Hence miscellanies spring, the weekly boast
Of Curl's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post:
Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines;
Hence journals, medleys, merc'ries, magazines :
Sepulchral lies, our holy walls to grace,

41

45

And new-year odes, and all the Grub-street race.
In clouded majesty here Dulness shone,
Four guardian virtues, round, support her throne:
Fierce champion Fortitude, that knows no fears
Of hisses, blows, or want, or loss of ears :
Calm Temperance, whose blessings those partake
Who hunger and who thirst for scribbling's sake: 50
Prudence, whose glass presents th' approaching jail;
Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale,

Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise.

Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep, Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep, 'Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day,

Call forth each mass, a poem or a play :

How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie, How new-born Nonsense first is taught to cry, Maggots half-form'd in rhyme exactly meet,

And learn to crawl upon poetic feet.

Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes,
And ductile Dulness new meanders takes :

55

60

There motley images her fancy strike,
Figures ill-pair'd, and similies unlike.
She sees a mob of metaphors advance,
Pleas'd with the madness of the mazy dance;

65

70

75

How Tragedy and Comedy embrace;
How Farce and Epic get a jumbled race;
How Time himself stands still at her command,
Realms shift their place, and ocean turns to land.
Here gay Description Egypt glads with show'rs,
Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flow'rs;
Glitt'ring with ice here hoary hills are seen,
There painted vallies of eternal green;
In cold December fragrant chaplets blow,
And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.
All these, and more, the cloud compelling queen
Beholds through fogs that magnify the scene.
She, tinsel'd o'er in robes of varying hues,
With self-applause her wild creation views;
Sees momentary monsters rise and fall,
And with her own fool's colours gilds them all.
'Twas on the day when *** rich and grave,
Like Cimon, triumph'd both on land and wave:
(Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces,
Glad chains, warm furs, broad banners, and broad

faces.)

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85

Now night descending, the proud scene was o'er,
But liv'd in Settle's numbers one day more.
Now may'rs and shrieves all hush'd and satiate lay,
Yet eat, in dreams, the custard of the day;

90

While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep.
Much to the mindful queen the feast recalls
What city swains once sung within the walls;
Much she revolves their arts, their ancient praise,
And sure succession down from Heywood's days.

95

She saw with joy the line immortal run,
Each sire imprest and glaring in his son :

100

So watchful bruin forms, with plastic care,
Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear.

REMARKS.

v. 90. But liv'd in Settle's numbers one day more.] Settle was poet to the city of London. His office was to compose yearly panegyrics upon the lord mayors, and verses to be spoken in the pageants; but that part of the shows being at length frugally abolished, the employment of city-poet ceased; so that upon Settle's demise there was no successor to that place.

v. 98. John Heywood.] Whose interludes were printed in the time of Henry VIII.

She saw old Pryn in restless Daniel shine,
And Eusden eke out Blackmore's endless line;

REMARKS.

໑. 103. -old Pryn in restless Daniel.] The first edition had it,

She saw in Norton all his father shine.

A great mistake! for Daniel de Foe had parts, but Norton de Foe was a wretched writer, and never attempted poetry. Much more justly is Daniel himself made successor to W. Pryn, both of whom wrote verses as well as politics; as appears by the poem De Jure Divino, &c. of de Foe, and by these lines in Cowley's Miscellanies, on the other:

"-One lately did not fear

" (Without the muses' leave) to plant verse here.
"But it produc'd such base, rough, crabbed, hedge-
" Rymes, as e'en set the hearer's ears on edge;
"Written by William Pryn, esquire, the
"Year of our Lord six hundred thirty-three,
"Brave Jersy muse! and he's, for his high style,
"Call'd to this day the Homer of the isle."

And both these authors had a resemblance in their fates as well as their writings, having been alike sentenced to the pillory.

v. 104. And Eusden eke out, &c.] Laurence Eusden, poetLaureate. Mr. Jacob gives a catalogue of some few only of She saw slow Philips creep like Tate's poor page, 105 And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.

In each she marks her image full exprest, But chief in Bayes's monster-breeding breast; Bayes, form'd by nature stage and town to bless, And act and be a coxcomb with success.

110

REMARKS.

his works, which are very numerous, Mr. Cooke, in his Battle of Poets, saith of him,

"Eusden, a laurel'd bard, by fortune rais'd,

" By very few was read, by fewer prais'd."

v. 105. Like Tate's poor page.] Nahum Tate was poetlaureate, a cold writer, of no invention; but sometimes translated tolerably when befriended by Mr. Dryden. In his second part of Absalom and Ahithophel are above two hundred admirable lines together of that great hand, which strongly shine through the insipidity of the rest. Something parallel may be observed of another author here mentioned.

v. 109. Bayes form'd by nature, &c.] It it is hoped the poet here hath done full justice to his hero's character, which it were a great mistake to imagine was wholly sunk in stupidity: he is allowed to have supported it with a wonderful mixture of vivacity. This character is heightened according to his own desire, in a letter he wrote to our author: "Pert and dull at least you might have allowed me. "What! am I only to be dull, and dull still, and again,