Where nameless Somethings in their causes fleep,
'Till genial Jacob, or a warm Third day,
Call forth each mass, a Poem, or a Play:
How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,
How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry,
Maggots half-form'd in rhyme exactly meet,
And learn to crawl upon poetic feet.

Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes,
And ductile dulnefs new meanders takes;

IMITATIONS.

60

VER. 64. And ductile Dulness, c.] A parody on a verfe in Garth, Cant. i.

How ductile matter new meanders takes.

NOTES.

that leads to the broad gate and the great fire. Matt. vii. 13. In Much ado about nothing, All, all, and moreover God faw him when he was hid in the garden. Gen. iii. 8. fin a very jocofe fcene.) In Love's labour loft, he talks of Samfon's carrying the gates on his back; In the Merry wives of Windfor, of Goliath and the weaver's beam; and in Henry IV. Falftaff's foldiers are compared to Lazarus and the prodigal fon.

The first part of this note is Mr. CURL's, the rest is Mr. THEOBALD's Appendix to Shakespear Restored, p. 144.

VER. 63. Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes,] It may not be amifs to give an inftance or two of these operations of Dulness out of the Works of her Sons, celebrated in the Poem. A great Critic formerly held these clenches in fuch abhorrence, that he declared," he that "would pun, would pick a pocket" Yet Mr. Dennis's works afford us notable examples in this kind: " Alex"ander Pope hath fent abroad into the world as many "Bulls as his namefake Pope Alexander.-Let us take

There motley Images her fancy ftrike,

65

Figures ill pair'd, and Similies unlike.

She fees a Mob of Metaphors advance,

Pleas'd with the madnefs of the mazy dance;
How Tragedy and Comedy embrace;
How Farce and Epic get a jumbled race;
How Time himfelf ftands ftill at her command,
Realms fhift their place, and Ocean turns to land.
Here gay Defcription Ægypt glads with fhow'rs,
Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flow'rs;

NOTES.

70

"the initial and final letters of his Name, viz. A. P—E, "and they give you the idea of an Ape.-Pope comes "from the Latin word Popa, which fignifies a little "Wart; or from poppyfma, because he was continually popping out fquibs of wit, or rather Popy/mata, or Popifms." DENNIS on Hom. and Daily Journal, June 11, 1728.

66

VER. 70. &c. How Farce and Epic-How Time himfelf, &c.] Allude to the tranfgreffions of the Unities in the Plays of fuch poets. For the miracles wrought upon Time and Place, and the mixture of Tragedy and Comedy, Farce and Epic, fee Pluto and Proferpine, Penelope, &c. if yet extant.

VER. 73. Egypt glads with fhow'rs,] In the Lower Egypt Rain is of no ufe, the overflowing of the Nile being fufficient to impregnate the foil.-Thefe fix verfes reprefent the Inconfiftencies in the defcriptions of poets, who heap together all glittering and gawdy images, tho' incompatible in one feason, or in one fcene.

See the Guardian, N° 40. parag. 6. See alfo Eufden's whole works, if to be found. It would not have been unpleasant to have given Examples of all thefe fpecies of bad writing from thefe Authors, but that it is already done in our Treatife of the Bathos.

SCRIBL.

Glitt'ring with ice here hoary hills are seen,
There painted vallies of eternal green;
In cold December fragrant chaplets blow,
And heavy harvests nod beneath the fnow.

75

80

All thefe, and more, the cloud-compelling Queen Beholds thro' fogs, that magnify the scene.. She, tinfel'd o'er in robes of varying hues, With felf-applause her wild creation views; Sees momentary monsters rife and fall, And with her own fools-colours gilds them all. 'Twas on the day, when ** rich and grave, 85 Like Cimon, triumph'd both on land and wave:

VARIATIONS.

VER. 85. in the former Editions,

'Twas on the day when Thorold, rich and grave. Sir George Thorold, Lord Mayor of London in the year 1720.

IMITATIONS.

