Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

She bids him wait her to her facred Dome:

Well pleas'd he enter'd, and confefs'd his home.
So, Spirits ending their terreftrial race,

265

269

Afcend, and recognize their Native Place.
This the Great Mother dearer held than all
The clubs of Quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall:
Here flood her Opium, here she nurs'd her Owls,
And here fhe plann'd th' Imperial feat of fools.

Here to her Chofen all her works fhe fhows;

Profe fwell'd to verfe, verfe loit'ring into profe: How random thoughts now meaning chance to find, Now leave all memory of fenfe behind:

How Prologues into Prefaces decay,

And these to Notes are fritter'd quite away:

How Index-learning turns no student pale,

Yet holds the eel of science by the tail:

276

280

How,

[ocr errors][merged small]

After Ver. 268. in the former Edd. followed these two lines, Raptur'd, he gazes round the dear retreat,

And in fweet numbers celebrates the feat.

Var. And in fweet numbers celebrates the feat.] Tibbald writ a Poem called the Cave of Poverty, which concludes with a very extraordinary wifh, "That fome great genius, or man of distinguished merit, may be flarved, in order to celebrate her power, and defcribe her Cave." It was printed in octavo,

1715.

REMARKS.

VER. 280. Eel of Science] Is from the Tale of a Tub.

IMITATIONS.

VER. 269. This the Great Mother, &c.]

"Urbs antiqua fuit

W.

Quam Juno fertur terris magis omnibus unam
Pofthabita coluiffe Samo: hic illius arma,
Hic currus fuit: hoc regnum Dea gentibus effe
(Si qua fata finant) jam tum tenditque fovetque."
VIRG. Aeneid. i.

How, with lefs reading than makes felons 'scape,
Lefs human genius than God gives an ape,

Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece,

A past, vamp'd, future, old, reviv'd, new piece, 'Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakespear, and Corneille, Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell.

REMARKS.

286

The

He was

VER. 286. Tibbald,] Lewis Tibbald (as pronounced) or Theobald (as written) was bred an Attorney, and fon to an Attorney (fays Mr. Jacob) of Sittenburn in Kent. Author of fome forgotten Plays, Tranflations, and other pieces. He was concerned in a paper called the Cenfor, and a Translation of Ovid. "There is a notorious Idiot, one hight Whachum, who from an under fpur-leather to the law, is become an under-ftrapper to the Playhouse, who hath lately burlesqued the Metamorphofes of Ovid by a vile Tranflation, &c. This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Cenfor." DENNIS, Rem. on Pope's Hom. p. 9, 10.

W.

Ibid. Ozell.]" Mr. John Ozell (if we credit Mr. Jacob) did go to school in Leicestershire, where fomebody left him fomething to live on, when he shall retire from business. He was designed to be sent to Cambridge, in order for priesthood; but he chose rather to be placed in an office of accounts, in the City, being qualified for the fame by his fkill in arithmetic, and writing the neceffary bands. He has obliged the world with many translations of French Plays." JACOB, Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 198. W.

Mr. Jacob's character of Mr. Ozell feems vaftly short of his merits, and he ought to have further juftice done him, having fince fully confuted all Sarcasms on his learning and genius, by an advertisement of Sept. 20, 1729, in a paper called The Weekly Medley, &c. "As to my learning, this envious Wretch knew, and every body knows, that the whole Bench of Bishops, not long ago, were pleased to give me a purse of guineas, for discovering the erroneous translations of the Common-prayer in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, &c. As for my genius, let Mr. Cleland fhew better verses in all Pope's works, than Ozell's version of Boileau's Lutrin, which the late Lord Halifax was so pleased with, that he complimented him with leave to dedicate it to him, &c. Let him fhew better and truer Poetry in the Rape of the Lock,

I 3

The Goddess then, o'er his anointed head, With mystic words, the facred Opium shed. And lo! her bird (a monster of a fowl, Something betwixt a Heideggre and owl) Perch'd on his crown.

290

"All hail! and hail again,

My fon! the promis'd land expects thy reign.

Know, Eufden thirsts no more for fack or praise;
He fleeps among the dull of ancient days;

Safe,

REMARKS.

Lock, than in Ozell's Rape of the Bucket (la Secchia rapita). And Mr. Toland and Mr. Gildon publickly declared Ozell's tranflation of Homer to be, as it was prior, fo likewise superior to Pope's. Surely, furely, every man is free to deferve well of his country !" JOHN OZELL.

We cannot but fubfcribe to fuch reverend teftimonies, as thofe of the Bench of Bishops, Mr. Toland, and Mr. Gildon. W.

Ibid. A Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell.] A triumvirate furely not of authors on a level. The first far fuperior to the other two. What did they produce, in any respect, equal to the Careless Hufband, and the Hiftory of the Stage!

