In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read, Ere Pallas issued from the Thunderer's head, Dulness o'er all possess'd her ancient right, Daughter of chaos and eternal night: Fate in their dotage this fair idiot gave, Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave; Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind, She rul'd, in native anarchy, the mind. Still her old empire to restore she tries, For, born a goddess, Dulness never dies. O thou! whatever title please thine ear, Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver! Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair, Or praise the court, or magnify mankind, Or thy griev'd country's copper chains unbind ;* From thy Boeotia though her pow'r retires, Mourn not, my Swift! at ought our realm acquires. Here pleas'd behold her mighty wings outspread To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead.

Close to those walls where folly holds her throne, And laughs to think Monroe would take her down, Where o'er the gates, by his fam'd father's hand, t Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers stand; One cell there is, conceal'd from vulgar eye, The cave of poverty and poetry :

Keen hollow winds howl through the bleak recess, Emblem of music caus'd by emptiness:

Hence bards, like Proteus long in vain ty'd down, Escape in monsters, and amaze the town:

REMARKS.

Relating to the papers of the Drapier against the currency of Wood's copper coin in Ireland.

+-by his fam'd father's hand] Mr. Caius-Gabriel Cibber, father of the Poet-laureat. The two statues of the lunatics over the gates of Bedlam-Hospital were done by him, and are no ill monuments of his fame as an artist.

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,

And New-year odes, and all the Grub-street race.
In clouded majesty here Dulness shone, t
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 sake:
Prudence, whose glass presents the' 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;
There motley images her fancy strike,
Figures ill-pair'd, and similes unlike.

REMARKS.

* Two booksellers. The former was fined for publishing obscene books; the latter usually adorned his shop with titles in red letters.

She sees a mob of metaphors advance,

Pleas'd with the madness of the mazy dance;
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 showers,
Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flowers;
Glittering 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 fools-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)
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;
While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep.
Much to the mindful queen the feast recalls
What city swans once sung within the walls;
Much she revolves their arts, their ancient praise,
And sure succession down from Heywood's † days.

REMARKS.

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 abolished, the office ceased.

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

She saw with joy the line immortal run,
Each sire imprest and glaring in his son:
So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care,
Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear.
She saw old Prynne in restless Daniel shine,*
And Eusden eke out Blackmore's † endless line, t
She saw slow Philips creep like Tate's poor page, ||
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 :
Dulness with transport eyes the lively dunce,
Remembering she herself was pertness once.
Now (shame to fortune!) an ill run at play
Blank'd his bold visage, and a thin third day:
Swearing and supperless the hero sate,
Blasphem'd his gods, the dice, and damn'd his fate;
Then gnaw'd his pen, then dash'd it on the ground,
Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound!
Plung'd for his sense, but found no bottom there,
Yet wrote and flounder'd on in mere despair.
Round him much embryo, much abortion lay,
Much future ode, and abdicated play ;

REMARKS.

--restless Daniel.] Daniel De Foe; a writer of considerable merit, who deserved to be placed in better company.

+ Sir Richard Blackmore; a voluminous author, who, as Dryden expresses it, "writ to the rumbling of his coach's wheels."

And Eusden eke out, &c.] Laurence Eusden, PoetLaureat. Mr. Cooke, in his Battle of Poets, says of him,

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

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

Like Tate's poor page.] Nahum Tate was Poet-laureat; a cold writer, of no invention; but translated tolerably when befriended by Mr. Dryden.

Nonsense precipitate, like running lead,

That slipp'd thro' cracks and zigzags of the head;
All that on folly frenzy could beget,

Fruits of dull heat, and sooterkins of wit.
Next o'er his books his eyes began to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole ;

How here he sipp'd, how there he plunder'd snug,
And suck'd all o'er like an industrious bug.
Here lay poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes, and here
The frippery of crucified Moliere;

There hapless Shakspeare, yet of Tibbald sore,
Wish'd he had blotted for himself before.
The rest on outside merit but presume,
Or serve (like other fools) to fill a room;
Such with their shelves as due proportion hold,
Or their fond parents dress'd in red and gold;
Or where the pictures for the page atone,
And Quarles is sav'd by beauties not his own.
Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great;
There, stamp'd with arms, Newcastle shines com-
plete : +

Here all his suffering brotherhood retire,
And 'scape the martyrdom of jakes and fire:
A gothic library! of Greece and Rome

Well purg'd, and worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome

REMARKS.

* Ogilby the great.] "John Ogilby was one who, from a late initiation into literature, made such a progress as might well style him the prodigy of his time!

Winstanley.

+ There, stamp'd with arms, Newcastle shines complete.] "The Dutchess of Newcastle who busied herself in the delights of poetry; leaving to posterity in print three ample volumes of her studious endeavours."

Winstanley.

-worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.] The poet has mentioned these three authors in particular, as they are parallel to our hero in his three capacities: 1. Settle was his brother laureat; only indeed upon half-pay, for the City instead of the Court; but equally famous for