O! when shall rife a Monarch all our own, And I, a Nurfing mother, rock the throne; 'Twixt Prince and People close the Curtain draw, Shade him from Light, and cover him from Law; Fatten the Courtier, ftarve the learned band, And fuckle Armies, and dry-nurse the land; Till Senates nod to Lullabies divine, And all be sleep, as at an Ode of thine. 315 She ceas'd. Then fwells the Chapel-royal throat: God fave king Cibber! mounts in ev'ry note. 320 REMARKS. When the Statute against Gaming was drawn up, it was represented, that the King, by ancient cuflom, plays at Hazard one night in the year; and therefore a clause was inferted, with an exception as to that particular. Under this pretence, the Groom-porter had a Room appropriated to Gaming all the fummer the court was at Kenfington, which his Majesty accidentally being acquainted of, with a juft indignation prohibited. It is reported the fame practice is yet continued wherever the Court refides, and the Hazard Table there open to all the profeffed Gamesters in town. Greatest and jufteft Sov'REIGN; know you this? IMITATIONS. VER. 311. O! when shall rife a Monarch, &c.] Boileau, Lutrin, Chant. II. Helas! qu'eft devenu ce tems, cet heureux tems, Familjar White's, God fave king Colly! cries; So when Jove's block descended from on high (As fings thy great forefather Ogilby) REMARK S. 325 used in the fervice of the Chapel-royal being alfo employ. ed in the performance of the Birth-day and New-year Odes. VER. 324. But pious Needham] A Matron of great Fame, and very religious in her way; whofe conftant prayer it was, that he might "get enough by her profeffion to leave it off in time, and make her peace with God." But her fate was not fo happy; for being convicted, and fet in the pillory, she was (to the lafting shame of all her great Friends and Votaries) fo ill ufed by the populace, that it put an end to her days VER. 325. Back to the Devil] The Devil Tavern in Fleet-ftreet, where these Odes are usually rehearsed before they are performed at Court. Upon which a Wit of thofe times made this Epigram, When Laureates make odes, do you ask of what fort! Do you ask if they're good, or are evil ? You may judge-From the Devil they come to the Court, And go from the Court to the Devil. VER. 328.--Ogilby)-God farve king Log!] See Ogilby's fop's Fables, where in the ftory of the Frogs and their King, this excellent hemiftic is to be found, Our author manifefts here, and elsewhere, a prodigious tenderness for the bad writers. We fee he felects the only good passage, perhaps, in all that ever Ogilby writ ; Loud thunder to its bottom fhook the bog, And the hoarse nation croak'd, God fave king Log!330 REMA which fhews how candid and patient a reader he muft have been. What can be more kind and affectionate than these words in the preface to his Poems, where he labours to call up all our humanity and forgiveness toward these unlucky men, by the most moderate reprefentation of their cafe that has ever been given by any author?" Much may be faid to extenuate the fault of bad "poets: What we call a genius is hard to be distinguish"ed, by a man himself, from a prevalent inclination: "And if it be never fo great, he can at first discover it no other way than by that ftrong propenfity which ren"ders him the more liable to be mistaken. He has no "other method but to make the experiment, by writing, " and fo appealing to the judgment of others; And if he happens to write ill (which is certainly no fin in itself) "he is immediately made the object of ridicule! I wish "we had the humanity to reflect, that even the worst "authors might endeavour to please us, and, in that en"deavour, deferve fomething at our hands. We have "no caufe to quarrel with them, but for their obftinacy " in perfifting, and even that may admit of alleviating "circumstances: For their particular friends may be "either ignorant, or unfincere; and the rest of the world "too well bred to fhock them with a truth which gene"rally their bookfellers are the first that inform them of." But how much all indulgence is loft upon these people may appear from the juft reflection made on their conftant conduct and conftant fate, in the following Epigram: "Ye little Wits, that gleam'd a while, "How foon ye fade away! "To compafs Phoebus' car about, "Thus empty vapours rise; "Each lends his cloud, to put him out, "That rear'd him to the skies. "Alas! those skies are not your sphere; "There He fhall ever burn: Weep, weep, and fall! for Earth ye were, "And muft to Earth return. The END of the FIRST BOOK. THE DUNCIA D. BOOK the SECOND. ARGUMENT. The King being proclaimed, the folemnity is graced with public Games and sports of various kinds ; not inftituted by the Hero, as by Æneas in Virgil, but for greater honour by the Goddess in perfon (in like manner as the games Pythia, Ifthmia, &c. were anciently faid to be ordained by the Gods, and as Thetis herself appearing, according to Homer, Ody. xxiv. propofed the prizes in honour of her fon Achilles.) Hither flock the Poets and Critics, attended, as is but juft, with their Patrons and Bookfellers. The Goddess is first pleased, for her difport, to propofe games to the Bookfellers, and fetteth up the Phantom of a Poet, which they contend to overtake. The Races defcribed, with their divers accidents. Next, the game for a Poetess. Then follow the Exercises for the Poets of tickling, vociferating, diving: The first bolds forth the arts and practices of Dedicators, the |