One likes no language but the Fairy Queen; A Scot will fight for Christ's Kirk of the Green; m He swears the Muses met him at the Devil. We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well, If Time improve our Wit as well as wine, NOTES. 41 45 50 well!" Skelton was rector of Diss in Norfolk, and patronised by the Earl of Northumberland. He wrote against Wolsey. Erasmus styled him, very strangely, Britannicarum Literarum Lumen et Decus. A most curious and accurate account, accompanied with remarks on the poetry and taste of this country in the reign of Henry VII. is given in the 15th section of the History of English Poetry. Ver. 40. Christ's Kirk of the Green ;] A Ballad made by a King of Scotland. P. It was printed at Oxford 1691, in quarto, by Gibson, who was then a young man, at the end of Polemo Middinia, a Macaronic Poem by W. Drummond of Hawthornden. Ver. 42. met him at the Devil.] The Devil Tavern, where Ben Jonson held his Poetical Club. P. Ver. 43. Tho' justly Greece] The Poet, as Dr. Hurd rightly observes, does not admit that the most ancient Greek writings were the best; what he allows is, the Superiority of the oldest Greek writings extant; which is a very different thing. The turn of his argument confines us to this sense. Est vetus atque probus, 'centum qui perficit annos. Iste quidem veteres inter ponetur 'honeste, Utor permisso, caudæque pilos ut "equinæ Paulatim vello: et demo unum, demo et item unum; Dum cadat elusus ratione "ruentis acervi, Qui redit in *fastos, et virtutem æstimat annis, Miraturque nihil, nisi quod Libitina sacravit. y Ennius et sapiens, et fortis, et alter Homerus, Ut critici dicunt, leviter curare videtur NOTES. Ver. 55. can have no flaw,] A very reprehensible expression; as also the words below, Verse 58, right and sound. On the contrary, look in Stowe, Verse 66, is very happy. Ver. 63. the Horse-tail bare,] Lambinus says this passage relates to a story mentioned in Plutarch of a soldier of Sertorius. Ver. 69. Shakspeare] Shakspeare and Ben Jonson may truly be said not much to have thought of this Immortality; the one in many pieces composed in haste for the Stage; the other, in his latter works in general, which Dryden called his Dotages. P. Dryden does, indeed, call them so, but very undeservedly. The truth is, he was not enough acquainted with the manners of the preceding Age, to judge competently of them. Besides, nothing is more inconstant than his characters of his own Country Poets, nor less reasonable than most of his critical notions; for he had many occasional ends to serve, and few principles to go upon. This may be said as to the character of his critical works in general, though written with great elegance and vivacity. W. This censure of Dryden's critical works is surely too severe. "Who lasts a 'century can have no flaw, I hold that Wit a Classic, good in law." 55 Suppose he wants a year, will you compound? And shall we deem him 'Ancient, right and sound, Or damn to all Eternity at once, At ninety-nine, a Modern and a Dunce? "We shall not quarrel for a year or two; By 'courtesy of England, he may do." 60 Then, by the rule that made the "Horse-tail bare, I pluck out year by year, as hair by hair, X And meltdown Ancients like a heap of snow: 65 y year, Bestow a Garland only on a Bier. Shakspeare (whom you and ev'ry Play-house bill Style the Divine, the Matchless, what you will), 70 For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight, And grew immortal in his own despite. NOTES. Ver. 69. and ev'ry Play-house bill] A ridicule on those who talk of Shakspeare, because he is in fashion; who, if they dared to do justice to their taste or conscience, would own they liked Durfey better. W. Ver. 70. Style the Divine,] Is it not a true observation, that what nations gain in correctness and elegance, they lose in force and sublimity? Ver. 71. For gain, not glory,] I believe this perfectly true of Shakspeare, but not of Ben Jonson; who was not made, as was Shakspeare, a poet by accident, but had spent his life in a close study of the art. And as some of his plays, particularly the ' Silent Woman, were the first models of just comedy in our language, he could not, with propriety, be substituted for the ruder writers of Rome. The expression in Verse 74, the Life to come, is somewhat licentious. Quo promissa cadant, et somnia Pythagorea. NOTES. Ver. 74. The Life to come, in ev'ry Poet's Creed.] "Quo promissa cadant, et somnia Pythagorea." The beauty of this arises from a circumstance in Ennius's story. But as this could not be imitated, our Poet endeavoured to equal it; and has succeeded. W. (Certaintly not succeeded). Ver. 77. Forgot his Epic,] Rhymer absurdly prefers the Davideis to the Jerusalem of Tasso. Ver. 77. Pindaric Art,] Which has much more merit than his Epic, but very unlike the Character, as well as Numbers, of Pindar. P. Ver. 79. Yet surely, surely,] Gesner observes that these lines, in the Original, are not Horace's own opinions; a circumstance observed by our author. Gesner much improved Baxter's Horace. Ver. 83. Cowley's Wit;] Why mention Cowley, when only dramatic writers are spoken of, and characterized? In Verse 85, he alludes to a line of Rochester on Shadwell and Wycherley. It is plain he was only copying the trite and trivial opinions of the pretenders to taste, by omitting Otway, and mentioning only Southern and Rowe, as masters of the pathetic; but whose Isabella and Jane Shore may in truth be almost put in competition Ben, old and poor, as little seem'd to heed e 75 80 Not one but nods, and talks of Jonson's Art, writ; How Shadwell hasty, Wycherley was slow; NOTES. 85 with Belvidera. It is singular that Horace, in the Original, should mention Afranius only as the copier of Menander, and not Terence. Instead of Livi, meaning Livius Andronicus, in the succeeding lines, Bentley would read Lævi; because he says that Livius Andronicus was too obsolete to be read by the scholars of Orbilius. Ver. 85. Shadwell hasty, Wycherley was slow ;] Nothing was less true than this particular: but the whole paragraph has a mixture of Irony, and must not altogether be taken for Horace's own judgment, only the common chat of the pretenders to Criticism; in some things right, in others, wrong; as he tells us in his answer, "Interdum vulgus rectum videt: est ubi peccat." P. Ver. 85. How Shadwell hasty,] These lines answer to lines 58, 59, in the Original. Dr. Hurd observes, that Menander and his follower Terence were not admired by the Roman writers, till after the Augustan age: The reason was, "that popular eloquence which continued, in a good degree of vigour, to that time, |