But, high above, more solid learning shone, The classics of an age that heard of none;

149

There Caxton slept, with Wynkyn at his side,'
One clasp'd in wood, and one in strong cow-hide;
There, saved by spice, like mummies, many a year,
Dry bodies of divinity appear:

De Lyra there a dreadful front extends,153
And here the groaning shelves Philemon bends.154
Of these, twelve volumes, twelve of ample size,
Redeem'd from tapers and defrauded pies,
Inspired he seizes: these an altar raise ;
An hecatomb of pure unsullied lays
That altar crowns; a folio common-place
Founds the whole pile, of all his works the base:
Quartos, octavos, shape the lessening pyre,
A twisted birth-day ode completes the spire.

REMARKS.

flights in his poems on public occasions, such as shows, birthdays, &c. 2. Banks was his rival in tragedy, though more successful in one of his tragedies, the Earl of Essex, which is yet alive: Anna Boleyn, the Queen of Scots, and Cyrus the Great, are dead and gone. These he dressed in a sort of beggar's velvet, or a happy mixture of the thick fustian and thin prosaic; exactly imitated in Perolla and Isidora, Cæsar in Egypt, and the Heroic Daughter. 3. Broome was a serving-man of Ben Johnson, who once picked up a comedy from his betters, or from some cast scenes of his master's, not entirely contemptible.

W.

149 Caxton. A printer in the time of Henry VI. Rich. III. and Henry VII. Wynkyn de Worde, his successor, in that

of Henry VII. and VIII.

153 Nich. de Lyra; or Harpsfield, a very voluminous commentator, whose works, in five vast folios, were printed in 1472.

154 Philemon Holland, doctor in physic, He translated so many books, that a man would think he had done nothing else; insomuch that he might be called Translator General of his age. The books alone of his turning into English, are sufficient to make a country gentleman a complete library.'

Winstanley.

Then he :

Great tamer of all human art!

First in my care, and ever at my heart;

Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend, With whom my Muse began, with whom shall end,16

E'er since Sir Fopling's periwig was praise,
To the last honours of the Butt and Bays;
O thou! of business the directing soul
To this our head, like bias to the bowl,
Which, as more ponderous, made its aim more true,
Obliquely waddling to the mark in view;
Oh! ever gracious to perplex mankind,
Still spread a healing mist before the mind,
And, lest we err by Wit's wild dancing light,
Secure us kindly in our native night:

Or, if to wit a coxcomb make pretence,
Guard the sure barrier between that and sense;
Or quite unravel all the reasoning thread,
And hang some curious cobweb in its stead!
As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And ponderous slugs cut swiftly through the sky;
As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe,
The wheels above urged by the load below;
Me Emptiness and Dulness could inspire,
And were my elasticity and fire.

Some demon stole my pen (forgive the' offence)
And once betray'd me into common sense:
Else all my prose and verse were much the same;
This prose on stilts, that poetry fallen lame.
Did on the stage my fops appear confined?
My life gave ampler lessons to mankind.

IMITATIONS.

166 With whom my Muse began, with whom shall end.] A te principium, tibi desinet.'—

VIRG. Ecl. VIII.

Εκ Διος αςχωμεσθα, και εις Δια ληγείς Μεσαι. THEOC. 'Prima dicte mihi, summa dicenda Camœna.'

HOR.

Did the dead letter unsuccessful prove?
The brisk example never fail'd to move.

202

198

Yet sure had Heaven decreed to save the state, 195
Heaven had decreed these works a longer date.
Could Troy be saved by any single hand, 19
This gray-goose weapon must have made her stand.
What can I now? my Fletcher cast aside,
Take up the Bible, once my better guide?
Or tread the path by venturous heroes trod,
This box my thunder, this right hand my god?
Or chair'd at White's amidst the doctors sit,
Teach oaths to gamesters, and to nobles wit?
Or bid'st thou rather party to embrace?
(A friend to party thou, and all her race;
'Tis the same rope at different ends they twist;
To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist). 208
Shall I, like Curtius, desperate in my zeal,
O'er head and ears plunge for the commonweal?
Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,
And cackling save the monarchy of Tories?

