Or quite unravel all the reas'ning thread,
And hang some curious cobweb in its stead!
As, forc'd from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,
And pond'rous slugs cut swiftly through the sky;
As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe,

180

The wheels above urg'd by the load below;

Me Emptiness and Dulness could inspire,

185

And were my elasticity and fire.

Some dæmon stole my pen (forgive th' offence)

And once betray'd me into common sense:

Else all my prose and verse were much the same ;

This prose on stilts, that poetry fall'n lame.

190

Did on the stage my fops appear confin'd?

My life gave ampler lessons to mankind.

Did the dead letter unsuccessful prove ?

The brisk example never fail'd to move.
Yet sure, had Heav'n decreed to save the state, 195
Heav'n had decreed these works a longer date.

Could Troy be sav'd by any single hand,

This grey-goose weapon must have made her stand.

What can I now? my Fletcher cast aside,
Take up the Bible, once my better guide ?

200

Or tread the path by vent'rous heroes trod,
This box my thunder, this right hand my God?
Or chair'd at White's amidst the doctors sit,
Teach oaths to gamesters, and to nobles wit?

205

Or bidst thou rather party to embrace !
(A friend to party thou, and all her race;
'Tis the same rope at diff'rent ends they twist;
To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist.)
Shall I, like Curtius, desp'rate in my zeal,
O'er head and ears plunge for the commonweal? 210
Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,
And cackling save the monarchy of tories ?
Hold.....to the minister I more incline;
To serve his cause, O queen! is serving thine.
And see! thy very gazetteers give o'er;
Even Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more.
What then remains? Ourself. Still, still remain

215

Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain.

This brazen brightness to the 'squire so dear;
This polished hardness that reflects the peer; 220

This arch absurd, that wit and fool delights;
This mess, toss'd up of Hockley-hole and White's;
Where dukes and butchers join to wreath my crown;
At once the bear and fiddle of the town.

225

O born in sin, and forth in folly brought! Works damn'd, or to be damn'd; (your father's

fault;)

Go, purify'd by flames, ascend the sky,
My better and more christian progeny!

Unstain'd, untouch'd, and yet in maiden sheets,
While all your smutty sisters walk the streets. 230

Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland,
Sent with a pass and vagrant through the land;
Nor sail with Ward to ape-and-monkey climes,
Where vile Mundungus trucks for viler rhymes :
Not sulphur-tipt, emblaze an ale-house fire!
Not wrap up oranges to pelt your sire!
O! pass more innocent, in infant state,
To the mild limbo of our father Tate :

235

REMARKS.

v. 231.-gratis-given Bland, Sent with a pass.] It was a practice so to give the daily Gazetteer, and ministerial pamphlets, (in which this B. was a writer,) and to send them post-free to all the towns in the kingdom.

v. 233.-with Ward to ape-and-monkey climes.] "Edward "Ward, a very voluminous poet in Hudibrastic verse, but "best known by the London Spy, in prose. He has of "late years kept a public house in the city, (but in a gen"teel way,) and with his wit, humour, and good liquor, "(ale) afforded his guests a pleasurable entertainment, "especially those of the high-church party." Jacob, Lives of Poets, vol. II, p. 225. Great numbers of his works were yearly sold into the plantations. Ward, in a book called Appollo's Maggot, declared this account to be a great falsity, protesting that his public-house was not in the city, but in Moorfields.

໑. 238, 240.-Tate-Shadwell.] Two of his predecessors in the laurel.

F2

240

Or peaceably forgot, at once be blest
In Shadwell's bosom with eternal rest!
Soon to that mass of nonsense to return,
Where things destroy'd are swept to things unborn.
With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace!)

Stole from the master of the sev'nfold face;

And twice he lifted high the birth-day brand,
And thrice he dropt it from his quiv'ring hand;
Then lights the structure with averted eyes;
The rolling smoke involves the sacrifice.
Th' op'ning clouds disclose each work by turns,

245

250

Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns;
Great Cæsar roars and hisses in the fires;
King John in silence modestly expires :
No merit now the dear nonjuror claims,
Moliere's old stubble in a moment flames.
Tears gush'd again, as from pale Priam's eyes, 255
When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies.

Rouz'd by the light, old Dulness heav'd the head,
Then snatcht a sheet of Thule from her bed;
Sudden she flies, and whelms it o'er the pyre :
Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire.
Her ample presence fills up all the place;

A veil of fogs dilates her awful face :

260

Great in her charms! as when on shrieves and

may'rs

She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.

+ She bids him wait her to her sacred dome:

265

Well pleas'd he enter'd, and confess'd his home.
So spirits, ending their terrestrial race,
Ascend, and recognize their native place.
This the great mother dearer held than all
The clubs of quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall: 270
Here stood her opium, here she nurs'd her owls,
And here she plan'd th' imperial seat of fools.

Here to her chosen all her works she shows, Prose swell'd to verse, verse loit'ring into prose: How random thoughts now meaning chance to find, Now leave all memory of sense behind :

276

How prologues into prefaces decay,
And these to notes are fritter'd quite away:
How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail:
How, with less reading than makes felons 'scape,
Less human genius than God gives an ape,

280

Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece,
A past, vamp'd future, old reviv'd, new piece,
Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakespeare, and Corneille,

Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell.

286

REMARKS.

໑. 286. Tibbald.] Lewis Tibbald (as pronounced) or Theobald (as written) was bred an attorney, and son to an attorney (says Mr. Jacob) of Sittenburn in Kent. He was au