Cast on the prostrate Nine a scornful look, 51 'O Cara Cara! silence all that train! Joy to great Chaos! let Division reign! Chromatic tortures soon shall drive them hence, Break all their nerves, and fritter all their sense; One trill shall harmonize joy, grief, and rage, Wake the dull church, and lull the ranting stage; To the same notes thy sons shall hum or snore, And all thy yawning daughters cry, "Encore!" 60 Another Phoebus, thy own Phoebus, reigns, Joys in my jigs, and dances in my chains. But soon, ah! soon, rebellion will commence, If music meanly borrows aid from sense. Strong in new arms, lo! giant Handel stands, Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands; To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes, And Jove's own thunders follow Mars's drums. Arrest him, empress! or you sleep no more '- 69 She heard, and drove him to the Hibernian shore. And now had Fame's posterior trumpet blown, And all the nations summon'd to the throne. The young, the old, who feel her inward sway, One instinct seizes, and transports away. None need a guide, by sure attraction led, And strong impulsive gravity of head: None want a place, for all their centre found, Hung to the goddess, and cohered around. Not closer, orb in orb, conglobed are seen The buzzing bees about their dusky queen. The gathering number, as it moves along, Involves a vast involuntary throng, Who, gently drawn and struggling less and less, Roll in her vortex, and her power confess; Not those alone who passive own her laws, But who, weak rebels, more advance her cause. Whate'er of dunce in college or in town Sneers at another, in toupée or gown; Whate'er of mongrel no one class admits, A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits. 80 90 Nor absent they, no members of her state, 100 There march'd the bard and blockhead, side by side, * Who rhymed for hire, and patronised for pride. On whom three hundred gold-capp'd youths await, When Dulness, smiling :-Thus revive the wits! But murder first, and mince them all to bits: 120 As erst Medea (cruel so to save!) A new edition of old son gave; Let standard-authors, thus, like trophies borne, Appear more glorious as more hack'd and torn: *Lord Hervey, so lauded by Middleton in his dedication of the "Life of Cicero." + Sir Thomas Hanmer, editor of a rival Shakspeare. See Book III., 1. 325, note. And you, my critics! in the checker'd shade, Admire new light through holes yourselves have made. 'Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone, A page, a grave, that they can call their own; But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick, On passive paper or on solid brick. 130 So by each bard an alderman shall sit ;* Dunce scorning dunce beholds the next advance, To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence, 149 Alluding to the monument erected to Butler, the author of 'Hudibras,' by Alderman Barber. + Lord Radnor lived next to Pope's villa. The letter Y was used by Pythagoras as an emblem of the different roads of virtue and vice. We ply the memory, we load the brain, 'O!' cried the goddess, 'for some pedant reign, O! if my sons may learn one earthly thing, 180 That which my priests, and mine alone, main tain, Which, as it dies or lives, we fall or reign: *The House of Commons and Westminster Hall. + Sir William Wyndham. Charles Talbot, Lord Chancellor in 1733. 8 Lord Mansfield. Earl of Bath. Dr. Robert South, Canon of Westminster. his sermons. Noted for ** An' epigram. Dr. Robert South "used to declare that a perfect epigram was as difficult a performance as an epic poem; and the critics say, an epic poem is the greatest work human nature is capable of."" May you, my Cam and Isis, preach it long! Prompt at the call, around the goddess roll Broad hats, and hoods, and caps, a sable shoal: 190 Thick and more thick the black blockade extends, A hundred head of Aristotle's friends. Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day, On German Crousaz + and Dutch Burgersdyck : 210 Author of something yet more great than letter: *John Locke, the celebrated philosopher, was expelled from his studentship at Christ-church, Oxford, in 1684, by Charles II. ↑ A Swiss professor, the author of the commentary on the Essay on Man,' and a Treatise on Logic. The lines 200-274 are all levelled at Dr. Bentley, the Master of Trinity, Cambridge. § Bentley. Vice-master of Trinity, and Bentley's constant com anion. |