There Ridpath, Roper,30 cudgell'd might ye view,
The very worsted still look'd black and blue.
Himself among the storied chiefs he spies,31
As, from the blanket, high in air he flies,

And oh! (he cried) what street, what lane but knows
Our purgings, pumpings, blanketings, and blows?

In every loom our labours shall be seen,
And the fresh vomit run for ever green! 32

See in the circle next, Eliza placed,

33

Two babes of love close clinging to her waist ;3
Fair as before her works she stands confess'd,
In flowers and pearls by bounteous Kirkall dress'd.
The goddess then: "Who best can send on high
The salient spout, far-streaming to the sky;

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obtained his liberty by bribing the Chief Justice. His offence was uttering seditious words. The trial took place in 1685; Tutchin was then very young, but he lived, as Mr. Macaulay observes, "to be known as one of the most acrimonious and pertinacious enemies of the House of Stuart, and of the Tory party." Daniel de Foe was sentenced to the pillory in 1702, for his ironical treatise, "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters." He was also fined and imprisoned for two years. Pope, by the epithet "earless," gives an unfounded aggravation to the punishment.]

30 Authors of the Flying-post and Post-boy, two scandalous papers on different sides, for which they equally and alternately deserved to be cudgelled, and were so.

31 The history of Curll's being tossed in a blanket, and whipped by the scholars of Westminster, is well known. Of his purging and vomiting, see A Full and True Account of a Horrid Revenge on the Body of Edm. Curll, &c., in Swift and Pope's Miscellanies.

"Se quoque principibus permixtum agnovit Achivis

Constitit, et lacrymans. Quis jam locus, inquit, Achate!

Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?"-Virg. Æn. i.

32 A parody on these lines of a late noble author:

"His bleeding arm had furnish'd all their rooms,

And run for ever purple in the looms."

[Curll makes a pithy comment on this note :-" Dryden was well drubbed in the Mall for his Hind and Panther; and Pope's drubbing for his Dunciad and other libels, is to come Dryden was indeed waylaid and severely beaten, at the instigation of the profligate Rochester; but this was in 1679, ten years before the publication of the Hind and Panther. Swift calls Ridpath, mentioned above, a Scotch rogue.]

33 "Cressa genus, Pholoë, geminique sub ubere nati."-Virg. Æneid. v. [The allusion in the text is to Eliza Haywood. See Notes.]

Replenish, not ingloriously, at home."

His be yon Juno of majestic size,

With cow-like udders, and with ox-like eyes.34
This China Jordan let the chief o'ercome

Osborne 35 and Curll accept the glorious strife,

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(Though this his son dissuades, and that his wife ;) One on his manly confidence relies,

One on his vigour and superior size.36

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First Osborne lean'd against his letter'd post;

It rose, and labour'd to a curve at most.

So Jove's bright bow displays its watery round 37

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(Sure sign, that no spectator shall be drown'd),
A second effort brought but new disgrace,
The wild Meander wash'd the artist's face :
Thus the small jet, which hasty hands unlock,
Spirts in the gardener's eyes who turns the cock.
Not so from shameless Curll; impetuous spread
The stream, and smoking flourish'd o'er his head.
So (famed like thee for turbulence and horns)
Eridanus his humble fountain scorns;38

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34 In allusion to Homer's Βοῶπις πότνια "Ηρη.

35 [Thomas Osborne, a bookseller, of whom Dr. Johnson said he had no sense of shame, but that of being poor. See Notes. Chapman, a bookseller, in the edition of 1728, occupies the place of Osborne in this disgusting competition.]

36

"Ille-melior motu, fretusque juventa;

Hic membris et mole valens."-Virg. Æneid. v.

37 The words of Homer, of the Rainbow, in Iliad xi.—

ἅς τε Κρονίων

Εν νεφεῖ στήριξε, τέρας μερόπων ἀνθρώπων.

"Que le fils de Saturne a fondé dans les nues, pour être dans tous les âges un signe à tous les mortels."-Dacier.

38 Virgil mentions these two qualifications of Eridanus, Georg. iv. "Et gemina auratus taurino cornua vultu,

Eridanus, quo non alius per pinguia culta

In mare purpureum violentior influit amnis."

The poets fabled of this river Eridanus, that it flowed through the skies Denham, Cooper's Hill:

"Heaven her Eridanus no more shall boast,

Whose fame 's in thine, like lesser currents lost;

Thy nobler stream shall visit Jove's abodes,

To shine among the stars, and bathe the gods."

