Tears gufh'd again, as from pale Priam's eyes, 255 When the laft blaze fent Ilion to the fkies. Rouz'd by the light, old Dulness heav'd the head, Then fnatch'd a fheet of Thulè from her bed; Sudden fhe flies, and whelms it o'er the pyre; Down fink the flames, and with a hifs expire. Her ample presence fills up all the place; A veil of fogs dilates her awful face: 260 Great in her charms! as when on Shrieves and May'rs She looks, and breathes herself into their airs. REMARKS. She VER. 255. pale Priam's] Priam was informed of the fate of Troy, fays Shakespear, by a form fo pale, fo woe-begone; for which laft epithet, said a certain critic, we should read Ucalegon. He was Priam's next neighbour,-proximus ardet Ucalegon. An abfurdity of the very firft clafs! VER. 258. Thulè] An unfinished poem of that name, of which one fheet was printed many years ago, by Ambrose Philips, a northern author. It is an ufual method of putting out a fire, to caft wet sheets upon it. Some critics have been of opinion that this fheet was of the nature of the Afbeftos, which cannot be confumed by fire: But I rather think it an allegorical allufion to the coldnefs and heavinefs of the writing. W. Philips, certainly deferved not to be treated with fuch acrimonious contempt, if we confider his epiftle from Denmark; his imitation of Strada; his tranflations of Sappho, and Pindar; and his Diftreft Mother; though copied indeed from Racine. Pope himself commends the Epiftle from Denmark in his Letters. IMITATIONS. VER. 263. Great in her charms! as when on Shrieves and May'rs She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.] "Alma parens confeffa Deam; qualifque videri Coelicolis, et quanta folet", 66 Et laetos oculis afflavit honores." VIRG. Aen. ii. Id. Aen. i. She bids him wait her to her facred Dome: Well pleas'd he enter'd, and confefs'd his home. Afcend, and recognize their Native Place. 265 This the Great Mother dearer held than all 269 276 How Prologues into Prefaces decay, And these to Notes are fritter'd quite away: How Index-learning turns no ftudent pale, Yet holds the eel of science by the tail; 280 How, VARIATIONS. After Ver. 268. in the former Edd. followed these two lines, Raptur'd, he gazes round the dear retreat, And in fweet numbers celebrates the feat. Var. And in fweet numbers celebrates the feat.] Tibbald writ a Poem called the Cave of Poverty, which concludes with a very extraordinary wish, "That fome great genius, or man of diftinguished merit, may be farved, in order to celebrate her power, and defcribe her Cave." It was printed in octavo, 1715. REMARKS. VER. 280. Eel of fcience] Is from the Tale of a Tub. IMITATIONS. VER. 269. This the Great Mother, &c.] "Urbs antiqua fuit W. Quam Juno fertur terris magis omnibus unam How, with less reading than makes felons 'scape, A past, vamp'd, future, old, reviv'd, new piece, 286 The REMARKS. VER. 286. Tibbald,] Lewis Tibbald (as pronounced) or Theobald (as written) was bred an Attorney, and fon to an Attorney (fays Mr. Jacob) of Sittenburn in Kent. He was Author of fome forgotten Plays, Tranflations, and other pieces. He was concerned in a paper called the Cenfor, and a Translation of Ovid. "There is a notorious Idiot, one hight Whachum, who from an under fpur-leather to the law, is become an under-ftrapper to the Playhouse, who hath lately burlesqued the Metamorphofes of Ovid by a vile Tranflation, &c. This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Cenfor." DENNIS,, Rem. on Pope's Hom. P. 9, 10. W. Ibid. Ozell.]" Mr. John Ozell (if we credit Mr. Jacob) did go to school in Leicestershire, where fomebody left him something to live on, when he shall retire from business. He was defigned to be fent to Cambridge, in order for priesthood; but he chofe rather to be placed in an office of accounts, in the City, being qualified for the fame by his fkill in arithmetic, and writing the neceffary hands. He has obliged the world with many translations of French Plays." JACOB, Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 198. W. Mr. Jacob's character of Mr. Ozell feems vaftly short of his merits, and he ought to have further juftice done him, having fince fully confuted all Sarcafms on his learning and genius, by an advertisement of Sept. 20, 1729, in a paper called The Weekly Medley, &c. "As to my learning, this envious Wretch knew, and every body knows, that the whole Bench of Bishops, not long ago, were pleased to give me a purfe of guineas, for discovering the erroneous tranflations of the Common-prayer in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, &c. As for my genius, let Mr. Cleland fhew better verses in all Pope's works, than Ozell's verfion 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 fhew better and truer Poetry in the Rape of the Lock, 13 . 290 The Goddess then, o'er his anointed head, With mystic words, the facred Opium shed. And lo! her bird (a monster of a fowl, Something betwixt a Heideggre and owl) Perch'd on his crown. "All hail! and hail again, My fon! the promis'd land expects thy reign. Know, Eufden thirsts no more for fack or praise; He fleeps among the dull of ancient days; REMARKS. Safe, Lock, than in Ozell's Rape of the Bucket (la Secchia rapita). And Mr. Toland and Mr. Gildon publickly declared Ozell's translation of Homer to be, as it was prior, fo likewife fuperior to Pope's. Surely, furely, every man is free to deferve well of his country!" JOHN OZELL. We cannot but fubfcribe to fuch reverend teftimonies, as those of the Bench of Bishops, Mr. Toland, and Mr. Gildon. W. Ibid. A Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell.] A triumvirate furely not of authors on a level. The first far fuperior to the other two. What did they produce, in any refpect, equal to the Careless Hufband, and the Hiftory of the Stage! VER. 287. The Goddefs then,] There was a poem published, 1712, entitled Bibliotheca, by Mr. Thomas Newcomb, a friend of Dr. Young, and reprinted in the fifth volume of Nicols's Collection, page 19, in which the Goddefs Oblivion is introduced, fpeaking and acting, fo very like the Goddefs Dulness, and which throughout bears fo clofe and ftriking a refemblance to the Dunciad, that it is impoffible Pope fhould not have seen and copied it, though with exquifite improvements. The expreffion, o'er his anointed head, is from Mac Fleckno, "That for anointed Dulnefs he was made." As alfo is the preceding line, 262; "His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace." VER. 290. a Heideggre] A ftrange bird from Switzerland, and not (as fome have supposed) the name of an eminent person who was a man of parts, and, as was faid of Petronius, Arbiter Elegantiarum. W. Safe, where no Critics damn, no duns moleft, 295 VARIATIONS. VER. 293. Know, Eufden, &c.] In the former Edd. Thou, Safe where no critics damn, no duns molest, Till Albion, as Hibernia, bless my throne ! I fee! I fee!Then rapt fhe spoke no more, W. REMARKS. VER. 296. Withers,] See on ver. 146. Ibid. Gildon] Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels of the last age, bred at St. Omer's with the Jefuits; but renouncing popery, he published Blount's books against the Divinity of Chrift, the Oracles of Reason, &c. He fignalized himself as a critic, having written fome very bad Plays; abufed Mr. P. very fcandaloufly 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. Ibid. Withers, Ward,] It must be confeffed, that in this quarrel with mean and contemptible writers, Pope was the aggreffor; for it cannot be believed that the initial Letters in the Bathos, were placed at random and without design. VER. 297. Howard,] Hon. Edward Howard, author of the British Princes, and a great number of wonderful pieces, celebrated by the late Earls of Dorfet and Rochefter, Duke of Buckingham, Mr. Waller, &c. |