[264] 'Wish'd he had blotted:' it was a ridiculous praise which the players gave to Shakspeare, 'that he never blotted a line.' Ben Jonson honestly wished he had blotted a thousand; and Shakspeare would certainly have wished the same, if he had lived to see those alterations in his works, which, not the actors only (and especially the daring hero of this poem) have made on the stage, but the presumptuous critics of our days in their editions--P.

[265] 'Ogilby the great:' 'John Ogilby was one who, from a late initiation into literature, made such a progress as might well style him the prodigy of his time! sending into the world so many large volumes.

His translations of Homer and Virgil done to the life, and with such excellent sculptures. And (what added great grace to his works) he printed them all on special good paper, and in a very good letter.'--Winstanly, Lives of Poets.--P.

[266] 'There, stamp'd with arms, Newcastle shines complete:' Langbaine reckons up eight folios of the Duchess of Newcastle's works, which were usually adorned with gilded covers, and had her coat of arms upon them.

[267] 'Worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome:' the poet has mentioned these three authors in particular, as they are parallel to our hero in his three capacities--1. Settle was his brother laureate--only, indeed, upon half-pay, for the city instead of the court; but equally famous for unintelligible flights in his poems on public occasions, such as shows, birth-days, &c.; 2. Banks was his rival in tragedy (though more successful) in one of his tragedies, the Earl of Essex, which is yet alive: Anna Boleyn, the Queen of Scots, and Cyrus the Great, are dead and gone. These he dressed in a sort of beggar's velvet, or a happy mixture of the thick fustian and thin prosaic; exactly imitated in Perolla and Isidora, Caesar in Egypt, and the Heroic Daughter; 3. Broome was a serving-man of Ben Jonson, who once picked up a comedy from his betters, or from some cast scenes of his master, not entirely contemptible.--P.

[268] 'Caxton:' a printer in the time of Edward IV., Richard III., and Henry VII.; Wynkyn de Worde, his successor, in that of Henry VII. and VIII.--P.

[269] 'Nich. de Lyra:' or Harpsfield, a very voluminous commentator, whose works, in five vast folios, were printed in 1472.--P.

[270] 'Philemon Holland:' doctor in physic. 'He translated so many books, that a man would think he had done nothing else; insomuch that he might be called translator general of his age. The books alone of his turning into English are sufficient to make a country gentleman a complete library.'--Winstanly.--P.

[271] 'E'er since Sir Fopling's periwig:' the first visible cause of the passion of the town for our hero, was a fair flaxen full-bottomed periwig, which, he tells us, he wore in his first play of the Fool in Fashion. It attracted, in a particular manner, the friendship of Col.

Brett, who wanted to purchase it.--P.

[272] 'Ridpath--Mist:' George Ridpath, author of a Whig paper, called the Flying Post; Nathanael Mist, of a famous Tory journal.--P.

[273] 'Rome's ancient geese:' relates to the well-known story of the geese that saved the Capitol; of which Virgil, Aen. VIII.

'Atque hic auratis volitans argenteus anser Porticibus, Gallos in limine adesse canebat.'

A passage I have always suspected. Who sees not the antithesis of _auratis_ and _argenteus_ to be unworthy the Virgilian majesty? And what absurdity to say a goose sings? _canebat_. Virgil gives a contrary character of the voice of this silly bird, in Ecl. ix.

... 'argutos interstrepere anser olores.'

Read it, therefore, _adesse strepebat_. And why _auratis porticibus_?

does not the very verse preceding this inform us,

'Romuleoque recens horrebat regia culmo.'

Is this thatch in one line, and gold in another, consistent? I scruple not (_repugnantibas omnibus manuscriptis_) to correct it _auritis_.

Horace uses the same epithet in the same sense.--P.

[274] 'Bear and Fiddle:' see 'Butler's Hudibras.'

[275] 'Gratis-given Bland--Sent with a pass.' It was a practice so to give the Daily Gazetteer and ministerial pamphlets (in which this Bland, Provost of Eton, was a writer), and to send them post-free to all the towns in the kingdom.--P.

[276] '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) afforded his guests a pleasurable entertainment, especially those of the High-Church party. Jacob, Lives of Poets, vol. ii., 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.

[277] 'Tate, Shadwell:' two of his predecessors in the Laurel.--P.

[278] '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:

'Qui meprise Cotin, n'estime point son roi, Et n'a, selon Cotin, ni Dieu, ni foi, ni loi.'--Boil.

He assures us, that 'when he had the honour to kiss his Majesty's hand upon presenting his dedication of it, he was graciously pleased, out of his royal bounty, to order him two hundred pounds for it. And this he doubts not grieved Mr P.'--P.

[279] 'Thule:' An unfinished poem of that name, of which one sheet was printed many years ago, by Amb. Philips, a northern author. It is a 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.

[280] '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. 'There is a notorious idiot, one hight Whachum, who, from an under-spur-leather to the law, is become an under-strapper to the play-house, who hath lately burlesqued the Metamorphoses of Ovid by a vile translation, &c. This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Censor.' Dennis, Rem. on Pope's Hom. pp. 9, 10.--P.

[281] '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. Poets, p.

