And high-born Howard, more majestic sire, 297 'Oh! when shall rise a monarch all our own, 311 And I, a nursing-mother, rock the throne; "Twixt prince and people close the curtain draw, Shade him from light, and cover him from law; Fatten the courtier, starve the learned band, And suckle armies, and dry-nurse the land: Till senates nod to lullabies divine, And all be sleep, as at an ode of thine?' REMARKS. 297 Howard.] Hon. Edward Howard, author of the British Princes, and a great number of wonderful pieces, celebrated by the late Earls of Dorset and Rochester, Duke of Buckingham, Mr. Waller, &c. 311 ! when shall rise a monarch, &c.] Boileau, Lutrin, chant ii. 'Helas! qu'est devenu ce tems, cet heureux tems, The goddess then o'er his anointed head, With mystic words, the sacred opium shed. 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 promised land expects thy reign. Known 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,296 REMARKS. purse of guineas, for discovering the erroneous translations of the Common Prayer in Portuguese, 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 Lutrin, 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. Toland 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. Toland, and Mr. Gildon. W. 296 Withers was a great pretender to poetical zeal against the vices of the times, and abused the greatest personages in power, which brought upon him frequent correction. The Marshalsea and Newgate were no strangers to him, Winstanley. 296 Gildon.] Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels, of 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 Curl: in another, called The New Rehearsal, printed in 1714; in a third, entitled The Complete Art of English Poetry, in two volumes; and others. W. BOOK II. Argument. The King being proclaimed, the solemnity is graced with public games and sports of various kinds; not instituted by the hero, as by Æneas in Virgil, but for greater honour by the goddess in person (in like manner as the games Pythia, Isthmia, &c. were anciently said to be ordained by the gods, and as Thetis herself appearing, according to Homer, Odyssey XXIV. proposed the prizes in honour of her son Achilles). Hither flock the poets and critics, attended, as is but just, with their patrons and booksellers. The goddess is first pleased, for her disport, to propose games to the booksellers, and setteth up the phantom of a poet, which they contend to overtake. The races described, with their divers accidents. Next, the game for a poetess. Then follow the exercises for the poets, of tickling, vociferating, diving; the first holds forth the arts and practices of dedicators, the second of disputants and fustian poets, the third of profound, dark, and dirty party writers. Lastly, for the critics the goddess proposes (with great propriety) an exercise, not of their parts, but their patience, in bearing the works of two voluminous authors, the one in verse, and the other in prose, deliberately read, without sleeping the various effects of which, with the several degrees and manners of their operation, are here set forth, till the whole number, not of critics only, but of spectators, actors, and all present, fall fast asleep; which naturally and necessarily ends the games. HIGH on a gorgeous seat, that far outshone REMARKS. 2 Henley.] Orator Henley-See Book III. ver. 199. 2 Fleckno's Irish throne.] Richard Fleckno was an Irish priest, but had laid aside (as himself expressed it) the mechanic part of priesthood. He printed some plays, poems, IMITATIONS. 1 High on a gorgeous seat.] Parody of Milton, Book II. High on a throne of royal state, that far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or that where on her Curls the public pours, 3 Not with more glee, by hands pontific crown'd, With scarlet hats wide-waving circled round, Rome in her Capitol saw Querno sit, 15 Throned on seven hills, the antichrist of wit. REMARKS. letters, and travels. I doubt not our author took occasion to mention him in respect to the poem of Mr. Dryden, to which this bears some resemblance, though of a character more different from it than that of the Æneid from the Iliad, or the Lutrin of Boileau from the Defaite des Bouts rimés of Sarazin. W. 3 Edmund Curl, stood in the pillory at Charing Cross, March, 1727-8. 15 Camillo Querno was of Apulia, who, hearing the great encouragement which Leo X. gave to poets, travelled to Rome with a harp in his hand, and sung to it twenty thousand verses of a poem called Alexias. He was introduced as a buffoon to Leo, and promoted to the honour of the laurel; a jest which the court of Rome and the Pope himself entered into so far, as to cause him to ride on an elephant to the Capitol, and to hold a solemn festival on his coronation; at which, it is recorded, the poet himself was so transported as to weep for joy*. He was ever after a constant fre IMITATIONS. Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand See Life of C. C. chap. vi. p. 149. And now the Queen, to glad her sons, proclaims By herald hawkers, high heroic games. They summon all her race: an endless band Amid that area wide they took their stand, REMARKS. quenter of the Pope's table, drank abundantly, and poured forth verses without number. Paulus Jovius, Elog. Vir. doct. cap. xxxii. Some idea of his poetry is given by Fam. Strada in his Prolusions. IMITATIONS. W. 35 A poet's form she placed before their eyes.] This is what Juno does to deceive Turnus, Æn. x. 'Tum Dea nube cava, tenuem sine viribus umbram -Dat inania verba, Dat sine mente sonum· The reader will observe how exactly some of these verses suit with their allegorical application here to a plagiary. There seems to me a great propriety in this episode, where such an one is imaged by a phantom that eludes the grasp of the expecting bookseller. W. |