Sudden fhe flies, and whelms it o'er the pyre; 260 A veil of fogs dilates her awful face : Great in her charms! as when on fhrieves and may'rs She looks, and breathes herfelf into their airs. She bids him wait her to her facred dome * : 265 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 : 270 Here ftood her opium, here fhe nurs'd her owls, Profe fwell'd to verfe, verfe loit'ring into profe: How random thoughts now meaning chance to find, 276 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: 280 How, with lefs reading than makes felons 'scape, Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece, Cc 2 286 The of putting out a fire, to caft wet fheets upon it. Some critics have been of opinion, that this sheet was of the nature of the afbeftos, which cannot be confurned by fire: but I rather think it an allegorical allufion to the coldness and heaviness of the writing. * Where he no fooner enters, but he reconnoitres the place of his origi nal; as Plato fays the fpirits fhall, at their entrance into the celeflial 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, My fon! the promis'd land expe&ts thy reign. Know, Eufden thirfts no more for fack or praise; 290 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 tranflation of Ovid. "There "is a notorious idiot, one hight Whachum,' who, from an under-fpur-lea "ther to the law, is become an under-ftrapper to the play-house, 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 semebody left him fomething to live on, when he shall retire from bufinefs. He was defigned to be fent 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 fame by his skill 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. Mr. Jacob's character of Mr. Ozell feems vaftly fhort of his merits, and he ought to have further juftice done him, having since 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 envi"ous Wretch knew, and every body knows, that the whole bench of bishops, not long ago, were pleafed to give me a purse 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 verses "in all Pope's works, than Özell'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 shew better and truer poetry in "the Rape of the Lock, than in Ozell's Rape of the Bucket (la Secchia`ra"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, surely, 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 fuppofed) the name of an eminent person who was a man of parts, and, as was faid of Petronius, Arbiter Elegantiarum. Safe, 295 300 Safe, where no Critics damn, no Duns moleft, 305 310 * See on ver. 146. + Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels of the last age, bred at St. Omer's with the Jefuits; but renouncing popery, he published Blount's books against the Divinity of Chrift, the Oracles of Reason, etc. He fignalized himself as a critic, having written fome very bad plays; abused Mr. P. very fcandaloufly 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. Hon. Edward Howard, author of the British Princes, and a great number of wonderful pieces, celebrated by the late earls of Dorfet and Rochester, duke of Buckingham, Mr. Waller, etc. § When the ftatute against gaming was drawn up, it was reprefented, that the king, by ancient custom, plays at Hazard one night in the year; and therefore a claufe was inferted, with an exception as to that particular. Under this pretence, the groom porter had a room appropriated to gaming all the fummer the court was at Kensington, which his majesty accidentally being acquainted with, with a just indignation prohibited. It is reported the fame practice is yet continued wherever the court refides, and the Hazard Table there open to all the profeffed gamefters in town. Greatest and jufteft Sov'REIGN; know you this? Donne to Queen Eliz. O! when O! when fhall rise a monarch all our own, And all be fleep, as at an Ode of thine." 315 * 32Q She ceas'd. Then fwells the chapel-royal throat: 325 And the hoarfe nation croak'd, God fave king Log §! *The voices and instruments used in the service of the Chapel-royal being alfo employed in the performances of the Birth day, and New-year Odes. A matron of great fame, and very religious in her way; whofe conflant prayer it was, that he might " get enough by her profeffion to leave it "off in time, and make her peace with God." But her fate was not fo happy; for being convicted, and fet in the pillory, the was (to the lafting fhame of all her great friends and votaries) fo ill used by the populace, that it put an end to her days The Devil Tavern in Fleet-ftreet, where thefe Odes were ufuallyrehearfed before they were performed at court. Upon which a Wit of those times made this Epigram, "When Laureates make Odes, do you afk of what fort? "You may judge- from the Devil they come to the court, See Ogilby's Efop's Fables, where, in the story of the Frogs and their King, this excellent hemiftic is to be found. Our author manifefts here, and elsewhere, a prodigious tenderness for the bad writers. We fee he felects the only good paffage, perhaps, in all that ever Ogilby writ; which fhews how candid and patient a reader he must have been. been. What can be more kind and affectionate than these words in the preface to his poems, where he labours to call up all our humanity and forgiveness toward these unlucky men, by the most moderate representation of their cafe that has ever been given by any author? "Much may be faid to exte"nuate the fault of bad poets: what we call a genius is hard to be distinguish"ed, by a man himself, from a prevalent inclination: and if it be never "fo great, he can at first discover it no other way than by that strong propenfity which renders him the more liable to be mistaken. He has no "other method but to make the experiment, by writing, and so appealing to the judgment of others: and if he happens to write ill (which is cer"tainly no fin in itself) he is immediately made the object of ridicule! I "wish we had the humanity to reflect, that even the worst authors might "endeavour to please us, and, in that endeavour, deserve something at our "hands. We have no cause to quarrel with them, but for their obftinacy in " perfifting, and even that may admit of alleviating circumstances: for "their particular friends may be either ignorant, or unfincere; and the rest "of the world too well-bred to fhock them with a truth which generally "their bookfellers are the first that inform them of." But how much all indulgence is loft upon these people may appear from the just reflection made on their constant conduct and conftant fate, in the following Epigram: "Ye little Wits, that gleam'd a while, "Alas! depriv'd of his kind fmile, "To compafs Phœbus' car about, "Thus empty vapours rise; "Alas! thofe skies are not your sphere; "Weep, weep, and fall! for Earth ye were, The END of the FIRST Book. |