Fair as before her works she stands confess'd,
In flowers and pearls by bounteous Kirkall dress'd.
The goddess then: 'Who best can send on high 161
The salient spout, far streaming to the sky;
His be yon Juno of majestic size,
With cow-like udders, and with ox-like eyes.
This China jordan let the chief' o'ercome
150 Replenish, not ingloriously, at home.'

A shaggy tapestry, worthy to be spread
On Codrus' old, or Dunton's modern bed:
Instructive work! whose wry-mouth'd portraiture
Display'd the fates her confessors endure.
Earless on high, stood unabash'd De Foe,
And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge below.
There Ridpath, Roper, cudgell'd might ye view,
The very worsted still look'd black and blue.
Himself among the storied chiefs he spies,
As, from the blanket, high in air he flies,
'And, oh!' he cried, 'what street, what lane, but knows
Our purgings, pumpings, blanketings, and blows!
In every loom our labours shall be seen,
And the fresh vomit run for ever green!'
See in the circle, next, Eliza placed,
Two babes of love close clinging to her waist;

REMARKS.

Osborne and Curll accept the glorious strife
(Though this his son dissuades, and that his wife,)
One on his manly confidence relies,
One on his vigour and superior size.
First Osborne lean'd against his letter'd post:
It rose, and labour'd to a curve at most.
So Jove's bright bow displays its watery round
(Sure sign that no spectator shall be drown'd.)
A second effort brought but new disgrace,
The wild meander wash'd the artist's face:

Thus the small jet, which hasty hands unlock,
Spirts in the gardener's eyes who turns the cock.
Not so from shameless Curll; impetuous spread
The stream, and smoking flourish'd o'er his head.

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 ser-
pent. Indeed, had I written these notes (as was once my
intent) in the learned language, I might have given him the So (famed like thee for turbulence and horns)
appellations balatro, calceatum caput, scurra in triciis, Eridanus his humble fountain scorns;

being phrases in good esteem and frequent usage among

the best learned: but in our mother-tongue, were I to tax Through half the heavens he pours the exalted urn any gentleman of the Dunciad, surely it would be in words His rapid waters in their passage burn. not to the vulgar intelligible; whereby christian charity, decency, and good accord among authors, might be preserved.

Scribl.

REMARKS.

170

181

The good Scriblerus here, as on all occasions, eminently shows his humanity. But it was far otherwise with the profligate licentiousness of those shameless scribblers (for gentlemen of the Dunciad, whose scurrilities were always personal, and of that nature which provoked every honest Han but Mr. Pope; yet never to be lamented, since they occ.sioned the following amiable verses:

While malice, Pope, denies thy page
Its own celestial fire;

While critics, and while bards in rage,
Admiring, won't admire:

While wayward pens thy worth assail,
And envious tongues decry;

These times, though many a friend bewail,
These times bewail not I.

But when the world's loud praise is thine,
And spleen no more shall blame,
When with thy Homer thou shalt shine
In one established fame:

When none shall rail, and every lay
Devote a wreath to thee;

That day (for come it will,) that day
Shail I lament to see.'

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 show his indig nation, hath shown his contempt, as much as possible having here drawn as vile a picture as could be represented in the colours of epic poesy.

Scribi.

Ibid. Eliza Haywood; this woman was authoress of those most scandalous books called the Court of Carimanis, and the New Utopia. For the two babes of love, see Curll, 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 Curll's undertakings for refor mation of manners, and declared herself to be so perfectly acquainted with the sweetness of his disposition, and that tenderness with which he cons.dered 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, list of Clar. printed in the Female Dunciad, p. 18.

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. 143. A shaggy tapestry;] A sorry kind of tapestry frequent in old inns, made of worsted or some coarser stuff'; like that which is spoken of by Denne.-Faces as frightful as theirs who whip Christ in old hangings. This imagery Ver. 167. Osborne, Thomas] A bookseller in Gray's woven in it alludes to the mantle of Cloanthus, in En. v. Inn, very well qualified by his impudence to act this part; Ver. 144. John Dunton was a broken bookseller, and therefore placed here instead of a less deserving predeces abusive scribbler; he writ Neck or Nothing, a violent satire sor. [Chapman, the publisher of Mrs. Haywood's New on some ministers of state; a libel on the duke of Devon- Utopia, &c.] This man published advertisements for a shire, and the bishop of Peterborough, &e. year together, pretending to sell Mr. Pope's subscription

Ver. 148. And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge.] John books of Homer's Iliad at half the price; of which book be Tutchin, author of some vile verses, and of a weekly paper had none, but cut to the size of them (which was quarto) called the Observator. He was sentenced to be whipped the common books in folio, without copper-plates, on a through several towns in the west of England, upon which worse paper, and never above half the value. he petitioned king James II. to be hanged. When that Upon this advertisement the Gazetteer harangued thus, prince died in exile, he wrote an invective against his me-July 6, 1739; 'How melancholy must it be to a writer to be mory, occasioned by some humane elegies on his death. He so unhappy as to see his works hawked for sale in a manner lived to the time of queen Anne. so fatal to his fame. How, with honour to yourself, and Ver. 149. There Ridpath, Roper,] Authors of the Fly-justice to your subscribers, can this be done? What an ining-post and Post-boy, two scandalous papers on different gratitude to be charged on the only honest poet that lived in sides, for which they equally and alternately deserved to be 1738! and than whom virtue has not had a shriller trumpeter cudgelled, and were so. 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 much indeed humble the author, but drew this just chastisement on the bookseller.

Ver. 151. Himself among the storied chiefs he spies.] The history of Curll's being tossed in a blanket, and whip ped 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 Edmund Curll, &c. in Swift's and Pope's Miscellanies.

Ver. 183. Through half the heavens he pours the exalted urn;] In a manuscript Dunciad (where are some marginal Ver. 157. See in the circle next, Eliza placed.] In this corrections of some gentlemen some time deceased) I have name is exposed, in the most contemptuous manner, the found another reading of these lines; thus,

Unlucky Welsted! thy unfeeling master,
The more thou ticklest, gripes his fist the faster. 210
While thus each hand promotes the pleasing pain,
And quick sensations skip from vein to vein;
A youth unknown to Phoebus, in despair,
Puts his last refuge all in Heaven and prayer.

191 What force have pious vows! the queen of love
Her sister sends, her votaress, from above;
As, taught by Venus, Paris learn'd the art
To touch Achilles' only tender part;
Secure, through her, the noble prize to carry,
He marches off, his grace's secretary.

Now turn to different sports,' the goddess cries,
And learn, my sons, the wondrous power of noise
To move, to raise, to ravish every heart,
200 With Shakspeare's nature, or with Jonson's art,
Let others aim: 'Tis yours to shake the soul
With thunder rumbling from the mustard-bowl,
With horns and trumpets now to madness swell,
Now sink in sorrows with the tolling bell:
Such happy arts attention can command,
When fancy flags, and sense is at a stand.
Improve we these. Three cat-calls be the bribe
Of him, whose chattering shames the monkey tribe :
And his this drum, whose hoarse heroic bass
Drowns the loud clarion of the braying ass."

I am aware, after all, that burn is the proper word to convey an idea of what was said to be Mr. Corll'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 befall him purely by his own fault, but from an unhappy communication with mole, by the author of the ensuing simile, which was handanother. This note is half Mr. Theobald, hair Scribl.

Ver. 207. Welsted.] Leonard Welsted, author of the Ver. 226. With thunder rumbling from the mustard. Triumvirate, or a Letter in Verse from Palemon to Celia bowl.] The old way of making thunder and mustard were at Bath, which was meant for a satire on Mr. P. and some the same: but since, it is more advantageously performed by of his friends about the year 1718. He writ other things troughs of wood with stops in them. Whether Mr. Dennis which we cannot remember. Smedley, in his Metamorpho was the inventor of that improvement, I know not; but it is is of Scriblerus, mentions one, the Hymn of a Gentleman to certain, that being once at a tragedy of a new author, he fell his Creator: and there was another, in praise either of a into a great passion at hearing some, and cried, "Sdeath. Celter or a Garret. L. W. characterized in the Isp. Baous, that is my thunder.'

or the Art of Sinking, as a didapper, and after as an eel, is Ver. 238. Norton,] See ver. 417-J. Durant Breval, said to be this person, by Dennis, Daily Journal of May 11, author of a very extraordinary book of travels, and some 1723. He was also characterized under another animal, al poems. See before, note on ver. 126.

This labour past, by Bridewell all descend (As morning-prayers and flagellation end,) To where Fleet-ditch with disemboguing streams Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames, The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud 260 With deeper sable blots the silver flood.

Such as from labouring lungs the enthusiast blows,
High sounds, attemper'd to the vocal nose;
Or such as bellow from the deep divine;
There, Webster! peal'd thy voice, and Whitfield! thine.
But far o'er all sonorous Blackmore's strain;
Walls, steeples, skies, bray back to him again.
In Tottenham fields, the brethren, with amaze,
Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze!
Long Chancery-lane retentive rolls the sound,
And courts to courts return it round and round;
Thames wafts it thence to Rufus' roaring hall,
And Hungerford re-echoes bawl for bawl.
All hail him victor in both gifts of song,
Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long.

REMARKS.

270

'Here strip, my children, here at once leap in, Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin, And who the most in love of dirt excel,

Or dark dexterity of groping well.

Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around
The streams, be his the Weekly Journals bound: 280
A pig of lead to him who dives the best;
A peck of coals apiece shall glad the rest.'
In naked majesty Oldmixon stands,
And, Milo-like, surveys his arms and hands;

REMARKS.

Ver. 258. Webster-and Whitfield] The one the writer of a newspaper called the Weekly Miscellany, the other a field-preacher. This thought the only means of advancing religion was by the new-birth of spiritual madness; that by of argumentation is usual with Mr. Dennis; he has employ the old death of fire and faggot; and therefore they agreed ed the same against sir Richard himself, in a like charge of in this, though in no other earthly thing, to abuse all the soAll Mr. Blackmore's celestial ber clergy. From the small success of these two extraordi- machines, as they cannot be defended so much as by comimpiety and irreligion. nary persons, we may learn how little hurtful bigotry and mon received opinion, so are they directly contrary to the enthusiasm are, while the civil magistrate prudently forbears doctrine of the church of England; for the visible descent to lend his power to the one, in order to the employing it of an angel must be a miracle. Now it is the doctrine of the against the other. church of England that miracles had ceased a long time beVer. 263. Long Chancery-lane] The place where the fore prince Arthur came into the world. Now if the doctrine office of chancery are kept. The long detention of clients of the church of England be true, as we are obliged to bein the court, and the difficulty of getting out, is humour-lieve, then are all the celestial machines in Prince Arthur ously al egorized in these lines. Ver. 268. Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long] bability. But if the machines are sufferable, that is, if they unsufferable, as wanting not only human, but divine proA just character of sir Richard Blackmore, knight, who (as have so much as divine probability, then it follows of neces Mr. Dryden expresseth it) sity 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.

'Writ to the rumbling of his coach's wheels;

and whose indefatigable muse produced no less than six epic poems; Prince and King Arthur, twenty books; Eliza, ten; Ver. 270. (As morning prayers and flagellation end.)] It Alfred, twelve; the Redeemer, six; besides Job, in folio; the is between eleven and twelve in the morning, after church whole book of Psalms; the Creation, seven books; Nature service, that the criminals are whipped in Bridewell. This of Man, three books; and many more. It is in this sense he is to mark punctually the time of the day: Homer does it is styled afterwards the everlasting Blackmore. Notwith-by the circumstance of the judges rising from court, or of standing all which, Mr. Gildon seems assured, 'that this ad- the labourers' dinner: our author by one very proper both to mirable author did not think himself upon the same foot the persons and the scene of his poem, which we may re with Homer.-Comp. Art of Poetry, vol. i. p. 108. member commenced in the evening of the lord-mayor's day.

But how different is the judgment of the author of Cha-The first book passed in that night; the next morning the racters of the Times? p. 25, who says, 'Sir R. Blackmore is games begin in the Strand, thence along Fleet-street (places unfortunate in happening to mistake his proper talents; and inhabited by booksellers,) then they proceed by Bride well that he has not for many years been so much as named, or toward Fleet-ditch, and lastly through Ludgate to the city, even thought of among writers.' Even Mr. Dennis differs and the temple of the goddess. greatly from his friend Mr. Gildon: Blackmore's action,' Ver. 280. The Weekly Journals] Papers of news and saith he, has neither unity, nor integrity, nor morality, nor scandal intermixed, on different sides and parties, and fre universality; and consequently he can have no fable, and no quently shifting from one side to the other, called the Lonheroic poem: his narration is neither probable, delightful, don Journal, British Journal, Daily Journal, &c., the connor wonderful; his characters have none of the necessary cealed writers of which for some time were Oldmixon, qualifications; the things contained in his narration are nei- Roome, Arnall, Concunen, and others; persons never seen ther in their own nature delightful, nor numerous enough, by our author. nor rightly disposed, nor surprising, nor pathetic.' Nay, he Ver. 283. In naked majesty Oldmixon stands,] Mr. proceeds so far as to say sir Richard has no genius; first John Oldmixon, next to Mr. Dennis, the most ancient critic laying down, that 'genius is caused by a furious joy and of our nation; an unjust censurer of Mr. Addison in his prose pride of soul, on the conception of an extraordinary hint. Essay on Criticism, whom also in his imitation of Bouhours Many men,' says he, have their hints, without those mo- (called the Arts of Logic and Rhetoric) he misrepresents in tions of fury and pride of soul, because they want fire plain matter of fact; for in p. 45, he cites the Spectator as enough to agitate their spirits; and these we call cold abusing Dr. Swift by name, where there is not the least hint writers. Others who have a great deal of fire, but have not of it; and in p. 304, is so injurious as to suggest that Mr. excellent organs, feel the fore-mentioned motions, without Addison himself writ that Tatler, No. 43, which says of his the extraordinary hints; and these we call fustian writers.' own simile, that, 'Tis as great as ever entered into the But he declares, 'that sir Richard had neither the hints nor mind of man.'

the motions.'--Remarks on Pr. Arth. octavo, 1696. Preface. In poetry he was not so happy as laborious, and therefore This gentleman in his first works abused the character of characterized by the Tatler, No. 62, by the name of 'Omicron Mr. Dryden; and in his last, of Mr. Pope, accusing him in the Unborn Poet. Curll, Key, p. 13. He writ dramatic very high and sober terms of profaneness and immorality works, and a volume of poetry, consisting of heroic epistles, (Essay on Polite Writing, vol. ii. p. 270) on a mere report &c. some whereof are very well done,' said the great judge, from Elm. Curil, that he was author of a travestie on the Mr. Jacob, in his Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 303.

first Psalm. Mr. Dennis took up the same report, but with In his Essay on Criticism, and the arts of Logic and the addition of what sir Richard had neglected, an argument Rhetoric, he frequently reflects on our author. But the top to prove it; which being very curious, we shall here tran- of his character was a perverter of history, in that seandascribe. It was he who burlesqued the Psalms of David. It lous one of the Stuarts, in folio, and his Critical History of is apparent to me that psalm was burlesqued by a popish England, two volumes octavo. Being employed by bishop rhymester. Let rhyming persons who have been brought Kennet, in publishing the historians in his collection, he up protestants be otherwise what they will, let them be falsified Daniel's Chronicle in numberless places. Yet this rakes, let them be scoundrels, let them be atheists, yet educa- very man, in the preface to the first of these books, advanced cation has made an invincible impression on them in behalf a particular fact to charge three eminent persons of falsify of the sacred writings. But a popish rhymester has been ing the lord Clarendon's History; which fact has been disbrought up with a contempt for those sacred writings; now proved by Dr. Atterbury, late bishop of Rochester, then the how me another popish rhymester but he.' This manner only survivor of them; and the particular part he pretended

He said, and climb'd a stranded lighter's height,
Shot to the black abyss, and plunged downright.
The senior's judgment all the crowd admire,
Who, but to sink the deeper, rose the higher.

Next Smedley dived; slow circles dimpled o'er
The quaking mud, that closed and oped no more.
All look, all sigh, and call on Smedley lost;
Smedley in vain resounds through all the coast.
Then ** essay'd; scarce vanish'd out of sight,
He buoys up instant, and returns to light:
He bears no tokens of the sabler streams,
And mounts far off among the swans of Thames.
True to the bottom see Concanen creep,
A cold, long-winded native of the deep:
If perseverance gain the diver's prize,
Not everlasting Blackmore this denies :

290

And monumental brass this record bears,
'These are,—ah no! these were the Gazetteers!'
Not so bold Arnall; with a weight of skull,
Furious he dives, precipitately dull.
Whirlpools and storms his circling arm invest,
With all the might of gravitation bless'd.

No crab more active in the dirty dance,
Downward to climb, and backward to advance, 320
He brings up half the bottom on his head,
And loudly claims the journals and the lead.
The plunging prelate, and his ponderous grace,
With holy envy gave one layman place.

REMARKS.

Ver. 314. Gazetteers!] We ought not to suppose that a 300 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 Surely therefore, where the point is so obscure, our author the learned world to produce one such paper at this day ought not to be censured too rashly.

No noise, no stir, no motion canst thou make,
The unconscious stream sleeps o'er thee like a lake.
Next plunged a feeble but a desperate pack,
With each a sickly brother at his back;
Sons of a day! just buoyant on the flood,
Then number'd with the puppies in the mud.
Ask ye their names? I could as soon disclose
The names of these blind puppies as of those.
Fast by, like Niobe (her children gone)
Sits mother Osborne, stupified to stone!

REMARKS.

310

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 expense 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 a hundred to a thousand a year. It appears from the Report of the Secret Committee for inquiring 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 newspapers, such as Free Britons, Daily Courants, Corn Cutter's Journals, Gazetteers, and other political papers, between Feb. 10, 1731, and Feb. 10, 1741.' Which shows the benevolence Ver. 291. Next Smedley dived;] In the surreptitious of one minister to have expended, for the current dulness of editions, this whole episode was applied to an initial letter ten years in Britain, double the sum which gained Louis E-, by whom, if they meant the laureat, nothing was more XIV. so much honour, in annual peusions to learned men all absurd, no part agreeing with his character. The allegory over Europe. In which, and in a much longer time, not a evidently demands a person dipped in scandal, and deeply pension at court, nor preferment in the church or universiimmersed in dirty work; whereas Mr. Eusden's writings ties, of any consideration, was bestowed on any man dis rarely offended but by their length and multitude, and ac- tinguished for his learning separately from party-merit, or cordingly are taxed of nothing else in book i. ver. 102. But pamphlet-writing,

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.

person here mentioned, an Irishman, was author and It is worth a reflection, that of all the panegyrics bestowpublisher of many scurrilous pieces, a weekly Whitehall ed by these writers on this great minister, not one is at this Journal, in the year 1722, in the name of Sir James Baker; day extant or remembered, not even so much credit done to and particularly whole volumes of Billingsgate against Dr. his personal character by all they have written, as by one Swift and Mr. Pope, called Gulliveriana and Alexandriana, short occasional compliment of our author: printed in octavo, 1728,

Ver. 295. Then essay'd;] A gentleman of genius and spirit, who was secretly dipped in some papers of this kat, on whom our poet bestows a panegyric instead of a Fabre, as deserving to be better employed than in partyquarrels and personal invectives.

Ver. 299. Concinen] Mathew 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 Jour Bals, and in a paper called the Speculatist. In a pamphlet, called a Supplement to the Profound, 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 humorously caused him to take for his motto, De profundis clamavi. He was since a scribbler 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. 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. 312. Osborne] A name assumed by the eldest and gravest of these writers, who, at last, being ashamed of his pupils, gave his paper ove; and in his age remained silent.

'Seen him I have; but in his happier hour Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power! Seen him, uncumber'd by the venal tribe, Smile without art, and win without a bribe.' Ver. 315. 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 entitled, 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. But frequently, through his fury or folly, he exceeded all the bounds of his commission, and obliged his honourable patron to disow his scurrilities.

Ver. 323. The plunging prelate, &c.] It having been invidiously insinuated that by this title was meant a truly great prelate, as respectable for his defence of the present balance of power in the civil constitution, as for his opposition to the scheme of no power at all, in the religious; I owe so much to the memory of my deceased friend as to declare, that when, a little before his death, I informed him of

When, lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood,
Slow rose a form, in majesty of mud,
Shaking the horrors of his sable brows,
And each ferocious feature grim with ooze :
Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares;
Then thus the wonders of the deep declares :
First he relates, how sinking to the chin,
Smit with his mien, the mud-nymphs suck'd him in : Judge of all present, past, and future wit;

Which most conduce to soothe the soul in slumbers,
My Henley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers;
Attend the trial we propose to make:

How young Lutetia, softer than the down,
Nigrina black, and Merdamante brown,
Vied for his love in jetty bowers below,
As Hylas fair was ravish'd long ago.

330

340

Then sung, how, shown him by the nut-brown maids,
A branch of Styx here rises from the shades;
That, tinctured as it runs with Lethe's streams,
And wafting vapours from the land of dreams
(As under seas Alpheus' secret sluice,
Bears Pisa's offering to his Arethuse,)
Pours into Thames; and hence the mingled wave
Intoxicates the pert, and lulls the grave:
Here brisker vapours o'er the Temple creep,
There, all from Paul's to Aldgate drink and sleep.
Thence to the banks where reverend bards repose,
They led him soft; each reverend bard arose;
And Milbourne chief, deputed by the rest,
Gave him the cassock, surcingle, and vest.
'Receive,' he said, 'these robes which once were mine:
Dulness is sacred in a sound divine.'

350

He ceased, and spread the robe; the crowd confess
The reverend flamen in his lengthen'd dress.
Around him wide a sable army stand,

A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band,
Prompt or to guard or stab, to saint or damn:
Heaven's Swiss, who fight for any god, or man.
Through Lud's famed gates, along the well-known
Fleet,

If there be man, who o'er such works can wake,
Sleep's all-subduing charms who dares defy,
And boasts Ulysses' ear with Argus' eye;
To him we grant our amplest powers, to sit

To cavil, censure, dictate, right or wrong,
Full and eternal privilege of tongue.'

371

331

Three college sophs and three pert templars came-
The same their talents, and their tastes the same:
Each prompt to query, answer, and debate,
And smit with love of poesy and prate.
The ponderous books two gentle readers bring!
The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring.
The clamorous crowd is hush'd with mugs of mum,
Till all, tuned equal, send a general hum.
Then mount the clerks, and in one lazy tone
Through the long, heavy, painful page drawl on;
Soft creeping, words on words, the sense compose;
At every line they stretch, they yawn, they doze. 390
As to soft gales top-heavy pines bow low
Their heads, and lift them as they cease to blow,
Thus oft they rear, and oft the head decline,
As breathe, or pause, by fits, the airs divine.
And now to this side, now to that they nod,
As verse, or prose, infuse the drowsy god.
Thrice Budgel aim'd to speak, but thrice suppress d
By potent Arthur, knock'd his chin and breast.
Toland and Tindal, prompt at priests to jeer,
Yet silent bow'd to 'Christ's no kingdom here.' 400
Who sat the nearest, by the words o'ercome,
Slept first, the distant nodded to the hum.
Then down are roll'd the books; stretch'd o'er thera
lies

Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street, 360 Each gentle clerk, and muttering seals his eyes.
Till showers of sermons, characters, essays,
In circling fleeces whiten all the ways:
So clouds, replenish'd from some bog below,
Mount in dark volumes, and descend in snow.
Here stopt the goddess; and in pomp proclaims
A gentler exercise to close the games:

'Ye critics! in whose heads, as equal scales, I weigh what author's heaviness prevails;

REMARKS.

this insinuation, he called it vile and malicious, as any candid man, he said, might understand, by his having paid a willing compliment to this very prelate in another part of the poem.

As what a Dutchman plumps into the lakes,
One circle first, and then a second makes,
What Dulness dropp'd among her sons impress'd
Like motion from one circle to the rest:
So from the midmost the nutation spreads
Round and more round, o'er all the sea of heads. 410
At last Centlivre felt her voice to fail,
Motteux himself unfinish'd left his tale,

REMARKS.

Ver. 397. Thrice Budgel aim'd to speak.] Famous for his speeches on many occasions about the South Sa schemes, &c. He is a very ingenious gentleman, and hata Ver. 349. And Milbourne.] Luke Milbourne, a clergy-written some excellent epilogues to plays, and one smal man, 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 Duncind against our author, as will be seen in the parallel of Mr. Dryden and him.

Ver. 355. Around him wide, &c.] It is to be hoped, that the satire in these lines will be understood in the confined sense in which the author meant it, of such only of the clergy, who, though solemnly engaged in the service of religion, dedicate themselves for venal and corrupt ends to that of ministers or factions; and though 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 of their predecessors only by being invested with much less of that 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, er betraying it by libertinism, as either was thought best to serve the ends of policy, or flatter the follies of the great.

piece on Love, which is very pretty.Jacob, Lives of Po ets, vol. ii. p. 289. But this gentleman since made himself much more eminent, and personally well known to be le greatest statesman 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. Toland, the author of the atheist's liturgy, called Pantheisticon, was a spy, in pay to lord Oxford. Tudal was author of the Rights of the Christian Church, and Christianity as old as the Creation. He also wrote an abu sive pamphlet against earl S, which was suppressed while yet in MS. by an eminent person, then out of the m nistry, to whom he showed it, expecting his approbation This doctor afterwards published the same piece, mutatis mutandis, against that very person.

Ver. 400. Christ's no kingdom ] This is said by Curl, Key to Dunc. to allude to a sermon of a reverend bishop. 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.3 before she was seven years old. She also writ a balad against Mr. Pope's Homer, before he began it.