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Inftructive work! whose wry-mouth'd portraiture 145 Display'd the fates her confeffors endure.

REMARKS.

Ear

the learned language, I might have given him the appellations of balatro, calceatum caput, fcurra in triviis, being phrafes in good esteem and frequent ufage among the best learned: But in our mother-tongue, were I to tax any gentleman of the Dunciad, furely it should be in words not to the vulgar intelligible; whereby chriftian charity, decency, and good accord among authors, might be preferved. SCRIBL.

The good Scriblerus here, as on all occafions, eminently fhews his humanity. But it was far otherwife with the gentlemen of the Dunciad, whose scurrilities were always perfonal, and of that nature which provoked every honeft man but Mr. Pope; yet never to be lamented, fince they occafioned the following amiable Verses:

"While Malice, Pope, denies thy page
"Its own celeftial fire;

"While Critics, and while Bards in rage,
"Admiring, won't admire :

"While wayward pen thy worth affail,
"And envious tongues decry;

"These times though many a Friend bewail,
"Thefe times bewail not I.

"But when the World's loud praise is thine,
"And spleen no more shall blame,
"When with thy Homer thou fhalt shine
"In one establish'd fame:

"When none shall rail, and every lay
"Devote a wreath to thee;

“That day, (for come it will) that day
"Shall I lament to fee."

Earlefs on high, stood unabash'd De Foe,

And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge below.
There Ridpath, Roper, cudgel'd might ye view,
The very worsted still look'd black and blue.
Himself among the story'd chiefs he spies,
As, from the blanket, high in air he flies,

150

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And

Ver. 143. A fhaggy Tapestry.] A forry kind of Tapestry frequent in old Inns, made of worsted or fome coarfer ftuff; like that which is spoken of by DonneFaces as frightful as theirs who whip Christ in old hangings. This imagery woven in it alludes to the mantle of Cloanthus, in Æn. v.

Ver. 144. John Dunton was a broken bookseller, and abufive fcribbler; he writ Neck or Nothing, a violent fatire on fome minifters of ftate; a libel on the Duke of Devonshire and the Bishop of Peterborough, &c.

Ver. 148. And Tutchin flagrant from the fcourge] John Tutchin, author of fome vile verses, and of a weekly paper called the Obfervator: He was fentenced to be whipped through feveral towns in the weft of England, upon which he petitioned King James II. to be hanged. When that Prince died an exile, he wrote an invective against his memory, occafioned by fome humane elegies on his death. He lived to the time of Queen Anne.

Ver. 149. There Ridpath, Roper,] Authors of the Flying-poft and Poft-boy, two fcandalous papers on different fides, for which they equally and alternately deferved to be cudgelled, and were fo.

Ver. 151. Himfelf among the ftory'd chiefs he fpies,] The hiftory of Curll's being toffed in a blanket, and whipped by the scholars of Westminster, is well known. Of his purging and vomiting, fee A full and true account of a horrid Revenge on the body of Edm. Curll, &c. in Swift and Pope's Mifcellanies.

And oh! (he cry'd) what street, what lane, but knows
Our purgings, pumpings, blanketings, and blows!
In every loom our labours shall be seen,
And the fresh vomit run for ever green!

See in the circle next, Eliza plac'd,

Two babes of love close clinging to her waist;

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155

Fair

Ver. 157. See in the circle next Eliza plac'd,] In this game is expofed, in the moft contemptuous manner, the profligate licentiousness of thofe fhameless fcriblers (for the most part of that fex, which ought least to be capable of fuch malice or impudence) who, in libellous Memoirs and Novels, reveal the faults or misfortunes of both fexes, to the ruin of public fame, or disturbance of private happiness. Our good poet (by the whole caft of his work being obliged not to take off the Irony) where he could not fhew his indignation, hath fhewn his contempt, as much as poffible; having here drawn as vile a picture as could be represented in the colours of Epic poefy. SCRIBL

Ibid. Eliza Haywood; this woman was authoress of those most scandalous books called the Court of Carimania, and the New Utopia. For the two babes of love, fee CURLL, Key, p. 22. But whatever reflection he is pleafed to throw upon this Lady, furely it was what from him the little deserved, who had celebrated Curll's undertakings for Reformation of manners, and declared herself to be fo perfectly acquainted with the sweet"ness of his disposition, and that tenderness with which "he confidered the errors of his fellow-creatures; that, "though she should find the little inadvertencies of her "own life recorded in his papers, fhe was certain it "would be done in fuch a manner as fhe could not but "approve." Mrs. HAYWOOD, Hift. of Clar. printed in the Female Dunciad, p. 18.

Fair as before her works fhe ftands confefs'd,

In flowers and pearls by bounteous Kirkall dress'd. 160

The Goddefs then: "Who beft can send on high

"The falient spout, far ftreaming to the sky;

"His be yon Juno of majestic fize,

"With cow-like udders, and with ox-like eyes.
"This China Jordan let the chief o'ercome
"Replenish, not ingloriously, at home.”
Ofborne and Curll accept the glorious strife,
(Though this his Son diffuades, and that his Wife.)

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165

One

Ver. 160. Kirkall,] the name of an Engraver. Some of this Lady's works were printed in four volumes in 12mo, with her picture thus dreffed up before them.

Ver. 167. Ofborne, Thomas] A bookfeller in Gray's Inn, very well qualified by his impudence to act this part; therefore placed here inftead of a lefs deferving predeceffor. [Chapman, the publisher of Mrs. Haywood's New Utopia, &c.] This man published advertifements for a year together, pretending to fell Mr. Pope's Subfcription books of Homer's Iliad at half the price: Of which book he had none, but cut to the fizé of them (which was Quarto) the common books in folio, without Copper-plates, on a worse paper, and never above half the value.

Upon this advertisement the Gazetteer harangued thus, July 6, 1739, "How melancholy must it be to a Writer to be fo unhappy as to fee his works hawked for "fale in a manner fo fatal to his fame! How, with ho"nour to yourself, and Justice to your Subscribers, can "this be done! What an Ingratitude to be charged on "the Only honeft Poet that lived in 1738! and than

"whom

One on his manly confidence relies,

One on his vigour and superior size.

176

First Osborne lean'd against his letter'd poft:
It rofe, and labour'd to a curve at most.

So Jove's bright bow displays its watery round
(Sure fign, that no spectator shall be drown'd).
A fecond effort brought but new disgrace,
The wild Meander wash'd the Artist's face:
Thus the small jett, which hafty hands unlock,
Spirts in the gardener's eyes who turns the cock.
Not fo from fhameless Curll; impetuous spread
The stream, and smoking flourish'd o'er his head.
So (fam'd like thee for turbulence and horns)
Eridanus his humble fountain fcorns;
Through half the heavens he pours th' exalted urn;
His rapid waters in their passage burn.

175

180

Swift

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"whom Virtue has not had à fhriller Trumpeter for many ages! That you were once generally admired "and esteemed, can be denied by none; but that you "and your works are now defpifed, is verified by this "fact:" which being utterly falfe, did not indeed much humble the Author, but drew this just chastisement on the Bookfeller.

Ver. 183. Through half the heavens he pours th' exalted urn;] In a manufcript Dunciad (where are fome marginal corrections of fome gentlemen fome time deceafed) I have found another reading of these lines, thus, "And lifts his urn, through half the heavens to flow; "His rapid waters in their paffage glow.

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