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 heideggre and owl)

66

REMARKS.

290

"to the play-house, who hath lately burlesqued the "Metamorphoses of Ovid by avile translation, &c. This "fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called "The Censor." Dennis, Rem. on Pope's Homer, p.9,10. v. 286. ---Orell.] Mr. John Ozell (if we credit Mr. Jacob)" did go to school in Leicestershire, where "somebody left him something to live on, when he "shall retire from business. He was designed to be sent "to Cambridge, in order for priesthood; but he chose "rather to be placed in an office of accounts in the City, "being qualified for the same by his skill in arithme"tic, and writing the necessary hands. He has obliged "the world with many translations of French "plays." Jacob, Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 198.

Mr. Jacob's character of Mr. Ozell seems vastly short of his merits, and he ought to have further justice done him, having since fully confuted all sarcasms on his learning and genius, by an advertisement of Sept. 20, 1729, in a paper called the Weekly Medley,. &c. " As "to my learning, this envious wretch knew, and every body knows, that the whole Bench of Bishops, not "long ago, were pleased to give me a purse of gui"neas for discovering the erroneous translations of the "Common-prayer in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, &c. As for my genius, let Mr. Cleland show "better verses in all Pope's works than Ozell's version "of Boileau's Lutrin, which the late Lord Halifax was "so pleased with, that he complimented him with leave "todedicate it to him, &c. Let him shew better and truer poetry in the Rape of the Lock, than in Ozell's Rape "of the Bucket (la Secchia rapita). And Mr. Toland "and Mr. Gildon publicly declared Ozell's translation "of Homer to be, as it was prior, so likewise supe"rior to Pope's.---Surely, surely, every man is free to "deserve well of his Country." John Ozell

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praise;

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 ΟΙ
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 complete the quire.

REMARKS.

295

We cannot but subscribe to such reverend testimonies as those of the Bench of Bishops, Mr. Toland, and Mr. Gildon.

v. 296.---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 Blount's books against the divinity of Christ, the oracles of reason, &c. He signalized himself as a critic, having written some very bad plays; abused Mr. P. very scandalously in an anonymous pamphlet of the life of Mr. Wycherley, printed by Curl; in another called The New Rehearsal, printed in 1714; in a third, entitled The Complete Art of English Poetry, in two Volumes; and others.

v. 297.---Howard.] Hon. Edward Howard, author of the British Princes, and a great number of wonderful pieces, celebrated by the late Earls of Dorset and Rochester; Duke of Buckingham, Mr. Waller, &c.

VARIATIONS.

v. 293.---Know Eusden, &c.] In the former editions: Know Settle cloy'd with custard and with praise, Is gather'd to the dull of ancient days;

Safe where no critics damn, no duns molest,
Where Gildon, Banks, and High-born Howard rest.
I see a king! who leads my chosen sons,
To lands that flow with clenches and with puns:
Till each fam'd theatre my empire own;

Till Albion, as Hibernia, bless my throne!
Volume IV.

L

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-de-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,

300

305

Gaming and Grub-street skulk behind the King. 310
O! 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.”

VARIATIONS.

I see! I see!--Then rapt she spoke no more, God save King Tibbald! Grub-street alleys roar. So when Joves block, &c.

IMITATIONS.

v. 304. The creeping, dirty, courtly ivy join.]

"Quorum imagines lambunt
Hederac sequaces."

313

Per.

v. 311. O! when shall rise a monarch, &c.] Boileau, Lutrin, chant ii.

"Helas! qu'est devenu ce tems, cet hureux tems, "Ou les rois s'honorient du nom de Faineans." &c.

320

She ceas'd. Then swells the Chapel-royal throat; God save King Cibber! mounts in ev'ry 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,

325

329

And the hoarse nation croak'd, God save King Log!

REMARKS.

v. 324. But pious Needham.] A matron of great fame, and very religious in her way; whose constant prayer it was, that she might "" get enough by her profession to leave it off in time, and make her peace with God." But her fate was not so happy; for being convicted, and set in the pillory, she was (to the lasting shame of all her great friends and votaries) so ill-used by the populace, that it put an end to her days.

TO DR. JONATHAN SWIFT.

BOOK II.

The Argument.

The King being proclaimed, the solemnity is graced with public games and sports of various kinds; not instituted by the Hero, as by Aenias in Virgil, but for greater honour by the Goddess in person (in like manner as the games Pithia, Isthmia,&c. were anciently said to be ordained by the gods, and as Thetis herself appearing, according to Homer, Odyssey XXIV. proposed the prizes in honour of her son Achilles). Hither flock the Poets and Critics, attended, as is but just, with their Patrons and Booksellers. The Goddess is first pleased, for her disport, to propose games to the Booksellers, and setteth up the phantom of a poet, which they contend to overtake. The races described, with their divers accidents. Next the game for a Poetess. Then follow the exercises for the Poets, of tickling, vociferating, diving: the first helds forth the arts and practices 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 (with great propriety) an exercise, not of their parts, but their patience, in hearing the works of two volumindus authors, the one in verse, and the other in prose, deliberately read, without sleeping; the various effects of which, with the several degrees and manners of their operation, are here set forth, till the whole number, not of Critics only, but of Spectators, Actors, and all present, fall fast asleep; which naturally and necessarily ends the Games.

HIGH

IGH on a gorgeous seat, that far outshone

Henley's gilt tub, or Fleckno's Irish throne,

v. 2.---or Fleckno's Irish throne.] Richard Fleckno was an Irish priest, but had laid aside (as himself expressed it) the mechanic part of priesthood. He printed some plays, poems, letters, and travels. I doubt not our Author, took occasion to mention him in respect to the poem of Mr. Dryden, to whom this bears some resemblance, though of a character more different from it than that of the Æneid from the Iliad, or the Lutrin of Boileau from the Defait de Bouts rimees of Sarazin.