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.

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

235

With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace!)

42

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.4

Roused by the light, old Dulness heaved the head,
Then snatch'd a sheet of Thulè from her bed;

245

250

255

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 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!"

very

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.]

III.]

"Roused by the light, old Dulness heaved the head,
Then snatch'd a sheet of Thulè from her bed."

THE DUNCIAD, book i. lines 257,258.
[Page 68.

Sudden she flies and whelms it o'er the pyre;
Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire.

260

Her ample presence fills up all the place;

A veil of fogs dilates her awful face:44

Great in her charms !45 as when on shrieves and mayors

She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.

She bids him wait her to her sacred dome :

265

Well-pleased he enter'd, and confess'd his home.
So, spirits ending their terrestrial race,
Ascend, and recognize their native place.
This the great mother dearer held than all 46
The clubs of quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall:
Here stood her opium, here she nursed her owls,
And here she plann'd the imperial seat of fools.

270

Here to her chosen all her works she shows; Prose swell'd to verse, verse loitering into prose:

How, with less reading than makes felons 'scape,

Less human genius than God gives an ape,

Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece,

A past, vamp'd, future, old, revived, new piece,

"Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakespear, and Corneille, Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell.

285

44 [He had his eye on a couplet of Dryden, in Mac Flecknoe, a couplet of

incomparable elegance :

"His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace;

And lambent dulness play'd around his face."-Wakefield.]

45 "Alma parens confessa Deam; qualisque videri

Cœlicolis, et quanta solet."-Virg. Æn. ii.

Et lætos oculis afflavit honores."-Id. En. i.

"Urbs antiqua fuit

Quam Juno fertur terris magis omnibus unam
Posthabitâ coluisse Samo: hic illius arma,
Hic currus fuit: hoc regnum Dea gentibus esse
(Si qua Fata sinant) jam tum tenditque fovetque."
Virg. Æneid, i.