Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines,
Hence journals, medleys, merc'ries, magazines
Sepulchral lies, our holy walls to grace,

And new-year odes, and all the Grub-street race.
In clouded majesty here Dulness shone,

41

Four guardian virtues, round, support her throne:

REMARKS.

Ver. 41. Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines,] It is an ancient English custom for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution at Tyburn; and no less customary to print elegies on their deaths, at the same time, or before.

Ver. 43. Sepulchral lies,] is a just satire on the flatteries and falsehoods admitted to be inscribed on the walls of churches, in epitaphs; which occasioned the following epigram:

Friend! in your epitaphs, I'm griev'd,
So very much is said;

One half will never be believ'd,

The other never read.

Ver.44.-new-year odes.] Made by the poet laureate for the time being, to be sung at court on every new-year's day, the words of which are hap pily drowned in the voices and instruments. The new-year odes of the hero of this work were of a cast distinguished from all that preceded him, and made a conspicuous part of his character as a writer, which doubtless induced our author to mention them here so particularly.

Ver. 45. In clouded majesty here Dulness shone,] See this cloud removed, or rolled back, or gathered up to her head, Book iv. ver. 17, 18. It is worth while to compare this description of the majesty of Dulness in a state of peace and tranquillity, with that more busy scene where she mounts the throne in triumph, and is not so much supported by her own virtues, as by the princely consciousness of hav ing destroyed all other.

Fierce champion Fortitude, that knows no fears
Of hisses, blows, or want, or loss of ears:

Calm Temperance, whose blessings those partake Who hunger, and who thirst, for scribbling' sake: 50 Prudence whose glass presents th' approaching jail: Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale,

Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs, And solid pudding against empty praise.

Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep, Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep, Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day, Call forth each mass, a poem or a play :

60

How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie;
How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry.
Maggots, half-form'd, in rhyme exactly meet,
And learn to crawl upon poetic feet.

Here one poor word a hundred clenches makes,
And ductile Dulness new meanders takes;
There motley images her fancy strike,
Figures ill-pair'd, and similies unlike.
She sees a mob of metaphors advance,
Pleas'd with the madness of the mazy dance;
How tragedy and comedy embrace;
How farce and epic get a jumbled race;

70

How Time himself stands still at her command,
Realms shift their place, and Ocean turns to land;
Here gay description Egypt glads with showers;
Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flowers;
Glitt'ring with ice here hoary hills are seen,
There painted valleys of eternal green,
In cold December fragrant chaplets blow,
And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.

All these, and more, the cloud-compelling queen Beholds through fogs, that magnify the scene.

REMARKS.

80

Ver. 57. genial Jacob] Tonson. The famous race of booksellers of that name.

She, tinsell'd o'er in robes of varying hues,
With self-applause her wild creation views ;
Sees momentary monsters rise and fall,
And with her own fools-colours gilds them all.
"Twas on the day, when ** rich and grave,
Like Cimon triumph'd both on land and wave:
(Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces,
Glad chains, warm furs, broad banners, and broad

faces)

90

Now night descending, the proud scene was o'er,
But liv'd, in Settle's numbers, one day more.
Now mayors and shrieves all hush'd and satiate lay,
Yet eat, in dreams, the custard of the day;
While pensive poets painful vigils keep,

Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.

REMARKS.

Ver. 85, 86. 'Twas on the day, when** rich and grave-Like Cimon triumph'd] Viz. a lord mayor's day; his name the author had left in blanks, but most certainly could never be that which the editor foisted in formerly, and which no way agrees with the chronology of the poem. BENTL.

The procession of a lord mayor is made partly by land, and partly by water-Cimon, the famous Athenian general, obtained a victory by sea, and another by land, on the same day, over the Persians and Barbarians.

Ver. 90. But liv'd, in Settle's numbers, one day more.] A beautiful manner of speaking, usual with poets in praise of poetry.

Ibid. But liv'd in Settle's numbers, one day more.] Settle was poet to the city of London. His office was to compose yearly panegyrics upon the lord mayors, and verses to be spoken in the pageants: but that part of the shows being at length frugally abolished, the employment of city poet ceased; so that upon Settle's demise, there was no successor to that place.

Much to the mindful queen the feast recalls
What city swans once sang within the walls;
Much she revolves their arts, their ancient praise,
And sure succession down from Heywood's days.
She saw, with joy, the line immortal run,
Each sire imprest and glaring in his son:
So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care,
Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear.
She saw old Pryn in restless Daniel shine,
And Eusden eke out Blackmore's endless line:

REMARKS.

100

Ver. 98. John Heywood, whose interludes were printed in the time of Henry VIII.

Ver. 103. Old Pryn in restless Daniel] The first edition had it,

She saw in Norton all his father shine:

a great mistake! for Daniel de Foe had parts, but Norton de Foe was a wretched writer, and never attempted poetry. Much more justly is Daniel himself made successor to W. Pryn, both of whom wrote verses as well as politics; as appears by the poem de Juro Divino, &c. of De Foe, and by some lines in Cowley's Miscellanies on the other. And both these authors had a resemblance in their fates, as well as their writings, having been alike sentenced to the pillory.

Ver. 104. And Eusden eke out, &c.] Laurence Eusden, poet laureate. Mr. Jacob gives a catalogue of some few only of his works, which were very nu- merous. Mr. Cook, in his Battle of Poets, saith of him,

Eusden, a laurell'd bard, by fortune rais'd,
By very few was read, by fewer prais'd.

Mr. Oldmixon, in his Arts of Logic and Rhetoric, p. 413, 414, affirms, That of all the Galimatias he ever met with, none comes up to some verses of this poet, which have as much of the ridiculum

She saw slow Philips creep like Tate's poor page,
And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.

REMARKS.

and the fustian in them as can well be jumbled together, and are of that sort of nonsense, which so perfectly confounds all ideas, that there is no distinct one left in the mind.' Farther he says of him, 'That he hath prophesied his own poetry shall be sweeter than Catullus, Ovid, and Tibullus; but we have lit tle hope of the accomplishment of it, from what he hath lately published.' Upon which Mr. Oldmixon has not spared a reflection, That the putting the laurel on the head of one who writ such verses, will give futurity a very lively idea of the judgement and justice of those who bestowed it.' Ibid. p. 417. But the well-known learning of that noble person, who was then lord chamberlain, might have screened him from this unmannerly reflection. Nor ought Mr. Oldmixon to complain, so long after, that the laurel would have better become his own. brows, or any other's it were more decent to acquiesce in the opinion of the duke of Buckingham upon this matter;

--In rush'd Eusden, and cried, Who shall have it.
But I, the true laureate, to whom the king gave it?
Apollo begg'd pardon, and granted his claim,
But vow'd that till then be ne'er heard of his name.
Session of Poets.

The same plea might also serve for his successor, Mr. Cibber; and is further strengthened in the fol lowing epigram made on that occasion:

In merry Old England it once was a rule,
The king had his poet, and also his fool;

But now we're so frugal, I'd have you to know it, That Cibber can serve both for fool and for poet. Of Blackmore, see Book ii. Of Philips, Book i. ver. 262, and Book iii. prope fin.