As erst Medea (cruel, so to save!) Let standard authors thus, like trophies borne, A page, a grave, that they can call their own; And while on Fame's triumphant car they ride, 130 Now crowds on crowds around the goddess press, Each eager to present the first address. Dunce scorning dunce behold the next advance, REMARKS. with impertinent alterations of their text, as in former in stances; or by setting up monuments disgraced with their own vile names and inscriptions, as in the latter. V. 128. A page, a grave,] For what less than a grave can be granted to a dead author! or what less than a page can be allowed a living one? Ibid. A page,] Pagina, not pedissequus. A page of a book, not a servant, follower, or attendant; no poet having had a page since the death of Mr. Thomas Durfey. Scribl. Ver. 131. So by each bard an alderman, &c.] Vide the Tombs of the Poets, editio Westmonasteriensis. Ibid. -an alderman shall sit,] Alluding to the monu ment erected for Butler by alderman Barber. Ver. 132. A heavy lord shail hang at every wit,] How unnatural an image, and how ill supported! saith Aristarchus. Had it been, A heavy wit shall hang at every lord, something might have been said, in an age so distinguished for well-judging patrons. For lord, then, read load; that is, of debts here, and of commentaries hereafter. To this purpose, conspicuous is the case of the poor author of Hudibras, whose body, long since weighed down to the grave by a load of debts, has lately had a more unmerciful load of commen When lo! a spectre rose, whose index-hand 140 And holds his breeches close with both his hands. Then thus: Since man from beast by words is known, Words are man's province, words we teach alone. 150 When reason, doubtful, like the Samian letter, Points him two ways, the narrower is the better. REMARKS. taries laid upon his spirit; wherein the editor has achieved more than Virgil himself, when he turned critic, could boast of, which was only, that he had picked gold out of another man's dung; whereas the editor has picked it out of his Scribl. own. Aristarchus thinks the common reading right: and that the author himself had been struggling, and but just shaken off his load, when he wrote the following epigrain: My lord complains, that Pope, stark mad with gardens, Dunce scorning dunce behold the next advance, This is not to be ascribed so much to the different manners Scribl. Ver. 151. Like the Samian letter.] The letter Y used Placed at the door of learning, youth to guide, To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence, 160 170 'Oh,' cried the goddess, 'for some pedant reign! Some gentle James, to bless the land again; REMARKS. by Pythagoras, as an emblem of the different roads of virtue and vice. 'Et tibi quæ Samios diduxit litera ramos.'-Pers. Ver. 174. That master-picce of man.] Viz. an epigram. The famous Dr. South declared a perfect epigram to be as difficult a performance as an epic poem. And the critics say, An epic poem is the greatest work human nature is capable of. Ver. 176. Some gentle James, &c.] Wilson tells us that this king, James the first, took upon himself to teach the Latin tongue to Car, earl of Somerset; and that Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, would speak false Latin to him, on purpose to give him the pleasure of correcting it, whereby he wrought himself into his good graces. This great prince was the first who assumed the title of Sacred Majesty, which his loyal clergy transferred from To stick the doctor's chair into the throne, O! if my sons may learn one earthly thing, 180 That which my priests, and mine alone, maintain, Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day, [Though Christ-church long kept prudishly away.] Each staunch polemic, stubborn as a rock, Each fierce logician, still expelling Locke, Came whip and spur, and dash'd through thin and thick On German Crouzaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck. REMARKS. God to him. The principles of passive obedience and nonresistance,' says the author of the Dissertation on Parties, Letter 8, which before his time had skulked, perhaps in some old homily, were talked, written, and preached into vogue in that inglorious reign.' Ver. 194. Though Christ-church, &c.] This line is doubtless spurious, and foisted in by the impertinence of the editor; and accordingly we have put it in between hooks. For I affirm this college came as early as any other, by its proper deputies; nor did any college pay homage to Dulness in its whole body. Bentl. Ver. 196. Still expelling Locke,] In the year 1703 there was a meeting of the heads of the University of Oxford, to censure Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, and to forbid the reading of it. See his Letters in the last edition. Ver. 198. On German Crouzaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck.] There seems to be an improbability that the doctors and heads of houses should ride on horseback, who of late days, As many quit the streams that murmuring fall 200 REMARKS. being gouty or unwieldy, have kept their coaches. But these are horses of great strength, and fit to carry any weight, as their German and Dutch extraction may manifest; and very famous we may conclude, being honoured with names, as were the horses Pegasus and Bucephalus. Scribl. Though I have the greatest deference to the penetration of this eminent scholiast, and must own that nothing can be more natural than his interpretation, or juster than that rule of criticism, which directs us to keep the literal sense, when no apparent absurdity accompanies it (and sure there is no absurdity in supposing a logician on horseback,) yet still I must needs think the hackneys here celebrated were not real horses, nor even Centaurs, which, for the sake of the learned Chiron, I should rather be inclined to think, if I were forced to find them four legs, but downright plain men, though logicians: and only thus metamorphosed by a rulo of rhetoric, of which Cardinal Perron gives us an example, where he calls Clavius, Un esprit pesant, lourd, sans subtilite, ni gentilesse, un gros cheval d'Allemagne.' Here I profess to go opposite to the whole stream of commentators. I think the poet only aimed, though awkwardly, at an elegant Græcism in this representation; for in that lan guage the word as (horse) was often prefixed to others, to denote greatness of strength; as x, γλωσσον, ιππομαραθρον, and particularly HiloΓΝΩΜΩΝ, a great connoisseur, which comes nearest to the case in hand. Scip. Maff. Ver. 199. The streams.] The river Cam, running by the walls of these colleges, which are particularly famous for their skill in disputation. Ver. 202. Sleeps in port.] Viz. Now retired into har bour, after the tempests that had long agitated his society.' So Scriblerus. But the learned Scipio Maffei understand it of a certain wine called Port, from Oporto, a city of Portugal, of which this professor invited him to drink abundantly. Scip. Maff. De Compotationibus Academicis. [And to the VOL. II. 19 |