Through half the heavens he pours the exalted urn;
His rapid waters in their passage burn.

Swift as it mounts, all follow with their eyes:
Still happy impudence obtains the prize.
Thou triumph'st, victor of the high-wrought day,
And the pleased dame, soft-smiling, lead'st away.
Osborne, through perfect modesty o'ercome,
Crown'd with the jordan, walks contented home.

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But now for authors nobler palms remain;
Room for my lord! three jockeys in his train ;
Six huntsmen with a shout precede his chair :
He grins, and looks broad nonsense with a stare.
His honour's meaning Dulness thus express'd,
"He wins this patron, who can tickle best."

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He chinks his purse, and takes his seat of state: With ready quills the dedicators wait;

Now at his head the dexterous task commence,

And, instant, fancy feels the imputed sense;
Now gentle touches wanton o'er his face,
He struts Adonis, and affects grimace:
Rolli the feather to his ear conveys; 39
Then his nice taste directs our operas:
Bentley his mouth with classic flattery opes,
And the puff'd orator bursts out in tropes.
But Welsted most the poet's healing balm 40
Strives to extract from his soft, giving palm;
Unlucky Welsted! thy unfeeling master,
The more thou ticklest, gripes his fist the faster.
While thus each hand promotes the pleasing pain,

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And quick sensations skip from vein to vein;

A youth unknown to Phoebus, in despair,
Puts his last refuge all in heaven and prayer.
What force have pious vows! The Queen of Love
Her sister sends, her votaress, from above.

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39 Paulo Antonio Rolli, an Italian poet, and writer of many operas in that language, which, partly by the help of his genius, prevailed in England near twenty years. He taught Italian to some fine gentlemen, who affected to direct the operas. [Warton states, that Rolli translated Paradise Lost with spirit and elegance, and published Marchetti's fine translation of Lucretius.] 40 In the first edition,

"But Oldmixon the Poet's healing balm," &c.

[In the preceding couplet, Welsted occupied the place of Bentley.]

As taught by Venus, Paris learnt the art
To touch Achilles' only tender part:
Secure, through her, the noble prize to carry,
He marches off, his Grace's Secretary.

"Now turn to different sports (the goddess cries)
And learn, my sons, the wondrous power of noise.
To move, to raise, to ravish every heart,41
With Shakespear's nature, or with Jonson's art
Let others aim: 'tis yours to shake the soul
With thunder rumbling from the mustard bowl,
With horns and trumpets now to madness swell,
Now sink in sorrows with a tolling bell;
Such happy arts attention can command,

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When fancy flags, and sense is at a stand.
Improve we these. Three cat-calls be the bribe

230

Of him, whose chattering shames the monkey tribe:
And his this drum, whose hoarse heroic bass
Drowns the loud clarion of the braying ass.

Now thousand tongues are heard in one loud din: The monkey-mimics rush discordant in;

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'Twas chattering, grinning, mouthing, jabbering all, And noise and Norton, brangling and Breval,42 Dennis and dissonance, and captious art,

And snip-snap short, and interruption smart,

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And demonstration thin, and theses thick,

And major, minor, and conclusion quick.

"Hold (cried the queen) a cat-call each shall win ; 43

Equal your merits! equal is your din!

But that this well-disputed game may end,

245

Sound forth, my Brayers, and the welkin rend.

As when the long-ear'd milky mothers wait

At some sick miser's triple-bolted gate,

41 "Excudent alii spirantia molliùs æra,

Credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vultûs, &c.

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento,

Hæ tibi erunt artes."

42 J. Durant Breval, author of a very extraordinary Book of Travels, and

some poems.

48 "Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites;

Et vitulâ tu dignus, et hic."-Virgil, Ecl. iii.

For their defrauded, absent foals they make
A moan so loud, that all the guild awake;
Sore sighs sir Gilbert, starting at the bray,
From dreams of millions, and three groats to pay.
So swells each wind-pipe; ass intones to ass,
Harmonic twang! of leather, horn, and brass;
Such as from lab'ring lungs the enthusiast blows,
High sound, attemper'd to the vocal nose;
Or such as bellow from the deep divine;

There, Webster! peal'd thy voice, and Whitfield! thine.

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But far o'er all, sonorous Blackmore's strain;
Walls, steeples, skies, bray back to him again.4

45

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44 [Sir Gilbert Heathcote, one of the Aldermen of London, who is again

alluded to by Pope in his Moral Essays and Satires.]

45 A figure of speech taken from Virgil: