Still break the benches, Henley! with thy strain, A decent priest, where monkeys were the gods! REMARKS. 220 Ver. 204. Sherlock, Hare, Gibson,] Bishops of Salisbury, Chichester, and London; whose sermons and pastoral letters did honour to their country as well as stations. Ver. 212. Of Toland, and Tindal, see Book ii. Tho. Woolston was an impious madman, who wrote in a most insolent style against the miracles of the Gospel, in the year 1726, &c. Ver. 213. Yet oh, my sons, &c.] The caution against blasphemy here given by a departed son of Dulness to his yet existing brethren, is, as the poet rightly intimates, not out of tenderness to the ears of others, but their own. And so we see that when that danger is removed, on the open estabishment of the goddess in the fourth book, she encourages her sons, and they beg assistance to pollute the source of light itself, with the same virulence they had before done the purest emanations from it. Ver. 215. 'Tis yours, a Bacon or a Locke to blame, A Newton's genius, or a Milton's flame:] Thankfully received, and freely used, is this gracious licence by the beloved disciple of that prince of cabalistic dunces, the tremendous Hutchinson. Hear with what honest plain Persist, by all divine in man unawed, REMARKS. 230 'As to mathematical ness he treateth our great geometer. demonstrations,' saith he, founded upon the proportions of lines and circles to each other, and the ringing of changes upon figures, these have no more to do with the greatest part of philosophy, than they have with the man in the moon. Indeed, the zeal for this sort of gibberish, (mathematical principles) is greatly abated of late: and though it is now upwards of twenty years that the Dagon of modern philosophers, sir Isaac Newton, has lain with his face upon the ground before the ark of God, Scripture philosophy; for so long Moses's Principia have been published; and the Treatise of Power Essential and Mechanical, in which sir Isaac Newton's philosophy is treated with the utmost contempt, has been published a dozen years; yet is there not one of the whole society who hath had the courage to attempt to raise him up. And so let him lie.' The Philosophical Principles of Moses asserted, &c. p. 2, by Julias Bate, A. M. chaplain to the right honourable the earl of Harrington. London, 1744, 8vo. Scribl. Ver. 224. But, 'Learn, ye Dunces! not to scorn your God.'] The hardest lesson a dunce can learn. For being bred to scorn what he does not understand, that which he understands least he will be apt to scorn most. Of which, to the disgrace of all government, and, in the poet's opinion, even of that of Dulness herself, we have had a late example, in a book entitled Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding. Ver. 224. Not to scorn your God.'] See this subject pursued in Book iv. Ver. 232. (Not half so pleased, when Goodman prophesied.)] Mr. Cibber tells us, in his Life, p. 149, that Goodman being at the rehearsal of a play, in which he had a part, clapp'd him on the shoulder, and cried, 'If he does not make a good actor, I'll be d-d.' And,' says Mr. Cibber, 'I make it a question, whether Alexander himself, or Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, when at the head of their first victorious And look'd, and saw a sable sorcerer rise, Till one wide conflagration swallows all. 240 Thence a new world, to nature's laws unknown, Breaks out refulgent, with a heaven its own; Another Cynthia her new journey runs, And other planets circle other suns. The forests dance, the rivers upward rise, Whales sport in woods, and dolphins in the skies; 'What power,' he cries,' what power these wonders wrought?' 250 Son; what thou seek'st is in thee! Look, and find Each monster meets his likeness in thy mind. Yet wouldst thou more? in yonder cloud behold, Whose sarsenet skirts are edged with flaming gold, A matchless youth! his nod these worlds controls, Wings the red lightning, and the thunder rolls. REMARKS. armies, could feel a greater transport in their bosoms than I did in mine.' Ver. 233. A sable sorcerer.] Dr. Faustus, the subject of a set of farces, which lasted in vogue two or three seasons, in which both playhouses strove to outdo each other for some years. All the extravagances in the sixtecn lines following, were introduced on the stage, and frequented by persons of the first quality in England, to the twentieth and thirtieth time. Ver. 237. Hell riscs, heaven descends, and dance on earth: This monstrous absurdity was actually represented in Tibbald's Rape of Proserpine. Ver. 248. Lo! one vast egg. In another of these farces Harlequin is hatched upon the stage, out of a large egg. Angel of Dulness, sent to scatter round Her magic charms o'er all unclassic ground: 'Midst snows of paper, and fierce hail of peas; On grinning dragons thou shalt mount the wind. Dire is the conflict, dismal is the din, Here shouts all Drury, there all Lincoln's-inn; 270 REMARKS. Ver. 261. Immortal Rich!] Mr. J. Rich, master of the theatre-royal in Covent-garden, was the first that excelled this way. CO Ver. 266. I see my Cibber there!] The history of the foregoing absurdities is verified by himself, in these words, (Life, chap. xv.) Then sprung forth that succession of monstrous medleys that have so long infested the stage, which arose upon one another alternately at both houses, outvieing each other in expense.' He then proceeds to excuse his own part in them, as follows:- If I am asked why I assented? I have no better excuse for my error than to I did it against my conscience, and had not virtue to starve. Had Henry IV. of France a better for ging his religion? I was still in my heart, as much as could be, on the side of truth and sense: but with this difference, that I had their leave to quit them when they could not support me. But let the question go which way it will, Harry IVth has always been allowed a great man.' This must be confessed a full answer: only the question still seems to be, 1. How the doing a thing against one's conscience is an excuse for it? and, 2dly, It will be hard to prove how he got the leave of truth and sense to quit their service. unless he can produce a certificate that he ever was in it. Ver. 266, 267. Booth and Cibber were joint managers of the theatre in Drury-lane. Ver. 268. On grinning dragons thou shaft mount the wind. In his letter to Mr. P. Mr. C. solemnly declares this pot to be literally true. We hope, therefore, the reader wil understand it allegorically only. Contending theatres our empire raise, And are these wonders, son, to thee unknown? REMARKS. 28C 290 Ver. 282. Annual trophies on the lord-mayor's day; and monthly wars in the artillery ground. Ver. 283. Though long my party.] Settle, like most party writers, was very uncertain in his political principles. He was employed to hold the pen in the character of a popish successor, but afterwards printed his narrative on the other side. He had managed the ceremony of a famous popeburning, on Nov. 17, 1680; then became a trooper in king James's army, at Hounslow-heath. After the Revolution, he kept a booth at Bartholomew-fair, where, in the droll called St. George for England, he acted in his old age, in a dragon of green leather of his own invention; he was at last taken into the Charter-house and there died, aged sixty years |