To stick the doctor's chair into the throne,
140 Give law to words, or war with words alone.
Senates and courts with Greek and Latin rule,
And turn the council to a grammar-school!
For sure, if Dulness sees a grateful day,
"Tis in the shade of arbitrary sway.
O! if my sons may learn one earthly thing,
Teach but that one sufficient for a king;
That which my priests, and mine alone, maintain,
Which, as it dies, or lives, we fall, or reign:
May you, my Cam, and Isis, preach it long,
"The right divine of kings to govern wrong."

When lo! a spectre rose, whose index-hand
Held forth the virtue of the dreadful wand;
His beaver'd brow a birchen garland wears,
Dropping with infants' blood and mothers' tears.
O'er every vein a shuddering horror runs;
Eton and Winton shake through all their sons.
All flesh is humbled, Westminster's bold race
Shrink, and confess the Genius of the place:
The pale boy-senator yet tingling stands,
And holds his breeches close with both his hands.
Then thus: 'Since man from beast by words is
known,

Words are man's province, words we teach alone. 150
When reason, doubtful, like the Samian letter,
Points him two ways, the narrower is the better.
Placed at the door of learning, youth to guide,
We never suffer it to stand too wide.

To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence,
As fancy opens the quick springs of sense,
We ply the memory, we load the brain,
Bind rebel wit, and double chain on chain,
Confine the thought to exercise the breath;
And keep them in the pale of words till death
Whate'er the talents, or howe'er design'd,
We hang one jingling padlock on the mind:
A poet the first day he dips his quill;
And what the last? a very poet still.
Pity! the charm works only in our wall,
Lost, lost too soon in yonder house or hall.
There truant Windham every muse gave o'er,
There Talbot sunk, and was a wit no more!
How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast!
How many Martials were in Pulteney lost!
Else sure some bard, to our eternal praise,
In twice ten thousand rhyming nights and days,
Had reach'd the work, the all that mortal can;
And South beheld that master-piece of man.

180

Prompt at the call, around the goddess roll
Broad hats, and hoods, and caps, a sable shoal: 190
Thick and more thick the black blockade extends,
A hundred head of Aristotle's friends.

Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day,
[Though Christ-church long kept prudishly away.]
Each staunch polemic, stubborn as a rock,
Each fierce logician, still expelling Locke,

Came whip and spur, and dash'd through thin and
thick

160 On German Crouzaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck.
As many quit the streams that murmuring fall
To lull the sons of Margaret and Clare-hall,
Where Bentley late tempestuous wont to sport
In troubled waters, but now sleeps in port.

REMARKS.

200

some old homily, were talked, written, and preached into vogue in that inglorious reign.'

Ver. 194. Though Christ-church, &c.] This line is doubtless spurious, and foisted in by the impertinence of the edi170 tor; and accordingly we have put it in between hooks. For I affirm this college came as early as any other, by its proper deputies; nor did any college pay homage to Dulness in its whole body. Bentl.

Ver. 196. Still expelling Locke.] In the year 1703 there was a meeting of the heads of the University of Oxford, to censure Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, and

'Oh,' cried the goddess, for some pedant reign!to forbid the reading of it. See his Letters in the last edition. Some gentle James, to bless the land again;

Ver. 137, 138.

REMARKS.

Dance scorning dunce behold the next advance,
But fop shows fop superior complaisance.]

This is not to be ascribed so much to the different manners
of a court and colge, as to the different effects which al
pretence to le ring and a pretence to wit, have on block-1
Leads. Fir as judgment consists in finding out the differ-
ens in things, and wit in finding out their likenesses, 80
the donce is all discord and dissension, and constantly bu
sied in reproving, examining, confuting, &c. while the fop
four saes in peace, with songs and hymns of praise, ud-
dresses, characters, epithalamus, &c.

Ver. 140. The dreadful wand;] A cane usually borne by schoolmasters, which drives the poor souls about like the wand of Mercury.

Scribl.

Ver. 151. Like the Samian Letter.] The letter Y used by Pythagoras, as an emblem of the different roads of virtue

and vice.

