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'Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakspeare, and Corneille,
Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell. t
The goddess then o'er his anointed head,
With mystic words, the sacred opium shed.
And, lo! her bird (a monster of a fowl,
Something betwixt a Heidegger and owl)
Perch'd on his crown:-" All hail! and hail again,
My son the promis'd land expects thy reign.
Know Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise;
He sleeps among the dull of ancient days;
Safe where no critics damn, no duns molest,
Where wretched Withers, Ward, and Gildon rest,
And high-born Howard, more majestic sire,
With fool of quality completes the quire.
REMARKS.

--Tibbald.] Lewis Tibbald (as pronounced), or Thesbald (as written), was bred an attorney, and son to an attorney (says Mr. Jacob) of Sittenburn in Kent. He was author of some forgotten plays, translations, and other pieces. He was concerned in a paper called The Censor, and a translation of Ovid.

+ Ozell.] "Mr. John Ozell was designed for priest hood; but chose rather to be placed in an office of accounts in the City, being qualified for the same by his skill in arithmetic, and writing the necessary hands. He has written many translations of French plays."

Jacob, Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 198.

Withers was a great pretender to poetical zeal against the vices of the times, and abused the greatest per sonages in power, which brought upon him frequent correction. The Marshalsea and Newgate were no

strangers to him.

Winstanley.

Gildon.] Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels, of the last age, bred at St. Omer's with the Jesuits; but renouncing popery, he published Blunt's books against the divinity of Christ. He signalized himself as a critic, having written some very bad plays; abused Mr. P. in an anonymous pamphlet of the Life of Mr. Wycherley, in another, called The New Rehearsal; in a third, entitled The Complete Art of Engligh Poetry, in two volumes.

? Howard.] Hon. Edward Howard, author of the British Princes, &c.

Thou, Cibber! thou his laurel shalt support;
Folly, my son, has still a friend at court.
Lift up your gates, ye princes, see him come !
Sound, sound ye viols, be the cat-call dumb!
Bring, bring the madding bay, the drunken vine,
The creeping, dirty, courtly ivy join. *

And thou! his aid-du-camp, lead on my sons,
Light-arm'd with points, antitheses and puns.
Let Bawdry, Billingsgate, my daughters dear,
Support his front, and Oaths bring up the rear:
And under his, and under Archer's wing,
Gaming and Grub-street skulk behind the king.
"Oh! when shall rise a monarch all our own,
And I, a nursing-mother, rock the throne;
Twixt prince and people close the curtain draw,
Shade him from light, and cover him from law;
Fatten the courtier, starve the learned band,
And suckle armies, and dry-nurse the land:
Till senates nod to lullabies divine,

And all be sleep, as at an ode of thine ?"

She ceas'd. Then swells the Chapel-royal throat;
"God save king Cibber!" mounts in every note.
Familiar White's, "God save king Colley!” cries;
"God save king Colley!" Drury-lane replies:
To Needham's quick the voice triumphal rode,
But pious Needham† dropt the name of God;
Back to the devil the last echoes roll;
And "Coll!" each butcher roars at Hockley-hole.
So when Jove's block descended from on high,
As sings thy great forefather Ogilby)

Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog,
And the hoarse nation croak'd, “God save king Log!"

REMARKS.

+ But pious Needham.] A matron of great fame, and very religious in her way; whose constant prayer was hat she might "get enough by her profession to leave t off in time, and make her peace with God." But her ate was not so happy; for being convicted, and set in he pillory, she was so ill used by the populace, that it ut an end to her days.

The Devil-tavern in Fleet-street, where the courtdes were usually rehearsed.

IMITATIONS.

The creeping, dirty, courtly ivy join.]

-Quorum imagines lambunt

6

Hederæ sequaces,"

Per.

THE

DUNCIAD.

BOOK II.

ARGUMENT.