198.--P. Mr Jacob's character of Mr Ozell seems vastly short of his merits, and he ought to have further justice done him, having since fully confuted all sarcasms on his learning and genius, by an advertisement of September 20, 1729, in a paper called the Weekly Medley, &c. 'As to my learning, this envious wretch knew, and everybody knows, that the whole bench of bishops, not long ago, were pleased to give me a purse of guineas, for discovering the erroneous translations of the Common Prayer in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, &c. As for my genius, let Mr Cleland show better verses in all Pope's works than Ozell's version of Boileau's Lutrin, which the late Lord Halifax was so pleased with, that he complimented him with leave to dedicate it to him, &c. Let him show better and truer poetry in the Rape of the Lock than in Ozell's Rape of the Bucket (La Secchia Rapita). And Mr Toland and Mr Gildon publicly declared Ozell's translation of Homer to be, as it was prior, so likewise superior to Pope's. Surely, surely, every man is free to deserve well of his country.'--John Ozell. We cannot but subscribe to such reverend testimonies as those of the bench of bishops, Mr Toland, and Mr Gildon.--P.

[282] 'A heidegger:' 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.

[283] 'Gildon:' Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels of the last age, bred at St Omer's with the Jesuits; but renouncing Popery, he published Blount's books against the divinity of Christ, the Oracles of Reason, &c. He signalised himself as a critic, having written some very bad plays, abused Mr Pope very scandalously in an anonymous pamphlet of the Life of Mr Wycherly, printed by Curll; 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.

[284] '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.

[285] 'Under Archer's wing--Gaming:' 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 sovereign! know ye 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.

[286] '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_.

[287] 'But pious Needham:' a matron of great and peculiar fame, and very religious in her way.--P.

[288] 'Back to the Devil:' the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street, where these odes are usually rehearsed before they are performed at court.--W.

[289] 'Ogilby--God save King Log:' See Ogilby's Aesop's Fables, where, in the story of the Frogs and their King, this excellent hemistich is to be found.--P.

[290] Sir George Thorald, Lord Mayor of London in the year 1720.

[291] 'A little Ajax:' in duodecimo, translated from Sophocles by Tibhald.

[292] 'Henley's gilt tub:' the pulpit of a dissenter is usually called a tub; but that of Mr Orator Henley was covered with velvet, and adorned with gold. He had also a fair altar, and over it is this extraordinary inscription, 'The Primitive Eucharist.' See the history of this person, book iii.

[293] 'Flecknoe's Irish throne:' Richard Flecknoe was an Irish priest, but had laid aside (as himself expressed it) the mechanic part of priesthood. He printed some plays, poems, letters, and travels.--P.

[294] 'Or that whereon her Curlls the public pours:' Edmund Curll stood in the pillory at Charing Cross, in March 1727-8. 'This,' saith Edmund Curll, 'is a false assertion. I had, indeed, the corporal punishment of what the gentlemen of the long robe are pleased jocosely to call mounting the rostrum for one hour; but that scene of action was not in the month of March, but in February' (Curliad, 12mo, p. 19). And of the history of his being tossed in a blanket, he saith--'Here, Scriblerus!

thou leeseth in what thou assertest concerning the blanket--it was not a blanket, but a rug,' p. 25. Much in the same manner Mr Cibber remonstrated, that his brothers at Bedlam, mentioned book i., were not brazen, but blocks; yet our author let it pass unaltered, as a trifle that no way altered the relationship.--P.

[295] 'Rome in her Capitol saw Querno sit:' Camillo Querno was of Apulia, who, hearing the great encouragement which Leo X. gave to poets, travelled to Rome with a harp in his hand, and sung to it twenty thousand verses of a poem called Alexias. He was introduced as a buffoon to Leo, and promoted to the honour of the laurel--a jest which the court of Rome and the pope himself entered into so far as to cause him to ride on an elephant to the Capitol, and to hold a solemn festival on his coronation, at which it is recorded the poet himself was so transported as to weep for joy.[296] He was ever after a constant frequenter of the pope's table, drank abundantly, and poured forth verses without number.

Paulus Jovius, Elog. Vir. doct. chap. lxxxii. Some idea of his poetry is given by Fam. Strada, in his Prolusions.--P.

[296] See Life of C.C. chap. vi. p. 149.

[297] 'Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit:' our author here seems willing to give some account of the possibility of Dulness making a wit (which could be done no other way than by chance). The fiction is the more reconciled to probability, by the known story of Apelles, who being at a loss to express the foam of Alexander's horse, dashed his pencil in despair at the picture, and happened to do it by that fortunate stroke.--P.

[298] 'And call'd the phantom More:' Curll, in his Key to the Dunciad, affirmed this to be James Moore Smith, Esq., and it is probable (considering what is said of him in the Testimonies) that some might fancy our author obliged to represent this gentleman as a plagiary, or to pass for one himself. His case, indeed, was like that of a man I have heard of, who, as he was sitting in company, perceived his next neighbour had stolen his handkerchief. 'Sir,' said the thief, finding himself detected, 'do not expose me, I did it for mere want; be so good but to take it privately out of my pocket again, and say nothing.' The honest man did so, but the other cried out, 'See, gentlemen, what a thief we have among us! look, he is stealing my handkerchief!'--P.-- Moore was a notorious plagiarist.--It appears from hence, that this is not the name of a real person, but fictitious. More, from [Greek: moros], stultus, [Greek: moria], stultitia, to represent the folly of a plagiary. Thus Erasmus, _Admonuit me Mori cognomen tibi, quod tam ad Moriae vocabulum accedit quam es ipse a re alienus_. Dedication of Moriae Encomium to Sir Tho. More; the farewell of which may be our author's to his plagiary, _Vale, More! et moriam tuam gnaviter defende_.

Adieu, More! and be sure strongly to defend thy own folly! Scribl.--P.