VER. 287. The Goddess then,] There was a poem published, 1712, entitled Bibliotheca, by Mr. Thomas Newcomb, a friend of Dr. Young, and reprinted in the fifth volume of Nicols's Collection, page 19, in which the Goddess Oblivion is introduced, speaking and acting, so very like the Goddess Dulness, and which throughout bears fo close and striking a resemblance to the Dunciad, that it is impoffible Pope fhould not have seen and copied it, though with exquifite improvements. The expreffion, o'er his anointed head, is from Mac Fleckno,

"That for anointed Dulnefs he was made."

As alfo is the preceding line, 262;

"His brows thick fogs, inftead of glories, grace."

VER. 290. a Heideggre] A ftrange bird from Switzerland, and not (as fome have fuppofed) the name of an eminent perfon who was a man of parts, and, as was faid of Petronius, Arbiter Elegantiarum.

W.

Safe, where no Critics damn, no duns moleft, 295
Where wretched Withers, Ward, and Gildon rest,
And high-born Howard, more majestic fire,
With Fool of Quality completes the quire.

VARIATIONS.

VER. 293. Know, Eufden, &c.] In the former Edd.
"Know, Settle, cloy'd with custard and with praise,
Is gather'd to the dull of ancient days,

Thou,

Safe where no critics damn, no duns moleft,
Where Gildon, Banks, and high-born Howard reft.
I fee a King! who leads my chofen fons
To lands that flow with clenches and with puns:
Till each fam'd theatre my empire own;
Till Albion, as Hibernia, bless my throne !
I fee! I fee!Then rapt fhe spoke no more,
God fave king Tibbald! Grubstreet alleys roar.
So when Jove's block, &c.

REMARKS.

VER. 296. Withers,] See on ver. 146.

W.

Ibid. Gildon] Charles Gildon, a writer of criticifms and libels of the laft age, bred at St. Omer's with the Jefuits; but renouncing popery, he published Blount's books against the Divinity of Christ, the Oracles of Reason, &c. He fignalized himself as a critic, having written fome very bad Plays; abufed Mr. P. very fcandalously in an anonymous pamphlet of the life of Mr. Wycherley, printed by Curl; in another, called the New Rehearsal, printed in 1714; in a third, entitled the Complete Art of English Poetry, in two volumes; and others.

W.

Ibid. Withers, Ward,] It must be confeffed, that in this quarrel with mean and contemptible writers, Pope was the aggreffor; for it cannot be believed that the initial Letters in the Bathos, were placed at random and without defign.

VER. 297. Howard,] Hon. Edward Howard, author of the British Princes, and a great number of wonderful pieces, celebrated by the late Earls of Dorfet and Rochefter, Duke of Buckingham, Mr. Waller, &c.

300

Thou, Cibber! thou, his Laurel shalt support,
Folly, my fon, has ftill a Friend at Court.
Lift up your Gates, ye Princes, fee him come!
Sound, found ye Viols, be the Cat-call dumb!
Bring, bring the madding Bay, the drunken Vine;
The creeping, dirty, courtly Ivy join.

And thou! his Aid de camp, lead on my fons, 305
Light-arm'd with Points, Antithefes, and Puns.
Let Bawdry, Billingfgate, my daughters dear,
Support his front, and Oaths bring up the rear:
And under his, and under Archer's wing,

Gaming and Grub-street skulk behind the King. 310
O! when

REMARK S.

VER. 301. Lift up your Gates,] I know not what can excuse this very profane allufion to a fublime paffage in the Pfalms; which was added to the laft edition of the Dunciad in four books; and this too under the aufpices and direction of Dr. Warburton. So again in Book iii. ver. 126. And also again Book iv. ver. 562. "Dove-like the gathers to her wings again." And in the Arguments, he talks of giving a Pifgah-fight of the future fulness of her Glory; and even of fending Priefts, and Comforters.

VER. 309, 310. under Archers wing,--Gaming, &c.] When the Statute against Gaming was drawn up, it was represented, that the King, by ancient cuftom, plays at Hazard one night in the year; and therefore a claufe was inferted, with an exception as to that particular. Under this pretence, the Groom-porter had a Room appropriated to Gaming all the fummer the Court was at Kenfington, which his Majesty accidentally being acquainted of, with a juft indignation prohibited. It is reported the fame practice is yet continued wherever the Court refides, and the Hazard Table there open to all the profeffed Gamefters in Town.

"Greatest and jufteft Sov'REIGN; know you this?

Alas! no more, than Thames' calm head can know Whofe meads his arms drown, or whofe corn o'erflow." Donne to Queen Eliz. W. This practice has been laid aside for many years.

« ZurückWeiter »