The King being proclaimed, the solemnity is graced with public games of various kinds; instituted by the goddess. Hither flock the poets and critics, attended by their patrons and booksellers. The goddess is first pleased to propose games to the booksellers, and setteth up the phantom of a poet, which they contend to overtake. The races described. Next, the game for a poetess Then follow the exercises for the poets; the first holds forth the arts and practises of dedicators, the second of disputants and fustian poets, the third of profound, dark, and dirty party-writers. Lastly, for the critics, the goddess proposes an exercise of their patience, in hearing the works of two voluminous authors, the one in verse and the other in prose, deliberately read, without sleeping: the effects of which is, that all present, fall fast asleep; which necessarily ends the games.

HIGH on a gorgeous seat, that far outshone Henley'st gilt tub or Fleckno's Irish throne, Or that where on her Curls | the public pours, All-bounteous, fragrant grains and golden show's REMARKS.

+ Henley.] Orator Henley-See Book iii. ver 199. Fleckno's Irish throne.] Richard Fleckno was an Irish priest. He printed some plays, poems, letters, and

travels.

Edmund Curl stood in the pillory at Charing-cross March 1727-8

IMITATIONS.

High on a gorgeous seat.] Milton, Book fi.
"High on a throne of royal state, that far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Show'rs on her kings Barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sate.

Great Cibber sate: the proud Parnassian sneer,
The conscious simper, and the jealous leer,
Mix on his look: all eyes direct their rays
On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze.
His peers shine round him with reflected grace,
New edge their dulness, and new bronze their face.
So from the sun's broad beam, in shallow urns,
Heav'n's twinkling sparks draw light, and point
their horns.

Not with more glee, by hands pontific crown'd,
With scarlet hats wide-waving circled round,
Rome in her Capitol saw Querno sit, *
Thron'd on seven hills, the antichrist of wit.
And now the Queen, to glad her sons, proclaims
By herald hawkers high heroic games.
They summon all her race: an endless band
Pours forth, and leaves unpeopled half the land;
A motley mixture! in long wigs, in bags,
In silks, in crapes, in garters, and in rags,
From drawing-rooms, from colleges, from garrets,
On horse, on foot, in hacks, and gilded chariots;
All who true dunces in her cause appear'd,
And all who knew those dunces to reward.
Amid that area wide they took their stand,
Where the tall May-pole once o'erlook'd the Strand,
But now (so Anne and piety ordain)
A church collects the saints of Drury-lane.
With authors, stationers obey'd the call;
(The field of glory is a field for all)

REMARKS.

Rome in her Capitol saw Querno sit.] Camillo Querno was of Apulia, who, hearing the great encouragement which Leo X. gave to poets, travelled to Rome with a harp in his hand, and sung to it twenty thousand verses of a poem called Alexias. He was introduced as a buffoon to Leo, and promoted to the honour of the laurel; a jest which the court of Rome and the Pope himself entered into so far, as to cause him to ride on an elephant to the Capitol, and to hold a solemn festival on his coronation; at which the poet himself was so transported as to weep for joy.

Glory and gain the' industrious tribe provoke,
And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.
A poet's form she plac'd before their eyes,
And bade the nimblest racer seize the prize;
No meagre, muse-rid mope, adust and thin,
In a dun night-gown of his own loose skin,
But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise,
Twelve starv❜ling bards of these degenerate days.
All as a partridge plump, full-fed and fair,
She form'd this image of well-body'd air;
With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head,
A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead;
And empty words she gave, and sounding strain,
But senseless, lifeless idol, void and vain!
Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit,
A fool so just a copy of a 'wit;

So like, that critics said, and courtiers swore,
A wit it was, and call'd the phantom More.t
All gaze with ardour: some a poet's name,
Others a sword-knot and lac'd suit inflame;
But lofty Lintot ‡ in the circle rose,

"This prize is mine, who tempt it are my foes;
With me began this genius, and shall end."
He spoke; and who with Lintot shall contend?
Fear held them mute. Alone untaught to fear.
Stood dauntless Curl: " Behold that rival here!

REMARKS.

+ More.] Curl, in his key to the Dunciad, affirmed this to be James More Smith, Esq.

But lofty Lintot.] We enter here upon the Episode of the Booksellers; whose names being more famous in the learned world than those of the authors in this Poem, need less explanation.

Stood dauntless Curl.] We come now to a character

IMITATIONS.

But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise.] "Vix illud lecti bis sex-

Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus."

Virg. En. xii.

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