"And by another person of quality— 'Rysbrack, to make a Pope of stone, Must labour hard and sore: But it would cost him labour none, To make a stone of Moore.'" The "Moore," of course, is James Moore Smythe; the "Earl of B-," the Earl of Burlington, who might not like to have this impromptu fathered upon him. Nor was the subject of the elfish shape one on which Pope was fond to dwell, even to shame an antagonist. The passage was retained in the quarto of 1735, but disappeared from the duodecimo of the following year.] ELIZA HAYWOOD. Ver. 157. See in the circle next Eliza placed. In this game is exposed, in the most contemptuous manner, the profligate licentiousness of those shameless scribblers (for the most part of that sex which ought least to be capable of such malice or impudence) who in libellous Memoirs and Novels, reveal the faults or misfortunes of both sexes, to the ruin of public fame, or disturbance of private happiness. Our good poet (by the whole cast of his work being obliged not to take off the irony) where he could not show his indignation, hath shown his contempt as much as possible, having here drawn as vile a picture as could be represented in the colours of epic poesy.-SCRIBLERUS. Eliza Haywood. This woman was authoress of those most scandalous books called the Court of Carimania; and the New Utopia. For the two babes of love, see CURLL, Key, p. 22. But whatever reflection he is pleased to throw upon this lady, surely it was what from him she little deserved, who had celebrated Curll's undertakings for reformation of manners, and declared herself "to be so perfectly acquainted with the sweetness of his disposition, and that tenderness with which he considered the errors of his fellow-creatures; that, though she should find the little inadvertencies of her own life recorded in his papers, she was certain that it would be done in such a manner as she could not but approve." MRS. HAYWOOD, Hist. of Clar. printed in the Female Dunciad, p. 18. 1 Kirkall, the name of an engraver. Some of this lady's works were printed in four volumes in 12mo., with her picture thus dressed up before them. [This authoress, like Mrs. Centlivre, had tried the stage, and afterwards wrote some miserable novels and dramatic pieces. Her later works were more decent and becoming than those mentioned by Pope: they were the Female Spectator, Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy, the Invisible Spy, &c. She died in 1756, aged about sixty.] OSBORNE, THE BOOKSELLER. Ver. 167. Osborne and Curll accept the glorious strife.] A bookseller in Gray'sInn, very well qualified by his impudence to act this part; and therefore placed here instead of a less deserving predecessor. [The first person named was a bookseller named Chetwood, who, in some drunken debauch, as Curll says, was sent home crowned like Osborne in the poem. In the edition of 1729, Chapman, another bookseller, supplanted Chetwood.] This man published advertisements, for a year together, pretending to sell Mr. Pope's subscription books of Homer's Iliad at half the price: of which books he had none, but cut to the size of them (which was quarto) the common books in folio, without copper-plates, on a worse paper, and never above half the value. Upon this advertisement the Gazetteer harangued thus, July 6, 1739: "How melancholy must it be to a writer to be so unhappy as to see his works hawked for sale in a manner so fatal to his fame! How, with honour to yourself, and justice to your subscribers, can this be done? What an ingratitude to be charged on the only honest poet that lived in 1738; and than whom virtue has not had a shriller trumpeter for many ages! That you were once generally admired and esteemed can be denied by none; but that you and your works are now despised, is verified by this fact:" which being utterly false, did not indeed much humble the author, but drew this just chastisement on the bookseller. [Thomas Osborne was so impassively dull, according to Dr. Johnson, that he would not feel Pope's satire. Osborne purchased the great library of the Earl of Oxford for the sum of £13,000. Johnson drew up the catalogue this noble library, and in some dispute with the bookseller knocked him down with a folio volume: "Sir, he was impertinent to me, and I beat him; but it was not in his shop, it was in my own chamber." See Boswell, under date 1743.] THOMAS BENTLEY. Ver. 205. Bentley his mouth with classic flattery opes.] Not spoken of the famous Dr. Richard Bentley, but of one Thom. Bentley, a small critic, who aped his uncle in a little Horace. The great one was intended to be dedicated to the Lord Halifax, but (on a change of the ministry) was given to the Earl of Oxford; for which reason the little one was dedicated to his son the Lord Harley. A taste of his classic elocution may be seen in his following panegyric on the peace of Utrecht:-" Cupimus patrem tuum, fulgentissimum illud orbis Anglicani jubar, adorare! O ingens reipublicæ nostræ columen! O fortunatam tanto heroe Britanniam! Illi tali tantoque viro Deum per omnia adfuisse, manumque ejus et mentem direxisse, certissimum est. Hujus enim unius ferme opera, æquissimis et perhonorificis conditionibus, diuturno, heu nimium! bello, finem impositum videmus. O diem æterna memoria dignissimam! qua terrores patriæ omnes excidit, pacemque diu exoptatam toti fere Europæ restituit, ille populi Anglicani amor, Harleius." Thus critically (that is verbally) translated :— Thy father, that most refulgent star of the Anglican orb, we much desire to adore! Oh mighty column of our republic! O Britain fortunate in such a hero! That to such and so great a man God was ever present, in every thing, and all along directed both his hand and his heart, is a most absolute certainty! For it is in a manner by the operation of this man alone, that we behold a war (alas! how much too long a one!) brought at length to an end, on the most just and most honourable conditions. Oh day eternally to be memorated! wherein all the terrors of his country were ended, and a peace (long wished for by almost all