Me Emptiness, and Dulness could inspire,

And were my Elasticity and Fire.

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Some Dæmon stole my pen (forgive th' 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 confin'd?
My life gave ampler lessons to mankind.
Did the dead letter unsuccessful prove?
The brisk Example never fail'd to move.

Yet sure had Heav'n decreed to save the State,
Heav'n had decreed these works a longer date.
Could Troy be sav'd by any single hand,

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This grey-goose weapon must have made her stand.

What can I now? my Fletcher1 cast aside,
Take up the Bible, once my better guide2 ?
Or tread the path by vent'rous Heroes trod,

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This Box my Thunder, this right hand my God?
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 diff'rent ends they twist;
To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist 3.)
Shall I, like Curtius, desp'rate in my zeal,
O'er head and ears plunge for the Commonweal?
Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,
And cackling save the Monarchy of Tories?
Hold-to the Minister I more incline;

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more.

To serve his cause, O Queen! is serving thine.
And see thy very Gazetteers give o'er,
Ev'n Ralph repents, and Henley writes no
What then remains? Ourself. Still, still remain
Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain.
This brazen Brightness, to the 'Squire so dear;
This polish'd Hardness, that reflects the Peer:
This arch Absurd, that wit and fool delights;
This Mess, toss'd up of Hockley-hole

But he

1 My Fletcher] A familiar manner of speaking, used by modern Critics, of a favourite author, Bays might as justly speak thus of Fletcher, as a French Wit did of Tully, seeing his works in his library, "Ah! mon cher Ciceron; je le connois bien; c'est le même que Marc Tulle." had a better title to call Fletcher his own, having made so free with him. P. [In our day, Pope's spleen would have inevitably been aroused by the corresponding practice on the part of critics' who make free with the Christian names of 'Sam Johnson' and his equals.]

2 Take up the Bible, once my better guide?] When, according to his Father's intention, he had been a Clergyman, or (as he thinks himself) a Bishop of the Church of England. P. [Part om.]

This learned Critic is to be understood allego

and White's;

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Where Dukes and Butchers join to wreathe my crown,
At once the Bear and Fiddle of the town.

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2!

"O born in sin, and forth in folly brought 1!
Works damn'd, or to be damn'd! (your father's fault)
Go, purify'd by flames ascend the sky,
My better and more christian progeny
Unstain'd, untouch'd, and yet in maiden sheets;
While all your smutty sisters walk the streets.
Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland,
Sent with a Pass, and vagrant thro' the land
Not sail with Ward, to Ape-and-monkey climes *,
Where vile Mundungus trucks for viler rhymes :
Not sulphur-tipt, emblaze an Ale-house fire;
Not wrap up Oranges, to pelt your sire!
O pass more innocent, in infant state,
To the mild Limbo of our Father Tate":
Or peaceably forgot, at once be blest

In Shadwell's 6 bosom with eternal Rest!

Soon to that mass of Nonsense to return,

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Where things destroy'd are swept to things unborn."
With that, a Tear (portentous sign of Grace!)
Stole from the Master of the sev'nfold Face;
And thrice he lifted high the Birth-day brand,
And thrice he dropt it from his quiv'ring hand;
Then lights the structure, with averted eyes:
The rolling smoke involves the sacrifice.
The op'ning clouds disclose each work by turns:
Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla 7 burns 8;
Great Cæsar roars, and hisses in the fires;
King John in silence modestly expires";

O born in sin, &c.] This is a tender and 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. P.

2 My better and more christian progeny!] "It may be observable, that my muse and my spouse were equally prolific; that the one was seldom the mother of a Child, but in the same year the other made me father of a Play. I think we had a dozen of each sort between us; of both which kinds some died in their Infancy," &c. Life of C. C. P.

3 Gratis-given Bland, Sent with a Pass,] 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. P. Bland was the Provost of Eton. Warton.

-With Ward, to Ape-and-monkey climes,] "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) afford

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ed his guests a pleasurable entertainment, especially those of the high-church party." JACOB, Lives of Poets, vol. 11. p. 225. Great number 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. P. [According to Bowles, this Ward had given no special cause of offence to Pope.]

5 Tate-Shadwell] Two of his predecessors in the Laurel. P.

[Ximenes,' founded on Corneille's Cid.] 7 ['Perolla and Izadora.']

8 Now flames the Cid, &c.] In the first notes on the Dunciad it was said, that this Author was particularly excellent at Tragedy. "This (says he) is as unjust as to say I could not dance on a Rope." But certain it is that he had attempted to dance on this Rope, and fell most shamefully, having produced no less than four Tragedies (the names of which the Poet preserves in these few lines), the three first of them were fairly printed, acted, and damned; the fourth suppressed, in fear of the like treatment. P.

['such was the Hiss Welcom'd his Cæsar to th' Egyptian shore,

No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims,
Moliere'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 2.

Rous'd by the light, old Dulness heav'd the head,
Then snatch'd a sheet of Thule from her bed;
Sudden she flies, and whelms it o'er the pyre;
Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire.
Her ample presence fills up all the place;
A veil of fogs dilates her awful face:

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Great in her charms! as when on Shrieves and May'rs

She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.