Hold

-to the minister I more incline;

To serve his cause, O Queen! is serving thine.

REMARKS.

208 George Ridpath, author of a Whig paper, called the Flying Post: Nath. Mist, of a famous Tory journal. W.

195

IMITATIONS.

had Heaven decreed, &c.]

Me si cœlicolæ voluissent ducere vitam,

Has mihi servassent sedes.'

VIRG. En. II.

197 198 Could Troy be saved-This gray-goose weapon.]

Si Pergama dextra

Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent.'

VIRG. ibid.

202 This box my thunder, this right hand my god?] 'Dextra mihi Deus, et telum quod missile libro.' VIRGIL, of the Gods of Mezentius.

And see! thy very Gazetteers give o'er,

E'en Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more.
What then remains? Ourself. Still, still remain "7
Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain.
This brazen brightness to the squire so dear;
This polish'd hardness that reflects the peer:
This arch absurd, that wit and fool delights,
This mess, toss'd up of Hockley-hole and White's;
Where dukes and butchers join to wreathe my
At once the bear and fiddle of the town. [crown,
O born in sin, and forth in folly brought!
Works damn'd, or to be damn'd, (your father's fault)
Go, purified by flames ascend the sky,
My better and more Christian progeny!
Unstain'd, untouch'd, and yet in maiden sheets, 229
While all your smutty sisters walk the streets.
Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland, 231
Sent with a pass and vagrant through the land;
Nor sail with Ward to ape-and-monkey climes, 233
Where vile Mundungus trucks for viler rhymes;

REMARKS.

232

217 An happy parody on the famous Moi in Corneille's

Medea.

231 232 -gratis-given Bland,—Sent with a pass.] It was a practice so to give the Daily Gazetteer, and ministerial pamphlets (in which this B. was a writer), and to send them post-free to all the towns in the kingdom.

W.

Edward

233 -with Ward to ape-and-monkey climes.] Ward, a very voluminous poet in Hudibrastic verse, but best known by the London Spy, in prose. He has of late years

IMITATIONS.

229 Unstain'd, untouch'd, &c.]

Felix Priameia virgo!

Jussa mori: quæ sortitus non pertulit ullos,

Nec victoris heri tetigit captiva cubile!

Nos, patria incensa, diversa par æquora vectæ,' &c.

VIRG. En. III.

Not sulphur-tipp'd, emblaze an ale-house fire!
Not wrap up oranges to pelt your sire!
O! pass more innocent, in infant state,
To the mild limbo of our father Tate: 238
Or peaceably forgot, at once be bless'd
In Shadwell's bosom with eternal rest! 240
Soon to that mass of nonsense to return, [born.'
Where things destroy'd are swept to things un-
With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace!)
Stole from the master of the sevenfold face;
And thrice he lifted high the birth-day brand, 245
And thrice he dropp'd it from his quivering hand;
Then lights the structure, with averted eyes;
The rolling smoke involves the sacrifice.
The opening clouds disclose each work by turns,
Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns;
Great Cæsar roars and hisses in the fires;
King John in silence modestly expires:

REMARKS.

250

kept a public-house in the city, (but in a genteel way) and with his wit, humour, and good liquor, (ale) afforded his guests a pleasurable entertainment, especially those of the High-church party.' JACOB, Lives of Poets, Vol. 11. p. 225. Great numbers of his works were yearly sold into the Plantations. Ward, in a book called Apollo's Maggot, declared this account to be a great falsity, protesting that his publichouse was not in the city, but in Moorfields.

W.

238 240-Tate-Shadwell.] Two of his predecessors in the laurel.

IMITATIONS.

-W.

245 And thrice he lifted high the birth-day brand.] vid. Ovid -of Althæa, on a like occasion, burning her offspring : Tum conata quater flammis imponere torrem, Cœpta quater tenuit.'

250 Now flames the Cid, &c.]

-Jam Deiphobi dedit ampla ruinam,

Vulcano superante domos; jam proximus ardet

Ucalegon.'

VIRGIL, En. II.