Ver. 198. On German Crouzaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck.] There seems to be an improbability that the doctors and heads of houses should ride on horseback, who of late days being gouty or unwieldy, have kept their coaches. But these are horses of great strength, and fit to carry any weight, as their German and Dutch extraction may manifest; and very famous we may conclude, being honoured with names, as were the horses Pegasus and Bucephalus.

Scribl.

Though I have the greatest deference to the penetration of this eminent scholiast, and must own that nothing can be of criticism, which directs us to keep the literal sense, when more natural than his interpretation, or juster than that rule absurdity in supposing a logician on horseback,) yet stili I no apparent absurdity accompanies it (and sure there is no must needs think the hackneys here celebrated were not real horses, nor even Centaurs, which, for the sake of the learned Chiron, I should rather be inclined to think, if I were forced to find them four legs, but downright plain men, though logicians: and only thus metamorphosed by a rule where he calls Clavius, Un esprit pesant, lourd, sans subof thetoric, of which Cardinal Perron gives us an example, tilite, ni gentilesse, un gros cheval d'Allemagne,'

Et tibi quae Samios diduxit litera ramos.'-Pers. Here I profess to go opposite to the whole stream of comVer. 174. That master-piece of man.] Viz. an epigram. mentators. I think the poet only aimed, though awkwardly The famous Dr. South declared a perfect epigram to be as at an elegant Græcism in this representation; for in that lan dult a performance as an epic poem. And the critics gunge the word 's (horse) was often prefixed to others, say,An epic poem is the greatest work human nature is to denote greatness of strength; as XDON, TOcapable of." γλώσσον, ιππομαραςρον, and particularly ΙΙΟΓΝΩΜΩΝ, Ver. 176. Some gentle James, &c.] Wilson tells us that a great connoisseur, which comes nearest to the case in this king, James the first, took upon himself to teach the hand. Scip. Maff. Latin tongue to Car, earl of Somerset; and that Gondomar, Ver. 199. The streams.] The river Cam, running by the the Spanish ambassador, would speak false Latin to him, walls of these colleges, which are particularly famous for en purpose to give hum the pleasure of correcting it, whereby their skill in disputation. be wrought himself into his good graces.

Ver. 202. Sleeps in port,] Viz. 'Now retired into har

This great prince was the first who assumed the title of bour, after the tempests that had long agitated his society." Sacred Majesty, which his loyal clergy transferred from So Scriblerus. But the learned Scipio Maffei understands it God to him. The principles of passive obedience and non- of a certain wine called Port, from Oporto, a city of Porturesistance,' saya the author of the Dissertation on Parties, gal, of which this professor invited him to drink abundantly. Letter 8, which before his time had skulked, perhaps in Scip. Maff. De Compotationibus Academicis. [And to the

210

Before them march'd that awful Aristarch;
Plow'd was his front with many a deep remark:
His hat, which never vail'd to human pride,
Walker with reverence took, and laid aside,
Low bow'd the rest: he, kingly, did but nod:
So upright quakers please both man and God.
'Mistress! dismiss that rabble from your throne:
Avaunt--is Aristarchus yet unknown?
The mighty scholiast, whose unwearied pains
Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton's strains.
Turn what they will to verse, their toil is vain,
Critics like me shall make it prose again.
Roman and Greek grammarians! know your better;
Author of something yet more great than letter;
While towering o'er your alphabet, like Saul,
Stands our digamma, and o'ertops them all.
"Tis true, on words is still our whole debate,
Disputes of Me or Te, of Aut or At.
To sound or sink in cano O or A,
Or give up Cicero to C or K.

Let Freind affect to speak as Terence spoke,
And Alsop never but like Horace joke:

REMARKS.

opinion of Maffei inclineth the sagacious annotator on Dr. King's advice to Horace.]

Ver. 210. Aristarchus.] A famous commentator and corrector of Homer, whose name has been frequently used to signify a complete critic. The compliment paid by our author to this eminent professor, in applying to him so great a name, was the reason that he hath omitted to comment on this part which contains his own praises. We shall, therefore, supply that loss to our best ability.

