175

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 gard'ner's eyes who turns the cock.
Not so from shameless Curl; impetuous spread
The stream, and smoking flourish'd o'er his head.
So (fam'd like thee for turbulence and horns)
Eridanus his humble fountain scorns;
Through half the heav'ns he pours th' exalted urn;
His rapid waters in their passage burn.

181

Swift as it mounts, all follow with their eyes; 185
Still happy impudence obtains the prize.

Thou triumph'st, victor of the high-wrought day,
And the pleas'd dame, soft smiling, lead'st away.
Osborne, through perfect modesty o'ercome,
Crown'd with the jordan, walks contented home.
But now for authors nobler palms remain;

Room for my Lord! three jockies in his train;
Six huntsmen with a shout precede his chair:
He grins, and looks broad nonsense with a stare.
His honour's meaning Dulness thus exprest,
"He wins this patron who can tickle best."

He chinks his purse, and takes his seat of state:
With ready quills the dedicators wait;
Now at his head the dextrous task commence,
And, instant, fancy feels th' imputed sense;
Now gentle touches wanton o'er his face,
He struts Adonis, and affects grimace:

IMITATIONS.

v. 181, 182, So (fam'd like thee for turbulence and horns) Eridanus.]

191

195

200

Virgil mentions these two qualifications of Eridanus, Georg. IV.
"Et gemina auratus taurina cornua vultu,
Eridanus, quo non alius per pinguia culta

In mare purpureum violentior influit amnis."
The poets fabled of this r ver Eridanus, that it flowed through the
skies. Denham, Cooper's Hill:

"Heav'n her Eridanus no more shall boast,

Whose fame in thine, like lesser currents lost,
Thy nobler stream shall visit Jove's abodes,
To shine among the stars, and bathe the gods."

Rolli the feather to his ear conveys;
Then his nice taste directs our operas:
Bentley his mouth with classic flattery opes,
And the puff'd orator bursts out in tropes.
But Welsted most the poet's healing balm
Strives to extract from his soft-giving palm.
Unlucky Welsted! thy unfeeling master,

205

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 Heav'n and pray'r.
What force have pious vows! The Queen of Love
Her sister sends, her votaress from above.

REMARKS.

216

v.203.] Paolo Antonio Rolli, an Italian poet, and writer of many operas in that language, which, partly by the help of his genius, prevailed in England near twenty years. He taught Italian to some fine gentlemen, who affected to direct the operas.

W.

v. 205. Bentley his mouth, &c.] Not spoken of the famous Dr. Richard Bentley, but of one Tho. Bentley, a small critic, who aped his uncle in a little Horace. The great one was intended to be dedicated to the Lord Halifax, but (on a change of the ministry) was given to the Earl of Oxford; for which reason the little oue was dedicated to his son the Lord Harley.

W.

v. 207. --- Welsted.] Leonard Welsted, author of the Triumvirate, or A Letter in verse from Palemon to Celia at Bath, which was meant for a satire on Mr. P. and some of his friends, about the year 1718. He writ other things which we cannot remember. Smedley, in his Metamorphosis of Scriblerus, mentions one, the Hymn of a gentleman to his Creator: and there was another in praise either of a cellar, or a garret. L. W. characterized in the treatise Peri Bathous, or the Art of Sinking, as a didapper, and after as an eel, is said to be this person, by Dennis, Daily Journal of May 11, 1728.

He was also characterized under another animal, a mole, by the author of the ensuing simile, which was handed about at the same time:

"Dear Welsted, mark, in dirty hole,

That painful animal, a mole:
Above ground never born to grow,
What mighty stir it keeps below!
To make a molehill all this strife!
It digs, pokes, undermines, for life.
How proud a little dirt to spread,
Conscious of nothing o'er its head!
'Till lab'ring cn for want of eyes,
It blunders into light, and dies."
You have him again in Book III. ver. 169.

W.

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.

220

225

"Now turn to different sports (the Goddess cries) And learn, my sons, the wondrous pow'r of noise, To move, to raise, to ravish every heart. 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 a 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."

230

Now thousand tongues are heard in one loud din; The monkey-mimics rush discordant in;

236

'Twas chattering, grinning, mouthing, jabbering all,
And noise and Norton, brangling and Breval,
Dennis and dissonance, and captious art,
And snip-snap short, and interruption smart,
And demonstration thin, and theses thick,
And major, minor, and conclusion quick.

