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Which, as more pond'rous, made its aim more true,
Obliquely waddling to the mark in view:
O! ever gracious to perplex'd mankind,
Still spread a healing mist before the mind;
And, lest we err by Wit's wild dancing light,
Secure us kindly in our native night.
Or, if to wit a coxcomb make pretence,
Guard the sure barrier between that and sense;

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Or quite unravel all the reasoning thread,
And hang some curious cobweb in its stead!
As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,31
And pond'rous slugs cut swiftly through the sky;
As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe,
The wheels above urged by the load below:
Me Emptiness and Dulness could inspire,
And were my elasticity and fire.

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Some demon stole my pen (forgive the offence)

And once betray'd me into common sense:

Else all my prose and verse were much the same;

This, prose on stilts; that, poetry fall'n lame.

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Did on the stage my fops appear confined?

My life gave ampler lessons to mankind.
Did the dead letter unsuccessful prove?
The brisk example never fail'd to move.

Yet sure, had Heaven decreed to save the state,32
Heaven had decreed these works a longer date.

195

This imagery and illustration are inimitable. Pope had used the same simile before, in his corrections of some of Wycherley's pieces. I need not say, that the "byass" is a small piece of lead in a bowl, which prevents its swerving at first, but which, when the force of the direction is spent, makes the bowl" obliquely waddle to the mark."-Bowles.]

31 [To the edition of 1735, Pope added the following note:-" The thought of these four verses is found in a poem of our author's of a very early date, (namely, writ at fourteen years old, and soon after printed, entitled, "To the Author of a Poem called Successio,") where they stand thus:

"The heaviest Muse the swiftest course has gone,

As clocks run fastest when most lead is on.

So, forced from engines lead itself can fly,

And pond'rous slugs move nimbly through the sky!"

We have not met with any publication of the poem on Settle before that in Lintot's Miscellany, 1712.]

82

"Me si cœlicolæ voluissent ducere vitam,

Has mihi servâssent sedes."-Virg. Æneid, ii.

Could Troy be saved by any single hand,

This grey-goose weapon must have made her stand.33

What can I now? my Fletcher cast aside,

Take up the Bible, once my better guide 234

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Or tread the path by venturous heroes trod,

This box my thunder, this right-hand my god ?35

Or chair'd at White's amidst the doctors sit,
Teach oaths to gamesters, and to nobles wit?
Or bidst thou rather party to embrace?
(A friend to party thou, and all her race;
'Tis the same rope at different ends they twist;
To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as mist.)
Shall I, like Curtius, desperate in my zeal,
O'er head and ears plunge for the common weal?

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Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,
And cackling save the monarchy of Tories?
Hold to the minister I more incline;

To serve his cause, O queen! is serving thine.

And see thy very gazetteers give o'er,

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Ev'n Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more.36

What then remains? Ourself. Still, still remain
Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain.

This brazen brightness, to the 'squire so dear;

This polished hardness, that reflects the peer :

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This arch absurd, that wit and fool delights;

This mess, toss'd up of Hockley-hole and White's ;

Where dukes and butchers join to wreathe my crown,
At once the bear and fiddle of the town.

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Defendi possent, etiam hâc defensâ fuissent."-Virg. ibid. 34 [When Theobald was hero of the poem, these lines stood thus:

But what can I, my Flaccus, cast aside?

Take up the Attorney's (once my better) guide."

Cibber being intended for the Church, the Bible was subsequently brought

in.]

35

"Dextra mihi Deus, et telum quod missile libro."

Virgil of the Gods of Mezentius.

86 [Ralph and Henley reappear in the future stages of the poem, and some account of them will be found in the notes.]

O born in sin, and forth in folly brought !37
Works damn'd, or to be damn'd! (your father's fault)
Go, purified by flames, ascend the sky,
My better and more Christian progeny!
Unstain'd, untouch'd, and yet in maiden sheets; 38
While all your smutty sisters walk the streets.
Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland,39
Sent with a pass, and vagrant through the land;
Nor sail with Ward, to ape-and-monkey climes,40
Where vile Mundungus trucks for viler rhymes :

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37 In the former edition,

66 Adieu, my children! better thus expire

Unstall'd, unsold; thus glorious mount in fire,
Fair without spot; than greased by grocer's hands,
Or shipp'd with Ward to ape-and-monkey lands,

Or wafting ginger, round the streets to run,
And visit ale-house,* where ye first begun.

