Great Cæfar roars, and hiffes in the fires;
King John in filence modeftly expires:
No merit now the dear Nonjuror clains,
Moliere's old ftubble * in a moment flames.
Tears gufh'd again, as from pale Priam's eyes,
When the laft blaze fent Ilion to the fkies +.

Rouz'd by the light, old Dulness heav'd the head, Then fnatch'd a fheet of Thulè from her bed ;

on this rope, and fell moft fhamefully, having produced no less than four tragedies (the names of which the poet preferves in these few lines) the three first of them were fairly printed, acted, and damned; the fourth fuppreffed in fear of the like treatment.

Qui meprife Cotin, n'eftime point fon roi, "Et n'a felon Cotin, ni Dieu, ni foi, ni lei.

* A Comedy threshed out of Moliere's Tartuffe, and fo much the tranflator's favourite, that he affures us all our author's dislike to it could only arife from difaffection to the government :

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Uterumque armato milite complent.-
"Inclufos utero Danaos
Can a horse be faid utero gerere? Again,
Uteroque recuffo,

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255

Boil.

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He affures us, that " when he had the honour to kifs his Majefty's hand upon prefenting his dedication of it, he was graciously pleafed, out of his royal bounty, to order him two hundred pounds for it. And this he doubts not grieved Mr. P."

+ See Virgil, Æn. ii. where I would advise the reader to peruse the story of Troy's deftruction, rather than in Wynkyn. Bat I caution him alike in both to beware of a most grievous error, that of thinking it was brought about by I know not what Trojan borfe; there having never been any such thing. For, first, it was not Trojan, being made by the Greeks; and, fecondly, it was not a borse, but a mare. This is clear from many verfes in Virgil:

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"Infonuere cave

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Atque utero fonitum quater arma dedere. Nay, is it not exprefly faid

"Scandit fatalis machina muros

Sudden

"Fæta armis

How is it poffible the word feta can agree with a horse? And indeed can it be conceived that the chafle and virgin goddess Pallas would employ herself in forming and fashioning the male of that fpecies? But this fhall be proved to a demonstration in our Virgil Restored. SCRIBL.

An unfinished poem of that name, of which one sheet was printed many years ago, by Ambrofe Philips, a northern author. It is an ufual method

of

f

Her ample presence fills up all the Space.

Dunciad Book I.

Sudden fhe flies, and whelms it o'er the pyre;
Down fink the flames, and with a hifs expire.
Her ample prefence fills up all the place;
A veil of fogs dilates her awful face :
Great in her charms as when on fhrieves and may'rs
She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.
She bids him wait her to her facred dome*:
Well pleas'd he enter'd, and confefs'd his home.
So, fpirits ending their terreftrial race,
Afcend, and recognize their native place.
This the great mother + dearer held than all
The clubs of quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall :
Here ftood her opium, here fhe nurs'd her owls,
And here fhe plann'd th' imperial feat of fools.

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265

270

Here to her Chofen all her works fhe fhows;
Profe fwell'd to verfe, verse loit'ring into profe:
How random thoughts now meaning chance to find,
Now leave all memory of fenfe behind:
How Prologues into Prefaces decay,
And thefe to Notes are fritter'd quite away:
How Index-learning turns no ftudent pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail :
How, with lefs reading than makes felons 'fcape,
Lefs human genius than God gives an ape,

Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece,
A past, vamp'd, future, old, reviv'd, new piece,
'Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakespear, and Corneille,
Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell §.
Cc 2

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280

286 The

of puting out a fire, to caft wet sheets upon it. Some critics have been of opinion, that this sheet was of the nature of the asbestos, which cannot be confurned by fire: but I rather think it an allegorical allufion to the coldness and heaviness of the writing.

* Where be no fooner enters, but he reconnoitres the place of his origi nal; as Plato fays the fpirits fhall, at their entrance into the celeftial regions.

Magna mater, here applied to Dulness. The Quidnuncs, a name given to the ancient members of certain political clubs, who were conftantly enquiring Quid nunc ? What news?

Lewis Tibbald (as pronounced) or Theobald (as written) was bred an attorney,

The goddess then, o'er his anointed head,
With myftic words, the facred opium shed,
And lo! her bird (a monfter of a fowl,
Something betwixt a heideggre* and owl)
Perch'd on his crown.
"All hail! and hail again,

My fon! the promis'd land expects thy reign.
Know, Eufden thirsts no more for fack or praise;
He fleeps among the dull of ancient days:

attorney, and fon to an attorney (fays Mr. Jacob) of Sittenburn in Kent. He was author of fome forgotten plays, translations, and other pieces. He was concerned in a paper called the Cenfor, and a translation of Ovid. "There “is a notorious idiot, one hight Whachum,' who, from an under-spur-lea"ther to the law, is become an under-ftrapper to the play- houfe, who hath lately burlefqued the Metamorphofes of Ovid by a vile tranflation, etc. "This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Cenfor.” DENNIS, Rem. on Pope's Hom. p. 9, 10. "Mr. John Ozell (if we credit Mr Jacob) did go to fchool in Leicefterfhire, where femebody left him fomething to live on, when he fhall re"tire from business. He was defigned to be fent to Cambridge, in order for "priesthood; but he chofe rather to be placed in an office of accounts, in the

i

city, being qualified for the fame by his fkill in arithmetic, and writing "the neceffary bands. He has obliged the world with many translations of "French plays." JACOB, Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 198.

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Mr. Jacob's character of Mr. Ozell seems vaftly fhort of his merits, and he ought to have further juftice done him, having fince fully confuted all farcafms on his learning and genius, by an advertisement of Sept. 20, 1729, in a paper called the Weekly Medley, etc. ́“ ́ As to my learning, this envious Wretch knew, and every body knows, that the whole bench of bishops,

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not long ago, were pleafed to give me a purfe of guineas, for discovering "the erroneous tranflations of the Common-prayer in Portuguese, Spanish, "French, Italian, etc. As for my genius, let Mr. Cleland fhew better verfes "in all Pope's works, than Ozell's version of Boileau's Lutrin, which the "late lord Halifax was fo pleafed with, that he complimented him with "leave to dedicate it to him, etc. Let him fhew better and truer poetry in "the Rape of the Lock, than in Ozell's Rape of the Bucket (la Secchia ra

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pita.) And Mr. Toland and Mr. Gildon publickly declared Ozell's tranf"lation of Homer to be, as it was prior, fo likewife fuperior to Pope's.

Surely, furely, every man is free to deferve well of his country!"

JOHN ÖZELL. We cannot but fubfcribe to fuch reverend teftimonies, as thofe of the bench of bishops, Mr. Toland, and Mr. Gildon.

*

A strange bird from Switzerland, and not (as fome have supposed) the name of an eminent perfon who was a man of parts, and, as was faid of Petronius, Arbiter Elegantiarum.

Safe,