By this Shock, it is manifest he has most audaciously and profanely reflected on Dr. Sacheverell, who leapt up, that is, into the pulpit, and awakened Great Britain with his tongue, that is, with his sermon, which made so much noise, and for which he has been frequently termed by others of his enemies, as well as by this author, a dog. Or perhaps, by his tongue may be more literally meant his speech at his trial, since immediately thereupon, our author says, her eyes opened on a billet-doux. Billet-doux being addresses to ladies from lovers, may be aptly interpreted those addresses of loving subjects to her majesty, which ensued that trial.

The other instance is at the end of the third canto:

Steel did the labours of the gods destroy,

And strike to dust th' imperial tow'rs of Troy.
Steel could the works of mortal pride confound,
And hew triumphal arches to the ground.

Here he most impudently attributes the demolition of Dunkirk, not to the pleasure of her majesty, or of her ministry, but to the frequent instigations of his friend Mr. Steele. A very artful pun, to conceal his wicked lampoonry!

Having now considered the general intent and scope of the poem, and opened the characters, I shall next discover the malice which is covered under the episodes, and particular passages of it.

The game at ombre is a mystical representation of the late war, which is hinted by his making spades the trump; spade in Spanish signifying a sword, and being yet so painted in the cards of that nation, to which it is well known we owe the original of our cards. In this one place indeed he has unawares paid

a com

a compliment to the queen and her success in the war; for Belinda gets the better of the two that play against her, viz. the kings of France and Spain.

I do not question but every particular card has its person and character assigned, which, no doubt, the author has told his friends in private; but I shall only instance in the description of the disgrace under which the duke of Marlborough then suffered, which is so apparent in these verses:

Ev'n mighty Pam, that kings and queens o'erthrew,
And mow'd down armies in the fights of loo,

Sad chance of war! now destitute of aid,

Falls undistinguish'd

And that the author here had an eye to our modern transactions, is very plain, from an unguarded stroke toward the end of this game:

And now, as oft in some distemper'd state,
On one nice trick depends the gen'ral fate.

After the conclusion of the war, the publick rejoicings and thanksgivings are ridiculed in the two following lines:

The nymph, exulting, fills with shouts the sky,
The walls, the woods, and long canals reply.

Immediately upon which there follows a malicious insinuation, in the manner of a prophecy (which we have formerly observed this seditious writer delights in) that the peace should continue but a short time, and that the day should afterward be cursed, which was then celebrated with so much joy:

Sudden these honours shall be snatch'd away,
And curs'd for ever this victorious day.

As

As the game at ombre is a satirical representation of the late war, so is the tea-table that ensues, of the council-table, and its consultations after the peace. By this he would hint, that all the advantages we have gained by our late extended commerce, are only coffee and tea, or things of no greater value. That he thought of the trade in this place, appears by the passage, which represents the sylphs particularly careful of the rich brocade; it having been a frequent complaint of our mercers, that French brocades were imported in great quantities. I will not say he means those presents of rich gold stuff suits, which were said to be made her majesty by the king of France, though I cannot but suspect that he glances at it.

Here this author (as well as the scandalous John Dunton) represents the ministry, in plain terms, taking frequent cups,

And frequent cups prolong the rich repast;

for it is manifest he meant something more than common coffee, by his calling it,

Coffee that makes the politician wise;

and by telling us, it was this coffee, that

Sent up in vapours to the baron's brain

New stratagems—

I shall only farther observe, that it was at this table the lock was cut off; for where but at the councilboard should the barrier treaty be dissolved?

The ensuing contentions of the parties upon the loss of that treaty, are described in the squabbles following the rape of the lock; and this he rashly expresses without any disguise,

All side in parties

and

and here you have a gentleman who sinks beside the chair: a plain allusion to a noble lord, who lost his chair of president of the council.

I come next to the bodkin, so dreadful in the hand of Belinda; by which he intimates the British sceptre, so revered in the hand of our late august princess. His own note upon this place tells us, he alludes to a sceptre; and the verses are so plain, they need no remark:

The same (his ancient personage to deck)

Her great great grandsire wore about his neck
In three seal rings, which, after melted down,
Form'd a vast buckle for his widow's gown;
Her infant grandame's whistle next it grew,
The bells she gingled, and the whistle blew;
Then in a bodkin grac'd her mother's hairs,
Which long she wore, and now Belinda wears.

An open satire upon hereditary right! The three seal rings plainly allude to the three kingdoms.

These are the chief passages in the battle, by which, as hath before been said, he means the squabble of parties. Upon this occasion he could not end the description without testifying his malignant joy at those dissensions, from which he forms the prospect that both should be disappointed, and cries out with triumph, as if it were already accomplished,

Behold how oft ambitious aims are crost,
And chiefs contend till all the prize is lost.

The lock at length is turned into a star, or the old barrier treaty into a new and glorious peace. This, no doubt, is what the author, at the time he printed this poem, would have been thought to mean; in hopes by that compliment to escape the punishment VOL. XVII.

I

for

for the rest of this piece. It puts me in mind of a fellow, who concluded a bitter lampoon upon the prince and court of his days, with these lines:

God save the king, the commons, and the peers,
And grant the author long may wear his ears.

Whatever this author may think of that peace, I imagine it the most extraordinary star, that ever appeared in our hemisphere. A star that is to bring us all the wealth and gold of the Indies; and from whose influence, not Mr. John Partridge alone (whose worthy labours this writer so ungenerously ridicules) but all true Britons may, with no less authority than he, prognosticate the fall of Lewis in the restraint of the exorbitant power of France, and the fate of Rome in the triumphant condition of the church of England.

We have now considered this poem in its political view, wherein we have shown, that it has two different walks of satire; the one in the story itself, which is a ridicule on the late transactions in general; the other in the machinery, which is a satire on the ministers of state in particular. I shall now show that the same poem, taken in another light, has a tendency to popery, which is secretly insinuated through the whole.

In the first place, he has conveyed to us the doctrine of guardian angels and patron saints in the machinery of his sylphs, which being a piece of popish superstition that has been exploded ever since the reformation, he would revive under this disguise. Here are all the particulars which they believe of those beings, which I shall sum up in a few heads.

1st. The spirits are made to concern themselves with all human actions in general.