She saw slow Phillips creep like Tate's poor page And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.

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Ovid, and Tibullus: but we have little hope of the accom plishment of it, from what he hath lately published.' Upon which Mr. Oldmixon has not spared a reflection, 'That the putting the laurel on the head of one who writ such verses, will give futurity a very lively idea of the judgment and justice of those who bestowed it.' Ibid. p. 417. But the well-known learning of that noble person, who was then lord chamberlain, might have screened him from this unmannerly reflection. Nor ought Mr. Oldmixon to complain, to long after, that the laurel would have better become his own brows, or any other's: it were more decent to acquiesce in the opinion of the duke of Buckingham upon this matter: In rush'd Eusden, and cried who shall have it, But I the true laureate, to whom the king gave it?" Apollo begg'd pardon, and granted his claim,

But vow'd that till then he ne'er heard of his name.' Session of Poets. The same plea might also serve for his successor, Mr. Cibber: and is further strengthened in the following epigram made on that occasion:

'In merry Old England it once was a rule
The king had his poet, and also his fool;

But now we're so frugal, I'd have you to know it,
That Cibber can serve both for fool and for poet."

Of Blackmore, see Book ii. Of Phillips, Book i. ver. 262, and Book iii. prope fin.

Nahum Tate was poet laureate, a cold writer of no invention; but sometimes translated tolerably when befriended by Mr. Dryden. In his second part of Absolom and Achitophel are above two hundred admirable lines together, of that great hand, which strongly shine through the insipidity of the rest. Something parallel may be observed of another author here mentioned.

Ver. 106. And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.] Mr Theobald, in the Censor, vol. ii. No. 33, calls Mr. Dennis by the name of Furius. The modern Furius is to be looked upon more as an object of pity, than of that which he daily provokes, laughter and contempt. Did we really know bow much this poor man' [I wish that reflection on poverty aad been spared] 'suffers by being contradicted, or which is the same thing in effect, by hearing another praised; we should, in compassion sometimes attend to him with a silent nod, and let him go away with the triumphs of his ill-nature. -Poor Furius, (again) when any of his contemporaries are spoken well of, quitting the ground of the present dispute,

In each she marks her image full exprest, But chief in Bays's monster-bleeding breast:

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steps back a thousand years to call in the succour of the ancients. His very panegyric is spiteful, and he uses it for the same reason as some ladies do their commendation of a dead beauty, who would never have their good word, but that a living one happened to be mentioned in their company. His applause is not the tribute of his heart, but the sacrifice of his revenge,' &c. Indeed, his pieces against our poet are somewhat of an angry character, and as they are now scarce extant, a taste of this style may be satisfactory to the curious. 'A young, squab, short gentleman, whose outward form, though it should be that of downright monkey, would not differ so much from the human shape as his unthinking immaterial part does from human understanding. He is as stupid and as venomous as a hunchback'd toad. A book through which folly and ignorance, those brethren so lame and impotent, do ridiculously look big and very dull, and strut and hobble, cheek by jowl, with their arms on kimbo, being led and supported, and bully-hack'd by that blind Hector, Impudence.' Reflect. on the Essay on Criticism, p. 26, 29, 30.

It would be unjust not to add his reasons for this fury, they are so strong and so coercive. I regard him,' saith he, as an enemy, not so much to me, as to my king, to my country, to my religion, and to that liberty which has been the sole felicity of my life. A vagary of fortune, who is sometimes pleased to be frolicsome, and the epidemic madness of the times, have given him reputation, and "reputation," as Hobbes says, "is power," and that has made him dangerous. Therefore I look on it as my duty to King George, whose faithful subject I am; to my country, of which I have appeared a constant lover; to the laws, under whose protection I have so long lived; and to the liberty of my country, more dear to me than life, of which I have now for forty years been a constant asserter, &c.-I look upon as my duty, I say, to do-you shall see what-to pull the lion's skin from this little ass, which popular error has thrown around him; and to show that this author, who has been lately so much in vogue, has neither sense in his thoughts, nor English in his expression.' Dennis, Rem. on Hom. Pref. p. 2, 91, &c.

it

Besides these public-spirited reasons, Mr. D. had a private one; which, by his manner of expressing it in p. 92. appears to have been equally strong. He was even in bodily fear of his life, from the machinations of the said Mr. P. The story,' says he, 'is too long to be told, but who would be acquainted with it, may hear it from Mr. Curl, my book

Bays, form'd by nature stage and town to bless,
And act, and be, a coxcomb with success.

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110

seller. However, what my reason has suggested to me, that I have with a just confidence said, in defiance of his two clandestine weapons, his slander and his poison.' Which last words of his book plainly discover Mr. D's suspicion was that of being poisoned, in like manner as Mr Curll had been before him: of which fact, see a full and true account of the horrid and barbarous revenge, by poison on the body of Edmund Curll, printed in 1716, the year antecedent to that wherein these remarks of Mr. Deunis were published. But what puts it beyond all question, is a passage in a very warm treatise, in which Mr. D. was also concerned, price two-pence, called, A true character of Mr. Pope and his Writings, printed for S. Popping, 1716; in the tenth page whereof he is said to have insulted people on those calamities and diseases which he himself gave them, by administering poison to them; and is called (p. 4.) a lurking way-laying coward, and a stabber in the dark.' Which (with many other things most lively set forth in that piece) must have rendered him a terror, not to Mr. Dennis only, but to all Christian people. This charitable warning only provoked our incorrigible poet to write the following epigram:

Should Dennis publish you had stabb'd your brother, Lampoon'd your monarch, or debauch'd your mother; Say, what revenge on Dennis can be had?

Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad:
On one so poor you cannot take the law;
On one so old your sword you scorn to draw;
Uncaged then let the harmless monster rage,
Secure in duiness, madness, want, and age.'

For the rest; Mr. John Dennis was the son of a saddler, n London, born in 1657. He paid court to Mr. Dryden; and having obtained some correspondence with Mr. Wycherley and Mr. Congreve, he immediately obliged the public with their letters. He made himself known to the government by many admirable schemes and projects, which the ministry, for reasons best known to themselves, constantly kept private. For his character as a writer, it is given us as follows: Mr. Dennis is excellent at Pindaric writings, perfectly regular in all his performances, and a person of sound learning. That he is master of a great deal of penetration and judgment, his criticisms (particularly on Prince Arthur) do sufficiently demonstrate.' From the same account it also appears that he writ plays more to get reputation than money.' Dennis of himself. See Giles Jacob's Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 68, 69, compared with p. 286.

Ver. 109. Bays, form'd by nature, &c. It is hoped the

Dulness with transport eyes the lively dunce,
Remembering she herself was pertness once.
Now (shame to fortune!) an ill run at play
Blank'd his bold visage, and a thin third day :
Swearing and supperless the hero sat,

Blasphemed his gods, the dice, and damn'd his fate;

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poet here hath done full justice to his hero's character which it were a great mistake to imagine was wholly sunk in stupidity; he is allowed to have supported it with a wonderful mixture of vivacity. This character is heightened according to his own desire, in a letter he wrote to our author: Pert and dull at least you might have allowed me. What! am I only to be dull, and dull still, and again, and for ever?' He then solemnly appealed to his own conscience, that 'he could not think himself so, nor believe that our poet did; but that he spake worse of him than he could possibly think; and concluded it must be merely to show his wit, or for some profit or lucre to himself.' Life of C. C. chap. vii. and Let ter to Mr. P. page 15, 40, 53. And to show his claim to what the poet was so unwilling to allow him, of being pert as well as dull, he declares he will have the last word; which occasioned the following epigram:

Quoth Cibber to Pope, "Though in verse you foreclose,
I'll have the last word; for, by G-, I'll write prose."
Poor Colly, thy reasoning is none of the strongest,
For know, the last word is the word that lasts longest.

Ver. 115. Supperless the hero sat.] It is amazing how the sense of this hath been mistaken by all the former commentators, who most idly suppose it to imply, that the hero of the poem wanted a supper. In truth, a great absurdity. Not that we are ignorant that the hero of Homer's Odyssey is frequently in that circumstance, and, therefore, it can no way derogate from the grandeur of epic poem to represent such hero under a calamity, to which the greatest, not only of critics and poets, but of kings and warriors, have been subject. But much more refined, I will venture to say, is the meaning of our author: it was to give us obliquely a curious precept, or what Bossu calls a disguised sentence, that 'Temperance is the life of study.' The language of poesy brings all into action; and to represent a critic encompassed with books but without a supper, is a picture which lively expresseth how much the true critic prefers the diet of the mind to that of the body, one of which he always castigates, and often totally neglects, for the greater improvement of the other. But since the discovery of the true hero of the poem, may

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120

Then gnaw'd his pen, then dash'd it on the ground,
Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound!
Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there,
Yet wrote and flounder'd on, in mere despair.
Round him much embryo, much abortion lay,
Much future ode, and abdicated play:
Nonsense precipitate, like running lead,

Then slipp'd through crags and zig-zags of the head:
All that on folly frenzy could beget,

Fruit of dull heat, and sooterkins of wit.

Next o'er his books his eyes began to roll,

In pleasing memory of all he stole,

How here he sipp'd, how here he plunder'd snug,
And suck'd all o'er like an industrious bug.
Here lay poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes, and here
The frippery of crucified Moliere :

There hapless Shakspeare, yet of Tibbald sore,
Wish'd he had blotted for himself before.

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we not add, that nothing was so natural, after so great a loss of money at dice, or of reputation by his play, as that the poet should have no great stomach to eat a supper? Be sides, how well has the poet consulted his heroic character, in adding that he has swore all the time? Bentl.

Ver. 131. Poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes.] A great num ber of them taken out to patch up his plays.

Ver. 132. The frippery.] When I fitted up an old play it was as a good housewife will mend old linen, when she has not better employment.' Life, p. 217, 8vo.

Ver. 133. Hapless Shakspeare, &c] It is not to be doubted but Bays was a subscriber to Tibbald's Shakspeare. He was frequently liberal in this way; and, as he tells us, 'subscribed to Mr. Pope's Homer out of pure generosity and civility; but when Mr. Poge did so to his Non-juror, he con cluded it could be nothing but a joke.' Letter to Mr. P. p.24.

This Tibbald, or Theobald, published an edition of Shak. speare, of which he was so proud himself as to say, in one of Mist's Journals, June 8, 'That to expose any errors in it was impracticable.' And to another, April 27, That whatever care might for the future be taken by any other editor, he would still give about five hundred emendations, that shall escape them all."

Ver. 134. Wish'd he had blotted.] It was a ridiculous praise which the players gave to Shakspeare, that he never