Hold-to the minister I more incline; To serve his cause, O queen! is serving thine. E'en Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more. REMARKS. A passage I have always suspected. Who sees not the antithesis of auratis and argenteus to be unworthy the Virgilian majesty? And what absurdity to say a goose sings? canebat. Virgi! gives a contrary character of the voice of this silly bird, in Ecl. ix. -argutos inter strepere anser olores.' Read it, therefore, adesse strepebat. And why auratis porticibus? does not the very verse preceding this inform us, 'Romuleoque receus horrebat regia culmo.' Is this thatch in one line, and gold in another, consistent? I scruple not (repugnantibus omnibus manuscriptis) to correct it auritis. Horace uses the same epithet in the same sense, 'Auritas fidibus canoris And to say that walls have ears is common even to a proverb. Scribl. Ver. 212. And cackling save the monarchy of Tories? Not out of any preference or affection to the Tories. For what Hobbes so ingeniously confesses of himself, is true of all ministerial writers whatsoever: That he defends the supreme powers, as the geese by their cackling defended the Romans, who held the Capitol; for they favoured them no more than the Gauls, their enemies; but were as ready to have defended the Gauls if they had been possessed of the Capitol.' Epis. Dedic. to the Leviathan. Ver. 215. Gazetteers.] A band of ministerial writers, hired at the prices mentioned in the note on book ii. ver. 316, who, on the very day their patron quitted his post, laid down their paper, and declared they would never more meddle in politics. Ver. 218. Cibberian forehead.] So indeed all the MSS. read; but I make no scruple to pronounce them all wrong the laureate being elsewhere celebrated by our poet for his great modesty-modest Cibber-Read, therefore, at my peril, Cerberian forehead. This is perfectly classical, and, what is more, Homerical; the dog was the ancient, as the bitch is the modern symbol of impudence: (Kuvos oμμat 220 This brazen brightness, to the 'squire so dear; O born in sin, and forth in folly brought! Works damn'd, or to be damn'd (your father's fault,) Go, purified by flames, ascend the sky, REMARKS. 230 wv, says Achilles to Agamemnon:) which, when in a superlative degree, may well be denominated from Cerberus, the dog with three heads-But as to the latter part of this verse, Cibberian brain, that is certainly the genuine reading. Bentl. Ver. 225. O born in sin, &c.] This is a tender and passionate apostrophe to his own works, which he is going to sacrifice, agreeable to the nature of man in great afflic tion: and reflecting, like a parent, on the many miserable fates to which they would otherwise be subject. Ver. 228. My better and more christian progeny!] 'It may be observable, that my muse and my spouse were equally prolific! that the one was seldom the mother of a child, but in the same year the other made me the father of a play. I think we had a dozen of each sort between us; of both which kinds, some died in their infancy, &c.' Life of C. C. p. 217, 8vo. edit. Ver. 131. Gratis-given Bland,-Sent with a pass,] It was a practice so to give the Daily Gazetteer and ministerial pamphlets (in which this B. was a writer,) and to send them post free to all the towns in the kingdom. Ver. 233. With Ward, to ape and monkey climes,] Edward Ward, a very voluminous poet in Iludibrastic O! pass more innocent, in infant state, Tea Whe 240 Sudd Dov Where things destroy'd are swept to things unborn. The opening clouds disclose each work by turns, REMARKS. verse, but best known by the London Spy, in prose. 250 He has of late years kept a public-house in the city (but in a genteel way,) and with his wit, humour, and good liquor (ale,) afforded his guests a pleasurable entertainment, especially those of the high church-party.' Jacob, Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 225. Great numbers of his works were yearly sold into the Plantations.-Ward, in a book, called Apollo's Maggot, declared this account to be a great falsity, protesting that his public-house was not in the city, but in Moorfields. Ver. 238. 240. Tate-Shadwell.] Two of his predecessors in the laurel. Ver. 250. Now flames the Cid, &c.] In the first notes on the Dunciad it was said, that this author was particularly excellent at tragedy. This,' says he, 'is as unjust as to say I could not dance on a rope.' But certain it is, that ho had attempted to dance on this rope, and fell most shame fully, having produced no less than four tragedies (the names of which the poet preserves in these few lines ;) the three first of them were fairly printed, acted, and damned; the fourth suppressed in fear of the like treatment. Ver. 253, 254. The dear Nonjuror-Moliere's old stubble.] A comedy thrashed out of Moliere's Tartuffe, and so much the translator's favourite, that he assures us all our author': F:NརྫZFHཊ ཁ་ཁོག། me kis he bim grie wh Phi out beer ash thin of th V Du Tears gush'd again, as from pale Priam's eyes, Roused by the light, old Dulness heaved the head. Then snatch'd a sheet of Thule from her bed; Sudden she flies, and whelms it o'er the pyre; Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire. Her ample presence fills up all the place; A veil of fogs dilates her awful face: 26) Great in her charms! as when on shrieves and mayors She bid him wait her to her sacred dome : The club of quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall : 27C How prologues into prefaces decay, And these to notes are fritter'd quite away: REMARKS. dislike to it could only arise from disaffection to the government. He assures us, that when he had the honour to kiss his majesty's hand, upon presenting his dedication of it, he was graciously pleased out of his royal bounty, to order him two hundred pounds for it. And this, he doubts not, grieved Mr. P.' Ver. 258. Thule] An unfinished poem of that name, of which one sheet was printed many years ago, by Ambrose Phillips, a northern author. It is an usual method of putting out a fire, to cast wet sheets upon it. Some critics have been of opinion that this sheet was of the nature of the asbestos, which cannot be consumed by fire; but I rather think it an allegorical allusion to the coldness and heaviness of the writing. Ver. 269. Great mother] Magna mater here applied to Dulness. The quidnuncs, a name given to the ancient How index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of science by the tail: 280 Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece, REMARKS. members of several political clubs, who were constantly inquiring quid nunc? What news? Ver. 286. Tibbald.] Lewis Tibbald (as pronounced) of Theobald (as written) was bred an attorney, and son to an attorney, says Mr. Jacob, of Sittenburn, in Kent. He was the author of some forgotten plays, translations, and other pieces. He was concerned in a paper called the Censor, and a translation of Ovid. 'There is a notorious idiot, one hight Wachum, who from an under-spur-leather to the law, is become an understrapper to the playhouse, who has lately burlesqued the Metamorphoses of Ovid by a vile translation, &c. This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Censor.'-Dennis, Rem. on Pope's Homer, p. 9, 10. Ibid. Ozell.] Mr. John Ozell, if we credit Mr. Jacob, did go to school in Leicestershire, where somebody left him something to live on, when he shall retire from business. He was designed to be sent to Cambridge, in order for priesthood; but he chose rather to be placed in an office of accounts, in the city, being qualified for the same by his skill in arithmetic, and writing the necessary hands. H has obliged the world with many translations of French plays.--Jacob, Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 198. Mr. Jacob's character of Mr. Ozell seems vastly short of his merits, and he ought to have further justice done him, having since confuted all sarcasms on his learning ami 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 purse of guineas, for discovering the erroneous translations of the Common-prayer in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, &c. As for my genius, let Mr. Cleland show better verses in all Pope's works, than Ozell's version of Boileau's Lutrin, which the late lord Halifax was so pleased with, that ae complimented him with leave to dedicate it to him, &c. Let him show better and truer poetry in the Rape of the Lock, than in Ozell's Rape of the Bucket, (la Secchia |