Dulness with transport eyes the lively Dunce, REMARKS. Now Mr. Dennis were published. But what puts it beyond all question, is a paffage in a very warm treatise, in which Mr. Dennis was also concerned, price two-pence, called A true character of Mr. Pope and his Writings, printed for S. Popping, 1716: in the tenth page whereof he is faid "to have infulted people on thofe calamities and diseases which he himself gave them, by adminiftring Poison to them" and is called (p. 4.) "a lurking way-laying coward, and a ftabber in the dark." Which (with many other things most lively fet forth in that piece) muft have rendered him a terror, not to Mr. Dennis only, but to all chriftian people. This charitable warning only provoked our incorrigible Poet to write the following Epigram: Should Dennis publish, you had ftabb'd your Brother, Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad: fword you your fcorn to draw: Uncag'd then let the harmless monfter rage, Secure in dulnefs, madness, want, and age. For the reft; Mr. John Dennis was the son of a Sadler, in London, born in 1657. He paid court to Mr. Dryden: and having obtained fome correspondence with Mr. Wycherley and Mr. Congreve, he immediately obliged the public with their Letters. He made himself known to the Government by many admirable schemes and projects; which the Ministry, for reasons best known to themselves, conftantly kept private. For his character, as a writer, it is given us as follows: "Mr. Dennis is excellent at Pindaric writings, perfectly regular in all his performances, and a perfon of found Learning. That he is mafter of a great deal of Penetration and Judgment, his criticisms (particularly on Prince Arthur) do fufficiently demonstrate." From the fame account it also appears that he writ Plays to get Reputation than Money." DENNIS of himself. See Giles Jacob's Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 63, 69. compared with p. 286. W. more The most candid and ample account of Dennis is given in the New Edition of the Biographia Britannica by Dr. Kippis. Now (fhame to Fortune!) an ill Run at Play Blank'd his bold visage, and a thin Third day: Swearing VARIATIONS. Var. Tibbald] Yet this Tibbald, contemptible as he is here represented to be, was affifted in his edition of Shakespeare by Warburton, published in fix volumes octavo; and he mentions, as he well might, Warburton's affiftance, as a great fupport of his work. This edition of Tibbald was juftly esteemed the best, till thofe of Malone and Stevens appeared. REMARKS. W. VER. 109. Bays, form'd by nature, &c.] It is hoped the poet here hath done full justice to his Hero's character, which it were a great mistake to imagine was wholly funk in ftupidity: he is allowed to have fupported it with a wonderful mixture of Vivacity. This character is heightened according to his own defire, in a Letter he wrote to our author. "Pert and dull at least you might have allowed me. What! am I only to be dull, and dull ftill, and again, and for ever?" He then folemnly appealed to his own confcience, "that he could not think himself fo, nor believe that our Poet did; but that he spoke worse of him than he could poffibly think; and concluded it must be merely to show his Wit, or for fome Profit or Lucre to himself.” chap. vii. and Letter to Mr. P. pag. 15, 40, 53. his claim to what the Poet was fo unwilling to allow him, of being pert as well as dull, he declares he will have the last word; which occafioned the following Epigram: Life of C. C. Quoth Cibber to Pope, Tho' in verse you foreclose, I'll have the last Word; for, by G—, I'll write prose. For know, the last Word is the Word that lasts longeft. W. It is a fingular fact in the History of the English Stage, that the very first comedy, acted after the libertine times of the restoration, in which any decency, purity of manners, and respect to the honour of the marriage-bed, were preserved, was this very Cibber's Love's Laft Shift. It was received with the greatest applaufe, particularly the scene of reconcilement in the last act. The candid Abbè d'Olivet in tom. ii. of his pleafing History of the French Academy, page 145. has zealously defended the abilities and character of Chapelain, the Cibber of Boileau. It was at the defire of Malherbe and Vaugelas that Chapelain wrote JOL. V. H the Swearing and fupperless the Hero fate, 115 Blafphem'd his Gods, the Dice, and damn'd his Fate. Then gnaw'd his Pen, then dash'd it on the ground, Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound! Plung'd for his fenfe, but found no bottom there, Yet wrote and flounder'd on, in mere defpair. 