Here all his fuff'ring brotherhood retire,

And 'fcape the martyrdom of jakes and fire:
A Gothic Library! of Greece and Rome

145

Well purg'd, and worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.

VARIATIONS.

VER. 146. in the first Edit. it was

Well-purg'd, and worthy W-y, W➡s, and BI→→→ And in the following alter'd to Withers, Quarles, and Blome, on which was the following note:

It was printed in the furreptitious editions, Wly, W- s, who were perfons eminent for good life; the one writ the Life of Christ in verfe, the other fome valuable pieces in the lyric kind on pious fubjects. The line is here reftor'd according to its original

66

George Withers was a great pretender to poetical zeal against the vices of the times, and abufed the greatest perfonages in power, which brought upon him frequent "Correction. The Marshalsea and Newgate were no ftrangers to him.” WINSTANLY. Quarles was as dull a writer, but an honefter man. Blome's books are remarkable for their cuts.

NOTES.

"fied herself in the ravishing delights of Poetry; leaving to pofterity in print three ample Volumes of her ftudious "endeavours." WINSTANLY,ibid.Langbaine reckons up eight Folios of her Grace's; which were usually adorned with gilded covers, and had her coat of arms upon them.

VER. 146. Worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.] The Poet has mentioned thefe three authors in particular, as they are parallel to our Hero in his three capacities: 1. Settle was his Brother Laureate; only indeed upon half-pay, for the City inftead of the Court; but equally famous for unintelligible flights in his poems on public occafions, such as Shows, Birth days, &c. 2. Banks was his Rival in Tragedy (tho' more fuccefsful) in one of his

But, high above, more folid Learning fhone, The Claffics of an Age that heard of none; 、 There Caxton flept, with Wynkyn at his fide, 149 One clafp'd in wood, and one in ftrong cow-hide; There, fav'd by fpice, like Mummies, many a year, Dry Bodies of Divinity appear:

Tragedies, the Earl of Effex, which is yet alive; Anna Boleyn, the Queen of Scots, and Cyrus the Great, are dead and gone. These he drest in a fort of Beggars Velvet, or a happy mixture of the thick Fuftian and thin Profaic; exactly imitated in Perolla and Ifidora, Cæfar in Egypt, and the Heroic Daughter. 3. Broome was a ferving man of Ben. Johnson, who once picked up a Comedy from his Betters, or from fome cast scenes of his Mafter, not entirely * contemptible.

VER. 147. More folid Learning] Some have objected, that books of this fort fuit not fo well the library of our Bays, which they imagine confifted of Novels, Plays, and obscene books; but they are to confider, that he furnished his shelves only for ornament, and read these books no more than the Dry bodies of Divinity, which, no doubt, were purchased by his Father when he defigned him for the Gown. See the note on ✯ 200.

VER. 149. Caxton] A Printer in the time of Edw. IV. Rich. III. and Hen. VII; Wynkyn de Word, his fucceffor, in that of Hen. VII. and VIII. The former tranflated into profe Virgil's Eneis, as a hiftory; of which he fpeaks, in his Proeme, in a very fingular manner, as of a book hardly known. Happened that to my handle "cam a lytyl book in frenche, whiche late was translated "out of latyn by fome noble clerke of fraunce, whiche "booke is named Eneydos (made in latyn by that noble poete and grete clerk Vyrgyle) which booke I fawe over and redde therein, How after the generall deftruccyon of the grete Troy, Eneas departed berynge

De Lyra there a dreadful front extends,

And here the groaning fhelves Philemon bends.
Of these twelve volumes, twelve of ampleft fize,
Redeem'd from tapers and defrauded pies,
Infpir'd he feizes: These an altar raise :
An hecatomb of pure, unsully'd lays

NOTES.