240

"Hold, (cried the Queen) a cat-call each shall win; Equal your merits! equal is your din!

245

But that this well-disputed game may end,
Sound forth, my brayers, and the welkin rend."
As when the long-ear'd milky mothers wait
At some sick miser's triple-bolted gate,
For their defrauded absent foals they make
A moan so loud, that all the guild awake;
Sore sighs Sir Gilbert, starting at the bray,
From dreams of millions, and three groats to pay:

REMARKS.

250

v. 238. ---Norton.] See ver. 415.----J. Durant Breval, author of very extraordinary book of travels, and some poems.

W

So swells each wind-pipe; ass intones to ass,
Harmonic twang! of leather, horn, and brass;
Such as from labouring lungs th' enthusiast blows,
High sound, attemper'd to the vocal nose;
Or such as bellow from the deep divine;

256

There, Webster! peal'd thy voice, and, Whitefield! thine.

But far o'er all, sonorous Blackmore's strain;
Walls, steeples, skies, bray back to him again. 260
In Tot'nam 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.

REMARKS.

265

v. 258. ----Webster---and Whitefield.] The one the writer of a newspaper called The Weekly Miscellany; the other a fieldpreacher. This thought the only means of advancing religion was by the new birth of spiritual madness; that by the old death of fire and faggot: and therefore they agreed in this, though in no other earthly thing, to abuse all the sober clergy. From the small success of these two extraordinary persons, we may learn how little burtful bigotry and enthusiasm are, while the civil magistrate prudently forbears to lend his power to the one, in order to the employing it against the other."

IMITATIONS.

W.

v. 260.bray back to him again.] A figure of speech taken from Virgil:

"Et vox assensu nemorum ingeminata remugit."

Georg. III.

"He hears his numerous herds low o'er the plain, While neighb'ring hills low back to them again.' Cowley. The poet here celebrated, Sir R. B, delighted much in the word bray, which he endeavoured to ennoble by applying it to the sound of armour, war, &c. In imitation of him, and strengthened by his authority, our author has here admitted it into heroic poetry.

W.

v. 262. Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze!] "Immemor herbarum quos est mirata juvenca." Virg. Ecl. VIII. The progress of the sound from place to place, and the scenery here of the bordering regions, Tottenham fields, Chancery-lane, the Thames, Westminster-hall, and Hungerford stairs, are imitated from Virgil, Æn. VII. on the sounding the horn of Alecto:

"Audiit et Triviæ longe lacus, audiit amnis
Sulphurea Nar albus aqua fontesque Velini," &c.

W.

All hail him victor in both gifts of song,
Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long.
This labour past, by Bridewell all descend
(As morning pray'r and flagellation end)

270

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
With deeper sable blots the silver flood.

“Here strip, my children! here at once leap in, 275 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 stream, be his the Weekly Journals bound; 280
A pig of lead to him who dives the best;

A peck of coals a-piece shall glad the rest."
In naked majesty Oldmixon stands,

And, Milo-like, surveys his arms and hands;
Then sighing, thus, " And am I now threescore? 285
Ah, why, ye gods! should two and two make four?"
He said, and climb'd a stranded lighter's height,
Shot to the black abyss, and plung'd downright.
The senior's judgment all the crowd admire,
Who but to sink the deeper rose the higher.

Next Smedley div'd; slow circles dimpled o'er,
The quaking mud, that clos'd and op'd no more.

REMARKS.

290

v. 283. In naked majesty Oldmixon stands.] Mr. John Oldmixon, next to Mr. Dennis, the most ancient critic of our nation; an unjust censurer of Mr. Addison in his prose Essay on Criticism, whom also, in his imitation of Bouhours (called the Arts of Logic and Rhetoric) he misrepresents in plain matter of fact; for in p. 45, he cites the Spectator as abusing Dr. Swift by name, where there is not the least hint of it: and in p. 304, is so injurious as to suggest that Mr. Addison himself writ that Tatler, No. 43, which says of his own simile, that "it is as great as ever entered into the mind, of man."." In poetry he was not so happy as laborious, and is therefore characterized by the Tatler, No. 62, by the name of Omicron, the unborn poet." Curl, Key, p. 13. "He writ dramatic works, and a volume of poetry consisting of Heroic Epistles, &c. some whereof are very well done," said that great judge, Mr. Jacob, in his Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 303.

v. 201. Next Smedley div'd.] In the surreptitious editions this whole episode was applied to an initial letter E-, by whom if they