140

When, lo! a spectre rose, whose index hand
Held forth by virtue of the dreadful wand;
His beaver'd brow a birchen garland wears,
Dropping with infant's blood, and mother's tears.
O'er ev'ry vein a shudd'ring horror runs ;
Eaton and Winton shake through all their sons.
All flesh is humbled, Westminster's bold race
Shrink, and confess the genius of the place:
The pale boy-senator yet tingling stands,

And holds his breeches close with both his hands.
Then thus, since man from beast by words is known,
Words are man's province, words we teach alone.
When reason doubtful, like the Samian letter,
Points him two ways, the narrower is the better.
Plac'd at the door of learning, youth to guide,
We never suffer it to stand too wide.

151

To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence,
As fancy opens the quick springs of sense,
We ply the memory, we load the brain,
Bind rebel wit, and double chain on chain,
Confine the thought, to exercise the breath;
And keep them in the pale of words till death. 160

REMARKS.

effects which a pretence to learning, and a pretence to wit, have on blockheads. For as judgement consists in finding out the differences in things, and wit in finding out their likenesses, so the dunce is all discord and dissension, and constantly busied in reproving, examining, confuting, &c. while the fop flourishes in peace, with songs and hymns of praise, addresses, characters, epithalamiums, &c.

Ver. 140. the dreadful wand;] A cane usually borne by schoolmasters, which drives the poor souls about like the wand of Mercury. SCRIBL.

Ver. 151. like the Samian letter,] The letter Y used by Pythagoras, as an emblem of the different roads of virtue and vice.

Et tibi quæ Samios diduxit litera ramos. Pers.

Whate'er the talents, or howe'er design'd,
We hang one jingling padlock on the mind:
A poet the first day he dips his quill;
And what the last? a very poet still.

Pity! the charm works only in our wall,
Lost, lost too soon in yonder house or hall.
There truant Windham ev'ry muse gave o'er,
There Talbot sunk, and was a wit no more!
How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast!
How many Martials were in Pulteney lost!
Else sure some bard, to our eternal praise,
In twice ten thousand rhyming nights and days,
Had reach'd the work, the all that mortal can;
And South beheld that master-piece of man.

170

· Oh,' cried the goddess, for some pedant reign! Some gentle James, to bless the land again;

REMARKS.

Ver. 174. that master-piece of man.] Viz. an epigram. The famous Dr. South declared a perfect epigram to be as difficult à performance as an epic poem. And the critics say, 'An epic poem is the greatest work human nature is capable of.'

Ver. 176. Some gentle James, &c.] Wilson tells us that this king, James the first, took upon himself to teach the Latin tongue to Car, earl of Somerset ; and that Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, would speak false Latin to him, on purpose to give him the pleasure of correcting it, whereby he wrought himself into his good graces.

This great prince was the first who assumed the title of sacred majesty, which his loyal clergy transferred from God to him. The principles of passive obedience and non-resistance,' says the author of the Dissertation on Parties, Letter 8, which be fore his time had skulked, perhaps, in some old ho mily, were talked, written, and preached into vogue in that inglorious reign.

To stick the doctor's chair into the throne,
Give law to words, or war with words alone.
Senates and courts with Greek and Latin rule,
And turn the council to a grammar school!
For sure, if Dulness sees a grateful day,
Tis in the shade of arbitrary sway.

O! if my sons may learn one earthly thing,
Teach but that one, sufficient for a king;

180

That which my priests, and mine alone, maintain,
Which, as it dies, or lives, we fall, or reign:
May you, my Cam, and Isis, preach it long,
The right divine of kings to govern wrong."
Prompt at the call, around the goddess roll
Broad hats, and hoods, and caps, a sable shoal: 190
Thick and more thick the black blockade extends,
A hundred head of Aristotle's friends.

Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day,
[Though Christ-church long kept prudishly away.]
Each staunch polemic, stubborn as a rock,
Each fierce logician, still expelling Locke,
Came whip and spur, and dash'd through thin and
thick

On German Crouzaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck.

REMARKS.

Ver. 194. Though Christ-church, &c.] This line is doubtless spurious, and foisted in by the impertinence of the editor; and accordingly we have put it in between hooks. For I affirm this college came as early as any other, by its proper deputies; nor did any college pay homage to Dulness in its whole body. BENTL.

Ver. 196. still expelling Locke,] In the year 1703 there was a meeting of the heads of the university of Oxford to censure Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, and to forbid the reading of it. See his Letters in the last edit.

Ver. 198. On German Crouzaz and Dutch Burgersdyck.] There seems to be an improbability that

As many quit the streams that murmuring fall
To Iull the sons of Margaret and Clare-hall,

REMARKS.

200

the doctors and heads of houses should ride on horseback, who of late days, being gouty or unwieldy, have kept their coaches. But these are horses of great strength, and fit to carry any weight, as their German and Dutch extraction may manifest; and very famous we may conclude, being honoured with names, as were the horses Pegasus and Bucephalus. SCRIBL.

Though I have the greatest deference to the pe netration of this eminent scholiast, and must own that nothing can be more natural than that rule of criticism, which directs us to keep to the literal sense, when no apparent absurdity accompanies it (and sure there is no absurdity in supposing a logician on horseback), yet still I must needs think the hackneys here celebrated were not real horses, nor even Centaurs, which, for the sake of the learned Chiron, I should rather be inclined to think, if I were forced to find them four legs, but downright plain men, though logicians: and only thus metamorphosed by a rule of rhetoric, of which Cardinal Perron gives us an example, where he calls Clavius, Un esprit pesant, lourd, sans subtilite, ni gentillesse, un gros cheval d'Allemagne.'

Here I profess to go opposite to the whole stream of commentators. I think the poet only aimed, though awkwardly, at an elegant Græcism in this representation; for in that language the word [horse] was often prefixed to others, to denote greatness of strength; as ἱππολάπαθον, ἵππόγλωσ σον, ἱππομάραθρον, and particularly ΙΠΠΟΓΝΩ MSN, a great connoisseur, which comes nearest to the case in hand. SCIP. MAFF. Ver. 199. the streams] The river Cam, running by

Where Bentley late tempestuous wont to sport
In troubled waters, but now sleeps in port.
Before them march'd that awful Aristarch;
Plow'd was his front with many a deep remark:
His hat, which never vail'd to human pride,
Walker with rev'rence took, and laid aside.
Low bow'd the rest: he, kindly, did but nod:
So upright quakers please both man and God.
Mistress! dismiss that rabble from your throne:
Avauntis Aristarchus yet unknown?
The mighty scholiast, whose unwearied pains
Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton's strains.
Turn what they will to verse, their toil is vain,
Critics like me shall make it prose again.

REMARKS.

210

the walls of these colleges, which are particularly famous for their skill in disputation.

Ver. 202. sleeps in port.] Viz. Now retired into harbour, after the tempests that had long agitated his society.' So Scriblerus. But the learned Scipio Maffei understands it of a certain wine called port, from Oporto, a city of Portugal, of which this professor invited him to drink abundantly. Scip. Maff. De Compotation. Academicis. [And to the opinion of Maffei inclineth the sagacious annotator on Dr. King's Advice to Horace.]

Ver. 210. Aristarchus.] A famous commentator and corrector of Homer, whose name has been frequently used to signify a complete critic. The compliment paid by our author to this eminent professor, in applying to him so great a name, was the reason that he hath omitted to comment on this part which contains his own praises. We shall, therefore, supply that loss to our best ability. SCRIBL.

Ver. 214. Critics like me--] Alluding to two famous editions of Horace and Milton; whose richest veins of poetry he had prodigally reduced to the poorest and most beggarly prose.--Verily the learn