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She bids him wait her to her sacred Dome 5:
Well pleas'd 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
The clubs of Quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall:
Here stood her Opium, here she nurs'd her Owls,
And here she plann'd th' Imperial seat of Fools.
Here to her Chosen all her works she shews;
Prose swell'd to verse, verse loit'ring into prose:
How random thoughts now meaning chance to find,
Now leave all memory of sense behind;
How Prologues into Prefaces decay,

And these to Notes are fritter'd quite away:

How Index-learning turns no student pale,

Yet holds the eel of science by the tail:

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 vast, vamp'd, future, old, reviv'd, new piece,
'Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakespear, and Corneille,

Such was the Hiss, in which great John should of which one sheet was printed many years ago, have expired:

But wherefore do I strive in vain to number
Those glorious Hisses, which from age to age
Our family has borne triumphant from the
stage?'

Pistol (Theophilus Cibber) in Fielding's Historical Register for 1736.] 1 The dear Nonjuror-Moliere's old stubble] A Comedy threshed out of Moliere's Tartuffe, and so much the Translator's favourite, that he assures us all our author's dislike to it could only arise from disaffection to the Government. P. [Part om. This play, however, is still occasion

ally performed.]

2 When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies.] See Virgil, Æn. 11. where I would advise the reader to peruse the story of Troy's destruction, rather than in Wynkyn. SCRIBL. [Part om.]

3 Thule] An unfinished poem of that name,

by Amb. Philips, a northern author. It is an usual method of putting out a fire, to cast wet sheets upon it. Some critics have been of opinion that this sheet was of the nature of the Asbestos, which cannot be consumed by fire: but I rather think it an allegorical allusion to the coldness and heaviness of the writing. P.

4 [Wakefield traces the origin of this line to Dryden's MacFlecknoe: 'His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace, And lambent dulness play'd around his face."]

5 Sacred Dome:] Where he no sooner enters, but he reconnoitres the place of his original; as Plato says the spirits shall, at their entrance into the celestial regions. P.

6 Great Mother] Magna mater, here applied to Dulness. The Quidnuncs, a name given to the ancient members of certain political clubs, who were constantly enquiring quid nunc! what news? P.

Can make a Cibber, Tibbald1, or Ozell2.

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 Heideggre3 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 5, Ward, and Gildon rest,
And high-born Howard', more majestic sire,
With Fool of Quality completes the quire.
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.

1 Tibbald,] Lewis Tibbald (as pronounced) or Theobald (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. P. [Part om.]

2 Ozell.] "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 arithmetic, and writing the necessary hands. He has obliged the world with many translations of French Plays." JACOB, Lives of Dram. Foets, p. 198. P. [Part om.]

3 A Heideggre] A strange bird from Switzerland, and not (as some have supposed) the name of an eminent person who was a man of parts, and, as was said of Petronius, Arbiter Elegantiarum. P. [The German Heydegger, who held the Opera-house with Handel, and managed it, according to Dibdin, 'like another Cibber,' introduced masquerades into England. He brought them into such vogue, that in 1729 he was presented as a nuisance by the Grand Jury. He said of himself that he 'he had come to England out of Switzerland without a farthing, and had then found means to get £5000 a year, and spend it.' In a facetious fragment by Pope, published in Roscoe's Supplement (1825), he is apostrophised as "false Heidegger, who wert so wicked To let in the Devil."]

4 Ver 293. Know, Eusden &c.] In the former Editions. 'Know, Settle, cloy'd with custard and with praise,

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So when Jove's block &c.' Warburton.

5 Withers,] 'George Withers was a great pretender to poetical zeal against the vices of the times, and abused the greatest personages in power, which brought upon him frequent correction. The Marshalsea and Newgate were no strangers to him.' Winstanley. P. [He went over from the Royalist to the Parliamentary side; yet his honesty is undoubted and his power as a satirist now generally acknowledged.]

6 Gildon] Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels of the last age, bred at St Omer's with the Jesuists; 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. P. [See note to Epistle to Arbuthnot, v. 151.]

7 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. P.

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,
Gaming and Grub-street skulk behind the King1.
"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."

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 Needham3 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 5)

Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog,

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

1 Under Archer's wing,-Gaming, &c.] When the Statute against Gaming was drawn up, it was represented, that the King, by ancient custom, plays at Hazard one night in the year; and therefore a clause was inserted, with an exception as to that particular. Under this pretence, the Groom-porter had a room appropriated to Gaming all the summer the Court was at Kensington, which his Majesty accidentally being acquainted of with a just indignation prohibited. It is reported the same practice is yet continued wherever the Court resides, and the Hazard Table there open to all the professed Gamesters in town.

'Greatest and justest Sov'REIGN! know you this?

Alas! no more than Thames' calm head can know

Whose meads his arms drown or whose corn o'erflow.' Donne to Queen Eliz. P. [Cf. The Basset-Table, v. 99. The Groom-porter was an officer in the royal household who had succeeded to most of the functions of the Master

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of the Revels. As to the practice referred to by Pope, see Evelyn's Diary, 8 Jan. 1667-8, et al.

Chapel-royal] The voices and instruments used in the service of the Chapel-royal being also employed in the performance of the Birth-day and New-year Odes. P.

3 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. P.

4 Back to the Devil] The Devil Tavern in Fleet-street, where these Odes are usually rehearsed before they are performed at Court. P. [Cf. Imit. of Hor. Bk. 11. Ep. 1. v. 91.]

5 Ogilby-God save King Log!] See Og by's Esop's Fables, where, in the story of the Frogs and their King, this excellent hemistic is to be found. P. [Part om.]