156

his old fader anchifes upon his fholdres, his lyttyl fon "Yolas on his hande, his wyfe with moche other people followynge, and how he shipped and departed; wythe "all thyftorye of his adventures that he had er he cam to the atchievement of his conqueft of Ytalye, as all alonge "fhall be fhewed in this prefent booke. In whiche booke I had grete playfyr, by cause of the fayr and honest termes & wordes in frenche, whiche I neuer fawe to fore lyke, ne none fo playfaunt ne fo wel ordred; whiche "booke as me femed fholde be moch requyfite to noble

66

men to fee, as wel for the eloquence as the hyftoryes. "How wel that many hondred yerys paffed was the fayd "booke of Eneydos wyth other workes made and lerned

dayly in fcolis, efpecyally in Ytalye and other places, "which historye the fayd Vyrgyle made in metre." Tibbald quotes a rare paffage from him in Mift's Journal of March 16, 1728, concerning a fraunge and mervayllouse beafle called Sagittarye, which he would have Shakespear to mean rather than Teucer, the archer celebrated by

Homer.

VER. 153. Nich de Lyra, or Harps field, a very voluminous commentator, whofe works, in five vaft folios, were printed in 1472.

He

VER. 154. Philemon Holland Doctor in Phyfic. "tranflated fo many books, that a man would think he had "done nothing else; infomuch that he might be called Tranflator general of his age. The books alone of his turning into English are fufficient to make a Country Gentlemana complete Library." WINSTANLY.

66

That altar crowns: A folio Common-place
Founds the whole pile, of all his works the base:
Quartos, Octavos, fhape the lefs'ning pyre;
A twisted Birth-day Ode completes the spire.
Then he: Great Tamer of all human art!
First in my care, and ever at my heart,
Dulness; whofe good old cause I yet defend,

161

165

With whom my Muse began, with whom shall end, E'er fince Sir Fopling's Periwig was Praise,

To the last honours of the Butt and Bays:

VARIATIONS.

VER. 162. A twifted, &c.] In the former Edd.
And laft a little Ajax tips the Spire.

Var. a little Ajax] In duodecimo, tranflated from So phocles by Tibbald.

IMITATIONS.

VER. 166. With whom my Mufe began, with whom shall end.]

A te principium, tibi definet.

Virg. Ecl. viii.

Ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεθα, καὶ εἰς Δία λήγει:, Μᾶσαι. Theoc. Prima dicte mihi, fumma dicende Camœna.

NOTES.

Har.

VER. 167. E'er fince Sir Fopling's Periwig] The first vifible caufe of the paffion of the Town for our Hero, was a fair flaxen full-bottom'd Periwig, which, he tells us, he wore in his firft play of the Fool in fashion. It at tracted, in a particular manner, the Friendship of Col. Brett, who wanted to purchase it. "Whatever contempt (fays he) Philofophers may have for a fine Periwig, my VOL. V. C

O thou! of Bus'nefs the directing foul !

To this our head like byafs to the bowl,

170

Which, as more pond'rous, made its aim more true,
Obliquely wadling to the mark in view:
O! ever gracious to perplex'd mankind,
Still fpread a healing mift before the mind;
And, left we err by Wit's wild dancing light,
Secure us kindly in our native night.
Or, if to Wit a coxcomb make pretence,
Guard the fure barrier between that and fenfe;

66

VARIATIONS.

VER. 177. Or, if to Wit, &c.] In the former Edd.
Ah! ftill o'er Britain ftretch that peaceful wand,
Which lulls th' Helvetian and Batavian land;
Where rebel to thy throne if Science rise,
She does but fhew her coward face and dies:

NOTES.

175

"friend, who was not to despise the world but to live in "it, knew very well that so material an article of drefs upon the head of a man of sense, if it became him, "could never fail of drawing to him a more partial Regard and Benevolence, than could poffibly be hoped " for in an ill-made one. This, perhaps, may foften the grave cenfure, which fo youthful a purchase might "otherwife have laid upon him. In a word, he made "his attack upon this Periwig, as your young fellows generally do upon a lady of pleasure, firft by a few fami"liar praifes of her perfon, and then a civil enquiry into "the price of it; and we finished our bargain that night over a bottle." See Life, octavo, p. 303. This remarkable Periwig ufually made its entrance upon the stage in a fedan, brought in by two chairmen, with infinite approbation of the audience.

66