But, high above, more solid learning shone,
The classics of an age that heard of none;
There Caxton slept, with Wynkin at his side,
One clasp'd in wood, and one in strong cow-hide; 150
There, sav'd by spice, like mummies many a year,
Dry bodies of divinity appear:

De Lyra there a dreadful front extends,
And here the groaning shelves Philemon bends.
Of these, twelve volumes, twelve of ample size, 155
Redeem'd from tapers and defrauded pies,
Inspir'd he seizes: these an altar raise;
An hecatomb of pure unsullied lays

165

That altar crowns; a folio common-place
Founds the whole pile, of all his works the base; 160
Quartos, octavos, shape the lessening pyre,
A twisted birth-day ode completes the spire.
Then he: "Great tamer of all human art!
First in my care and ever at my heart;
Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend,
With whom my muse began, with whom shall end,
E'er since Sir Fopling's periwig was praise,
To the last honours of the Butt and Bays:
O thou! of business the directing soul!
To this our head, like bias to the bowl,
Which, as more ponderous, made its aim more true,
Obliquely waddling to the mark in view:
O! ever gracious to perplex'd mankind,
Still spread a healing mist before the mind;
And, lest we err by wit's wild dancing light,
Secure us kindly in our native night.

REMARKS.

170

175

in Egypt, and the Heroic Daughter. 3. Broome was a serving. man of Ben Jonson, who once picked up a comedy from his betters, or from some cast scenes of his master's, not entirely contemptible.

W.

v. 149. Carton.] A printer in the time of Edw. IV. Rich. III. and Hen. VII. Wynkyn de Word, his successor, in that of Hen. VII. and VIII.

D. 153. Nich. De Lyra; or Harpsfield, a very voluminous commentator, whose works, in five vast foliøs, were printed in 1472. v. 154. Philemon Holland, doctor in physic. "He translated to many books, that a man would think he had done nothing else." Winstanley.

Or, if to wit a coxcomb make pretence,
Guard the sure barrier between that and sense;
Or quite unravel all the reasoning thread,
And hang some curious cobweb in its stead!
As, forc'd from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And ponderous slugs cut swiftly through the sky;
As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe,
The wheels above urg'd by the load below;
Me emptiness and dulness could inspire,
And were my elasticity and fire.

180

185

190

Some dæmon stole my pen (forgive th' offence)
And once betray'd me into common sense:
Else all my prose and verse were much the same;
This prose on stilts, that poetry fall'n lame.
Did on the stage my fops appear confin'd?
My life gave ampler lessons to mankind.
Did the dead letter unsuccessful prove?
The brisk example never fail'd to move.

Yet sure, had Heav'n decreed to save the state, 195
Heav'n had decreed these works a longer date.
Could Troy be sav'd by any single hand,

200

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

Shall I, like Curtius, desperate in

my zeal,

305

O'er head and ears plunge for the commonweal? 210
Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,
And cackling save the monarchy of Tories?

REMARKS.

v. 208, George Ridpath, author of a Whig paper, called the Flying Post: Nath. Mist, of a famous Tory journal.

W.

Hold--to the minister I more incline;

215

To serve his cause, O Queen! is serving thine.
And see! thy very Gazetteers give o'er;
Ev'n Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more.
What then remains? Ourself. Still, still remain
Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain.
This brazen brightness to the 'squire so dear;
This polish'd hardness that reflects the peer;
This arch absurd, that wit and fools delights;
This mess toss'd up of Hockley-hole and White's;
Where dukes and butchers join to wreathe my crown;
At once the bear and fiddle of the town.

220

225

"O born in sin, and forth in folly brought! Works damn'd, or to be damn'd, (your father's fault) Go, purified by flames, ascend the sky,

My better and more Christian progeny!

230

235

Unstain'd, untouch'd, and yet in maiden sheets,
While all your smutty sisters walk the streets.
Ye shall not beg like gratis-given Bland,
Sent with a pass and vagrant through the land;
Nor sail with Ward to ape-and-monkey climes,
Where vile Mundungus, trucks for viler rhymes:,
Not sulphur-tipt, emblaze an ale-house fire!
Not wrap up oranges to pelt your sire!
O! pass more innocent, in infant state,
To the mild limbo of our father Tate:
Or peaceably forgot, at once be blest
In Shadwell's bosom with eternal rest!
Soon to that mass of nonsense to return,
Where things destroy'd are swept to things unborn."

REMARKS.

240

v. 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.

W.

v. 233. with Wurd 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 entertain. ment, especially those of the High-church party."

Jacob, Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 225.

1

With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace!)
Stole from the master of the sev❜nfold face;
And thrice he lifted high the birth-day brand,
And thrice he dropt it from his quivering hand;
Then lights the structure with averted eyes;
The rolling smoke involves the sacrifice.
The opening clouds disclose each work by turns,
Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns;
Great Cæsar roars and hisses in the fires;
King John in silence modestly expires:
No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims,
Moliere's old stubble in a moment flames,
Tears gush'd again, as from pale Priam's eyes,
When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies.

245

250

255

Rouz'd by the light, old Dulness heav'd the head, Then snatch'd a sheet of Thulé from her bed; Sudden she flies, and whelms it o'er the pyre: Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire. 260 Her ample presence fills up all the place; A veil of fogs dilates her awful face:

265

Great in her charms; as when on shrieves and may'rs
She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.
She bids him wait her to her sacred dome:
Well pleas'd he enter'd, and confess'd his home.
So spirits, ending their terrestrial race,
Ascend, and recognize their native place.
This the great mother dearer held than all

The clubs of quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall: 270
Here stood her opium, here she nurs'd her owls.
And here she plann'd th' imperial seat of fools.
Here to her chosen all her works she shows,
Prose swell'd to verse, verse loitering into prose:
How random thoughts now meaning chance to find,

Now leave all memory of sense behind:

276

How prologues into prefaces decay,

And these to notes are fritter'd quite away:

How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail:

How, with less reading than makes felons 'scape,
Less human genius than God gives an ape,

280

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

286

290

The goddess then o'er his anointed head, With mystic words, the sacred opium shed. And, lo! her bird (a monster of a fowl, Something betwixt a Heidegger and owl) Perch'd on his crown:-" All hail! and hail again. My son! the promis'd land expects thy reign. Know Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise; He sleeps among the dull of ancient days;

REMARKS.

v.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 Whacum, who, from an under spur-leather to the law, is become an under-strapper to the playhouse, 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, Remarks on Pope's Homer, p. 9, 10.

v. 286. Ozell.] "Mr. John Ozell was designed to be sent to Cam. bridge, 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, this envious wretch knew, and every body knows, that the whole Bench of Bishops, not long ago, were pleased to give me a purse of guineas for discovering the erroneous 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. 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.

W.