How random thoughts now meaning chance to find,
Now leave all memory of sense behind:
How prologues into prefaces decay,
And these to notes are fritter'd quite away:
How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail:
How, with less reading than make felons scape,
Less human genius than God gives an ape,
Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or
Greece,

A past, vamp'd, future, old revived, new piece,
'Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakspeare, and Cor-
Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell. 286 [neille,

REMARKS.

286 -Tibbald.] Lewis Tibbald, (as pronounced) or Theobald, (as written) was bred an attorney, and son to an attorney (says Mr. Jacob) of Sittenburn, in Kent. He was 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 Whachum, who, from an under spur-leather to the law, is become an under-strapper to the play-house, who hath 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.

286 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. He 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 fully confuted all sarcasms on his learning and 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

The goddess then o'er his anointed head, With mystic words, the sacred opium shed. And, lo! her bird (a monster of a fowl, Something betwixt a heidegger and owl) Perch'd on his crown:-'All hail! and hail again, My son! the promised land expects thy reign. Known Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise; He sleeps among the dull of ancient days; Safe where no critics damn, no duns molest, Where wretched Withers, Ward, and Gildon rest,296

REMARKS.

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 he 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 rapita). And Mr. Toland and Mr. Gildon publicly declared Ozell's translation of Homer to be, as it was prior, so likewise superior to Pope's.-Surely, surely, every man is free to deserve well of his country.' JOHN OZELL.

We cannot but subscribe to such reverend testimonies as those of the Bench of Bishops, Mr. Toland, and Mr. Gildon.

W.

296 Withers was a great pretender to poetical zeal against the vices of the times, and abused the greatest personages in power, which brought upon him frequent correction. Marshalsea and Newgate were no strangers to him.

Winstanley.

The

296 Gildon.] Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels, of the last age, bred at St. Omer's with the Jesuits; but renouncing popery, he published Blount's books against the divinity of Christ, the oracles of reason, &c. He signalized himself as a critic, having written some very bad plays; abused Mr. P. very scandalously in an anonymous pamphlet of the Life of Mr. Wycherley, printed by Curl: in another, called The New Rehearsal, printed in 1714; in a third, entitled The Complete Art of English Poetry, in two volumes; and others.

W.

And high-born Howard, more majestic sire, 297
With fool of quality completes the quire.
Thou, Cibber! thou his laurel shalt support;
Folly, my son, has still a friend at court.
Lift up your gates, ye princes, see him come!
Sound, sound ye viols, be the cat-call dumb!
Bring, bring the madding bay, the drunken vine,
The creeping, dirty, courtly ivy join. 304

And thou! his aid-de-camp, lead on my sons,
Light-arm'd with points, antitheses, and puns.
Let Bawdry, Billingsgate, my daughters dear,
Support his front, and Oaths bring up the rear:
And under his, and under Archer's wing,
Gaming in Grub-street skulk behind the king.

'Oh! when shall rise a monarch all our own, 311 And I, a nursing-mother, rock the throne;

'Twixt prince and people close the curtain draw,
Shade him from light, and cover him from law;
Fatten the courtier, starve the learned band,
And suckle armies, and dry-nurse the land:
Till senates nod to lullabies divine,
And all be sleep, as at an ode of thine?'

REMARKS.

297 Howard.] Hon. Edward Howard, author of the British Princes, and a great number of wonderful pieces, celebrated by the late Earls of Dorset and Rochester, Duke of Buckingham, Mr. Waller, &c.

IMITATIONS.

304 The creeping, dirty, courtly ivy join.]

Quorum imagines lambunt

Hederæ sequaces.

PER.

311 O! when shall rise a monarch, &c.] Boileau, Lutrin, chant ii.

Helas! qu'est devenu ce tems, cet heureux tems,
Ou les rois s'honoroient du nom de faineans,' &c.