Whether thou chufe Cervantes' serious air, acquires. VARIATIONS. After VER. 22. in the MS. Or in the graver Gown inftruct mankind, Or filent let thy morals tell thy mind. 25 But this was to be understood, as the Poet fays, ironicè, like the 23d Verfe. REMARK S. regular parts of that famous French droll. Dr. S. Clarke in the first Edition of his Boyle's Lectures gives this book for an example of fcoffing Atheifm. And tho' I think there be neither impiety nor irreligion in the conduct of his Tale, yet furely it was impoffible for a man really penetrated with a ferious fenfe of Religion, ever to prevail on himself to expose the abufes of it in fuch a manner. * VER. 22.-laugh and shake in Rab'lais' eafy chair.] The imagery is exquifite; and the equivoque in the last words, gives a peculiar elegance to the whole expreffion. The eafy chair fuits his age: Rab'lais' eafy chair marks his character and he fills and poffeffes it as the right heir and fucceffor of that original Genius. * VER. 23. Or praise the Court, or magnify Mankind.] Ironicè, alluding to Gulliver's reprefentations of both. The next line relates to the papers of the Drapier against the currency of Wood's Copper coin in Ireland, which, upon the great difcontent of the People, his Majefty was graciously pleafed to recal. VER. 26. Mourn not, my Swift! at ought our realm acquires.] Ironicè iterum. The Politics of England and Ireland Here pleas'd behold her mighty wings out-spread To hatch a new Saturnian age of Lead. Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne, And laughs to think Monroe would take her down, VARIATIONS. VER. 29. Close to thofe walls, &c.] In the former Edd. thus, Where wave the tatter'd enfigns of Rag-fair, A yawning ruin hangs and nods in air; Keen hollow winds howl thro' the bleak recefs, Here in one bed two fhiv'ring Sifters lie, Var. Where wave the tatter'd enfigns of Rag-fair,] Rag-fair is a place near the Tower of London, where old cloaths and frippery are fold. ·Var. A yawning ruin hangs and nods in air ; Here in one Bed two fhiv'ring Sifters lie, The Cave of Poverty and Poetry.] Hear upon this place the forecited Critic on the Dunciad. "Thefe lines (faith he) have no conftruction, or are non"fenfe. The two fhivering Sifters must be the fifter-caves "of Poverty and Poetry, or the bed and cave of Poverty "and Poetry must be the fame, [queftionless, if they lie "in one bed] and the two Sifters the Lord knows who." O the conftruction of grammatical heads! Virgil writeth thus: Æn. i. REMARK S. were at this time by fome thought to be oppofite, or interfering with each other: Dr. Swift of courfe was in the inte reft of the latter, our Author of the former. VER. 28. To hatch a new Saturnian Age of Lead.] The ancient Golden Age is by Poets ftyled Saturnian. as being under the reign of Saturn: but in the Chemical language Saturn is Lead. She is faid here only to be fpreading her wings to hatch this Age; which is not produced completely till the fourth book. G z Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers ftand; One Cell there is, conceal'd from vulgar eye, The Cave of Poverty and Poetry. VARIATIONS. "Fronte fub adverfa fcopulis pendentibus antrum : 66 Nympharum domus." May we not fay in like manner, "The Nymphs must be "the waters and the ftones, or the waters and the ftones must "be the houses of the Nymphs?" Infulfe! The fecond line, Intus aquæ, &c. is a parenthefis (as are two lines of our Author, Keen hollow Winds, &c.) and it is the Antrum, and the yawning Ruin, in the line before that parenthesis, which are the Domus and the Cave. Let me again, I beseech thee, Reader, prefent thee with another Conjectural Emendation on Virgil's fcopulis pendentibus : He is here describing a place, whither the weary mariners of Eneas repaired to drefs their dinner.