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 fit,
Téach Oaths to Gamefters, and to Nobles Wit?
Or bidst thou rather Party to embrace ?

(A friend to Party thou, and all her race;
'Tis the fame rope at different ends they twist;
To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist.)

205

Shall

REMARKS.

"my father carried me a month fooner to the University, "who knows but that purer fountain might have wash"ed my Imperfections into a capacity of writing, in❝ftead of Plays and annual Odes, Sermons, and Paftoral "Letters?" Apology for his Life, chap. iii.

Ver. 203. at White's amidst the Doctors] These Doctors had a modeft and upright appearance, no air of overbearing; but, like true Masters of Arts, were only habited in black and white: They were justly styled fubtiles and graves, but not always irrefragabiles, being fometimes examined, and, by a nice diftinction, divided and laid open. SCRIBL.

This learned Critic is to be understood allegorically: The DOCTORS in this place mean no more than false Dice, a Cant phrase used among Gamefters. So the meaning of thefe four fonorous lines is only this," Shall "I play fair or foul?"

Ver. 208. Ridpath-Mift.] George Ridpath, author of a Whig paper, called the Flying-poft; Nathanael Mift, of a famous Tory Journal.

IMITATIONS.

Ver. 202. This Box my Thunder, this right hand my God.]

"Dextra mihi Deus, & telum quod miffile libro." Virgil of the Gods of Mezentius.

Shall I, like Curtius, defperate in my zeal,
O'er head and ears plunge for the Commonweal?
Or rob Rome's ancient geefe of all their glories,
And cackling fave the Monarchy of Tories?

REMARKS.

Hold

210

Ver. 211. Or rob Rome's ancient geefe of all their glories,] Relates to the well-known ftory of the geefe that faved the Capitol; of which Virgil, Æn. viii. "Atque hic auratis volitans argenteus anfer

"Porticibus, Gallos in limine addeffe canebat." A paffage I have always fufpected. Who fees not the antithefis of auratis and argenteus to be unworthy the Virgilian majefty? And what abfurdity to fay a goofe fings? canebat. Virgil gives a contrary character of the voice of this filly bird, in Ecl. ix.

argutos inter ftrepere anfer olores." Read it,therefore, addeffe ftrepebat. And why auratis porticibus? does not the very verse preceding this inform us, "Romuleoque recens horrebat regia culmo."

Is this thatch in one line, and gold in another, confistent? I fcruple not (repugnantibus omnibus manufcriptis) to correct it auritis. Horace uses the fame epithet in the fame fense,

66

Auritas fidibus canoris
"Ducere quercus."

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

Ver. 212. And cackling fave the Monarchy of Tories?] Not out of any preference or affection to the Tories. For what Hobbes fo ingenuously confeffes of himself, is true of all Minifterial-writers whatsoever: "That he "defends the fupreme powers, as the Geefe by their 66 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 poffeffed of the Capitol." Epift. Dedic. to the Leviathan,

Hold--to the Minifter I more incline;

215

To serve his caufe, O Queen! is ferving thine.
And fee! thy very Gazetteers give o'er,
Ev'n Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more,
What then remains? Ourfelf. Still, ftill remain
Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain.
This brazen Brightness, to the 'Squire fo dear
This polish'd Hardness, that reflects the Peer :
This arch Abfurd, that wit and fool delights;
This Mefs, tofs'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 fin, and forth in folly brought! Works damn'd, or to be damn'd! (your father's fault) Go,

REMARKS.

Ver. 215. 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 fcruple to pronounce them all wrong, the Laureate being elsewhere celebrated by our Poet for his great Modefty-modeft Cibber-Read, therefore, at my peril, Cerberian forehead. This is perfectly claffical, and, what is more, Homerical; the Dog was the ancient, as the Bitch is the modern, fymbol of Impudence: (Kuvòs örar xv, says Achilles to Agamemnon) which, when in a fuperlative degree, may well be denominated from Cerberus, the Dog with three heads. But as to the latter part of this verfe, Cibberian brain, that is certainly the genuine reading.

BENTL..

Go, purify'd by flames afcend the sky,

My better and more christian progeny !
Unftain'd, untouch'd, and yet in maiden sheets;
While all your smutty fifters walk the streets.
Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland,
Sent with a Pafs, and vagrant through the land;
Nor fail with Ward, to Ape-and-monkey climes,
Where vile Mundungus trucks for viler rhymes:

REMARKS.

230

Not,

Ver. 225. O born in fin, &c.] This is a tender and paffionate Apoftrophe to his own works, which he is going to facrifice, agreeable to the nature of man in great affliction; and reflecting like a parent on the many miferable fates to which they would otherwise be fubject.

Ver. 228. My better and more christian progeny!] "It may be obfervable, that my muse and my spouse "were equally prolific; that the one was feldom the "mother of a Child, but in the fame year the other "made me the father of a Play. I think we had a dozen "of each fort between us; of both which kinds fome "died in their Infancy," &c. Life of C. C. p. 217. 8vo edit.

Ver. 231. gratis-given Bland,-Sent with a Pafs, It was a practice fo to give the Daily Gazetteer and minifterial pamphlets (in which this B. was a writer) and to fend them Poft-free to all the Towns in the kingdom.

Ver. 233-with Ward, to Ape-and-monkey climes,] "Edward Ward, a very voluminous poet in Hudi"braftic verfe, but beft known by the London Spy, in "profe. 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 thofe of the high

"church

Not, fulphur-tipt, emblaze an Ale-house fire;
Nor wrap up Oranges, to pelt your fire!

O! pass more innocent, in infant ftate,

To the mild Limbo of our Father Tate:
Or peaceably forgot, at once be bleft
In Shadwell's bofom with eternal reft!
Soon to that mafs of Nonfenfe to return,
Where things destroy'd are swept to things unborn.
With that, a Tear (portentous fign of Grace!)
Stole from the mafter of the feven-fold Face:
And thrice he lifted high the Birth-day brand,
And thrice he dropt it from his quivering hand;
Then lights the ftructure, with averted eyes:
The rolling fmokes involve the facrifice.

235

240

245

The opening clouds disclose each work by turns,
Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns.;

250

Great

VARIATION.

Ver. 250. Now flames the Cid, &c.] In the former Ed.

Now flames old Memnon, now Rodrigo burns,
In one quick flash fee Proferpine expire,
And laft, his own cold Æfchylus took fire.
Then gufh'd the tears, as from the Trojan's eyes
When the laft blaze, &c.

REMARKS.

Var.

"church party." JACOB, Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 225. Great number of his works were yearly fold into the Plantations.-Ward, in a book called Apollo's Maggot, declared this account to be a great falfity, pro

testing