greatly delight in the same. We may say not only rightly, but wisely, yea excellently, inasmuch as for the like practice the like praise is given by Mr. Hearne himself. Glossar. to Rob. of Glocester, Artic. Behett; “Others say behight, promised, and so it is used excellently well by Thomas Norton, in his translation into metre of the 116th Psalm, ver. 14.

Where the modern innovators, not understanding the propriety of the word (which is truly English, from the Saxon) have most unwarrantably

Ver. 188. In Cumberland they say to hight, for to promise, or vow; but hight, usually signifies was called; and so it does in the North even to this day, notwithstanding what is done in Cumberland.” Hearne, ibid.

Ver. 192. Wits, who, like owls, &c.] These few lines exactly describe the right verbal critic: The darker his author is, the better he is pleased; like the famous Quack Doctor, who put up in his bills, he delighted in matters of difficulty. Some body said well of these men, that their heads were Libraries out of order.

Ver. 199. lo! Henley stands, &c.] J. Henley the Orator; he preached on the Sundays upon Theological matters, and on the Wednesdays upon all other sciences. Each auditor paid one shilling. He declaimed some years against the greatest persons, and occasionally did our Author that honour. Welsted, in Oratory Transactions, N. 1. published by Henley himself, gives the following account of him. “He was born at Melton-Mowbray in Leicestershire. From his own Parish school he went to St. John's College in Cambridge. He began there to be uneasy; for it shock'd him to find he was commanded to believe against his own judgment in points of Religion, Philosophy, &c. for his genius leading him freely to dispute all propositions, and call all points to account, he was impatient under those fetters of the free-born mind. —Being admitted to Priest's orders, he found the examination very short and superficial, and that it was not necessary to conform to the Christian religion, in order either to Deaconship, or Priesthood.” He came to town, and after having for some years been a writer for Booksellers, he had an ambition to be so for Ministers of state. The only reason he did not rise in the Church, we are told, “was the envy of others, and a disrelish entertained of him, because he was not qualified to be a compleat Spaniel.” However he offered the service of his pen to two great men, of opinions and interests directly opposite; by both of whom being rejected, he set up a new Project, and styled himself the Restorer of ancient eloquence. He thought “it as lawful to take a licence from the King and Parliament at one place, as another; at Hickes's-hall, as at Doctors-commons; so set up his Oratory in Newport-market, Butcher-row. There (says his friend) he had the assurance to form a Plan, which no mortal ever thought of; he had success against all opposition; challenged his adversaries to fair disputations, and none would dispute with him; writ, read, and studied twelve hours a day; composed three dissertations a week on all subjects; undertook to teach in one year what schools and Universities teach in five; was not terrified by menaces, insults, or satyrs, but still proceeded, matured his bold scheme, and put the Church, and all that, in danger.” Welsted, Narrative in Orat. Transact. N. 1.

After having stood some Prosecutions, he turned his rhetoric to buffoonry upon all public and private occurrences. All this passed in the same room; where sometimes he broke jests, and sometimes that bread which he called the Primitive Eucharist. —This wonderful person struck Medals, which he dispersed as Tickets to his subscribers: The device, a Star rising to the meridian, with this motto, ad summa; and below, inveniam viam aut faciam. This man had an hundred pounds a year given him for the secret service of a weekly paper of unintelligible nonsense, called the Hyp-Doctor.

Ver. 204. Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson,] Bishops of Salisbury, Chichester, and London.

Ver. 212. Of Toland and Tindal, see book 2. Tho. Woolston was an impious madman, who wrote in a most insolent style against the Miracles of the Gospel, in the years 1726, &c.

Ver. 213. Yet oh, my sons! &c.] The caution against Blasphemy here given by a departed Son of Dulness to his yet existing brethren, is, as the Poet rightly intimates, not out of tenderness to the ears of others, but their own. And so we see that when that danger is removed, on the open establishment of the Goddess in the fourth book, she encourages her sons, and they beg assistance to pollute the Source of Light itself, with the same virulence they had before done the purest emanations from it.

Ver. 224. But, “Learn, ye Dunces! not to scorn your God.”] Virg. Æn. vi. puts this precept into the mouth of a wicked man, as here of a stupid one.

Ibid. “not to scorn your God”] See this subject pursued in Book 4.

Ver. 232. (Not half so pleas'd when Goodman prophesy'd)] Mr. Cibber tells us, in his Life, p. 149. that Goodman being at the rehearsal of a play, in which he had a part, clapped him on the shoulder, and cried, “If he does not make a good actor, I'll be d---d—And (says Mr. Cibber) I make it a question, whether Alexander himself, or Charles the twelfth of Sweden, when at the head of their first victorious armies, could feel a greater transport in their bosoms than I did in mine.”

Ver. 233. a sable Sorc'rer] Dr. Faustus, the subject of a sett of Farces, which lasted in vogue two or three seasons, in which both Playhouses strove to outdo each other for some years. All the extravagancies in the sixteen lines following were introduced on the Stage, and frequented by persons of the first quality in England, to the twentieth and thirtieth time.

Ver. 237. Hell rises, Heav'n descends, and dance on Earth:] This monstrous absurdity was actually represented in Tibbald's Rape of Proserpine.

Ver. 244. And other planets]

Ver. 246. Whales sport in woods, and dolphins in the skies;]

Ver. 248. Lo! one vast Egg] In another of these Farces Harlequin is hatched upon the stage, out of a large Egg.

