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On parchment scraps y-fed, and Wormius hight?.
To future ages may thy dulness last,
As thou preserv'st the dulness of the past !

“There, dim in clouds, the poring Scholiasts mark,
Wits, who, like owls”, see only in the dark,
A Lumber-house of books in ev'ry head,
For ever reading, never to be read!

“But, where each Science lifts its modern type,
Hist'ry her Pot, Divinity her Pipe,
While proud Philosophy repines to show,
Dishonest sight! his breeches rent below;
Embrown’d with native bronze, lo! Henley stands 3,
Turning his voice, and balancing his hands.
How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue!
How sweet the periods, neither said, nor sung!
Still break the benches, Henley! with thy strain,
While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibsono preach in vain.
Oh great Restorer of the good old Stage,
Preacher at once, and Zany of thy age!
Oh worthy thou of Ægypt's wise abodes,
A decent priest, where monkeys were the gods!
But fate with butchers placed thy priestly stall,
Meek modern faith to murder, hack, and maul;
And bade thee live, to crown Britannia's praise,
In Toland's, Tindal's, and in Woolston's days 5.

“Yet oh, my sons, a father's words attend :
(So may the fates preserve the ears you lend)
'Tis yours a Bacon or a Locke to blame,

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such myster wight' would be sense.] Niyster persons, and occasionally did our Author that wight] Uncouth mortal. F.

honour. After having stood some Prosecutions, he | Wormius hight.] Let not this name, purely turned his rhetoric to buffoonery upon all publick fictitious, be conceited to mean the learned Olaus and private occurrences. This man had an hun Wormius; much less (as it was unwarrantably dred pounds a year given him for the secret ser: foisted into the surreptitious editions) our own vice of a weekly paper of unintelligible non Antiquary Mr Thomas Hearne, who had no way sense, called the Hyp-Doctor. P. (Part om. aggrieved our Poet, but on the contrary published (John Henley, a native of Leicestershire, had many curious tracts which he hath to his great graduated at Cambridge; but set up a scheme of contentment perused. P. [Part om.]

Universology on his own account, establishing hight] În Cumberland they say to hight, his Oratory' in a wooden booth in Newport mar for to promise, or vow; but higit, usually sig- ket in 1726. Three years later he removed bis nifies was called; and so it does in the North pulpit to the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and even to this day, notwithstanding what is done though subjected to a prosecution for profaning in Cumberland." Hearne. P. The old hâtan the clerical character, continued his extibitions means to call and to promise (German heissen, till the middle of the century. See Wright's verheissen.)]

Caric. Hist. of the Georges, and Jesse, George 2 Wits, who, like owls, &c.] These few lines Selwyn and his Contemporaries, Vol. 1., where exactly describe the right verbal critic: The Henley is said to have been a man of real leartdarker his author is, the better he is pleased; ing and of poetical talent. He died in 1756.), like the famous Quack Doctor, who put up in his 4 Sherlock, Hare, Gibson,) Bishops of Salisbills, he delighted in matters of difficulty: Some bury, Chichester, and London; whose Sermons body said well of these men, that their heads and Pastoral Letters did honour to their country were Libraries out of order. P.

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A Newton's genius, or a Milton's flame :
But oh! with One, immortal One dispense;
The source of Newton's Light, of Bacon's Sense.
Content, each Emanation of his fires
That beams on earth, each Virtue he inspires,
Each Art he prompts, each Charm he can create,
Whate'er he gives, are giv'n for you to hate.
Persist, by all divine in Man unaw'd,
But, Learn, ye DUNCES! not to scorn your God 1.!”
Thus he, for then a ray of Reason stole

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Half thro' the solid darkness of his soul;
But soon the cloud return'd—and thus the Sire:
“ See now, what Dulness and her sons admire !
See what the charms, that smite the simple heart
Not touch'd by Nature, and not reach'd by Art.”

230 His never-blushing head he turn'd aside, (Not half so pleas'd when Goodman prophesy'd ?) And look'd, and saw a sable Sorc'rer 3 rise, Swift to whose hand a winged volume flies: All sudden, Gorgons hiss, and Dragons glare,

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And ten-horn'd fiends and Giants rush to war.
Hell rises, Heav'n descends, and dance on Earth 4:
Gods, imps, and monsters, music, rage, and mirth,
A fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball,
'Till one wide conflagration swallows all.

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Thence a new world to Nature's laws unknown,
Breaks out refulgent, with a heav'n its own :
Another Cynthia her new journey runs,
And other planets circle other suns.
The forests dance, the rivers upward rise,

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Whales sport in woods, and dolphins in the skies ;
And last, to give the whole creation grace,
Lo! one vast Egg, produces human race.

