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Back to the Devil the last echoes roll,

And Coll! each Butcher roars at Hockley-hole. So when Jove's block descended from on high (As fings thy great forefather Ogilby),

325

Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog,
And the hoarfe nation croak'd, God fave king Log!

REMARK S.

VER. 325. Back to the Devil] The Devil Tavern in Fleet-street, where these Odes are usually rehearfed before they are performed at Court. Upon which a Wit of those times made this Epigram,

"When Laureates make Odes, do you ask of what fort? "Do you ask if they're good, or are evil?

"You may judge-From the Devil they come to the Court, "And go from the Court to the Devil."

VER. 328.-Ogilby-God fave king Log!] See Ogilby's Æfop's Fables, where, in the ftory of the Frogs and their King, this excelcellent hemiftich is to be found.

Our author manifefts here, and elsewhere, a prodigious tenderness for the bad writers. We fee he felects the only good paffage, perhaps, in all that ever Ogilby writ; which fhews how candid and patient a reader he must have been. What can be more kind and affectionate than these words in the preface to his Poems, where he labours to call up all our humanity and forgiveness toward these unlucky men, by the most moderate reprefentation of their cafe that has ever been given by any author? "Much may be faid to extenuate the "fault of bad poets: What we call a genius is hard to be diftin"guished, by a man himself, from a prevalent inclination: And "if it be never so great, he can at first discover it no other way than "by that strong propenfity which renders him the more liable to be "miftaken. He has no other method but to make the experiment, "by writing, and fo appealing to the judgment of others: And if "he happens to write ill (which is certainly no fin in itself) he is "immediately made the object of ridicule! I wish we had the hu"manity to reflect, that even the worst authors might endeavour "to please us, and, in that endeavour, deferve fomething at our "hands. We have no caufe to quarrel with them, but for their "obftinacy in perfisting, and even that may admit of alleviating cir"cumftances: For their particular friends may be either ignorant, ❝or unfincere; and the rest of the world too well-bred to fhock them "with a truth which generally their bookfellers are the first that in"form them of."

REMARKS.

But how much all indulgence is loft upon thefe people may appear from the just reflection made on their conftant conduct and conftant fate, in the following Epigram:

"Ye little Wits, that gleam'd a while,
"When Pope vouchfaf d a ray,
"Alas! depriv'd of his kind smile,
"How foon ye fade away!

"To compafs Phoebus' car about,
"Thus empty vapours rife;
"Each lends his cloud to put him out,
"That rear'd him to the fkies.

"Alas! thofe fkies are not your sphere;
"There He thall ever burn:

"Weep, weep, and fall! for Earth ye were,

And muft to Earth return."

THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK.

THE

DUNCIA D.

BOOK THE SECOND.

ARGUMENT.

The King being proclaimed, the folemnity is graced with public Games and Sports of various kinds ; not instituted by the Hero, as by Æneas in Virgil, but for greater bonour by the Goddess in perfon (in like manner as the games Pythia, Ifthmia, etc. were anciently faid to be ordained by the Gods, and as Thetis herself appearing, according to Homer, Odyss. xxiv. proposed the prizes in bonour of her fon Achilles). Hither flock the Poets and Critics, attended, as is but juft, with their Patrons and Bookfellers. The Goddefs is firft pleafed, for her difport, to propofe games to the Bookfellers, and fetteth up the Phantom of a Poet, which they contend to overtake. The Races defcribed, with their divers accidents. Next, the game for a Poetels. Then follow the Exercises for the Poets, of tickling, vociferating, diving: The first holds forth the arts and practices of Dedicators; the Second, of Difputants and fuftian Poets; the third, of profound, dark, and dirty Party-writers. Loftly, for

the Critics, the Goddess propofes (with great propriety) an Exercife, not of their parts, but their patience, in bearing the works of two voluminous Authors, one in verfe, and the other in profe, deliberately read, without fleeping: The various effects of which, with the several degrees and manners of their operation, are here fet forth; till the whole number, not of Critics only, but of Spectators, actors, and all present, fall faft afleep; which naturally and neceffarily ends the games.

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