o to my person pay their court: race, and, tho' lean, am short; 116 n one shoulder had too high, , and "Sir! you have an Eye."creatures, make me see, my Betters, met in me. 120 shape, which You and Curl admire, mmon's son, but from my Sire+: if you'll the truth excuse, for a sign. + His Father was crooked. s much afflicted with head-aches. o to my person] The smallest personal ling some fastidious writers may think g in eminent men. Hence is MonPlutarch in his Lives so interesting Addison says in jest, and with his "I have observed that a reader pleasure till he knows whether the an, of a mild or choleric disposition, hat passages in Horace are more us he was fat and sleek, "præcanum, ger, but soon appeased. And again, gives of his way of life, the descriper, his supper, his furniture, his amuseof bathing and sleeping, from the 105th h satire of the first book. And Boileau, His very Minister who spy'd them first (Some say his Queen), was forc'd to speak, or burst. And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case, When ev'ry cox comb perks them in my face? A. Good friend, forbear! you deal in dang'rous things. 75 I'd never name Queens, Ministers, or Kings; You think this cruel? take it for a rule, 80 84 NOTES. Ver. 72. Queen,] The story is told, by some, of his Barber, but by Chaucer, of his Queen. See Wife of Bath's Tale in Dryden's Fables. P. Ver. 75. Good Friend, forbear!] Dr. Hurd, in the Dialogue on the Age of Queen Elizabeth, has supported the character of Arbuthnot with more spirit and propriety than is done in this Epistle. Ver. 79. Out with it, DUNCIAD!] "Had Mr. Pope," says Mr. Mason, "sat as easy to the sarcasms of the many writers that endeavoured to eclipse his poetical fame, as Mr. Gray appears to have done with respect to the parodies on his Odes, the world would not have been possessed of a Dunciad; but it would have been impressed with a more amiable idea of its author's temper." Ver. 80. That secret to each fool that he's an Ass :] i. e. that his ears (his marks of folly) are visible. W. Ver. 86. the mighty crack:] A parody on Addison's translation of Horace, Ode iii. b. 3. Pit, box, and gall'ry, in convulsions hurl'd, 90 Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world. NOTES. "Should the whole frame of Nature round him break She unconcern'd would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world.” On which lines he observes, in the Bathos, "Sometimes a single word (as crack) will vulgarize a poetical idea." Ver. 90. He spins the slight,] Berkeley, who had a brilliant fancy, has employed an image of this sort on a more serious subject in his Alciphron: “To tax or strike at a divine doctrine, on account of things foreign and adventitious, the speculations and disputes of curious men, is in my mind, an absurdity of the same kind as it would be to cut down a fine tree yielding fruit and shade, because its leaves afforded nourishment to caterpillars, or because spiders may weave cobwebs among the branches." The metaphor in our Author is most happily carried on through a variety of corresponding particulars that exactly hit the nature of the two insects in question. It is not pursued too far, nor jaded out, so as to become quaint and affected, as is the case of many in Congreve's too witty comedies, particularly in the Way of the World, and in Young's Satires. For instance: "Critics on verse, as squibs on triumphs, wait, Burn, hiss, and bounce, waste paper, stink, and die! The epithets, envious and proud, have nothing to do with squibs. The last line is brilliant and ingenious, but perhaps too much so. ALLUSION. Ver. 88. "Si fractus illabatur orbis, Impavidum ferient ruine." Hor. P. |