The Mufe but ferv'd to eafe fome friend, not Wife, NOTES. VER. 131. Not Wife,] These two words feem added merely for the verfe, and are what the French call a cheville, VER. 135. But why then publish?] To the three firft names that encouraged his carlieft writings, he has added other friends, whose acquaintance with him did not commence till he was a poet of eftablifhed reputation. From the many commendations which Walth, and Garth, and Grenville beflowed on bis Paftorals, it may fairly be concluded how much the public tafte has been improved, and with how many good compofitions our language has been enriched, fince that time. When Gray published his exquifite ode on Eton College, his firft publication, little notice was taken of it: but i suppose no critic can be found that will not place it far above Pope's Paftorals. reading which ode a certain perfon exclaimed, Sweet Bard, who fhuan'ft the noise of Folly, Thee oft the lonely woods among I woo to bear thy evening fong; And think thy thrilling ftrains have power To raise Mufæus from his bower; Or bid the tender Spenfer come From his lov'd baunt, fair Fancy's tomb." See particularly that fine ftanza, Thefe fhall the fury paffions tear, The vultures of the mind;" and alfo, Yet ah! why should they know their fate?" On VER. 139. Talbot, &c.] All these were Patrons or Admirers of Mr. Dryden; though à fcandalous libel against him, entitled Dryden's Satyr to his Mufe, has been printed in the name of the Lord Somers, of which he was wholly ignorant. VOL. IV. Ev'n mitred Rochefter would nod the head, 140 And St. John's self (great Dryden's friends before) Soft were my numbers; who could take offence While pure Description held the place of Senfe? NOTES. Thefe are the perfons to whofe account the Author charges the publication of his firft pieces: perfons, with whom he was converfant (and he adds beloved) at 16 or 17 years of age; an early period for fuch acquaintance. The catalogue might be made yet more illuftrious, had he not confined it to that time when he writ the Paftorals and Windfor Foreft, on which he paffes a fort of Cenfure ia the lines following: "While pure Description held the place of Sense," &c. P. Every word and epithet here ufed is exa&ly chara&eriftical and peculiarly appropriated, with much art, to the temper and manner of each of the perfons here mentioned; the elegance of Lanfdown, the open free benevolence and candour of Garth, the warmth of Congreve, the difficulty of pleafing Swift, the very gefture (as I am informed) that Atterbury used when he was pleased, and the animated air and fpirit of Bolingbroke. VER. 146. Burnets, &c.] Authors of fecret and fcandalous Hiftory. P. Ibid. Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.] By no means Authors of the fame clafs; though the violence of party might hurry them into the lame mistakes. But if the firft offended this way, it was only through an honeft warmth of temper, that allowed too little to an excellent understanding. The other two, with very bad heads, had hearts ftill worse. W. VFR. 148. While pure Defcription held the place of Senfe?] He uses pure equivocally, to fignify either chafte or empty; and has given in this line what be efteemed the true Chara&er of defcriptive poetry, as it is called. A compofition, in his opinion, as abfurd as a feaft made up of fauces. The office of a picturesque imagination is to brighten and adorn good fenfe; so that to employ it only in description, is Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme; I wish'd the man a Dinner, and fate ftill. I never anfwer'd, I was not in debt. 150 If want provok'd, or madness made them print, 155 I wag'd no war with Bedlam or the Mint. ་ 160 Did fome more fober Critic come abroad; NOTES. like children's delighting in a prifm for the fake of its gaudy colours which, when frugally managed and artfully difpofed, might be made to unfold and illuftrate the nobleft obje&s in nature. W. P. VER. 150. A painted meadow, or a purling fiream,] is a verfe of Mr. Addifon. Ibid. A painted mistress, or a purling ftream.] Meaning the Rape of the Lock, and Windfor-Foreft. W. VER. 151. · Yet then did Gildon] The unexpected turn in the second line of each of these three couplets, contains as cutting and bitter Arokes of fatire as perhaps can be written. It is with difficulty we can forgive our Author for upbraiding thefe wretched fcriblers for their poverty and diftreffes, if we do not keep in our minds the grofsly abufive pamphlets they published; and, even allowing this circumftance, we ought to feparate rancour from reproof: "Cur tam crudeles optavit fumere pœnas?" VER. 163. Yet ne'er one sprig Swift imbibed from Sir W. Temple, and Pope from Swift, an inveterate and unreasonable averfion aud contempt for Bentley, whofe admirable Boyle's Ledures, Remarks on Collins's Emendations of Menander and Callimachus, and Tully's Tufcul. Difp. whofe edition of Horace, and, above all, Diflertations し From flashing Bentley down to piddling Tibalds: Each wight who reads not, and but fcans and fpells, NOTES. on the Epiftles of Phalaris, (in which he gained the most complete vidory over a whole army of wits,) all of them exhibit the moft Atriking marks of accurate and extenfive erudition, and a vigorous and