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Then fighing thus, " And am I now threescore?

285

"Ah, why, ye Gods! should two and two make four ?"

He faid, and climb'd a stranded lighter's height,

Shot to the black abyfs, and plung'd downright.
The Senior's judgment all the crowd admire,
Who, but to fink the deeper, rose the higher.

290

Next Smedley div'd; flow circles dimpled o'er The quaking mud, that clos'd and op'd no more.

REMARKS.

All

In his Effay on Criticism, and the Arts of Logic and Rhetoric, he frequently reflects on our Author. But the top of his character was a Perverter of Hiftory, in that fcandalous one of the Stuarts in folio, and his Critical Hiftory of England, two volumes, octavo. Being employed by bifhop Kennet, in publishing the hiftorians in his collection, he falfified Daniel's Chronicle in numberiefs places. Yet this very man, in the preface to the firft of thefe books, advanced a particular fact to charge three eminent perfons of falfifying the Lord Clarendon's Hiftory; which fact has been difproved by Dr. Atterbury, late bishop of Rochester, then the only furvivor of them; and the particular part he pretended to be falfified, produced fince, after almoft ninety years, in that noble author's original manuscript. He was all his life a virulent Party-writer for hire, and received his reward in a small place, which he enjoyed to his death.

Ver. 291. Next Smedley div'd;] In the furreptitious editions, this whole Epifode was applied to an initial letter E-, by whom if they meant the Laureate, nothing was more abfurd, no part agreeing with his character. The allegory evidently demands a perfon dipped in fcandal, and deeply immerfed in dirty work; whereas Mr. Eufden's writings rarely offended but by their length and multitude, and accordingly are taxed

of

All look, all figh, and call on Smedley loft;
Smedley in vain refounds through all the coaft.
Then * * effay'd; fcarce vanish'd out of fight, 295
He buoys up inftant, and returns to light:

He bears no tokens of the fabler ftreams,
And mounts far off among the Swans of Thames.
True to the bottom, fee Concanen creep,

A cold, long-winded, native of the deep :

300

If

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 295. in former Ed.

Then **

try'd, but hardly fnatched from fight. After ver. 298. in the firft Edit. followed thefe, Far worfe unhappy D-r fucceeds,

He fearch'd for coral, but he gather'd weeds.

REMARKS.

of nothing else in book i. ver. 102. But the perfon here mentioned, an Irishman, was author and publisher of many fcurrilous Pieces, a weekly Whitehall Journal, in the year 1722, in the name of Sir James Baker; and particularly whole volumes of Billingfgate against Dr. Swift and Mr. Pope, called Gulliveriana and Alexandriana, printed in octavo. 1728.

Ver. 295. Then ** effay'd;] A gentlemen of genius and spirit, who was fecretly dipt in fome papers of this kind, on whom our poet bestows a panegyric inftead of a fatire, as deferving to be better employed than in party-quarrels, and personal invectives.

Ver. 299. Concanen] MATTHEW CONCANEN, an Irishman, bred to the law. Smedley (one of his brethren in enmity to Swift) in his Metamorphofis of Scriblerus, p. 7. accufes him of " having boafted of "what he had not written, but others had revised and done for him." He was author of feveral dull and

dead

If perfeverance gain the Diver's prize,
Not everlasting Blackmore this denies :

No noife, no ftir, no motion canft thou make,
Th' unconscious stream sleeps o'er thee like a lake.
Next plung'd a feeble, but a desperate pack,
With each a fickly brother at his back:
Sons of a Day! just buoyant on the flood,

305

Then number'd with the puppies in the mud.
Afk ye their names? I could as foon difclofe

The names of these blind puppies as of those.
Faft by, like Niobe (her children gone)
Sits Mother Ofborne, stupify'd to stone !

310

And

VARIATION.

Ver. 305-314. Not in former Ed.