For me, what Virgil, Pliny may deny
Manilius or Solinus shall supply:

230

For Attic phrase in Plato let them seek,
I poach in Suidas for unlicens'd Greek.
In ancient sense if any needs will deal,
Be sure I give them fragments, not a meal;
What Gellius or Stobæus hash'd before,
Or chew'd by blind old scholiasts o'er and o'er,
The critic eye, that microscope of wit,
Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit:
How parts relate to parts, or they to whole,
The body's harmony, the beaming soul,
Are things which Kuster, Burnham, Wasse shall see
When man's whole frame is obvious to a flea.

240

250

'Ah think not, mistress! more true dulness lies
In folly's cap, than wisdom's grave disguise.
Like buoys, that never sink into the flood,
220 On learning's surface we but lie and nod:
Thine is the genuine head of many a house,
And much divinity without a Nous.
Nor could a Barrow work on every block,
Nor has one Atterbury spoil'd the flock.
See! still thy own, the heavy cannon roll,
And metaphysic smokes involve the pole;
For these we dim the eyes, and stuff the head
With all such reading as was never read:
For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,
And write about it, goddess, and about it:
So spins the silk-worm small its slender store,
And labours till it clouds itself all o'er.
What though we let some better sort of fool
Thrid every science, run through every school?
Never by tumbler through the hoops was shown
Such skill in passing all, and touching none.
He may indeed (if sober all this time)
Plague with dispute, or persecute with rhyme. 260
We only furnish what he cannot use,
Or wed to what he must divorce, a muse;
Full in the midst of Euclid dip at once,
And petrify a genius to a dunce:
Or, set on metaphysic ground to prance,
Show all his paces, not a step advance.
With the same cement, ever sure to bind,
We bring to one dead level every mind;
Then take him to develope, if you can,
And hew the block off, and get out the man.
But wherefore waste I words? I see advance
Whore, pupil, and lac'd governor, from France.

Scribl.

Ver 214. Critics like me-] Alluding to two famous editions of Horace and Milton; whose richest veins of poetry he had prodigally reduced to the poorest and most beggarly prose.--Verily the learned scholipst is grievously mistaken. Aristarchus is not boasting here of the wonders of his art in annihilating the sublime; but of the usefulness of it, in reducing the turgid to its proper class; the words make it prose again,' plainly showing that prose it was, though ashamed of its original, and therefore to prose it should return. Indeed, much it is to be lamented that Dulness doth not confine her critics to this useful task; and commission them to dismount what Aristophanes calls Pava, all prose on horse-back. Scribl.

Ver. 216. Author of something yet more great than letter:] Alluding to those grammarians, such as Palamedes and Simonides, who invented single letters. But Aristarchus, who had found out a double one, was therefore worthy of double honour. Scribl.

Ver. 217, 218. While towering o'er your alphabet, like Saul.-Stands, our digamma,] Alludes to the bonsted restoration of the Eolic digamma, in his long projected edition of Homer. He calls it something more than letter, from the enormous figure it would make among the other letters, being one gamma, set upon the shoulders of another.

Ver. 220. Of Me or Te.] It was a serious dispute, about which the learned were much divided, and some treatises written: had it been about meum and tuum it could not be more contested, than whether at the end of the first Ode of Horace, to read, Me doctarum hedere præmia frontium, or Te doctarum hedera-By this the learned scholiast would seem to insinuate that the dispute was not about meum and tuum, which is a mistake: for as a venerable sage observeth, words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools; so that we see their property was indeed concerned.

REMARKS.

270

had it in their choice to comment either on Virgil or Manilius, Pliny or Solinus, have chosen the worse author, the more freely to display their critical capacity.

