O thou! of business the directing soul !

To this our head like bias to the bowl,

170

Which, as more ponderous, made its aim more true,
Obliquely waddling to the mark in view:
O! ever gracious to perplex'd mankind,
Still spread a healing mist before the mind;
And lest we err by wit's wild dancing light,
Secure us kindly in our native night.

180

Or, if to wit, a coxcomb make pretence,
Guard the sure barrier between that and sense;
Or quite unravel all the reas'ning thread,
And hang some curious cobweb in its stead!
As, forc'd from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And pond'rous slugs cut swiftly through the sky:
As clocks to weight their nimble motions owe,
The wheels above urg'd by the load below:
Me Emptiness and Dulness could inspire,
And were my elasticity and fire.

Some demon stole my pen (forgive th' offence)
And once betray'd me into common sense:

Else all my prose and verse were much the same;
This, prose on stilts; that, poetry fall'n lame. 190
Did on the stage my fops appear confin'd?
My life gave ampler lessons to mankind.
Did the dead letter unsuccessful prove?
The brisk example never fail'd to move.

REMARKS.

trance upon the stage in a sedan, brought in by two chairmen, with infinite approbation of the audience.

Ver. 178, 179. Guard the sure barrier--Or quite unravel, &c.] For wit or reasoning are never greatly hurtful to dulness, but when the first is founded in truth, and the other in usefulness.

Ver. 181. As, forc'd from wind-guns, &c.] The thought of these four verses is founded in a poem of our author's, of a very early date (namely, writ ten at fourteen years old, and soon after printed), to the author of a poem called Successio.

Yet sure had Heaven decreed to save the state,
Heaven had decreed these works a longer date.
Could Troy be sav'd by any single hand,

200

This grey-goose weapon must have made her stand.
What can I now? my Fletcher cast aside,
Take up the Bible, once my better guide?
Or tread the path by vent'rous heroes trod,
This box my thunder, this right hand my god?

REMARKS.

Ver. 198.-grey-goose weapon] Alluding to the old English weapon, the arrow of the long bow, which was fletched with the feathers of the greygoose.

Ver. 199. my Fletcher] A familiar manner of speaking, used by modern critics, of a favourite author. Bays might as justly speak this of Fletcher, as a French wit did of Tully, seeing his works in a library, Ah! mon cher Ciceron! je le connois bien; c'est le meme que Marc Tulle.' But he had a better title to call Fletcher his own, having made so free with him.

Ver. 200. Take up the Bible, once my better guide?] When according to his father's intention, he had been a clergyman, or (as he thinks himself) a bishop of the church of England. Hear his own words: At the time that the fate of king James, the prince of Orange, and myself, were on the anvil, Providence thought fit to postpone mine, till theirs were determined: but had my father carried me a month sooner to the university, who knows but that purer fountain might have washed my imperfections into a capacity of writing, instead of plays and annual odes, sermons, and pastoral letters?" Apology for his Life, chap. iii.

Ver. 203. at White's amidst the doctors] These doctors had a modest and upright appearance, no air of over-bearing; but, like true masters of arts, were only habited in black and white: they were

Or chair'd at White's, amidst the doctors sit,
Teach oaths to gamesters, and to nobles wit?
Or bidst thou rather party to embrace?
(A friend to party thou, and all her race;
'Tis the same rope at diff'rent ends they twist;
To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist).
Shall I, like Curtius, desp'rate in my zeal,
O'er head and ears plunge for the commonweal?
Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,
And cackling save the monarchy of Tories?

REMARKS.

209

justly styled subtiles and graves, but not always ir refragibiles, being sometimes examined, and by a nice distinction, divided and laid open.

SCRIBL.

This learned critic is to be understood allegori-, cally. The doctors in this place mean no more than false dice, a cant phrase used among gamesters. So the meaning of these four sonorous lines is only this *Shall I play fair or foul?'

Ver. 208. Ridpath---Mist.] George Ridpath, author of a Whig paper, called the Flying-post; Nathaniel Mist of a famous Tory journal.

Ver. 211. Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,] Relates to the well-known story of the geese that sav'd the Capitol; of which Virgil, En. viii.

Atque hic auratis volitans argenteus anse

Porticibus, Gallos in limine adesse canebat.

A passage I have always suspected. Who sees not the antithesis of auratis and argenteus to be un worthy the Virgilian majesty? And what absurdity to say a goose sings? canebat. Virgil gives a contrary character of the voice of this silly bird, in Ecl. ix.

-argutos inter strepere anser olores. Read it, therefore, adesse strepebat. And why au

Hold-to the minister I more incline;

To serve his cause, O queen! is serving thine.
And see! thy very Gazetteers give o'er,

Ev'n Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more.
What then remains? Ourself. Still, still remain
Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain.

REMARKS.

ratis porticibus? does not the very verse preceding this inform us,

Romuleoque recens horrebat regia culmo.

Is this thatch in one line, and gold in another, consistent? I scruple not (repugnantibus omnibus manuscriptis) to correct it auritis. Horace uses the same epithet in the same sense,

Auritas fidibus canoris.

Ducere quercus.

And to say that walls have ears is common even to a proverb.

SCRIBL.

Ver. 212. And cackling save the monarchy of Tories Not out of any preference or affection to the Tories. For what Hobbes so ingenuously con. fesses of himself, is true of all ministerial writers whatsoever: That he defends the supreme powers, as the geese by their cackling defended the Romans, who held the Capitol; for they favoured them no more than the Gauls, their enemies, but were as ready to have defended the Gauls, if they had been possessed of the Capitol.'

Epist. Dedic. to the Leviathan. Ver. 215. Gazetteers]. A band of ministerial writers, hired at the price mentioned in the note on book ii. ver. 316. who, on the very day their patron quitted his post, laid down their paper, and declared they would never more meddle in poli

tics.

Ver. 218. Cibberian forehead,] So indeed all the MSS. read; but I make no scruple to pronounce

220

This brazen brightness, to the 'squire so dear;
This polish'd hardness, that reflects the peer:
This arch absurd, that wit and fool delights;
This mess, toss'd up of Hockley-hole and White's ;
Where dukes and butchers join to wreathe my crown,
At once the bear and fiddle of the town.

O born in sin, and forth in folly brought!

Works damn'd, or to be damn'd! (your father's fault)
Go, purified by flames, ascend the sky,
My better and more Christian progeny!

Unstain'd, untouch'd, and yet in maiden sheets;
While all your smutty sisters walk the streets.

REMARKS.

230

them all wrong, the laureate being elsewhere celebrated by our poet for his great modesty-modest Cibber-Read, therefore, at my peril, Cerberian forehead. This is perfectly classical, and, what is more, Homerical; the dog was the ancient, as the bitch is the modern, symbol of impudence: (Kuvòs öupar' exwv, says Achilles to Agamemnon) which, when in a superlative degree, may well be denomi nated from Cerberus, the dog with three heads.--But as to the latter part of this verse, Cibberian brain, that is certainly the genuine reading.

BENTL

Ver. 225, O born in sin, &c.] This is a tender and passionate apostrophe to his own works, which he is going to sacrifice, agreeable to the nature of man in great affliction; and reflecting, like a parent, on the many miserable fates to which they would otherwise be subject.

Ver. 228. My better and more Christian progeny !] It may be observable, that my muse and my spouse were equally prolific; that the one was seldom the mother of a child, but in the same year the other made me the father of a play. I think we had a dozen of each sort between us; of both which kinds some died in their infancy,' &c. Life of C. C. p. 217. 8vo. edit.