The creeping, dirty, courtly ivy join.304 'Oh! when shall rise a monarch all our own,311 And I, a nursing mother, rock the throne; 'Twixt prince and people close the curtain draw, Shade him from light, and cover him from law; Fatten the courtier, starve the learned band, And suckle armies, and drynurse the land: REMARKS. 309 under Archer's wing.————Gaming, &c.] When the statute against gaming was drawn up, it was represented, that the king, by ancient custom, plays at hazard one night in the year; and therefore a clause was inserted, with an exception as to that particular. Under this pretence, the groom-porter had a room appropriated to gaming all the summer the court was at Kensington, which his majesty accidentally being acquainted of, with a just indignation prohibited. It is reported the same practice is yet continued wherever the court resides, and the hazard table there open to all the professed gamesters in town. IMITATIONS. 304 The creeping, dirty, courtly ivy join] Quorum imagines lambunt Hederæ sequaces.' PER. 311 O! when shall rise a monarch, &c.] Boileau, Lutrin, chant ii. 'Hélas! qu'est devenu ce tems, cet heureux tems, Till senates nod to lullabies divine, And all be sleep, as at an ode of thine?' 324 ‹ God save king Cibber!' mounts in every note. Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog, REMARKS. 319 Chapel-royal] The voices and instruments used in the service of the chapel-royal being also employed in the performance of the birthday and new year odes. 324 But pious Needham] A matron of great fame, and very religious in her way; whose constant prayer it was that she might get enough by her profession to leave it off in time, and make her peace with God.' But her fate was not so happy; for being convicted, and set in the pillory, she was (to the lasting shame of all her great friends and votaries) so ill used by the populace, that it put an end to her days. 325 the Devil] The Devil tavern in Fleet-street, where the court odes were usually rehearsed. 330 God save king Log] See Ogilby's Esop's Fables, where, in the story of the Frogs and their king, this excellent hemistich is to be found. 271 BOOK II. ARGUMENT. The King being proclaimed, the solemnity is graced with public games and sports of various kinds; not instituted by the hero, as by Æneas in Virgil, but for greater honour by the goddess in person (in like manner as the games Pythia, Isthmia, &c. were anciently said to be ordained by the gods, and as Thetis herself appearing, according to Homer, Odyssey xxiv. proposed the prizes in honour of her son Achilles). Hither flock the poets and critics, attended, as is but just, with their patrons and booksellers. The goddess is first pleased, for her disport, to propose games to the booksellers, and setteth up the phantom of a poet, which they contend to overtake. The races described, with their divers accidents. Next, the game for a poetess. Then follow the exercises for the poets, of tickling, vociferating, diving; the first holds forth the arts and practices of dedicators, the second of disputants and fustian poets, the third of profound, dark, and dirty party-writers. Lastly, for the critics the goddess proposes (with great propriety) an exercise, not of their parts, but their patience, in hearing the works of two voluminous authors, the one in verse and the other in prose, deliberately read, without sleeping; the various effects of which, with the several degrees and manners of their operation, are here set forth, till the whole number, not of critics only, but of spectators, actors, and all present, fall fast asleep; which naturally and necessarily ends the games. HIGH on a gorgeous seat, that far outshone1 REMARKS. 2 Henley] Orator Henley-See Book iii. ver. 199. 2 Fleckno's Irish throne] Richard Fleckno was an Irish priest, but had laid aside (as himself expressed it) the mechanic part of priesthood. He printed some plays, poems, letters, and travels. I doubt not our author took occasion to mention him in respect to the poem of Mr. Dryden, to which this bears some resemblance, though of a character more different from it than that of the Æneid from the Iliad, or the Lutrin of Boileau from the Defaite des Bouts rimées of Sarazin. 3 Or that where on her Curlls, &c.] Edmund Curl stood in the pillory at Charing-Cross, March 1727-8. IMITATIONS. 1 High on a gorgeous seat] Parody of Milton, book ii. High on a throne of royal state, that far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Not with more glee, by hands pontific crown'd, With scarlet hats wide-waving circled round, Rome in her capitol saw Querno sit,15 Thron'd on seven hills, the antichrist of wit. And now the Queen, to glad her sons, proclaims By herald hawkers high heroic games. They summon all her race: an endless band Pours forth, and leaves unpeopled half the land; A motley mixture! in long wigs, in bags, In silks, in crapes, in garters, and in rags, From drawing rooms, from colleges, from garrets, On horse, on foot, in hacks, and gilded chariots; All who true dunces in her cause appear'd, And all who knew those dunces to reward. Amid that area wide they took their stand, Where the tall Maypole once o'erlook'd the Strand, REMARKS. 15 Rome in her capitol saw Querno sit] Camillo Querno was of Apulia, who, hearing the great encouragement which Leo X. gave to poets, travelled to Rome with a harp in his hand, and sung to it twenty thousand verses of a poem called Alexias. He was introduced as a buffoon to Leo, and promoted to the honour of the laurel; a jest which the court of Rome and the Pope himself entered into so far, as to cause him to ride on an elephant to the capitol, and to hold a solemn festival on his coronation; at which, it is recorded, the poet himself was so transported as to weep for joy.* He was ever after a constant frequenter of the Pope's table, drank abundantly, and poured forth verses without number. Paulus Jovius, Elog. Vir. doet. cap. xxxii. Some idea of his poetry is given by Fam. Strada in his Prolusions. * See Life of C. C. chap. vi. p. 149. |