Europe) was restored by Harley, the love and delight of the people of England." [T. Bentley was then a mere boy.] But that this gentleman can write in a different style may be seen in a letter he printed to Mr. Pope, wherein several noble lords are treated in a most extraordinary language, particularly the Lord Bolingbroke, abused for that very peace, which he here makes the single work of the Earl of Oxford, directed by God Almighty. [Bentley, it is said, sent a challenge to Pope in consequence of this satire. The poet referred it to a military friend-probably Cleland—who, in consi deration of the personal infirmity of Pope, took up his quarrel, and offered to meet his adversary. Upon this Bentley explained or apologised.] LEONARD WELSTED. Ver. 207. But Welsted most the poet's healing balm Strives to extract. Leonard Welsted, author of The Triumvirate, or a Letter in Verse from Palæmon to Celia at Bath, which was meant for a satire on Mr. P. and some of his friends, about the year 1718. He wrote other things, which we cannot remember. Smedley, in his Metamorphosis of Scriblerus, mentions one, the Hymn of a Gentleman to his Creator. And there was another in praise either of a Cellar or a Garret. L. W. characterised in the treatise Пepi Bábovs, or the Art of Sinking, as a didapper, and after as an eel, is said to be this person, by Dennis, Daily Journal of May 11, 1728. He was also characterised under another animal, a mole, by the author of the ensuing simile, which was handed about at the same time : "Dear Welsted, mark, in dirty hole, That painful animal, a mole: You have him again in book 3, ver. 169. The satire of this episode being levelled at the base flatteries of authors to worthless wealth or greatness, concludes here with an excellent lesson to such men: That although their pens and praises were as exquisite as their conceit of themselves, yet (even in their own mercenary views) a creature unlettered, who serveth the passions, or pimpeth to the pleasures, of such vain, braggart, puffed nobility, shall with those patrons be much more inward, and of them much higher rewarded.-SCRIBLERUS. [The following is the note appended by Pope to the passage in book 3, in which Welsted is again named]: : Of this author see the remark on book 2, v. 209. But (to be impartial) add to it the following different character of him: "Mr. Welsted had, in his youth, raised so great expectations of his future genius, that there was a kind of struggle between the most eminent in the two universities, which should have the honour of his education. To compound this, he (civilly) became a member of both, and, after having passed some time at the one, he removed to the other. From thence he returned to town, where he became the darling expectation of all the polite writers, whose encouragement he acknowledged in his occasional poems, in a manner that will make no small part of the fame of his protectors. It also appears from his works, that he was happy in the patronage of the most illustrious characters of the present age. Encouraged by such a combination in his favour, he published a book of poems, some in the Ovidian, some in the Horatian manner, in both which the most exquisite judges pronounce he even rivalled his masters. His love verses have rescued that way of writing from contempt. In his translations, he has given us the very soul and spirit of his author. His Ode-his Epistle-his Verses-his Love-tale-all, are the most perfect things in all poetry."-WELSTED of himself, Char. of the Times, 8vo., 1728, p. 23, 24. It should not be forgotten to his honour, that he received at one time the sum of five hundred pounds for secret service, among the other excellent authors hired to write anonymously for the Ministry. See Report of the Secret Committee, &c., in 1742. [It was the policy of Pope to represent all his antagonists as poor and wretched, although in many cases there was no foundation for the statements. Welsted, James Moore Smythe, Breval, and others, were men respectable in society. Welsted was Clerk in Ordinary to the Ordnance, to which he was appointed by the Duke of Newcastle, and which he held till his death, in 1747. Many of his poetical pieces are of a superior description. They were collected by Nichols, and published in two volumes, in 1788. It is admitted that in the quarrel with Pope, Welsted was the aggressor.] DENNIS'S THUNDER. Ver. 226. With thunder rumbling from the mustard bowl.] The old way of making thunder and mustard were the same, but since, it is more advantageously performed by troughs of wood with stops in them. Whether Mr. Dennis was the inventor of that improvement, I know not; but it is certain that being once at a tragedy of a new author, he fell into a great passion at hearing some, and cried, "'Sdeath! that is my thunder." [In 1709, Dennis brought upon the stage a tragedy, Appius and Virginia, for which, it is said, he had invented a new species of thunder, which was approved of by the actors, and ever afterwards followed in the theatres. His play, however, was not successful; and, happening some nights afterwards to be present at the representation of Macbeth, he heard his own thunder made use of, upon which he rose in a violent passion, and exclaimed, with an oath that it was his thunder! "See," said he," how these rascals use me; they will not let my play run, and yet they steal my thunder!" In Cibber's Lives of the Poets, another ludicrous anecdote of Dennis is related. When residing within the verge of the court, for the security of his person against creditors, and sitting in an open drinking-room, on a Saturday night, the poor poet saw a man enter whom he judged to be a bailiff. He sat in painful anxiety till the clock struck twelve, when he started up and cried in an ecstacy, "Now, Sir Bailiff, or no Bailiff, I don't care a farthing for you-you have no power now." The man was astonished at his behaviour, and no less affronted with the suspicion. Dennis's vanity is well illustrated by another story. In his tragedy of Liberty Asserted, 1704, one of his few plays that enjoyed |