acute understanding. He degraded himself much by his ftrange and abfurd hypothefis of the faults of Paradife loft, which Milton's amanu enfis introduced into that poem. But I have been informed that there was ftill an additional caufe for Pope's refentment: That Atterbury, being in company with Bentley and Pope, infifted upon knowing the Doctor's opinion of the English Homer; and that, being earneftly preffed to declare his fentiments freely, he said, "The verses are good verfes, but the work is not Homer, it is Spondanus." It may, however, be obferved, in favour of Pope, that Dr. Clarke, whofe critical exa&uess is well known, has not been able to point out above three or four miftakes in the fenfe throughout the whole Iliad. The real faults of that tranflation are of another kind: They are fuch as remind us of Nero's gilding a brazen ftatue of Alexander the Great, caft by Ls fippus. Pope, in a letter which Dr. Rutherforth fhewed me at Cambridge in the year 1771, written to a Mr. Bridges at Fulham, mentions bis confulting Chapman and Hobbes, and talks of their authority, joined to the knowledge of my own imperfectness in the language, over-ruled me." These are the very words which I traufcribed at the time. VER. 163. Thefe ribalds,] How defervedly this title is given to the genius of PHILOLOGY, may be feen by a short account of the manners of the modern Scholiafts. When in these latter ages, human learning raised its head in the Weft; and its tail, verbal criticifm, was, of courle, to rife with it; the madness of Critics foon became fo offenfive, that the grave flupidity of the Monks might appear the more tolerable evil. J. Argyropylus, a mercenary Greek, who came to teach school in Italy, after the facking of Conftantinople by the Turks, used to maintain that Cicero understood neither Philofophy uor Greek: while another of his countrymen, J. Lafcaris by name, threatened to demonftrate that Virgil was no Poet. Countenanced by fuch great examples, a French Critic afterwards undertook to prove that Ariftotle did not underfland Greek, nor Titus Livius, Latin. It has been fince difcovered that Jofephus was ignorant of Hebrew: and Erafmus fo pitiful a linguift, that, Burman affures us, were he now alive, he would not deserve to be put at the head of a country school: And even fince it has been found out that Pope had no invention, and is only a Poet by courtely. For though time has fripp'd the prefent race of Pedants of all the real accomplishments of their predeceffors, it has conveyed down this spirit to them, unimpaired; it being found much caffer to ape their manners than to imitate their science. However, those carlier RIBALDS raised an appetite for the Greek language in the Weft; info much, that Hermolaus Barbarus, a paffionate admirer of it, and a noted critic, ufed to boat, that he had invoked and raised the Devil, and puzzled him into the bargain, about the meaning of the Ariftotelian ΕΝΤΕΛΕΧΕΙΑ. Another, whom Balzac fpeaks of, was as eminent for his Revelations; and was wont to say, that the meaning of fuch or such a verfe, in Perfius, no one knew but GOD and him. felf. While the celebrated Pomponius Laetus, in excess of veneration for Antiquity, became a real Pagan; raifed altars to Romulus, and facrificed to the Gods of Latium; in which he was followed by our countryman Baxter, in every thing, but in the coftliness of his facrifices. But if the Greeks cried down Cicero, the Italian Critics knew how to fupport his credit. Every one has heard of the childish exceffes into which the ambition of being thought CICERONIANS carried the moft celebrated Italians of this time. They abftained from reading the Scriptures for fear of spoiling their ftyle: Cardinal Bembo ufed to call the Epiftles of St. Paul by the contemptuous name of Epiflolaccias, great overgrown Ebifles. But ERASMUS cured their frenzy by that mafter. piece of good fenfe, his Ciceronianus. For which (in the way that Lunatics treat their Physicians) the elder Scaliger infulted him with all the brutal fury peculiar to his family and profeffion. His fons Jofeph and Salmafius had indeed fuch endowments of nature and art, as might have raised modern learning to a rivalship with the ancient. Yet how did they and their adversaries tear and worry one another? The choiceft of Joseph's flowers of speech were Stercus Diaboli, and Lutum Stercore maceratum. It is true, these were lavished upon his enemies; for his friends he had other things in fore. In a letter to Thuanus, fpeaking of two of them, Clavius and Lipfius, he calls the first a monster of ignorance; and the other a flave to the Jefuits, and an Idiot. But fo great was his love of facred amity at the fame time, that he fays, I fill keep up my correspondence with him, notwithstanding his Idiotry, for it is my principle to be conftant in my friendShips--Je ne reste de luy efcrire, nonobftant fon Idioterie, d'autant que je fuis conftant en amitié. The chara&er he gives of his own Chronology, in the fame letter, is no less extraordinary: Vous vous pouvez affurer que notre Eufehe fera un tréfor des merveillee de la do&rine Chronologique. But this modeft account of his own work is nothing in comparison of the idea the Father gives his bookfeller of his own perfon. This |