Or praise the Court, or magnify Mankind,

Or thy griev'd Country's copper chains unbind;

From

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 22. in the MS.

Or in the graver Gown instruct mankind,

Or filent let thy morals tell thy mind.

But this was to be understood, as the Poet fays, ironicè, like the 23d Verfe.

REMARK S.

Tub, which is in the manner of the fatirical and more regular parts of that famous French droll. Dr. S. Clarke in the first Edition of his Boyle's Lectures gives this book for an example of fcoffing Atheism. And tho' I think there be neither impiety nor irreligion in the conduct of his Tale, yet furely it was impoffible for a man really penetrated with a serious sense of Religion, ever to prevail on himself to expose the abuses of it in the manner he has done.

The Travels of Gulliver were not written to decry the lying vanities of travellers, but chiefly and principally to expofe the politics and measures of the English government, as well as the pride and depravity of human nature in general. Nor are they carried on or conceived in the manner of Cervantes. Voltaire called Swift, for writing the Tale of a Tub, Rabelais in his senses. When so many undeserving perfons have been perfecuted, particularly under the arbitrary government of France, for the freedom of their opinions, it is marvellous that Rabelais, who levelled his bitter fatire against so many haughty princes, and as haughty priests, could poffibly escape their vengeance. Garagantua certainly meant Francis I.; Louis XII. is Grand Goufier; Henry II. Pantagruel; Charles V. Picrocole. The Monks of that time are disguised under the name of Brother John des Entomures. The genealogy of Chrift is ridiculed by that of Garagantua. The Treatifes of Theology were laughed at under the titles of the books found in the Library of St. Victor; fuch as Biga Salutis, Braguelta Juris, Pentouffle Decentorun; and by fuch questions as, utrùm chimera in vacuo bombinans poffit comedere fecundas intentiones. Lord Peter's, Loaf is minutely copied from Rabelais. Scarron had a mafter named J. Moreau, who wrote in Heroic verse a comic poem called The Pigmeid; which Scarron copied in his

VOL. V.

G

From thy Boeotia tho' hér Pow't retites,

$25

Mourn not, my SWIFT! at ought our Realm acquires.
Here pleas'd behold her mighty wings outspread
To hatch a new Saturnian age of Lead.

Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne,
And laughs to think Monroe would take her down,
Where

VARIATIONS.

VER. 29. Clofe to thofe walls, &c.] In the former Edd. thus, Where wave the tatter'd enfigns of Rag-fair,

A yawning ruin hangs and nods in air;

Keen, hollow winds howl through the bleak recefs,
Emblem of mufic caus'd by Emptiness;

Here in one bed two fhiv'ring Sifters lie,
The Cave of Poverty and Poetry.

Var. Where wave the tatter'd enfigns of Rag-fair,] Rag-fair is a place near the Tower of London, where old clothes and frippery are fold.

REMARKS.

W.

his Gigantomachei. Had Swift ever feen thefe poems which hear so near a resemblance to his Liliput and Brobdignac? Lord Orford obferved to me, that he thought Swift had been guilty of an useless repetition of the fame fatire in these two Voyages, by only changing great into small. And he alfo was of opinion, that Cervantes had continued his work to too great a length. After his hero had attacked a Windmill for a Giant, and had mistaken a mean Inn for a magnificent Castle, all that followed was only the self same idea varied, and new-modelled. I pretend not to determine on the juftness of this criticifm; because I am unwilling to hint any thing that can in the fmallest degree depreciate this original writer, Cervantes. But it is with difficulty I can bring myself to doubt of the juftnefs of any of Lord Orford's critical opinions.

VER. 23. Or praife the Court, or magnify Mankind,] Tronicè, alluding to Gulliver's reprefentations of both.The next line relates to the papers of the Drapier against the currency of Wood's Copper coin in Ireland, which, upon the great difcontent of the People, his Majesty was graciously pleased to recal.

W.

Where o'er the gates, by his fam'd father's hand, 31
Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers ftand;
One Cell there is, conceal'd from vulgar eye,
The Cave of Poverty and Poetry.

Keen, hollow winds howl through the bleak recefs
Emblem of Mufic caus'd by Emptiness.

36

Hence Bards, like Proteus long in vain ty'd down, Escape in Monsters, and amaze the town.

REMARKS.

Hence

VER. 31. By his fam'd father's hand,] Mr. Caius-Gabriel Cibber, father of the Poet Laureate. The two Statues of the Lunatics over the gates of Bedlam-hofpital were done by him, and (as the fon justly says of them) are no ill monuments of his fame as an Artist.

W.

VER. 34. Poverty and Poetry.] I cannot here omit a remark that will greatly endear our Author to every one, who shall attentively obferve that Humanity and Candor, which every where appears in him towards those unhappy objects of the ridicule of all mankind, the bad Poets. He here imputes all scandalous rhymes, fcurrilous weekly papers, base flatteries, wretched elegies, fongs, and verfes, (even from those fung at Court, to ballads in the streets), not so much to malice or fervility as to Dulness; and not fo much to Dulness as to Neceffity. And thus, at the very commencement of his Satire, makes an apology for all that are to be fatirized.