REMARKS.

dead fcurrilities in the British and London Journals, and in a paper called the Speculatift. In a pamphlet, called a Supplement to the Profound, he dealt very unfairly with our Poet, not only frequently imputing to him Mr. Broome's verfes (for which he might indeed seem in fome degree accountable, having corrected what that gentleman did) but thofe of the duke of Buckingham, and others: To this rare piece fomebody humourously caufed him to take for his motto, "De profundis cla"mavi." He was fince a hired Scribler in the Daily Courant, where he poured forth much Billingfgate against the lord Bolingbroke, and others; after which this man was furprisingly promoted to administer Justice and Law in Jamaica.

Ver. 306, 307. With each a fickly brother at his back --Sons of a day, &c.] Thefe were daily Papers, a number of which, to leffen the expence, were printed one on the back of another,

And Monumental Brafs this record bears,

"These are,-ah no! thefe were the Gazetteers !"

REMARKS.

Not

Ver. 312. Ofborne] A name affumed by the eldest and graveft of these writers, who at last, being afhamed of his Pupils, gave his paper over, and in his age remained filent.

Ver. 314. Gazetteers] We ought not to fuppofe that a modern Critic here taxeth the Poet with an Anachronism, affirming thefe Gazetteers not to have lived within the time of his poem, and challenging us to produce any fuch paper of that date. But we may with equal affurance affert these Gazetteers not to have lived fince, and challenge all the learned world to produce one fuch paper at this day. Surely therefore, where the point is fo obfcure, our author ought not to be cenfured too rafhly. SCRIB.

Notwithstanding this affected ignorance of the good Scriblerus, the Daily Gazetteer was a title given very properly to certain papers, each of which lafted but a day. Into this, as a common fink, was received all the trash, which had been before dispersed in several Journals, and circulated at the public expence of the nation. The authors were the fame obfcure men: though fometimes relieved by occafional effays from Statesmen, Courtiers, Bishops, Deans, and Doctors. The meaner fort were rewarded with Money; others with Places or Benefices, from an hundred to a thousand a year. It appears from the Report of the Secret Committee for inquiring into the Conduct of R. Earl of O. "That no less than fifty "thousand seventy-feven pounds eighteen fhillings, 66 were paid to Authors and Printers of Newspapers, “fuch as Free Britons, Daily Courants, Corn Cutter's "Journals, Gazetteers, and other political papers, be"tween Feb. 10, 1731, and Feb. 10, 1741.” Which fhews the Benevolence of one Minister, to have expended, for the current dulnefs of ten years in Britain, double

the

Not fo bold Arnall; with a weight of skull, Furious he drives, precipitately dull.

315

Whirlpools and storms his circling arm invest,
With all the might of gravitation blest.
No crab more active in the dirty dance,
Downward to climb, and backward to advance,
He brings up half the bottom on his head,
And loudly claims the Journals and the Lead.

Ver. 315. In first Ed.

VARIATION.

Not Welfted fo: drawn endlong by his skull,
Furious he finks, precipitately dull.

REMARKS.

320

The

the fum which gained Louis XIV. fo much honour, in annual Penfions to Learned men all over Europe. In which, and in a much longer time, not a Penfion at Court, nor Preferment in the Church or Universities, of any Confideration, was bestowed on any man diftinguished for his Learning feparately from Party-merit, cr Pamphlet-writing.

It is worth a reflection, that of all the Panegyrics beftowed by these writers on this great Minifter, not one is at this day extant or remembered, not even so much credit done to his Personal character by all they have written, as by one short occafional compliment of our Author:

“Seen him I have; but in his happier hour "Of focial Pleasure, ill exchang'd for Power! "Seen him, uncumber'd by the Venal Tribe, "Smile without Art, and win without a Bribe." Ver. 315. Arnall] WILLIAM ARNALL, bred an Attorney, was a perfect genius in this fort of work. He began under twenty with furious Party-papers; then fucceeded Concanen in the British Journal. At the

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