120 Round him much Embryo, much Abortion lay, Much future Ode, and abdicated Play; VARIATIONS. Nonfenfe VER. 121. Round him much Embryo, &c.] In the former Editions thus, He roll'd his eyes that witnefs'd huge difmay, IMITATIONS. Var. He roll'd his eyes that witness'd huge difmay,] “ round he throws his eyes, W. That witness'd huge affliction and difmay." MILT. b. i. The progress of a bad poet in his thoughts being (like the progress of the Devil in Milton) through a Chaos, might probably suggest this imitation. REMARKS. W. the famous preface to the Adone of Marino. And it was he who corrected the very firft compofition of Racine, whofe Ode to the new Queen introduced him to Colbert, and procured him a penfion. And it is remarkable, that Chapelain fhould be the person who first pointed out to Cardinal Richlieu, and the poets whom he employed, the neceffity of observing the Three Unities in a drama. It is obfervable that Boileau at first had introduced Pelletier into his fatires; and afterwards inferted the name of Collitet, in lines inapplicable to the latter. So unlucky were both these great poets, in the changes they made of the objects of their fatire! Nonfenfe precipitate, like running Lead, That flip'd thro' Cracks and Zig-zags of the Head; Fruits of dull Heat, and Sooterkins of Wit. Next o'er his Books his eyes began to roll, In pleafing memory of all he ftole, 125 How here he fipp'd, how there he plunder'd fnug, There hapless Shakespear, yet of Tibbald fore, REMARKS. The VER. 118. Sinking from thought] From Lord Rochester on man, "Stumbling from thought to thought." — VER. 125. All that on Folly] "To dwell too much on the Follies, Blunders, and Blemishes, of bad and despicable Dunces, (says Plutarch with his ufual humanity), reminds one of Philip's project of collecting together all the most abandoned and incorrigible villains he could find, to people a new city which he had built, and called Poneropolis." VER. 129. How here he fipp'd,] Congreve borrowed much from Ben Johnson, (of whom he was remarkably fond), particularly the character of Bluff, and the first scene of the fifth Act of the Way of the World, betwixt Lady Wishfort and her Maid Foible; where the minutely defcribes her former way of life, and upbraids her for ingratitude, evidently from the fcene betwixt the two fharpers, Subtle and Face, in the Alchymift. VER. 131. Poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes,] A great number of them taken out to patch up his plays. W. VER. 132. The Frippery]" When I fitted up an old play, it was as a good housewife will mend old linen, when she has not better employment." Life, p. 217, Octavo. W. VER. 133. Haplefs Shakespear, &c.] It is not to be doubted but Bays was a fubfcriber to Tibbald's Shakespear. He was H 2 frequently 1437671 The reft on Out-fide merit but prefume, 135 Or ferve (like other Fools) to fill a room; REMARKS. frequently liberal this way; and, as he tells us, " fubfcribed to Mr. Pope's Homer, out of pure Generofity and Civility; but when Mr. Pope did fo to his Nonjuror, he concluded it could be nothing but a joke." Letter to Mr. P. p. 24. This Tibbald, or Theobald, published an edition of Shakespear, of which he was fo proud himself as to fay, in one of Mist's Journals, June 8, "That to expofe 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 ftill give above five hundred Emendations, that shall escape them all.” W. VER. 134. Wish'd he had blotted] It was a ridiculous praise which the Players gave to Shakespear, "that he never blotted a line." Ben Johnson honestly wished he had blotted a thousand; and Shakespear would certainly have wifhed the fame, if he had lived to fee thofe alterations in his works, which, not the Actors only (and especially the daring Hero of this Poem) have made on the Stage, but the prefumptuous Critics of our days in their Editions. W. VER. 135. The rest on Out-fide merit, &c.] This Library is divided into three parts; the first consists of those authors from whom he ftole, and whofe works he mangled; the fecond, of fuch as fitted the fhelves, or were gilded for fhew, or adorned with pictures; the third clafs our author calls folid learning, old Bodies of Divinity, old Commentaries, old English Printers, or old English Translations; all very voluminous, and fit to erect altars to Dulnefs. W. These fix lines are below the usual vein of our author; and the note upon them is very forced and unnatural. The prints in Ogilby's China, many of them by Hollar, atone for the page. Dryden used to fay that Quarles excelled him in a facility of rhyming. |