Ver. 228, &c. Suidas, Gellius, Stobaus.] The first a dictionary-writer, a collector of impertinent facts and barbarous words; the second a minute critic; the third an author, who gave his common place book to the public, where we happen to find much mince-meat of old books.

lite arts in their several societies,

Ver. 245, 246. Barrow, Atterbury.] Isane Barrow, mes Scribl. ter of Trinity, Francis Atterbury, dean of Christ church, Ver. 222. Or give up Cicero to C or K.] Grammatica: both great geniuses and eloquent preachers; one more condisputes about the manner of pronouncing Cicero's name in versant in the sublinie geometry, the other in classical learn Greek. It is a dispute whether in Latin the name of Her-ing; but who equally made it their care to advance the pomagoras should end in as or a. Quintilian quotes Cicero as writing it, Hermagorn, which Bentley rejects, and says, Quintilian must be mistaken, Cicero could not write it so, and that in this case he would not believe Cicero himself. These are his very words: Ego vero Ciceronem ita scrip sisse ne Ciceroni quidem affirmanti crediderim.-Epist. ad Mill. in fin. Frag. Menand. et Phil.

Ver. 223, 224. Freind-Alsop.] Dr. Robert Freind, master of Westminster-school, and canon of Christ-churchDr. Anthony Alsop, a happy imitator of the Horatian style, Ver. 223. Manilius and Solinus.] Some critics having

Ver. 272. Laced governor.] Why laced? Because gold and silver are necessary trimming to denote the dress of # person of rank, and the governor must he supposed so ia foreign countries, to be admitted into courts and other places of fair reception. But how comes Aristarchus to know at sight that this governor came from France? Know? Why, by the laced coat. Scribl

fbid. Whore, pupil, and laced governor.] Some critics have objected to the order here, being of opinion that the governor should have the precedence before the whore, if

Walker! our hat' -nor more he deign'd to say,
But stern as Ajax' spectre strode away.

In flow'd at once a gay embroider'd race,
And titt'ring push'd the pedants off the place:
Some would have spoken, but the voice was drown'd
By the French-horn or by the opening hound.
The first came forward with an easy mien,
As if he saw St. James's and the queen.
When thus th' attendant orator begun :

But chief her shrine where naked Venus keeps,
And Cupids ride the lion of the deeps;
Where, eased of fleets, the Adriatic main
Wafts the smooth eunuch and enamour'd swain. 310
Led by my hand, he saunter'd Europe round,
And gather'd every vice on Christian ground;
Saw every court, heard every king declare
280 His royal sense of operas or the fair;
The stews and palace equally explored,
Intrigued with glory, and with spirit whored;
Tried all hors d'œuvres, all liqueurs defined,
Judicious drank, and greatly daring dined;
Dropp'd the dull lumber of the Latin store,
Spoil'd his own language, and acquired no more; 320
All classic learning lost on classic ground;
And last turn'd air, the echo of a sound;
See now, half-cured, and perfectly well-bred,
290 With nothing but a solo in his head;

'Receive, great empress! thy accomplish'd son;
Thine from the birth, and sacred from the rod,
A dauntless infant! never scar'd with God.
The sire saw, one by one, his virtues wake;
The mother begg'd the blessing of a rake.
Thou gav'st that ripeness, which so soon began,
And ceas'd so soon, he ne'er was boy nor man.
Through school and college, thy kind clouds o'ercast,
Safe and unseen the young Eneas past:
Thence bursting glorious, all at once let down,
Stunn'd with his giddy farum half the town.
Intrepid then, o'er seas and lands he flew ;
Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too.
There all thy gifts and graces we display,
Thou, only thou, directing all our way:

So may the sons of sons of sons of whores

Prop thine, O empress! like each neighbour throne,

300 And make a long posterity thy own.'

To where the Seine, obsequious as she runs,
Pours at great Bourbon's feet her silken sons;
Or Tyber, now no longer Roman, rolls,
Vain of Italian arts, Italian souls;
To happy convents, bosom'd deep in vines,
Where slumber abbots, purple as their wines:
To isles of fragrance, lily-silver'd vales,
Difusing languor in the panting gales:
To lands of singing, or of dancing slaves,
Love-whispering woods, and lute resounding waves;

REMARKS.

Pleased, she accepts the hero and the dame,
Wraps in her veil, and frees from sense of shame.
Then look'd, and saw a lazy, lolling sort,
Unseen at church, at senate, or at court,
Of ever-listless loiterers, that attend
No cause, no trust, no duty, and no friend.
Thee too, my Paridel! she mark'd thee there,
Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair,

REMARKS.

