[place,

"Mark first that youth who takes the foremost
And thrusts his person full into your face.
With all thy father's virtues bless'd, be born!
And a new Cibber shall the stage adorn.

141

145

"A second see, by meeker manners known,
And modest as the maid that sips alone;
From the strong fate of drams if thou get free,
Another Durfey, Ward! shall sing in thee.
Thee shall each ale-house, thee each gill-house mours,
And answering ginshops sourer sighs return.

66

150

Jacob, the scourge of grammar, mark with awe;
Nor less revere him, blunderbuss of law.
Lo Popple's brow, tremendous to the town,
Horneck's fierce eye, and Roome's funereal frown.
Lo sneering Goode, half malice and half whim,
A fiend in glee, ridiculously grim.

Each cygnet sweet, of Bath and Tunbridge race, 155
Whose tuneful whistling makes the waters pass:

REMARKS.

v. 149. Jacob, the scourge of grammar, mark with awe.} "This gentleman is a son of a considerable maltster of Romsey, in Southamptonshire, and bred to the law under a very eminent attor ney; who, between his more laborious studies, has diverted himself with poetry. He is a great admirer of poets and their works, which has occasioned him to try his genius that way. He has writ in prose the Lives of the Poets, Essays, and a great many law-books, Accomplished Conveyancer, Modern Justice, &c." Giles Jacob of himself, Lives of Poets, vol. i. He very grossly, and unprovoked, abused in that book the author's friend, Mr. Gay.

v. 152. Horneck---Roome.] These two were very 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 an abusive paper called The High German Doctor. Edward Roome was son of an undertaker for funerals in Fleet-street, and writ some of the papers called Pasquin, where by malicious inuendoes, he endeavoured to represent our author guilty of malevolent practices with a great man then under prosecution of parliament. Of this man was made the following epigram:

"You ask why Roome diverts you with his jokes,
Yet if he writes is dull as other folks.

You wonder at it----This, Sir, is the case,
The jest is lost unless he prints his face."

-Popple was the author of some vile plays and pamphlets. He published abuses on our author in a paper called The Prompter. W.

153. Goode.] An ill-natured critic, who wrote a satire on our author, called The Mock Esop, and many anonymous libels in news. papers, for hire,

W.

*

1

Each songster, riddler, every nameless name,
All crowd, who foremost shall be dann'd to fame.
Some strain in rhyme: the muses, on their racks,
Scream like the winding of ten thousand jacks: 160
Some free from rhyme or reason, rule or check,
Break Priscian's head, and Pegasus's neck;
Down, down they larum, with impetuous whirl,
The Pindars and the Miltons of a Curl.

"Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia)
howls,

165

And makes night hideous-Answer him, ye owls! 1+
"Sense, speech, and measure, living tongues and
Let all give way-and Morris may be read. [dead,
Flow, Welsted, flow! like thine inspirer, beer,
Though stale, not ripe, though thin, yet never clear;
So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull;
Heady, not strong; o'erflowing, though not full.
"Ah, Dennis! Gildon, ah! what ill-starr'd rage
Divides a friendship long confirm'd by age?
Blockheads with reason wicked wits abhor,
But fool with fool is barbarous civil war.

REMARKS.

171

175

v. 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 alluded to a thing of his intitled Night, a poem. This low writer attended his own works with panegyrics 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. 17, 1728. He was wholly illiterate, and knew no language, not even French. Being advised to read the rules of dramatic poetry before he began a play, he smiled, and replied, "Shakspeare writ without rules.' He ended at last in the common sink of all such writers, a political newspaper, to which he was recommended by his friend Arnall, and received a small pittance for pay.

IMITATIONS.

v. 166. And makes night hideous.----]

"Visit thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous."

W.

Shakspeare.

v. 169. Flow, Welsted! flow, &c.] Parody on Denham, Cooper's Hill:

"O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme:

Tho' deep, yet clear; tho' gentle, yet not dull:
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full!"

"Bebo funebrity

11.

nochis monstrum neato

Embrace, embrace, my sons! be foes no more!
Nor glad vile poets with true critics' gore.

"Behold yon pair, in strict embraces join'd, How like in manners, and how like in mind! Equal in wit, and equally polite,

Shall this a Pasquin, that a Grumbler write;
Like are their merits, like rewards they share,
That shines a consul, this commissioner."

But who is he, in closet close y-pent,

Of sober face with learned dust besprent?"
Right well mine eyes arede thy myster wight,
On parchment scrapes y-fed, and Wormius bight,
To future ages may thy dulness last,

As thou preserv'st the dulness of the past!