VER. 37. Hence Bards, like Proteus long in vain ty'd down,
Efcape in Monsters, and amaze the town.]

Ovid has given us a very orderly account of these escapes ;
"Sunt quibus in plures jus eft tranfire figuras :

Ut tibi, complexi terram maris incola, PROTEU;
Nunc violentus Aper; nunc, quem tetigiffe timerent,
Anguis eras; modo te faciebant cornua Taurum:
Saepe Lapis poteras."

W.

Met. viii.

Neither Palaephatus, Phurnutus, nor Heraclides give us any fteady light into the mythology of this mysterious fable. If I be not deceived in a part of learning which has fo long exercised my pen, by Proteus must certainly be meant a hacknied Town scribler;

Hence Miscellanies fpring, the weekly boast

Of Curl's chaste prefs, and Lintot's rubric poft: 40

REMARKS.

Hence

and by his transformations, the various disguises such a one affumes, to elude the pursuit of his natural enemy, the Bailiff. And in this light, doubtlefs, Horace understood the fable, where, fpeaking of Proteus, he says,

66

Quum RAPIES in Jus malis ridentem alienis,
Fiet aper," &c.

Proteus is represented as one bred of the mud and flime of Egypt,
the original foil of Arts and Letters; and what, I pray you, is
a Town-fcribbler, but a creature made up of the excrements of
luxurious Science? By the change then into a Boar, is meant his
character of a furious and dirty Party-writer; the Snake fignifies a
Libeller; and the Horns of the Bull, the Dilemmas of a Polemical
*Answerer. These are the three great Parts he affumes; and when
he has completed his circle, he finks back again (as the laft change
into a Stone denotes) into his natural state of immoveable Stupidity.
Hence it is, that the Poet, where speaking at large of all thefe
various Metamorphofes in the fecond Book, defcribes MOTHER
OSBORNE, the great Antitype of our Proteus, in ver. 312. after
all her changes, as at laft quite flupified to Stone. If I may expect
thanks of the learned world for this difcovery, I would by no
means deprive that excellent Critic of his fhare, who discovered
before me, that in the character of Proteus was defigned Sophiftam,
Magum, Politicum, praefertim rebus omnibus fefe accommodantem.
Which in English is, A political Writer, a Libeller, and a
Difputer, writing indifferently for or against every Party in the
ftate, every Sect in religion, and every Character in private life.
See my Fables of Ovid explained.
ABBE BANIER.

*

A very close resemblance to the following lines of Dr. Young, in his first epistle on the Authors of the Age, addrest to Mr. Pope.

"How justly Proteus' tranfmigrations fit

The monstrous changes of a modern wit?
Now, fuch a gentle stream of eloquence
As feldom rifes to the verge of sense;
Now, by mad rage transform'd into a flame,
Which yet fit engines well apply'd can tame;
Now, on immodest trash the swine obscene
Invites the town to fup at Drury Lane;

A dreadful

Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines,

Hence Journals, Medleys, Merc'ries, MAGAZINES:

Sepulchral

VARIATIONS.

VER. 41. In the former Edd.

Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac Lay,
Hence the foft fing-fong on Cecilia's Day.

VER. 42. Alludes to the annual Songs compofed to Mufic on St. Cecilia's Feaft.

REMARKS.

A dreadful Lyon, now, he roars at Pow'r,
Which fends him to his brothers at the Tow'r;
He's, now, a Serpent, and his double tongue
Salutes, nay licks the feet of those he stung."

VER. 40. Curl's chafte prefs, and Lintot's rubric poft :] Two bookfellers, of whom fee Book ii. The former was fined by the Court of King's Bench for publishing obfcene Books; the latter usually adorned his shop with titles in red letters.

W.

VER. 41. Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines,] It is an ancient English cuftom, for the Malefactors to fing a Pfalm at their execution at Tyburn; and no lefs cuftomary to print Elegies on their deaths, at the fame time, or before.

W.

VER. 42. MAGAZINES:] The common names of those monftrous collections in profe and verfe; where Dulness affumes all the various shapes of Folly to draw in, and cajole the Rabble. The eruption of every miferable Scribbler; the dirty fcum of every ftagnant Newspaper; the rags of worn-out Nonfenfe and Scandal, picked up from every Dunghill; under the title of Essays, Reflections, Queries, Songs, Epigrams, Riddles, &c. equally the P. * difgrace of Wit, Morality, and Common Senfe.

It is but justice to add, that the Gentleman's Magazine, the first of its kind, does by no means deserve this severe sarcasm; but has been a means of preferving many useful and fugitive pieces on many interefting fubjects.

IMITATIONS.

VER. 41, 42. Hence hymning Tyburn's-Hence, Sc.

"Genus unde Latinum,

Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae."

VIRG. Aeneid, im