310

not before the pupil. But were he so placed, it might be thought to insinuate that the governor led the pupil to the whore; and were the pupil placed first, he might be supposed to led the governor to her. But our impartial poet, as be much erudition and learned conjecture: the blessing of a is drawing their picture, represents thein in the order in which they are generally seen; namely, the pupil between the whore and the governor; but placeth the whore first, as she usually governs both the other.

Ver. 280. As if he saw St. James's.] Reflecting on the disrespectful and indecent behaviour of several forward young persons in the presence, so offensive to all serious men, and to none more than the good Scriblerus.

Ver. 231. The attendant orator.] The governor above said. The poet gives him no particular name: being unwiller, I presume, to offend or to do injustice to any, by elebrating one only with whom this character agrees, in preference to so many who equally deserve it.

the

rake signifying no more than that he might be a rake; the effects of a thing for the thing itself, a common figure. The careful mother only wished her son might be a rake, as well knowing that its attendant blessings would follow of course.

Ver. 307. But chief, &c.] These two lines, in their force of imagery and colouring, emulate and equal the pencil of Rubens.

Ver. 308. And Cupids ride the lion of the deeps;] The winged lion, the arms of Venice. This republic, heretofore the most considerable in Europe, for her naval force and the extent of her commerce; now illustrious for her carnivals. Ver. 318. Greatly daring dined:] It being, indeed, no Scribl. small risk to eat through those extraordinary composiVer. 284. A dauntless infant! never scared with God.]tions, whose disguised ingredients are generally unknown to i. e. brought up in the enlarged principles of modern educa-the guests, and highly inflammatory and unwholesome. toa: whose great point is, to keep the infant mind free from Ver. 324. With nothing but a solo in his head: With prejudices of opinion, and the growing spirit unbroken nothing but a solo? Why, if it be a solo, how should ther be terrifying names. Amongst the happy consequences of be any thing else? Palpable tautology! Read boldly ar 168 reformed discipline, it is not the least that we have opera, which is enough of conscience for such a head ns has Bever afterwards any occasion for the priest, whose trade, lost all its Latin. as a modern wit informs us, is only to finish what the nurse Ver. 326. Jansen, Fleetwood, Cibber.] Three very emiScribl. nent persons, all managers of plays: who, though not goVr. 236. The blessing of a rake.] Scriblerus is here vernors by profession, had, each in his way, concerned themmuch at a loss to find out what this blessing should be. He selves in the education of youth; and regulated their wits, is sometimes tempted to imagine it might be the mar- their morals, or their finances, at that period of their age ying a great fortune: but this again, for the vulgarity of it, which is the most important, their entrance into the polite he rejes, as something uncommon seemed to be prayed world. Of the last of these, and his talents for this end, see for: and after many strange conceits, not at all to the ho-Book i. ver. 199, &c.

began.

Bentl.

Door of the fair sex, he at length rests in this, that it was, Ver. 331. Her too receive, &c.] This confirms what the that her son might pass for a wit: in which opinion he for-learned Scriblerus advanced in his note on ver. 272, that the ufes himself by ver. 316, where the orator, speaking of his governor, as well as the pupil, had a particular interest in pupil, saga that he this lady. Ver. 341. Thee too, my Paride!!] The poet seems to to Intrigued with glory, and with spirit whored, speak of this young gentleman with great affection. The which seems to insinuate that her prayer was heard. Here name is taken from Spenser, who gives it to a wandering the good scholiast, sg, indeed, every where else, lays open courtly 'squire, that travelled about for the same reason for the very soul of modern criticism, while he makes his own which many young 'squires are now fond of travelling, and norance of a poetical expression hold open the door to lespecially to Paris.

And heard thy everlasting yawn confess
The pains and penalties of idleness.
She pitied! but her pity only shed
Benigner influence on thy nodding head.