VER. 79. The cloud-compelling Queen] From Homer's Epithet of Jupiter, νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς.

NÓTES.

VER. 83. Sees momentary monfters rife and fall, And with her own fools-colours gilds them all.] i. e. Sets off unnatural conceptions in falfe and tumid expreffion.

VER. 85, 86. 'Twas on the day, when ** rich and grave, Like Cimon, triumph'd] Viz. a Lord Mayor's Day; his name the author had left in blanks, but most certainly could never be that which the Editor foifted in formerly, and which no way agrees with the chronology of the poem. BENTL. The Proceffion of a Lord Mayor is made partly by land, and partly by water.-Cimon, the famous Athenian Ge

B

(Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces,' Glad chains, warm furs, broad banners, and broad

faces)

Now Night defcending, the proud fcene was o'er, But liv'd, in Settle's numbers, one day more.

90

Now May'rs and Shrieves all hufh'd and fatiate lay,
Yet eat, in dreams, the cuftard of the day;
While penfive Poets painful vigils keep,

Sleepless themselves, to give their readers fleep.
NOTES.

neral, obtained a victory by fea, and another by land, on the fame day, over the Perfians and Barbarians.

VER. 88. Glad chains,] The Ignorance of these Moderns! This was alter'd in one edition to Gold chains, fhewing more regard to the metal of which the chains of Aldermen are made, than to the beauty of the Latinism and Græcifm, nay of figurative fpeech itself: Latas fegetes, glad, for making glad, &c.

SCRIBL.

VER. 90. But liv'd, in Settle's numbers, one day more.] A beautiful manner of speaking, ufual with poets in praise of poetry, in which kind nothing is finer than thofe lines of Mr. Addifon :

Sometimes, mifguided by the tuneful throng,

I look for ftreams immortaliz'd in song,

That loft in filence and oblivion lie,

Dumb are their fountains, and their channels dry;
Yet run for ever by the Mufes fkill,

And in the smooth description murmur still.

Ibid. But liv'd, in Settle's numbers, one day more.] Settle was poet to the City of London. His office was to compofe yearly panegyrics upon the Lord Mayors, and verses to be spoken in the Pageants: But that part of the fhows being at length frugally abolished, the employment. of City-poet ceafed; fo that upon Settle's demife there was no fucceffor to that place.

Much to the mindful Queen the feaft recalls

What City Swans once fung within the walls;
Much fhe revolves their arts, their ancient praise,
And fure fucceffion down from Heywood's days.
She faw, with joy, the line immortal run,

Each fire impreft and glarmmortal run,

in his fon:
So watchful Bruin forms, with plaftic, care,
Each growing lump, and brings it to a Bear.
She faw old Pryn in reflefs Daniel fhine,
And Eufden eke out Blackmore's endless line;

NOTES.

95.

100

VER. 99. John Heywood, whofe Interludes were printed in the time of Henry VIII.

VER. 103. Old Pryn in reflefs Daniel] The first edi tion had it,

She faw in Norton all his father shine:

a great Miftake! for Daniel De Foe had parts, but Norton De Foe was a wretched writer, and never attempted Poetry. Much more juftly is Daniel himself made fucceffor to W. Pryn, both of whom wrote Verfes as well as Politics; as appears by the Poem De jure divino, c. of De Foe, and by thefe lines in Cowley's Mifcellanies, on the other:

One lately did not fear

(Without the Mufes leave) to plant Verse here.
But it produced fuch base, rough, crabbed, hedge-
Rhymes, as e'en set the hearers ears on edge :
Written by William Prynn Esqui-re, the
Year of our Lord, fix hundred thirty-three.
Brave Jersey Mufe! and he's for his high style
Call'd to this day the Homer of the tile.

And both these authors had a resemblance in their fates as well as writings, having been alike fentenced to the Pillory.

VER. 104. And Eufden eke out, &c.] Laurence Eufden, Poet laureate. Mr. Jacob gives a catalogue of fome few