Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland,
Sent with a pass, and vagrant through the land;
Nor sail with Ward, to ape and monkey climes,
Where vile mundungus trucks for viler rhymes:
Not sulphur-tipt, emblaze an ale-house fire;
Nor wrap up oranges, to pelt your sire!
O! pass more innocent, in infant state,
To the mild limbo of our father Tate :
Or peaceably forgot, at once be blest
In Shadwell's bosom with eternal rest!
Soon to that mass of nonsense to return,
Where things destroy'd are swept to things unborn.
With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace !)
Stole from the master of the seven-fold face:
And thrice he lifted high the birth-day brand,
And thrice he dropt it from his quiv'ring hand;
Then lights the structure, with averted eyes:
The rolling smokes involve the sacrifice.

REMARKS.

240

Ver. 233. gratis-given Bland,--Sent with a pass,] It was a practice so to give the Daily Gazetteer and ministerial pamphlets (in which this B. was a writer), and to send them post-free to all the towns in the kingdom.

Ver. 233. -with Ward, to ape and monkey climes,] 'Edward Ward, a very voluminous poet in Hudibrastic verse, but best known by the London Spy, in prose. He has of late years kept a public-house in the city (but in a genteel way), and with his wit, humour, and good liquor (ale), afforded his guests a pleasurable entertainment, especially those of the high church party.' Jacob, Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 225. Great number of his works were yearly sold into the Plantations.-Ward, in a book, called Apollo's Maggot, declared this account to be a great falsity, protesting that his public-house was not in the city, but in Moorfields.

Ver. 238, 240. Tate--Shadwell] Two of his predecessors in the laurel.

The op'ning clouds disclose each work by turns,
Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns;
Great Cæsar roars, and hisses in the fires;
King John in silence modestly expires:
No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims,
Moliere's old stubble in a moment flames.
Tears gush'd again, as from pale Priam's eyes,
When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies.

250

Rous'd by the light, old Dulness heav'd the head, Then snatch'd a sheet of Thule from her bed;

REMARKS.

Ver. 250. Now flames the Cid, &c.] In the first notes on the Dunciad it was said, that this author was particularly excellent at tragedy. This,' says he, is as unjust as to say I could not dance on a rope.' But certain it is, that he had attempted to dance on this rope, and fell most shamefully, having produced no less than four tragedies (the names of which the poet preserves in these few lines); the three first of them were fairly printed, acted, and damned; the fourth suppressed in fear of the like treatment.

Ver. 253, 254. the dear Nonjuror-Moliere's old stubble]. A comedy threshed out of Moliere's Tartuffe, and so much the translator's favourite, that he assures us all our author's dislike to it could only arise from disaffection to the government. He assures us, that when he had the honour to kiss his majesty's hand, upon presenting his dedication of it, he was graciously pleased, out of his royal bounty, to order him two hundred pounds for it. And this he doubts not grieved Mr. P.'

Ver. 258. Thule] An unfinished poem of that name, of which one sheet was printed many years ago, by Ambrose Philips, a northern author. It is an usual method of putting out a fire, to cast wet sheets upon it. Some critics have been of opinion that this sheet was of the nature of the asbestos, which

Sudden she flies, and whelms it o'er the pyre; Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire. 260 Her ample presence fills up all the place;

A veil of fogs dilates her awful face:

Great in her charms! as when on shrieves and

mayors

She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.

She bids him wait her to her sacred dome:
Well pleas'd he enter'd, and confess'd his home.
So, spirits, ending their terrestrial race,
Ascend, and recognize their native place.
This the great mother dearer held than all
The clubs of quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall: 270
Here stood her opium, here she nurs'd her owls,
And here she plann'd th' imperial seat of fools.
Here to her chosen all her works she shows;
Prose swell'd to verse, verse loit'ring into prose :
How random thoughts now meaning chance to find,
Now leave all memory of sense 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:

280

How, with less reading than makes felons 'scape,
Less 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, Shakespeare, and Corneille,
Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell.

REMARKS.

cannot be consumed by fire: but I rather think it an allegorical allusion to the coldness and heaviness of the writing.

Ver. 269. great mother] Magna mater here applied to Dulness. The quidnuncs, a name given to the ancient members of certain political clubs, who were constantly inquiring quid nunc? What news? Ver.286. Tibbald,] Lewis Tibbald (as pronounced)

The goddess then, o'er his anointed head, With mystic words, the sacred opium shed.

REMARKS.

or Theobald (as written) was bred an attorney, and son to an attorney, says Mr. Jacob, of Sittenburn, in Kent. He was author of some forgotten plays, translations, and other pieces. He was concerned in a paper called the Censor, and a translation of Ovid. 'There is a notorious idiot, one hight Wachum, who, from an under-spur-leather to the law, is become an understrapper to the play-house, who hath lately burlesqued the Metamorphoses of Ovid by à vile translation, &c. This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Censor.' Dennis, Rem. on Pope's Hom. p. 9, 10.

Ibid. Ozell.] Mr. John Ozell, if we credit Mr. Jacob, did go to school in Leicestershire, where somebody left him something 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 same by his skill in arithmetic, and writing the necessary hands. He has obliged the world with many translations of French plays.'---Jacob, lives of Dram. Poets, p. 198,

Mr. Jacob's character of Mr. Ozell seems vastly short of his merits, and he ought to have further justice done him, having since fully confuted all sarcasms on his learning and genius, by an adver tisement of Sept. 20, 1729, in a paper called the Weekly Medley, &c. As to my learning, this en vious 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 Por tuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, &c. As for my genius, let Mr. Cleland show better verses in all Pope's works, than Ozell's version of Boileau's Lus

290

And lo! her bird (a monster of a fowl,
Something betwixt a heidegger and owl)
Perch'd on his crown. 'All hail! and hail again,
My son! the promis'd land expects thy reign.
Know, Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise;
He sleeps among the dull of ancient days;
Safe, where no critics damn, no duns molest,
Where wretched Withers, Ward, and Gildon rest,

REMARKS.

trin, which the late lord Halifax was so pleased with, that he complimented him with leave to dedicate it to him, &c. Let him show better and truer poetry in the Rape of the Lock, than in Ozell's Rape of the Bucket (la Secchia rapita).. And Mr. To land and Mr. Gildon publicly declared Ozell's translation of Homer to be, as it was prior, so likewise superior to Pope's.--Surely, surely, every man is free to deserve well of his country!'--John Ozell.

We cannot but subscribe to such reverend testimonies, as those of the bench of bishops, Mr. To land, and Mr. Gildon,

Ver. 290. a heidegger] A strange bird from Switz erland, and not, as some have supposed, the nameof an eminent person who was a man of parts, and, as was said of Petronius, arbiter elegantiarum.

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

Ibid. Gildon] Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels in the last age, bred at St. Omer's with the Jesuits; but renouncing popery, he published Blount's books against the divinity of Christ, the Oracles of Reason, &c. He signalized himself as a critic, having written some very bad plays; abused Mr. P. very scandalously in an anonymous pamphlet of the life of Mr. Wycherley, printed by Curll; in another, called the new rehearsal, printed in 1714; in a third, entitled the complete art of English poetry, in two volumes; and others.