-Fell-frugesque receptas & torrere parant flammis: What has fcopulis pendentibus here to do? Indeed the aqua dulces and fedilia are fomething; fweet waters to drink, and feats to reft on: the other is furely an error of the Copyifts. Reftore it, without the leaft fcruple, Populis prandentibus. But for this and a thousand more, expect our Virgil ReSCRIBLERUS. fter'd. REMARK S. VER. 31. By his fam'd father's hand,] Mr. Caius-Gabriel Cibber, father of the Poet Laureate. The two Statues of the Lunatics over the gates of Bedlam-hofpital were done by him, and (as the fon juftly fays of them) are no ill monuments of his fame as an Artist. VER. 33. One Cell there is,] The cell of poor Poetry is here very properly reprefented as a little unindowed Hall in the neighbourhood of the magnific College of Bedlam; and Keen, hollow winds howl thro' the bleak recefs, 35 Emblem of Mufic caus'd by Emptiness. Hence Bards, like Proteus long in vain ty'd down, Escape in Monsters, and amaze the town. REMARK S. as the fureft Seminary to fupply thofe learned walls with Profeffors. For there cannot be a plainer fymptom of madnefs than for men to chufe poverty and contempt by fcribling, to Escape in Monsters, and amaze the Town," when they might have benefited themselves and others in profitable and honeft employments. The qualities and productions of the Students of this private Academy are afterwards described in this first book; as are also their actions throughout the fecond; by which it appears, how near allied Dulness is to Madness. This naturally prepares the reader for the fubject of the third book, where we find them in union; and acting in conjunction to produce the Cataftrophe of the fourth; a mad poetical Sibyl leading our Hero through the regions of vifion, to animate him in the present undertaking, by a view of the past triumphs of Barbarism over Science. * VER. 34. Poverty and Poetry.] I cannot here omit a remark that will greatly endear our Author to every one, who shall attentively obferve that Humanity and Candor, which every where appears in him towards thofe unhappy objects of the ridicule of all mankind, the bad Poets. He here imputes all scandalous rhymes, fcurrilous weekly papers, base flatteries, wretched elegies, fongs, and verfes (even from those sung at Court, to ballads in the streets) not so much to malice or fervility as to Dulnefs; and not so much to Dulness as to Neceffity. And thus, at the very commencement of his Satire, makes an apology for all that are to be fatirized. VER. 37. Hence Bards, like Proteus long in vain ty'd down, Efcape in Monfters, and amaze the town.] Hence Miscellanies fpring, the weekly boast Of Curl's chafte prefs, and Lintot's rubric post: 49 REMARK S. Ovid has given us a very orderly account of these escapes ; Met. viii. Neither Palæphatus, Phurnutus, nor Heraclides give us any fteddy light into the mythology of this mysterious fable. If I be not deceived in a part of learning which has fo long exercifed my pen, by Proteus must certainly be meant a hacknied Town-fcribler; and by his transformations, the various difguifes fuch a one affumes, to elude the pursuit of his natural enemy, the Bailiff. And in this light, doubtlefs Horace underftood the fable, where, fpeaking of Proteus, he fays, "Quum RAPIES in JUS malis ridentem alienis, "Fict aper," &c. Proteus is reprefented as one bred of the mud and flime of Egypt, the original foil of Arts and Letters; and what, I pray you, is a Town-fcribler, but a creature made up of the excrements of luxurious Science? By the change then into a Bear, is meant his character of a furious and dirty Party-writer; the Snake fignifies a Libeller; and the Horns of the Bull, the Dilemmas of a Polemical Anfwerer. Thefe are the three great parts he affumes; and when he has completed his circle, he finks back again (as the last change into a Stone denotes) into his natural state of immoveable Stupidity. Hence it is, that the Poet, where fpeaking at large of all thefe various Metamorphofes in the fecond Book, defcribes MOTHER OSBORNE, the great Antitype of our Proteus, in ver. 312. after all her changes, as at laft quite fupified to Stone. If I may expect thanks of the learned world for this difcovery, I would by no means deprive that excellent Critic of his fhare, who discovered before me, that |