With that he lifted thrice the sparkling brand,
And thrice he dropp'd it," &c.-

"O born in sin," &c. This is a tender, passionate apostrophe to his own works, which he is going to sacrifice, agreeable to the nature of man in great affliction; and reflecting, like a parent, on the many miserable fates to which they would otherwise be subject.

38

"Fælix Priamëia virgo!

Jussa mori: quæ fortitus non pertulit ullos,

Nec victoris heri tetigit captiva cubile!

Nos, patria incensa, diversa per æquora vectæ," &c.

Virg. Eneid, iii.

39 It was a practice so to give the "Daily Gazetteer" and ministerial pamphlets (in which this B. was a writer), and to send them post-free to all the towns in the kingdom. [Bland was the Provost of Eton.]

40 "Edward Ward, a very voluminous poet in Hudibrastic verse, but best known by the London Spy, in prose. He has of late years kept a public house in the City (but in a genteel way), and with his wit, humour, and good liquor (ale), afforded his guests a pleasurable entertainment, especially those of the high-church party."-Jacob, Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 225. Great numbers of his works were yearly sold into the Plantations. Ward, in a book called Apollo's Maggot, declared this account to be a great falsity, protesting that his public house was not in the City, but in Moorfields. [Mr. Bowles quotes Ward's reply:-" The only excuse made in the Preface to the Dunciad, for the scurrilous liberties taken by the author of that murderous

* Waller on the Navy:

"Those towers of oak o'er fertile plains may go,
And visit mountains where they once did grow.

Not sulphur tipp'd, emblaze an alehouse fire;
Not wrap up oranges, to pelt your sire!
O! pass more innocent, an infant state,
To the mild limbo of our father Tate:

SHADWELL.

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Or peaceably forgot, at once be blest
In Shadwell's bosom with eternal rest!41
Soon to that mass of nonsense to return,
Where things destroy'd are swept to things unborn.

240

poem, is, that no man living is attacked, who had not before printed and published against this particular gentleman, meaning the author. This apology, at first sight, may seem to the friendly reader no less than reasonable; but, in short, his unguarded assertion, though expressed in positive terms, without the least exception, happens to fall under the misfortune of being utterly false; for the author of the following poem (against Pope, under the name of Durgen), in answer to his general charge, does solemnly protest, that he never, till now, wrote a line that could give to the little gentleman the least provocation."]

Tate-Shadwell, two of his predecessors in the Laurel.

With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace!)
Stole from the master of the seven-fold face :
And thrice he lifted high the birth-day brand,
And thrice he dropp'd it from his quivering hand;
Then lights the structure with averted eyes:
The rolling smoke involves the sacrifice.
The opening clouds disclose each work by turns,
Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns;
Great Cæsar roars, and hisses in the fires :
King John in silence modestly expires:
No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims,
Molière's old stubble in a moment flames.
Tears gush'd again, as from pale Priam's eyes,
When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies.43

42

Roused by the light, old Dulness heaved the head,

Then snatch'd a sheet of Thulè from her bed;

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42 In the former edition :

"Now flames old Memnon, now Rodrigo burns,

In one quick flash see Proserpine expire,

And last, his own cold Eschylus took fire.

Then gush'd the tears, as from the Trojan's eyes,
When the last blaze," &c.

Memnon, a hero in the Persian Princess, very apt to take fire, as appears by these lines, with which he begins the play :

"By heaven it fires my frozen blood with rage,

And makes it scald my aged trunk."

Rodrigo, the chief personage of the Perfidious Brother (a play written between Tibbald and a watchmaker). The Rape of Proserpine, one of the farces of this author, in which Ceres, setting fire to a corn-field, endangered the burning of the play-house. He had been (to use an expression of our poet) about Eschylus for ten years, and had received subscriptions for the same, but then went about other books. The character of this tragic poet is fire and boldness in a high degree, but our author supposes it very much cooled by the translation; upon sight of a specimen of which was made this epigram:

"Alas! poor Eschylus! unlucky dog!

Whom once a lobster kill'd, and now a log!"

But this is a grievous error, for Eschylus was not slain by the fall of a lobster on his head, but of a tortoise, teste. Val. Max. 1. ix. cap. 12.Scriblerus.

43 [The names in the text are those of plays by Cibber; those in the note refer to works by Theobald.]

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