Joy fills his soul, joy innocent of thought;
•What pow'r,' he cries, what pow'r these wonders wrought?' 250
Son, what thou seek'st is in thee! Look, and find

3

1 But, Learn, ye Dunces! not to scorn your the Twelfth of Sweden, when at the head of their God.') Virg. Æn. vi. (v. 619). The hardest first victorious armies, could feel a greater translesson a Dunce can learn. For being bred to port in their bosoms than I did in mine. P. scorn what he does not understand, that which a sable Sorc'rer] Dr Faustus, the subject he understands least he will be apt to scorn most. of a set of Farces, which lasted in vogue two or Of which, to the disgrace of all Government, and three seasons, in which both Play-houses strove (in the Poet's opinion) even of that of Dulness to outdo each other for some years., All the exherself, we have had a late example in a book travagances in the sixteen lines following were intitled, Philosophical Essays concerning human introduced on the Stage, and frequented by perUnderstanding. P.

Each monster meets his likeness in thy mind.
Yet would'st thou more? in yonder cloud behold,
Whose sars'net skirts are edg'd with flamy gold,
A matchless youth! his nod these worlds controls,

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Wings the red lightning, and the thunder rolls.
Angel of Dulness, sent to scatter round
Her magic charms o'er all unclassic ground:
Yon stars, yon suns, he rears at pleasure higher,
Illumes their light, and sets their flames on fire.

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Immortal Rich ?! how calm he sits at ease
'Mid snows of paper, and fierce hail of pease;
And proud his Mistress' orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.
“But lo! to dark encounter in mid air ?

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New wizards rise; I see my Cibber there!
Booth 3 in his cloudy tabernacle shrin'd“,
On grinning dragons thou shalt mount the wind 5.
Dire is the conflict, dismal is the din,
Here shouts all Drury, there all Lincoln's-inn 6;
Contending Theatres our empire raise,
Alike their labours, and alike their praise.

“ And are these wonders, Son, to thee unknown?
Unknown to thee? these wonders are thy own 7.
These Fate reserv'd to grace thy reign divine,

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Foreseen by me, but ah! withheld from mine.
In Lud's old walls tho' long I ruld, renown'd
Far as loud Bow's stupendous bells resound;
Tho' my own Aldermen conferr'd the bays,
To me committing their eternal praise,
Their full-fed Heroes, their pacific May’rs
Their annual trophies ®, and their monthly wars ;
Tho'long my Party 9 built on me their hopes,

For writing Pamphlets, and for roasting Popes 10; 1 Immortal Rich !! Mr John Rich, Master called the Double Falsehood be (as he would have of the Theatre Royal in Covent-garden, was the it believed) Shakespear's. P. first that excelled this way.

P.

9 Annual trophies, on the Lord-mayor's day: 2 (Join their dark encounter in mid-air. Mil- and monthly wars in the Artillery-ground. P. ton, Par. Lost, 11. V; ,718.]

9 Tho' long my Party] Settle, like most 3 Booth and Cibber were joint managers of Party-writers, was very uncertain in his political the Theatre in Drury-lane. P.

principles. He was employed to hold the pen in 4 [as Harlequin.]

the Character of a popish successor, but after5 On grinning dragons thou shalt

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Yet lo! in me what authors have to brag on!
Reduc'd at last to hiss in my own dragon.
Avert it, Heav'n! that thou, my Cibber, e'er
Should'st wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield fair!
Like the vile straw that's blown about the streets,
The needy Poet sticks to all he meets,
Coach'd, carted, trod upon, now loose, now fast,
And carry'd off in some Dog's tail at last.
Happier thy fortunes! like a rolling stone,
Thy giddy dulness still shall lumber on,
Safe in its heaviness, shall never stray,
But lick up ev'ry blockhead in the way.
Thee shall the Patriot, thee the Courtier taste,
And ev'ry year be duller than the last.
Till rais'd from booths, to Theatre, to Court,
Her seat imperial Dulness shall transport.
Already Opera prepares the way,
The sure fore-runner of her gentle sway:
Let her thy heart, next Drabs and Dice, engage,
The third mad passion of thy doting age.
Teach thou the warbling Polypheme to roar
And scream thyself as none e'er scream'd before!

To aid our cause, if Heav'n thou can’st not bend,
Hell thou shalt move; for Faustus is our friend :
Pluto 3 with Cato thou for this shalt join,
And link the Mourning Bride4 to Proserpine.
Grubstreet! thy fall should men and Gods conspire,
Thy stage shall stand, ensure it but from Fire 5.
Another Æschylus appears 6! prepare
For new abortions, all ye pregnant fair!
In flames, like Semele's?, be brought to bed,
While op'ning Hell spouts wild-fire at your head.

“Now, Bavius, take the poppy from thy brow,
And place it here! here all ye Heroes bow!
This, this is he, foretold by ancient rhymes :
Th’ Augustus born to bring Saturnian times.
Signs following signs lead on the mighty year!
See! the dull stars roll round and re-appear.
See, see, our own true Phoebus wears the bays 8!

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