Swearing and supperless the hero sat, Blasphemed his gods, the dice, and damn'd his fate. 120 Then slipp'd through crags and zig-zags of the head; Fruits of dull heat, and sooterkins of wit. In pleasing memory of all he stole, How here he sipp'd, how here he plunder'd snug, Here lay poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes, and here REMARKS. 130 pert as well as dull, he declares he will have the last word; which occasioned the following epigram: Quoth Cibber to Pope, Though in verse you foreclose, I'll have the last word; for, by G-, I'll write prose.' Poor Colly, thy reasoning is none of the strongest, For know, the last word is the word that lasts longest." Ver. 115.-supperless the hero sat,] It is amazing how the sense of this hath been mistaken by all the former commentators, who most idly suppose it to imply, that the hero of the poem wanted a supper. In truth, a great absurdity. Not that we are ignorant that the hero of Homer's Odyssey is frequently in that circumstance, and, therefore, it can no way derogate from the grandeur of an epic poem'to represent such hero under a calamity, to which the greatest not only of critics and poets, but of kings and warriors, have been subject. But much more refined, I will venture to say, is the meaning of our author: it was to give us obliquely a curious precept, or what Bossu calls a disguised sentence, that 'Temperance is the life of study.' The language of poesy brings all into action; and to represent a critic encompassed with books, but without a supper, is a picture which lively expresseth how much the true critic prefers the diet of the mind to that of the body, one of which he always castigates, and often totally neglects, for the greater improvement of the other.Scribl. But since the discovery of the true hero of the poem, may we not add, that nothing was so natural, after so great a loss of money at dice, or of reputation by his play, as that the poet should have no great stomach to eat a supper! Besides, how well has the poet consulted his heroic character, in adding that he swore all the time!-Bentl. Ver. 131.-poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes,] A great number of them taken out to patch up his plays. Ver. 132. The frippery-When I fitted up an old play it was There hapless Shakspeare, yet of Tibbald sore, plete: REMARKS. 140 as a good housewife will mend old linen, when she has not better employment.' Life, p. 217, 8vo. Ver. 133.-hapless Shakspeare, &c.] It is not to be doubted but Bays was a subscriber to Tibbald's Shakspeare. He was frequently liberal in this way; and, as he tells us, subscribed to Mr. Pope's Homer, out of pure generosity and civility; but when Mr. Pope did so to his Non-juror, he concluded it could be nothing but a joke.' Letter to Mr. P. p. 24. This Tibbald, or Theobald, published an edition of Shakspeare, of which he was so proud himself as to say, in one of Mist's Jour nals, June 8, "That to expose any errors in it was impracticable." And in another, April 27, That whatever care might for the future be taken by any other editor, he would still give above five hundred emendations, that shall escape them all." Ver. 134. Wish'd he had blotted-] It was a ridiculous praise which the players gave to Shakspeare, that he never blotted a line. Ben Jonson honestly wished he had blotted a thousand; and Shakspeare would certainly have wished the same, if he had lived to see those alterations in his works, which not the actors only (and especially the daring hero of this poem) have made on the stage, but the presumptuous critics of our days in their editions. Ver. 135. The rest on outside merit, &c.] This library is divided into three parts; the first consists of those authors from whom he stole, and whose works he mangled; the second of such as fitted the shelves, or were gilded for show, or adorned with pictures; the third class our author calls solid learning, old bodies of divinity, old commentaries, old English printers, or old English translations: all very voluminous, and it to erect altars to Dulness. Ver. 141. Ogilby the great;] John Ogilby, was one, who, from a late initiation into literature, made such a progress as might well style him the prodigy of his time! sending into the world so many large volumes! His translations of Homer and Virgil done to the life, and with such excellent sculptures; and (what added great grace to his works) he printed them all on special good paper, and in a very good letter.' Winstanley, Lives of Poets. Ver. 142. There, stamp'd with arms, Newcastle shines complete:] The Duchess of Newcastle was one who busied herself in the ravishing delights of poetry; leaving to posterity in print three ample volumes of her studious endeavours.' Winstanley, ibid. Langbane reckons up eight folios of her grace's, which were usually adorned with gilded covers, and had her coat of arms npon them. Here all his suffering brotherhood retire, And 'scape the martyrdom of jakes and fire; Well purged, and worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome, There Caxton slept, with Wynkyn at his side, De Lyra there a dreadful front extends, REMARKS. 152 Ver. 146.-worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.] The poet has mentioned these three authors in particular, as they are parallel to our hero in his three capacities; 1. Settle was his brother laureat; only indeed upon half-pay, for he city instead of the court; but equally famous for unintelligible flights in his poems on public occasions, such as shows, birth-days, &c. 2. Banks was his rival in tragedy (though more successful) in one of his trage dies, the Earl of Essex, which is yet alive; Anna Boleyn, the Queen of Scots, and Cyrus the Great, are dead and gone. These he dressed in a sort of beggar's velvet, or a happy mixture of the thick fustian and thin prosaic; exactly imitated in Perolla and Isidora, Cæsar in Egypt, and the Heroic Daughter. 3. Broome was a serving man of Ben Jonson, who once picked up a comedy from his letters, or from some cast scenes of his master, not entirely contemptible. Ver. 147.-more solid learning-] Some have objected, that books of this sort suit not so well the library of our Bays, which they imagined consisted of novels, plays, and obscene books; but they are to consider that he furnished his shelves only for ornament, and read these books no more than the dry bodies of divinity, which, no doubt, were purchased by his father when he designed him for the gown. See the note on ver. 200. Ver. 149. Caxton-] A printer in the time of Edw. IV. Rich. III. and Hen. VII.; Wynkyn de Word, his successor, in that of Hen. VII. and VIII. The former translated into prose Virgil's Eneis, as a history; of which he speaks, in his proeme, in a very singular manner, as of a book hardly known. Tibbald quotes a rare passage from him in Mist's Journal of March 16, 1728, concerning a straunge and marvayllouse beaste, called Sagittayre,' which he would have Shakspeare to mean rather than Teucer, the archer celebrated by Homer. Ver. 153. Nich de Lyra, or Harpsfield, a very voluminous commentator, whose works, in five vast folios, were printed in 1472. Ver. 154. Philemon Holland, doctor in physic. He translated so many books, that a man would think he had done nothing else; insomuch, that he might be called translator-general of his age. The books alone of his turning into English are sufficient to make a country gentleman a complete library.'-Winstanley. Inspired he seizes: these an altar raise: That altar crowns: a folio common-place 170 Which, as more ponderous, made its aim more true, Or, if to wit a coxcomb make pretence, REMARKS. 180 Ver. 167. E'er since Sir Fopling's periwig-] The first visible cause of the passion of the town for our hero, was a fair, flaxen, full-bottomed periwig, which, he tells us, he wore in his first play of the Fool in Fashion. It attracted, in a particular manner, the friendship of Col. Brett, who wanted to purchase it. Whatever contempt,' says he, philosophers may have for a fine periwig, my friend, who was not to despise the world, but to live in it, knew very well, that so material an article of dress upon the head of a man of sense, if it became him, could never fail of drawing to him a more partial regard and benevolence, than could possibly be hoped for in an ill-made one. This, perhaps, may soften the grave censure, which so youthful a purchase might otherwise have laid upon him. In a word, he made his attack upon this periwig, as your young fellows generally do upon a lady of pleasure, first by a few familiar praises of her person and then a civil inquiry into the price of it; and we finished our bargain that night over a bottle. See Life, 8vo. p. 303. This remarkable periwig usually made its entrance upon the stage in a sedan, brought in by two chairmen, with infinite approbation of the audience. Ver. 178, 179. Guard the sure barrier-Or quite unravel, &c.] For wit or reasoning are never greatly hurtful to dulness, but when the first is founded in truth, and the other in usefulness. As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly, Some demon stole my pen (forgive th' offence) REMARKS. 190 200 Ver. 181. As, forced from wind-guns, &c.] The thought of these four verses is founded in a poem of our author's of a very early date (namely, written at fourteen years old, and soon after printed), to the author of a poem called Successio. Ver. 198,-gray-goose weapon-] Alluding to the old English weapon, the arrow of the long bow, which was fletched with the feathers of the gray-goose.. Ver. 199.-my Fletcher-] A familiar manner of speaking, used by modern critics, of a favourite author. Bays might as justly speak this of Fletcher, as a French wit did of Tully, seeing his works in a library, Ah! mon cher Ciceron! je le connois bien, c'est le même que Marc Tulle. But he had a better title to call Fletcher his own, having made so free with him. Ver. 200. Take up the Bible, once my better guide?] When, according to his father's intention, he had been a clergyman, or (as he thinks himself) a bishop of the church of England. Hear his own words: "At the time that the fate of King James, the Prince of Orange, and myself, were on the anvil, Providence thought fit to postpone mine, till theirs were determined: but had my father carried me a month sooner to the university, who knows but that purer fountain might have washed my imperfections into a capacity of writing, instead of plays and annual odes, sermons and pastoral letters-Apology for his Life, chap. iii. Ver. 203. at White's, amidst the doctors-] These doctors had a |