Roman and Greek grammarians! know your better:
Author of something yet more great than letter;
While tow'ring o'er your alphabet like Saul,
Stands our digamma, and o'ertops them all.
'Tis true, on words is still our whole debate,
Disputes of Me or Te, or Aut or At,

REMARKS.

220

ed scholiast is grievously mistaken. Aristarchus is not boasting here of the wonders of his art in annihilating the sublime; but of the usefulness of it, in reducing the turgid to its proper class; the words 'make it prose again,' plainly showing that prose it was, though ashamed of its original, and therefore to prose it should return. Indeed, much it is to be lamented that Dulness doth not confine her critics to this useful task; and commission them to dismount what Aristophanes calls Ρημαθ ἱπποβάμονα, all prose on horse-back. SCRIBL.

Ver. 216. Author of something yet more great than letter;] Alluding to those grammarians, such as Palamedes and Simonides, who invented single letters. But Aristarchus, who had found out a double one, was, therefore, worthy of double hoSCRIBL.

nour.

Ver. 217, 218. While tow'ring o'er your alphabet, like Saul,-Stands our digamma,] Alludes to the boasted restoration of the Æolic digamma, in his long projected edition of Homer. He calls it something more than letter, from the enormous figure it would make among the other letters, being one gamma set upon the shoulders of another.

Ver. 220. of Me or Te,] It was a serious dispute, about which the learned were much divided, and some treatises written: had it been about meum and tuum it could not be more contested, than whether at the end of the first Ode of Horace, to read, Me doctarum hedera præmia frontium, or Te doctarum hedera.-By this the learned scholi

1

To sound or sink in cano O or A,
Or give up Cicero to C or K.

Let Freind affect to speak as Terence spoke,
And Alsop never but like Horace joke:
For me, what Virgil, Pliny may deny,
Manilius or Solinus shall supply:
For Attic phrase in Plato let them seek,
I poach in Suidas for unlicens'd Greek.
In ancient sense if any needs will deal,
Be sure I give them fragments, not a meal;

REMARKS.

230

ast would seem to insinuate that the dispute was not about meum and tuum, which is a mistake: for, as a venerable sage observeth, words are the counters of wise-men, but the money of fools; so that we see their property was indeed concerned.

SCRIBL.

Ver. 222. Or give up Cicero to C or K.] Grammatical disputes about the manner of pronouncing Cicero's name in Greek. It is a dispute whether in Latin the name of Hermagoras should end in as or a. Quintilian quotes Cicero as writing it Hermagora, which Bentley rejects, and says Quintilian must be mistaken, Cicero could not write it so, and that in this case he would not believe Cicero himself. These are his very words: Ego vero Ciceronem ita scripsisse ne Ciceroni quidem affirmanti crediderim. Epist. ad Mill. in fin. Frag. Menand. et Phil.

Ver. 223, 224. Freind-Alsop] Dr. Robert Freind, master of Westminster-school, and canon of Christchurch. Dr. Anthony Alsop, a happy imitator of the Horatian style.

Ver. 226. Manilius and Solinus] Some critics having had it in their choice to comment either on Virgil or Manilius, Pliny or Solinus, have chosen the worse author, the more freely to display their critical capacity.

Ver. 228, &c. Suidas, Gellius, Stobæus] The first

What Gellius or Stobæus hash'd before,

Or chew'd by blind old scholiasts o'er and o'er,
The critic eye, that microscope of wit,

Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit:
How parts relate to parts, or they to whole;
The body's harmony, the beaming soul,

Are things which Kuster, Burman, Wasse shall set,
When man's whole frame is obvious to a flea.

Ah, think not, mistress! more true Dulness lies
In Folly's cap, than Wisdom's grave disguise. £40
Like buoys, that never sink into the flood,
On learning's surface we but lie and nod,
Thine is the genuine head of many a house,
And much divinity without a Νους.

Nor could a Barrow work on ev'ry block,
Nor has one Atterbury spoil'd the flock.
See! still thy own, the heavy canon roll,
And metaphysic smokes involve the pole.
For thee we dim the eyes, and stuff the head
With all such reading as was never read:
For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,
And write about it, goddess, and about it:
So spins the silk-worm small its slender store,
And labours, till it clouds itself all o'er.

REMARKS.

250

a dictionary-writer, a collector of impertinent facts and barbarous words; the second a minute critic; the third an author, who gave his common-place book to the public, where we happen to find much mince-meat of old books.

Ver. 245, 246. Barrow, Atterbury] Isaac Barrow, master of Trinity, Francis Atterbury, dean of Christchurch, both great geniuses and eloquent preachers; one more conversant in the sublime geometry, the other in classical learning; but who equally made it their care to advance the polite arts in their several societies.

What though we let some better sort of fool
Thrid ev'ry science, run through ev'ry school?
Never by tumbler through the hoops was shown
Such skill in passing all, and touching none.
He may, indeed (if sober all this time),

Plague with dispute, or persecute with rhyme. 260
We only furnish what he cannot use,

Or wed to what he must divorce, a muse:
Full in the midst of Euclid dip at once,
And petrify a genius to a dunce:

Or set on metaphysic ground to prance,
Show all his paces, not a step advance.
With the same cement, ever sure to bind,
We bring to one dead level ev'ry mind.
Then take him to develop if you can,
And hew the block off, and get out the man.
But wherefore waste I words? I see advance
Whore, pupil, and lac'd governor, from France.

REMARKS.

270

Ver. 272. lac'd governor] Why lac'd? Because gold and silver are necessary trimming to denote the dress of a person of rank, and the governor must be supposed so in foreign countries, to be admitted into courts and other places of fair reception. But how comes Aristarchus to know at sight that this governor came from France? Know? Why, by the laced coat. SCRIBL.

Ibid. Whore, pupil, and lac'd governor,] Some critics have objected to the order here, being of opinion that the governorshould have the precedence before the whore, if not before the pupil. But were he so placed, it might be thought to insinuate, that the governor led the pupil to the whore; and were the pupil placed first, he might be supposed to lead the governor to her. But our impartial poet, as he is drawing their picture, represents them in the order in which they are generally seen; namely, the pu pil between the whore and the governor, but placeth

Walker! our hat-nor more he deign'd to say,
But, stern as Ajax' spectre, strode away.

In flow'd at once a gay embroider'd race,

And titt'ring push'd the pedants off the place:
Some would have spoken, but the voice was drown'
By the French horn, or by the op'ning hound.
The first came forwards, with as easy mien,
As if he saw St. James's and the queen.
When thus th' attendant orator begun,
Receive great empress, thy accomplish'd son:
Thine from the birth, and sacred from the rod,
A dauntless infant! never scar'd with God.
The sire saw, one by one, his virtues wake:
The mother begg'd the blessing of a rake.

REMARKS.

the whore first, as she usually governs both the other.

Ver. 280. As if he saw St. James's] Reflecting on the disrespectful and indecent behaviour of several forward young persons in the presence, so offensive to all serious men, and to none more than the good Scriblerus.

Ver. 281. Th' attendant orator] The governor above-said. The poet gives him no particular name; being unwilling, I presume, to offend or to do injustice to any, by celebrating one only with whom this character agrees, in preference to so many who equally deserve it. SCRIBL.

Ver. 284. A dauntless infant! never scar'd with God.] i.e. Brought up in the enlarged principles of modern education; whose great point is, to keep the infant mind free from the prejudices of opinion, and the growing spirit unbroken by terrifying names. Amongst the happy consequences of this reformed discipline, it is not the least, that we have never afterwards any occasion for the priest, whose trade, as a modern wit informs us, is only to finish what the nurse began. SCRIBL