But Annius, crafty seer, with ebon wand,
And well-dissembled emerald on his hand,
False as his gems, and canker'd as his coins,
Came, cramm'd with capon, from where Pollio dines.
Soft as the wily fox is seen to creep,
351

Where bask on sunny banks the simple sheep,
Walk round and round, now prying here, now there,
So he; but pious, whisper'd first his prayer:

True, he had wit, to make their value rise :
From foolish Greeks to steal them, was as wise;
More glorious yet, from barbarous hands to keep,
When Sallee rovers chased him on the deep.
Then taught by Hermes, and divinely bold,
Down his own throat he risk'd the Grecian gold.
Received each demi-god, with pious care,
Deep in his entrails-I revered them there;
I bought them, shrouded in that living shrine,
And, at their second birth, they issue mine.'

380

390

Witness, great Ammon! by whose horns I swore,'
Replied soft Annius, this our paunch before
Still bears them faithful; and that thus I eat,
Is to refund the medals with the meat.
To prove me, goddess! clear of all design,
Bid me with Pollio sup, as well as dine:
There all the learn'd shall at the labour stand,
360 And Douglas lend his soft, obstetric hand.'

'Grant, gracious goddess! grant me still to cheat;
O may thy cloud still cover the deceit !
Thy choicer mists on this assembly shed,
But pour them thickest on the noble head.
So shall each youth, assisted by our eyes,
See other Cæsars, other Homers rise;
Through twilight ages hunt the Athenian fowl,
Which Chalcis gods, and mortals call an owl:
Now see an Attys, now a Cecrops clear,
Nay, Mahomet! the pigeon at thine ear:
Be rich in ancient brass, though not in gold,
And keep his Lares, though his house be sold;
To headless Phoebe his fair bride postpone,
Honour a Syrian prince above his own;
Lord of an Otho, if I vouch it true;
Bless'd in one Niger, till he knows of two.' 370
Mummius o'erheard him; Mummius, fool-renown'd,
Who like his Cheops stinks above the ground,
Fierce as
adder, swell'd and said,

Rattling an ancient sistrum at his head:
'Speak'st thou of Syrian princes? Traitor base!
Mine, goddess! mine is all the horned race.

Ver. 363. Attys and Cecrops.] The first king of Athens, of whom it is hard to suppose any coins are extant; but not so improbable as what follows, that there should be any of Mahomet, who forbade all images; and the story of whose pigeon was a monkish fable. Nevertheless, one of these Anniuses made a counterfeit medal of that impostor, now in the collection of a learned nobleman.

The first thus open'd: 'Hear thy suppliant's call,
Great queen, and common mother of us all!
Fair from its humble bed I rear'd this flower,
Suckled, and cheer'd, with air, and sun, and shower:
Soft on the paper ruff its leaves I spread,
Bright with the gilded button tipp d his head;
Then throned in glass and named it Caroline :
Each maid cried, Charming! and each youth, Divine!
Did nature's pencil ever blend such rays,
Such varied light in one promiscuous blaze?
Now prostrate! dead! behold that Caroline :
No maid cries, Charming! and no youth, Divine!
And lo the wretch! whose vile, whose insect lust
Laid this gay daughter of the spring in dust.
Oh punish him, or to the Elysian shades
Dismiss my soul, where no carnation fades!'

410

He ceased, and wept. With innocence of mien, The accused stood forth, and thus address'd the queen: 'Of all the enamell'd race, whose silvery wing 421 Waves to the tepid zephyrs of the spring,

REMARKS.

Ver. 371. Mummius.] This name is not merely an allusion to the Mummius he was so fond of, but probably referred to the Roman general of that name, who burned Coriuth, and committed the curious statues to the captain of a ship, assuring him, that if they were lost or broken, he met two physicians, of whom he demanded assistance. One should procure others to be made in their stead;' by which advised purgations, the other vomits. In this uncertainty it should seem (whatever may be pretended) that Mummius

was no virtuoso.

he took neither, but pursued his way to Lyons, where he found his ancient friend the famous physician and antiquary Dufour, to whom he related his adventure. Dufour, with out staying to inquire about the uneasy symptoms of the burthen he carried, first asked him, whether the medals were of the higher empire? He assured him they were. Dufour was ravished with the hope of possessing so rare a treasure; he bargained with him on the spot for the most curious of them, and was to recover them at his own expense.