Ver. 251. Son? what thou seek'st is in thee:]

Ver. 256. Wings the red light'ning, &c.] Like Salmoneus in Æn. vi.

Ver. 258. —o'er all unclassic ground:] Alludes to Mr. Addison's verse, in the praises of Italy:

As ver. 264 is a parody on a noble one of the same author in The Campaign; and ver. 259, 260. on two sublime verses of Dr. Y.

Ver. 261. Immortal Rich!] Mr. John Rich, Master of the Theatre Royal in Covent-garden, was the first that excelled this way.

Ver. 266. I see my Cibber there!] The history of the foregoing absurdities is verified by himself, in these words (Life, chap. xv.) “Then sprung forth that succession of monstrous medleys that have so long infested the stage, which arose upon one another alternately at both houses, out-vying each other in expence.” He then proceeds to excuse his own part in them, as follows: “If I am asked why I assented? I have no better excuse for my error than to confess I did it against my conscience, and had not virtue enough to starve. Had Henry IV. of France a better for changing his Religion? I was still in my heart, as much as he could be, on the side of Truth and Sense; but with this difference, that I had their leave to quit them when they could not support me.—But let the question go which way it will, Harry IVth has always been allowed a great man.” This must be confest a full answer, only the question still seems to be, 1. How the doing a thing against one's conscience is an excuse for it? and, 2dly, It will be hard to prove how he got the leave of Truth and Sense to quit their service, unless he can produce a Certificate that he ever was in it.

Ver. 266, 267. Booth and Cibber were joint managers of the Theatre in Drury-lane.

Ver. 268. On grinning dragons thou shalt mount the wind.] In his Letter to Mr. P. Mr. C. solemnly declares this not to be literally true. We hope therefore the reader will understand it allegorically only.

Ver. 282. Annual trophies, on the Lord-mayor's day; and monthly wars in the Artillery-ground.

Ver. 283. Tho' long my Party] Settle, like most Party-writers, was very uncertain in his political 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 Pope-burning on Nov. 17, 1680. then became a trooper in King James's army, at Hounslowheath. 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 no body 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, essays, letters, &c. against Mr. P. printed for A. Moor, p. 6.

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 enquire who has hurt him? he answers Noman; whereupon they all go away again. Our ingenious Translator made Ulysses answer, I take no name, whereby all that follow'd became unintelligible. Hence it appears that Mr. Cibber (who values himself on subscribing to the English Translation of Homer's Iliad) had not that merit with respect to the Odyssey, or he might have been better instructed in the Greek Pun-nology.

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 the 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 rival'd each other in showing the burnings of hell-fire, in Dr. Faustus.

Ver. 313. Another Æschylus appears!] It is reported of Æschylus, 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. 315. like Semele's,] See Ovid. Met. iii.

Ver. 319, 320.

Saturnian here relates to the age of Lead, mentioned book 1. ver. 26.

Ver. 325. On Poets Tombs see Benson's titles writ;] W---m Benson (Surveyor of the Buildings to his Majesty King 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 accordingly. 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 displac'd from his employment at the age of near ninety years.

Ver. 326. Ambrose Philips] He was (saith Mr. 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. 1. p. 157. “Indeed he confesses, he dares not set him quite on the same foot with Virgil, 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 endeavour'd 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 call'd the Examiner: A falshood 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 banquetting-house of White-hall, 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 restor'd and beautified at the expence 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, 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 Beggars Opera; a piece of satyr which hit all tastes and degrees of men, from those of the highest quality to the very rabble: That verse of Horace

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 follow'd and famous. It was acted in London sixty-three days, uninterrupted; and renew'd the next season with equal applauses. It spread into all the great towns of England, was play'd in many places to the thirtieth and fortieth time, 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 lastly 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 the people, which the great Critic Mr. Dennis by the labours and outcries of a whole life could not overthrow, was demolished by a single stroke of this gentleman's pen. This happened in the Year 1728. Yet so great was his modesty, that he constantly prefixed to all the editions of it this motto, Nos hæc novimus esse nihil.

Ver. 331. Hibernian Politics, O Swift! thy fate;] See book 1. ver. 26.

Ver. 332. And Pope's ten years to comment and translate.] The author here plainly laments that he was so long employed in translating and commenting. He began the Iliad in 1713, and finished it in 1719. The Edition of Shakespear (which he undertook merely because no body else would) took up near two years more in the drudgery of comparing impressions, rectifying the Scenary, &c. and the Translation of half the Odyssey employed him from that time to 1725.

Ver. 321. Proceed, great days! &c.] It may perhaps seem incredible, that so great a Revolution in Learning as is here prophesied, should be brought about by such weak Instruments as have been [hitherto] described in our poem: But do not thou, gentle reader, rest too secure in thy contempt of these Instruments. Remember what the Dutch stories somewhere relate, that a great part of their Provinces was once overflowed, by a small opening made in one of their dykes by a single Water-Rat.

However, that such is not seriously the judgment of our Poet, but that he conceiveth better hopes from the Diligence of our Schools, from the Regularity of our Universities, the Discernment of our Great men, the Accomplishments of our Nobility, the Encouragement of our Patrons, and the Genius of our Writers in all kinds (notwithstanding some few exceptions in each) may plainly be seen from his conclusion; where causing all this vision to pass through the Ivory Gate, he expressly, in the language of Poesy, declares all such imaginations to be wild, ungrounded, and fictitious. Scribl.

Ver. 340. And thro' the Iv'ry Gate, &c.]