180

185

190

“There, dim in clouds, the poring scholiasts mark, Wits, who, like owls, see only in the dark, A lumberhouse of books in every head, For ever reading, never to be read!

"But, where each science lifts its modern type, History her pot, divinity her pipe,

While proud philosophy repines to shew,
Dishonest sight! his breeches rent below,

196

200

Imbrown'd with native bronze, lo! Henley stands,
Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands.
How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue!
How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung!
Still break the benches, Henley! with thy strain,
While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach'd in vain.
O great restorer of the good old stage,
Preacher at once, and Zany of thy age!
O worthy thou of Egypt's wise abodes,

A decent priest, where monkeys were the gods!

REMARKS.

205

v. 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.

W.

v. 204. Sherlock, Hare, ---Gibson.] Bishops of Salisbury, Chichester, and London; whose sermons and pastoral letters did ho nour to their country as well as stations.

W.

But fate with butchers plac'd thy priestly stall,
Meek modern faith to murder, hack, and mawl; 210
And bade thee live, to crown Britannia's praise,
In Toland's, Tindal's, and in Woolston's days.

Yet, oh, my sons! a father's words attend:
(So may the fates preserve the ears you lend)
'Tis yours a Bacon or a Locke to blame,
A Newton's genius, or a Milton's flame:
But, oh! with one, immortal one, dispense,
The source of Newton's light, of Bacon's sense.
Content, each emanation of his fires
That beams on earth each virtue he inspires,
Each art he prompts, each charm he can create,
Whate'er he gives, are giv'n for you to hate.
Persist, by all divine in man unaw'd,

215

220

225

But “Learn, ye Dunces! not to scorn your God."
Thus he, for then a ray of reason stole
Half through the solid darkness of his soul:
But soon the cloud return'd-and thus the sire:
"See now what Dulness and her sons admire !
See what the charms that smite the simple heart,
Not touch'd by nature, and not reach'd by art." 230
His never-blushing head he turn'd aside,
(Not half so pleas'd when Goodman prophesy'd)
And look'd, and saw a sable sorcerer rise,
Swift to whose hand a winged volume flies:
All sudden gorgons hiss, and dragons glare,
And ten-horn'd fiends and giants rush to war:
Hell rises, heav'n descends, and dance on earth:
Gods, imps, and monsters, music, rage, and mirth,
A fire, a jig, a battle and a ball,

Till one wide conflagration swallows all.

Thence a new world to nature's laws unknown, Breaks out refulgent, with a heav'n its own: Another Cynthia her new journey runs,

And other planets circle other suns.

REMARKS,

235

240

v. 212.] Of Toland and Tindal, see Book II. ver. 399. Thomas Woolston was an impious madman, who wrote, in a most insolent style, against the miracles of the gospel, in the years 1626, &c. WVOL. II.

X

The forests dance, the rivers upward rise,
Whales sport in woods, and dolphins in the skies;
And last, to give the whole creation grace,
Lo! one vast egg produces human race.

245

Joy fills his soul, joy innocent of thought; "What power, (he cries,) what powers these wonders wrought

250

260

"Son, what thou seek'st is in thee! look and find
Each monster meets his likeness in thy mind.
Yet would'st thou more? in yonder cloud behold,
Whose sarsenet skirts are edg'd with flamy gold, ́
A matchless youth! his nod these worlds controls,
Wings the red lightning, and the thunder rolls; 256
Angel of Dulness, sent to scatter round
Her magic charms o'er all unclassic ground:
Yon stars, yon suns, he rears at pleasure higher,
Illumes their light and sets their flames on fire.
Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease,
Midst snows of paper, and fierce hail of pease!
And proud his mistress' orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.
"But lo! to dark encounter in mid air
New wizards rise; I see my Cibber there!
Booth in his cloudy tabernacle shrin’d,
On grinning dragons thou shalt mount the wind.
Dire is the conflict, dismal is the din,

Here shouts all Drury, there all Lincoln's-inn
Contending theatres our empire raise,
Alike their labours, and alike their praise.

265

;

270

275

"And are these wonders, son, to thee unknown! Unknown to thee! these wonders are thy own. These fate reserv'd to grace thy reign divine, Foreseen by me, but ah! withheld from mine. In Lud's old walls, though long 1 rul'd renown'd Far as loud Bow's stupendous bells resound;

REMARKS.

v. 261. Immortal Rich!] Mr. John Rich, master of the theatreroyal in Covent-garden, was the first that excelled this way. W v. 266, 267.] Booth and Cibber were joint managers of the theatre in Drury-lane.