The goddess then o'er his anointed head, With mystic words, the sacred opium shed. And, lo! her bird (a monster of a fowl, Something betwixt a Heidegger and owl) Perch'd on his crown:- All hail! and hail again, My son the promis'd land expects thy reign. Known Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise; He sleeps among the dull of ancient days; Safe where no critics damn, no duns molest, Where wretched Withers, Ward, and Gildon rest, REMARKS. 296 wretch knew, and every body knows, that the whole bench of bishops, not long ago, were pleased to give me a purse of guineas for discovering the erroneous translations of the Common-Prayer in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, &c. As for my genius, let Mr. Clelaud shew better verses in all Pope's Works than Ozell's version of Boileau's Lutrin, which the late Lord Halifax was so pleased with, that he complimented him with leave to dedicate it to him, &c. Let him shew better and truer poetry in the Rape of the Lock, than in Ozell's Rape of the Bucket (La Secchia rapita). And Mr. Toland and Mr. Gildon publicly declared Ozell's translation of Homer to be, as it was prior, so likewise superior to Pope's.-Surely, surely, every man is free to deserve well of his country.' JOHN OZELL. We cannot but subscribe to such reverend testimonies as those of the Bench of Bishops, Mr. Tolaud, and Mr. Gildon. W. 296 Withers was a great pretender to poetical zeal against the vices of the times, and abused the greatest personages in power, which brought upon him frequent correction. The Marshalsea and Newgate were no strangers to him. Winstanley. 296 Gildon.] Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels, of the last age, bred at St. Omer's with the Jesuits; but renouncing popery, he published Blunt's books against the divinity of Christ, the oracles of reason, &c. He signalized himself as a critic, having written some very bad plays; abused Mr. P. very scandalously 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. W. And high-born Howard, more majestic sire, 297 317 Oh! when shall rise a monarch all our own,3 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 dry-nurse the land: Till senates nod to lullabies divine, And all be sleep, as at an ode of thine?' REMARKS. 297 Howard.] Hon. Edward Howard, author of the British Princes, and a great number of wonderful pieces, celebrated by the late Earls of Dorset and Rochester, Duke of Buckjugham, Mr. Waller, &c. IMITATIONS. 304 The creeping, dirty, courtly ivy join.] Quorum imagines lambunt Hederæ sequaces. PER. 311 O! when shall rise a monarch, &c.] Boileau, Latrin chant ii. 'Helas! qu'est devenu ce tems, cet heureux tems, Ou les rois s'honoroient du nom de faineans,' &c. She ceas'd. Then swells the Chapel-royal throat; 'God save king Cibber!' mounts in every note. Familiar White's, God save king Colley!' cries; 'God save king Colley! Drury-lane replies: To Needham's quick the voice triumphal rode, But pious Needham dropt the name of God; Back to the devil the last echoes roll, 325 And Coll!' each butcher roars at Hockley-hole. So when Jove's block descended from on high, (As sings thy great forefather Ogilby) 324 Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog, 324 REMARKS. - 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. W. 325 The Devil tavern in Fleet-street, where the court-odes were usually rehearsed. 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 partywriters. 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 outshone ' REMARKS. 2 Henley.] Orator Henley-See Book III. ver. 199. 2 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, IMITATIONS. High on a gorgeous seat.] Parody of Milton, Book II. Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or that where on her Curls the public pours, 3 Not with more glee, by hands pontific crown'd, REMARKS. letters, and travels. I doubt not our author took occasion to mention hin 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 Ænied from the Iliad, or the Lutrin of Boileau from the Defaite des Bouts rimes of Sarazin. W. 3 Edmund Curl stood in the pillory at Charing Cross, March 1727-8. 15 Camillo Querno was of Apulia, who, hearing the great encouragement which Leo X. gave to poets, travelled to Rome with a barp 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 fre IMITATIONS. Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand 6ce Life of C. c. chap. vi. p. 149. |