Ibid. Fool-renown'd,] A compound epithet in the Greek manner, renowned by fools, or renowned for making fools. Ver. 372. Cheops.] A king of Egypt whose body was certainly to be known, as being buried alone in his pyramid, and is therefore more genuine than any of the Cleopatras. This royal mummy, being stolen by a wild Arab, was purchased by the consul of Alexandria, and transmitted to the museum of Mummius; for proof of which he brings a pas Ver. 387. Witness great Ammon!] Jupiter Ammon is sage in Sandy's Travels, where that accurate and learned called to witness, as the father of Alexander, to whom those voyager assures us that he saw the sepulchre empty, which kings succeeded in the division of the Macedonian empire, agrees exactly, saith he, with the time of the theft above- and whose horns they wore on their medals. mentioned. But he omits to observe that Herodotus tells Ver. 394. Douglas.] A physician of great learning and the same thing of it in his time. no less taste; above all, curious in what related to Horace, Ver. 375. Speak'st thou of Syrian princes? &c.] The of whom he collected every edition, translation, and com strange story following, which may be taken for a fiction of ment, to the number of several hundred volumes. the poet, is justified by a true relation in Spon's Voyages. Ver. 409. And named it Caroline:] It is a compliment Vaillant (who wrote the History of the Syrian kings as it is which the florists usually pay to princes and great persons, to be found on medals) coming from the Levant, where he to give their names to the most curious flowers of their had been collecting various coins, and being pursued by a raising: some have been very jealous of vindicating this hocorsair of Sallee, swallowed down twenty gold medals. A nour, but none more than that ambitious gardener at Hamsudden borasque freed him from the rover, and he got to mersmith, who caused his favourite to be painted on his land with them in his belly. On his road to Avignon helsign, with this inscription: This is my Queen Caroline.

Or swims along the fluid atmosphere,

Once brightest shined this child of heat and air.
I saw, and started from its vernal bower

The rising game, and chased from flower to flower.
It fled, I follow'd; now in hope, now pain;
It stopp'd, I stopp'd; it moved, I moved again.

At last it fix'd, 'twas on what plant it pleased,

Make nature still encroach upon his plan,
And shove him off as far as e'er we can:
Thrust some mechanic cause into his place,
Or bind in matter, or diffuse in space.
Or, at one bound, o'erleaping all his laws,
Make God man's image, man the final cause:
Find virtue local, all relation scorn,

And where it fix'd, the beauteous bird I seized; 430 See all in self, and but for self be born:

Rose or carnation was below my care;
I meddle, goddess! only in my sphere.
I tell the naked fact without disguise,

And to excuse it, need but show the prize;
Whose spoils this paper offers to your eye,
Fair e'en in death! this peerless butterfly.'
'My sons!' she answer'd, 'both have done your
parts:

440

Live happy both, and long promote our arts.
But hear a mother, when she recommends
To your fraternal care our sleeping friends.
The common soul, of Heaven's more frugal make,
Serves but to keep fools pert and knaves awake;
A drowsy watchman, that just gives a knock,
And breaks our rest to tell us what's a clock.
Yet by some object every brain is stirr'd;
The dull may waken to a humming-bird;
The most recluse, discreetly open'd, find
Congenial matter in the cockle kind;
The mind in metaphysics at a loss,
May wander in a wilderness of moss;
The head that turns at superlunar things,
Poised with a tail, may steer on Wilkins' wings.
'O! would the sons of men once think their eyes
And reason given them but to study flies!
See nature in some partial narrow shape,
And let the author of the whole escape;
Learn but to trifle; or, who most observe,
To wonder at their Maker, not to serve.'

'Be that my task,' replies a gloomy clerk,
Sworn foe to mystery, yet divinely dark;
Whose pious hope aspires to see the day
When moral evidence shall quite decay,
And damns implicit faith, and holy lies,
Prompt to impose, and fond to dogmatize :
'Let others creep by timid steps and slow,
On plain experience lay foundations low,
By common sense to common knowledge bred,
And last, to nature's Cause through nature led.
All-seeing in thy mists, we want no guide,
Mother of arrogance, and source of pride!
We nobly take the high priori road,

And reason downward till we doubt of God;

REMARKS.

