See all her progeny, illustrious sight! Behold, and count them, as they rise to light, 130 Shall take through Grub-street her triumphant round; 140 Mark first that youth who takes the foremost place, And thrusts his person full into your face. With all thy father's virtues blest, be born! And a new Cibber shall the stage adorn, A second see, by meeker manners known, And modest as the maid that sips alone; From the strong fate of drams if thou get free, Another D'Urfey, Ward! shall sing in thee. Thee shall each ale-house, thee eachgill-house mourn, And answering gin-shops sourer sighs return. Jacob, the scourge of grammar, mark with awe; Nor less revere him, blunderbuss of law. REMARKS. 150 set on foot by the first of these classes, the poets, they only are here particularly celebrated, and they only properly fall under the care and review of this colleague of Dulness, the laureate. The others, who finish the great work, are reserved for the fourth book, where the goddess herself appears in full glory. Ver. 149. Jacob, the scourge of grammar, mark with awe;] This gentleman is son of a considerable master of Romsey in Southamptonshire, and bred to the law under a very eminent attorney: who, be tween his more laborious studies, has diverted himself with poetry. He is a great admirer of poets and their works, which has occasioned him to try his genius that way. He has writ in prose the Lives of Lo, P-p-le's brow, tremendous to the town, Horneck's fierce eye, and Roome's funereal frown. REMARKS. the Poets, Essays, and a great many law books, The Accomplished Conveyancer, Modern Justice, &c." Giles Jacob of himself, Lives of Poets, vol. i. He very grossly, and unprovoked, abused in that book the author's friend, Mr. Gay. Ver. 49, 150. Jacob, the scourge of grammar, mark with awe; Nor less revere him, blunderbuss of law.] There may seem some error in these verses, Mr. Jacob having proved our author to have a respect for him, by this undeniable argument: He had once a regard for my judgement; otherwise he never would have subscribed two guineas to me, for one small book in octavo.' Jacob's Letter to Dennis, printed in Dennis's Remarks on the Dunciad, p. 49. Therefore I should think the appellation of blunderbuss to Mr. Jacob, like that of thunderbolt to Scipio, was meant in his honour. Mr. Dennis argues the same way: My writings having made great impression on the minds of all sensible men, Mr. P. repented, and to give proof of his repentance, subscribed to my two volumes of Letters.' Ibid. p. 80. We should hence believe, the name of Mr. Dennis hath also crept into this poem by some mistake. But from hence, gentle reader! thou may'st beware, when thou givest thy money to such authors, not to flatter thyself that thy motives are good-nature or charity. Ver. 152. Horneck and Roome] These two were virulent party-writers. worthily coupled together, and one would think prophetically, since, after the publishing of this piece, the former dying, the latter succeeded him in honour and employment. The first was Philip Horneck, author of a Billingsgate paper, called The High German Doctor. Edward Roome Lo sneering Goode, half malice and half whim, Each cygnet sweet, of Bath and Tunbridge race, Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls, And makes night hideous--Answer him, ye owls! REMARKS. was son of an undertaker for funerals, in Fleet-street, and writ some of the papers called Pasquin, where, by malicious inueudocs, he endeavoured to repre sent our author guilty of malevolent practices with a great man then under prosecution of parliament. Of this man was made the following epigram: You ask why Roome diverts you with his jokes? Yet if he writes, is dull as other folks! You wonder at it-This, sir, is the case, The jest is lost unless he prints his face. P-le was the author of some vile plays and pamphlets. He published abuses on our author in a paper called the Prompter. Ver. 153. Goode,] an ill-natured critic, who writ a satire on our author, called the Mock Æsop, and many anonymous libels in newspapers, for hire. Ver. 156, Whose tuneful whistling makes the waters pass:] There were several successions of these sorts of minor poets at Tunbridge, Bath, &c. singing the praise of the annuals flourishing for that season; whose names, indeed, would be nameless, and therefore the poet slurs them over with others in ge neral. Sense, speech, and measure, living tongues and dead, Let all give way,--and Morris may be read. Flow, Welsted, flow! like thine inspirer, beer; 169 Though stale, not ripe; though thin, yet never clear; REMARKS. Ver. 165. Ralph] James Ralph, a name inserted after the first editions, not known to our author till he writ a swearing piece called Sawney, very abusive of Dr. Swift, Mr. Gay, and himself. These lines allude to a thing of his, entitled Night, a Poem. This low writer attended his own works with panegyrics in the Journals, and once in particular praised him. self highly above Mr. Addison, in wretched remarks upon that author's Account of English Poets, printed in a London Journal, Sept. 1728. He was wholly illiterate, and knew no language, not even French. Being advised to read the rules of dramatic poetry before he began a play, he smiled and replied, ⚫ Shakespeare writ without rules.' He ended at last in the common sink of all such writers, a political newspaper, to which he was recommended by his friend Arnall and received a small pittance for pay. Ver. 168. Morris,] Besaleel. See Book ii. Ver. 169. Flow, Welsted, &c.] Of this author see the Remark on Book ii. v. 209. But (to be impar. tial) add to it the following different character of him: Mr. Welsted had, in his youth, raised so great expectations of his future genius, that there was a kind of struggle between the most eminent of the two universities, which should have the honour of his education. To compound this he (civilly) became a member of both, and after having passed some time at the one, he removed to the other. From thence he returned to town, where he became the darling expectation of all the polite writers, whose encouragement he acknowledged in his occasional So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull ; REMARKS. poems, in a manner that will make no small part of the fame of his protectors. It also appears from his works, that he was happy in the patronage of the most illustrious characters of the present ageEncouraged by such a combination in his favour, he --published a book of poems, some in the Ovidian, some in the Horatian manner; in both which the most exquisite judges pronounce he even rivalled his masters-His love verses have rescued that way of writing from contempt-In his translations, he has given us the very soul and spirit of his author. His Ode--his Epistle-his Verses-his Love-tale-all, are the most perfect things in all poetry. Weisted of himself, Char. of the Times, 8vo. 1728, page 23, 24. It should not be forgot for his honour, that he received at one time the sum of five hundred pounds for secret service, among the other excellent authors hired to write anonymously for the ministry. See Report of the Secret Committee, &c. in 1742. Ver. 173. Ah Dennis! Gildon, ah !] These men be- How parts relate to parts, and they to whole; Whereas had they followed the example of those |