Well-natur'd Garth inflam'd with early praise, Ev'n mitred Rochester would nod the head, 140 And St. John's felf (great Dryden's friends before) With open arms receiv'd one Poet more. Happy NOTES. Or bid the tender Spenfer come From his lov'd haunt, fair Fancy's tomb." See particularly that fine ftanza, Thefe fhall the fury paffions tear, and alfo, The vultures of the mind;" "Yet ah! why should they know their fate?" WARTON. The perfon whom Dr. Warton means, was his brother, the ate Thomas Warton, whose exquisite tafte is well-known. VER. 139. Talbot, &c.] All these were Patrons or Admirers of Mr. Dryden; though a scandalous libel against him, entitled Dryden's Satire to his Mufe, has been printed in the name of the Lord Somers, of which he was wholly ignorant. These are the perfons to whofe account the Author charges the publication of his firft pieces: perfons with whom he was converfant (and he adds beloved) at 16 or 17 years of age; an early period for fuch acquaintance. The catalogue might be made yet more illuftrious, had he not confined it to that time when he writ the Paftorals and Windfor Foreft, on which he paffes a fort of Cenfure in the lines following: "While pure Description held the place of Senfe," &c. Pore. Every word and epithet here used is exactly characteristical and peculiarly appropriated, with much art, to the temper and manner of each of the perfons here mentioned; the elegance of Lanfdown, the open free benevolence and candour of Garth, the warmth of Congreve, the difficulty of pleafing Swift, the very gefture (as I am informed) that Atterbury ufed when he was pleafed, and the animated air and spirit of Bolingbroke. WARTON. Happy my ftudies, when by these approv'd! Happier their Author, when by these belov’d! Soft were my numbers; who could take offence While pure Description held the place of Senfe? Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme, A painted mistress, or a purling stream. 150 Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill; NOTES. Yet VER. 146. Burnets, &c.] Authors of fecret and fcandalous History. POPE. Ibid. Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks] By no means Authors of the fame clafs; though the violence of party might hurry them into the fame mistakes. But if the firft offended this way, it was only through an honest warmth of temper, that allowed too little to an excellent understanding. The other two, with very bad heads, had hearts ftill worse. WARBURTON. VER. 146. Burnets,] Was such a character as Burnet's, to be placed among the infignificant and contemptible feriblers, that affailed Pope? VER. 148. While pure Description held the place of Senfe?] He ufes pure equivocally, to fignify either chaste or empty; and has given in this line what he esteemed the true Character of descrip. tive poetry, as it is called. A compofition, in his opinion, as abfurd as a feaft made up of fauces. The office of a picturesque ima. gination is to brighten and adorn good fenfe; fo that to employ it only in defcription, is like children's delighting in a prism for the fake of its gaudy colours; which, when frugally managed and artfully disposed, might be made to unfold and illustrate the noblest objects in nature. WARBURTON. VER. 150. A painted meadow, or a purling fiream,] is a verfe of Mr. Addifon. POPE. Ibid. A painted mistress, or a purling fiream.] Meaning the Rape of the Lock, and Windfor-Foreft. WARBURTON. Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret ; I never anfwer'd, I was not in debt. If want provok'd, or madness made them print, 155 I wag'd no war with Bedlam or the Mint. VER. 151. Yet then did Gildon] It is with difficulty we can forgive our Author for upbraiding thefe wretched fcriblers for their poverty and diftreffes, if we do not keep in our minds the grofsly abufive pamphlets they published; and, even allowing this circumstance, we ought to feparate rancour from reproof: "Cur tam crudeles optavit fumere pœnas? WARTON. Gildon was born at the village of Gillingham, near Shaftesbury, in Dorfetshire. Pope's "wishing him a dinner," is not exactly understood. The expreffions are thought unfeeling, as meant to upbraid him with his poverty; but the truth is, Gildon in his effays fays, his fole motive for writing was "neceffity." It cannot be faid, that it is cruel to "wifh a man a dinner," who profeffes he writes to get one. A few more words concerning this obfcure writer, may not be unacceptable. He was fent to Doway, to the English College of Secular Priests there, to be made a Prieft; but his inclinations led him another way. He came to London, fpent his property, and endeavoured to repair his fortune by writing abufive pamphlets. were VER. 153. Yet then did Dennis] I cannot help thinking that poor Dennis was hardly ufed. He was a fcholar, had a liberal education, and had been in his early youth, a companion of those who distinguished for rank and literature. Being at firft countenanced, and having a confiderable fhare of learning and ingenuity, he was no doubt mortified and galled, to find the ftream of popular applause turned almost exclusively towards one Poet. On this account, his ftrictures, though often juft, are marked with afperity and coarseness, as he was evidently chagrined at the fuccefs which he could not gain himself. Hence his coarse and contemptu Pains, reading, ftudy, are their juft pretence, And 'twere a fin to rob them of their mite. Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel grac'd these ribalds, NOTES. 160 Each ous treatment of Addison's Cato, and Pope's Effay on Man; but we must admit, that many of his obfervations were well-founded, and that they evince confiderable claffical knowledge, as well as fhrewdnefs. Let us alfo remember what is due to disappointment. Dennis came into the world with ardent hopes as a man of literature, and with refpectable connections. He found all his expectations croffed, though he was conscious of his acquirements ; and after long and ineffectual ftruggles towards attaining what he confidered his deferved rank of literary eminence, he funk at laft, poor and unfriended, into old age. Pope's fatire in this place, refpecting his being in debt, is certainly unfeeling. Pope was in poffeffion of affluence and honour, and it was not till his old antagonist was laid helplefs at his feet, that his refentment abated; it was then that he wrote the Prologue for his benefit. How noble does the character of Addifon appear, who, though equally attacked by Dennis as a Critic, yet never mentioned his name with asperity, and refused to give the least countenance to the pamphlet which Pope had written upon the occafion of Dennis's ftrictures on Cato? VER. 163. Yet ne'er one Sprig] Swift imbibed from Sir W. Temple, and Pope from Swift, an inveterate and unreasonable aversion and contempt for Bentley, whose admirable Boyle's Lectures, Remarks on Collins's Emendations of Menander and Callimachus, and Tully's Tufcal. Difp. whose edition of Horace, and, above all, Differtations on the Epiftles of Phalaris, (in which he gained the most complete victory over a whole army of wits,) all of them exhibit the most striking marks of accurate and extensive erudition, and a vigorous and acute understanding. He degraded himself much by his ftrange and abfurd hypothesis of the faults which Milton's amanuenfis introduced into that poem. But I have been informed that there was ftill an additional caufe for Pope's Each wight who reads not, and but fcans and spells, Each Word-catcher that lives on fyllables, 166 Ev'n NOTES. Pope's refentment: That Atterbury, being in company with Bentley and Pope, infifted upon knowing the Doctor's opinion of the English Homer; and that, being earnestly pressed to declare his fentiments freely, he faid, "The verfes are good verfes, but the work is not Homer, it is Spondanus." It may, however, be observed, in favour of Pope, that Dr. Clarke, whose critical exactuefs is well known, has not been able to point out above three or four mistakes in the fenfe throughout the whole Iliad. The real faults of that tranflation are of another kind: They are fuch as remind us of Nero's gilding a brazen statue of Alexander the Great, caft by Lyfippus. Pope, in a letter which Dr. Ruther forth fhewed me at Cambridge in the year 1771, written to a Mr. Bridges at Fulham, mentions his confulting Chapman and Hobbes, and talks of their authority, joined to the knowledge of my own imperfectnefs in the language, over-ruled me." These are the very words which I tranfcribed at the time. WARTON. VER. 163. thefe ribalds,] How defervedly this title is given to the genius of PHILOLOGY, may be seen by a short account of the manners of the modern Scholiafts. When in these latter ages, human learning raised its head in the Weft; and its tail, verbal criticism, was, of course, to rife with it; the madness of Critics foon became fo offenfive, that the grave Atupidity of the Monks might appear the more tolerable evil. J. Ar. gyropylus, a mercenary Greek, who came to teach school in Italy, after the facking of Conftantinople by the Turks, used to maintain that Cicero understood neither Philofophy nor Greek: while another of his countrymen, J. Lafcaris by name, threatened to demonftrate that Virgil was no Poet. Countenanced by fuch great examples, a French Critic afterwards undertook to prove that Ariftotle did not understand Greek, nor Titus Livius, Latin. has been fince difcovered that Jofephus was ignorant of Hebrew; and Erafmus fo pitiful a linguift, that, Burman affures us, were he now alive, he would not deserve to be put at the head of a countryfchool: And even fince it has been found out that Pope had no invention, and is only a Poet by courtesy. For though time has ftripp'd 3 It |