Of nought so certain as our reason still,
Of nought so doubtful as of soul and will.
Oh hide the God still more! and make us see
Such as Lucretius drew, a god like thee:
Wrapp'd up in self, a god without a thought,
Regardless of our merit or default.

Or that bright image to our fancy draw
Which Theocles in raptured visions saw
Wild through poetic scenes the genius roves,
Or wanders wild in academic groves;
That nature our society adores,
Where Tindal dictates, and Silenus snores.'

480

490

Roused at his name up rose the bowzy sire,
And shook from out his pipe the seeds of fire;
Then snapp'd his box, and stroked his belly down,
Rosy and reverend, though without a gown.
Bland and familiar to the throne he came,
Led up the youth, and call'd the goddess dame.
Then thus: From priestcraft happily set free,
Lo! every finish'd son returns to thee:

450 First, slave to words, then, vassal to a name,
Then, dupe to party; child and man the same;
Bounded by nature, narrow'd still by art,
A trifling head, and a contracted heart.
Thus bred, thus taught, how many have I seen,
Smiling on all, and smiled on by a queen!
Mark'd out for honours, honour'd for their birth,
To thee the most rebellious things on earth:

460

REMARKS.

500

Ver. 492. Where Tindal dietates, and Silenus snores.] It cannot be denied but that this fine stroke of satire against atheism was well intended. But how must the reader smile at our author's officious zeal, when he is told, that at the time this was written, you might as soon have found a wolf in England as an atheist? The truth is, the whole species was exterminated. There is a trifling difference, indeed, concerning the author of the achievement. Some, as Dr. Ashenhurst, gave it to Bentley's Boylean Lectures. And he so well convinced that great man of the truth, that wherever afterwards he found atheist, he always read it A theist. But, in spite of a claim so well made out, others 470 gave the honour of this exploit to a later Boylean lecturer. A judicious apologist for Dr. Clarke against Mr. Whiston, says, with no less elegance than positiveness of expression, It is a most certain truth, that the Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, has extirpated and banished atheism out of the Christian world, p. 18. It is much to be lamented, that the clearest truths have still their dark side. Here we see it becomes a doubt which of the two Hercules' was the monster-queller. But what of that? Since the

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Ver. 452. Wilkins' wings.] One of the first projectors thing is done, and the proof of it so certain, there is no ocof the Royal Society, who, among many enlarged and use-casion for so nice a canvassing of circumstances. ful notions, entertained the extravagant hope of a possibility Ver. 492. Silenus.] Silenus was an Epicurean philosoto fly to the moon; which has put some volatile geniuses pher, as appears from Virgil, Eclog, vi. where he sings the upon making wings for that purpose. principles of that philosophy in his drink. Ver. 462. When moral evidence shall quite decay.] Ver. 501. First slave to words, &c.] A recapitulation Alluding to a ridiculous and absurd way of some mathema-of the whole course of modern education described in this Licians, in calculating the gradual decay of moral evidence book, which confines youth to the study of words only in by mathematical proportions: according to which calcula-schools; subjects them to the authority of systems in the tion, is about fifty years it will be no longer probable that universities; and deludes them with the names of party disJulius Cesar was in Gaul, or died in the senate-house. See tinctions in the world; all equally concurring to narrow the Craig's Theologia Christiane Principia Mathematica. But, understanding, and establish slavery and error in literature, es it seems evident, that facts of a thousand years old, for philosophy, and politics. The whole finished in modern instance, are now as probable as they were five hundred free-thinking: the completion of whatever is vain, wrong, years ago; it is plain, that if in fifty more they quite disap-and destructive to the happiness of mankind; as it estapear, it must be owing, not to their arguments, but to the blishes self-love for the sole principle of action. extraordinary power of our goddess; for whose help, there- Ver. 506. Smiled on by a queen! i. e. This queen or fore, they have reason to pray. goddess of Dulness.