And (last and worst) with all the cant of wit,
Without the soul, the Muse's hypocrite.

[side,

103

There march'd the bard and blockhead side by
Who rhym'd for hire, and patroniz'd for pride.
Narcissus, prais'd with all a parson's power,
Look'd a white lily sunk beneath a shower.
There mov'd Montalto with superior air;
His stretch'd-out arm display'd a volume fair;
Courtiers and patriots in two ranks divide, [side;
Through both he pass'd, and bow'd from side to
But as in graceful act, with awful eye,

Compos'd he stood, bold Benson thrust him by:
On two unequal crutches prop'd he came,
Milton's on this, on that one, Johnston's name. 112
The decent knight retir'd with sober rage,
Withdrew his hand, and clos'd the pompous page:
But (happy for him as the times went then)
Appear'd Apollo's mayor and aldermen,

115

On whom three hundred gold-capt youths await, To lug the ponderous volume off in state.

When Dulness, smiling-' Thus revive the wits! But murder first, and mince them all to bits; As erst Medea (cruel, so to save!)

A new edition of old son gave;

REMARKS.

103 Alluding to Dr. Middleton's laboured encomium on Lord Harvey, in his dedication of the Life of Cicero.

112 Benson printed elegant editions of Dr. Arthur Johnson's Pɛalms; and rescued his country from the disgrace of having no monument erected to the memory of Milton in Westminster-Abbey.

115, &c.] These four lines were printed in a separate leaf by Mr. Pope, in the last edition which he himself gave of the Dunciad, with directions to the printer to put this leaf into its place as soon as Sir T. Hanmer's Shakspeare should be published.

Let standard-authors thus, like trophies borne,
Appear more glorious as more hack'd and torn.
And you, my critics! in the chequer'd shade,
Admire new light through holes yourselves have
made. 126

Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone,
A page, a grave, that they can call their own;
But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick,
On passive paper, or on solid brick.

So by each bard an alderman shall sit,
A heavy lord shall hang at every wit,

And while on Fame's triumphal car they ride,
Some slave of mine be pinion'd to their side.'
Now crowds on crowds around the goddess press,
Each eager to present the first address.
Dunce scorning dunce beholds the next advance,
But fop shows fop superior complaisance.
When lo! a spectre rose, whose index-hand
Held forth the virtue of the dreadful wand;
His beaver'd brow a birchen garland wears,
Dropping with infants' blood and mothers' tears. '42
O'er every vein a shuddering horror runs,
Eton and Winton shake through all their sons.
All flesh is humbled, Westminster's bold race
Shrink, and confess the Genius of the place:
The pale boy-senator yet tingling stands,
And holds his breeches close with both his hands.

IMITATIONS.

126 Admire new light, &c.]

'The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.'

442 Dropping with infants' blood, &c.]

WALLER,

First Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice and parents' tears.' MILTON.

Then thus: Since man from beast by words is known,

Words are man's province, words we teach alone.
When reason doubtful, like the Samian letter,
Points him two ways, the narrower is the better.
Plac'd at the door of learning, youth to guide,
We never suffer it to stand too wide.

To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence,
As fancy opens the quick springs of sense,
We ply the memory, we load the brain,
Bind rebel wit, and double chain on chain,
Confine the thought, to exercise the breath,
And keep them in the pale of words till death.
Whate'er the talents, or howe'er design'd,
We hang one jingling padlock on the mind:
A poet the first day he dips his quill;
And what the last? a very poet still.
Pity! the charm works only in our wall,
Lost, lost too soon in yonder house or hall.
There truant Wyndham every muse gave o'er,
There Talbot sunk, and was a wit no more!
How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast!
How many Martials were in Pulteney lost!
Else sure some bard, to our eternal praise,
In twice ten thousand rhyming nights and days,
Had reach'd the work, the all that mortal can,
And South beheld that masterpiece of man.' '74
'O (cried the goddess) for some pedant reign!
Some gentle James, to bless the land again:

REMARKS.

151 the Samian letter.] The letter Y, used by Pythagoras as an emblem of the different roads of virtue and vice. P.* 174 - that masterpiece of man.] Viz. an Epigram. The famous Dr. South used to declare that a perfect epigram was as difficult a performance as an epic poen.

P.*

To stick the doctor's chair into the throne,
Give law to words, or war with words alone,
Senates and courts with Greek and Latin rule,
And turn the council to a grammar-school!
For sure if Dulness sees a grateful day,
'Tis in the shade of arbitrary sway.

O! if my sons may learn one earthly thing,
Teach but that one, sufficient for a king;
That which my priests, and mine alone, maintain,
Which, as it dies, or lives, we fall, or reign:
May you, my Cam and Isis, preach it long!
The right divine of kings to govern wrong.'
Prompt at the call, around the goddess roll
Broad hats, and hoods, and caps, a sable shoal:
Thick and more thick the black blockade extends,
A hundred head of Aristotle's friends.

Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day:
(Though Christ-Church long kept prudishly away)
Each staunch polemic, stubborn as a rock,
Each fierce logician, still expelling Locke,
Came whip and spur, and dash'd through thin and
thick,

196

On German Crousaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck.
As many quit the streams that murmuring fall
To lull the sons of Margaret and Clare-Hall,
Where Bentley late tempestuous wont to sport..
In troubled waters, but now sleeps in port.
Before them march'd that awful Aristarch;
Plough'd was his front with many a deep remark :

REMARKS.

196 still expelling Locke.] In the year 1703 there was a meeting of the heads of the University of Oxford to censure Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, and to forbid the reading of it. See his Letters in the last edit.

P.

207

His hat, which never veil'd to human pride,
Walker with reverence took, and laid aside.
Low bow'd the rest: he, kingly, did but nod;
So upright quakers please both man and God.
Mistress! dismiss that rabble from your throne:
Avaunt--is Aristarchus yet unknown? 210
Thy mighty scholiast, whose unwearied pains
Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton's strains.
Turn what they will to verse, their toil is vain,
Critics like me shall make it prose again. [ter; 215
Roman and Greek grammarians! know your bet-
Author of something yet more great than letter;
While towering o'er your alphabet, like Saul,
Stands our digamma, and o'ertops them all.
'Tis true, on words is still our whole debate,
Dispute of me or te, of aut or at.

To sound or sink in cano, O or A,

Or give up Cicero to C or K.

Let Freind affect to speak as Terence spoke, 223 And Alsop never but like Horace joke :

REMARKS.

223, 224 Freind-Astop.] Dr. Robert Freind, master of Westminster-School, and Canon of Christ-Church-Dr. Anthony Alsop, a happy imitator of the Horatian style. P.* IMITATIONS.

215 Roman and Greek grammarians, &c.] Imitated from

Propertius, speaking of the Æneid,

'Cedite, Romani scriptores, cedite Graii!
Nescio quid majus nascitur Iliade.'