No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims,
Moliere's old stubble in a moment flames.
Tears gush'd again, as from pale Priam's eyes,
When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies.

Roused by the light, old Dulness heaved the head, Then snatch'd a sheet of Thulé from her bed; 258 Sudden she flies, and whelms it o'er the pyre: Down sinks the flames, and with a hiss expire.

Her ample presence fills up all the place; A veil of fogs dilates her awful face: [mayors 263 Great in her charms! as when on shrieves and She looks, and breathes herself into their airs. She bids him wait her to her sacred dome: Well pleased he enter'd, and confess'd his home. So spirits, ending their terrestrial race, Ascend, and recognise their native place. This the great mother dearer held than all 269 The clubs of quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall: Here stood her opium, here she nursed her owls, And here she plann'd the' imperial seat of fools.

Here to her chosen all her works she shows, Prose swell'd to verse, verse loitering into. prose:

REMARKS.

258 Thule.] An unfinished poem by Ambrose Philips.

IMITATIONS.

263 Great in her charms! as when on shrieves and mayors

6

She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.]

Alma parens confessa deam; qualisque videri
Coelicolis, et quanta solet.'

269 This the great mother, &c.

Urbs antiqua fuit

VIRG. En. II.

Id. Æn. I.

Quam Juno fertur terris magis omnibus unam
Post habita coluisse Samo: hic illius arma,
Hic currus fuit: hic regnum Dea gentibus esse
(Si qua fata sinant) jam tum tenditque fovetque.'

VIRG. Æn. I

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 CorCan 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. The Marshalsea and Newgate were no strangers to him.

Winstanley.

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.