In Tot'nam fields, the brethren, with amaze, 265 270 To where Fleet-ditch with disemboguing streams Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames, The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud 48 "Here strip, my children! here at once leap in, 275 Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin, "Et vox assensu nemorum ingeminata remugit."—Georg. iii. While neighbouring hills low back to them again."-Cowley. The poet here celebrated, Sir R. B., delighted much in the word bray, which he endeavoured to ennoble by applying it to the sound of armour, war, &c. In imitation of him, and strengthened by his authority, our author has here admitted it into heroic poetry. 46 "Immemor herbarum quos est mirata juvenca."-Virgil, Ecl. viii. The progress of the sound from place to place, and the scenery here of the bordering regions, Tottenham-fields, Chancery-lane, the Thames, Westminster-hall, and Hungerford-stairs, are imitated from Virgil, Æneid vii., on the sounding the horn of Alecto: "Audiit et Triviæ longe lacus, audiit amnis Sulphureâ Nar albus aquâ, fortesque Velini." 47 It is between eleven and twelve in the morning, after church service, that the criminals are whipped in Bridewell. This is to mark punctually the time of the day: Homer does it by the circumstance of the judges rising from court, or of the labourers' dinner; our author, by one very proper, both to the persons and the scene of his poem, which we may remember commenced in the evening of the lord mayor's day: the first book passed in that night; the next morning the games begin in the Strand, thence along Fleetstreet (places inhabited by booksellers), then they proceed by Bridewell towards Fleet-ditch, and lastly through Ludgate to the City, and the temple of the goddess. 48" Fluviorum rex Eridanus, -quo non alius, per pinguia culta, And who the most in love of dirt excel, Or dark dexterity of groping well.49 Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around FLEET DITCH. 280 49 The three chief qualifications of party writers: to stick at nothing, to delight in flinging dirt, and to slander in the dark, by guess. 50 Papers of news and scandal intermixed, on different sides and parties, and frequently shifting from one side to the other, called the London Journal, British Journal, Daily Journal, &c., the concealed writers of which, for some time, were Oldmixon, Roome, Arnall, Concanen, and others: persons never seen by our author. 52 A pig of lead to him who dives the best; Ah why, ye gods! should two and two make four ?" Next Smedley dived; slow circles dimpled o'er And mounts far off among the swans of Thames.56 285 290 295 51 Our indulgent poet, whenever he has spoken of any dirty or low work, constantly puts us in mind of the poverty of the offenders, as the only extenuation of such practices. Let any one but remark, when a thief, a pickpocket, a highwayman, or a knight of the post, are spoken of, how much our hate to those characters is lessened, if they add a needy thief, a poor pickpocket, a hungry highwayman, a starving knight of the post, &c. 52 In the first edition, 53 "In naked majesty great Dennis stands." "Fletque Milon senior, cum spectat inanes Herculeis similes, fluidos pendere lacertos."-Ovid. 54 "Alcides wept in vain for Hylas lost, Hylas, in vain, resounds through all the coast." Lord Roscom. Translat. of Virgil's vi. Ecl. 55 [Aaron Hill. See Life of Pope in this edition, and Notes to the Dunciad.] 56 In the first edition followed these: He search'd for coral, but he gather'd weeds." ["Dwas Diaper, whom Curll calls " a very modest and ingenious clergyman: he wrote, among other poetical pieces, 'Nereides, or Sea Eclogues,' inscribed to Mr. Congreve, 1712." Instead of Concanen, Young and Newcome were introduced into the early editions,-alluding, as Curll says, to Dr. Young's Seven Satires on the Universal Passion, still left unfinished (whence, probably, the phrase "long-winded"), and to the Rev. T. Newcome, of Sussex, who wrote a large folio volume in twelve books, on the True to the bottom, see Concanen creep, A cold, long-winded native of the deep: If perseverance gain the diver's prize, Not everlasting Blackmore this denies:57 No noise, no stir, no motion canst thou make, 300 The unconscious stream sleeps o'er thee like a lake. Not so bold Arnall; with a weight of skull, 305 310 315 320 Last Judgment. It may be doubted, whether Pope could have aimed his satire at the author of the Night Thoughts; but this constant shifting of characters in the Dunciad certainly weakened the force of his ridicule, and gave some truth to Curll's remark, that the Dunciad seemed to "mimic a weather-glass, and vary every impression, as the author's malice increased to one or abated to another." Johnson makes a somewhat similar observation.] 57 "Nec bonus Eurytion prælato invidit honori," &c.-Virg. Æneid. 58 These were daily papers, a number of which, to lessen the expense, were printed one on the back of another. 59 See the story in Ovid, Met. vii., where the miserable petrifaction of this old lady is pathetically described. Osborne was a name assumed by the eldest and gravest of these writers, who at last, being ashamed of his pupils, gave his paper over, and in his age remained silent. 60 [In the edition of 1729, the unlucky Welsted is the diver. The line stands, "Not Welsted so, drawn endlong by his skull."] The plunging prelate, and his ponderous grace, With holy envy gave one layman place. When lo a burst of thunder shook the flood, 325 Slow rose a form, in majesty of mud; Shaking the horrors of his sable brows, And each ferocious feature grim with ooze. Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares : 61 Then thus the wonders of the deep declares. 330 First he relates, how sinking to the chin, Smit with his mien, the mud-nymphs suck'd him in: Nigrina black, and Merdamante brown, Vied for his love in jetty bowers below, 335 As Hylas fair was ravish'd long ago.62 Then sung, how shown him by the nut-brown maids A branch of Styx here rises from the shades,63 340 That tinctured as it runs with Lethe's streams, And wafting vapours from the land of dreams, (As under seas Alpheus' secret sluice Bears Pisa's offerings to his Arethuse) Pours into Thames: and hence the mingled wave 62 Who was ravished by the water-nymphs, and drawn into the river. The story is told at large by Valerius Flaccus, lib. iii. Argon. See Virgil, Ecl. vi. 63 “ οἵ τ ̓ ἀμθ' ἱμερτὸν Τιταρήσιον ἔργ ̓ ἐνέμοντο, Ος ῥ ̓ ἐς Πηνειόν προΐει καλλιῤῥόου ὕδωρ, Οὐδ' ὅγε Πηνειῷ συμμίσγεται ἀργυροδίνη, 'Αλλά τέ μιν καθύπερθεν ἐπιῤῥέει εύτ' ἔλαιον, Ορκου λὰρ δεινοῦ Στυγος ὕδατός ἐστιν ἀποῤῥώξ.” Hom. I. ii. Catal. Of the Land of Dreams, in the same region, he makes mention Odyss. xxiv. See also Lucian's True History. Lethe and the Land of Dreams allegorically represent the stupefaction and visionary madness of poets, equally dull and extravagant. Of Alpheus's water gliding secretly under the sea of Pisa, to mix with those of the Arethuse in Sicily, see Moschus Idyll. viii., Virgil, Ecl. x. "Sic tibi, cum fluctus subter labere Sicanos, And again, Æneid iii.— "Alpheum sema est huc, Elidis amnem, |