Curll stretches after Gay, but Gay is gone, To him the goddess: Son! thy grief lay down, REMARKS. 130 140 satire to be found? where was such a writer ever heard of? As for Besaleel, it carries forgery in the very name; nor is it, as the others, are, a surname. Thou mayest depend upon it, no such authors ever lived; all phantoms.Scribl. Ver. 128. Joseph Gay, a fictitious name put by Curll before several pamphlets, which made them pass with many for Mr. Gay's-The ambiguity of the word Joseph, which likewise signifies a loose upper-coat, gives much pleasantry to the idea. Ver. 132. And turn this whole illusion on the town:] It was a common practice of this bookseller to publish vile pieces of obscure hands under the names of eminent authors. Ver. 138. Cook shall be Prior;] The man here specified writ a thing called The Battle of the Poets, in which Philips and Welsted were the heroes, and Swift and Pope utterly routed. He also published some malevolent things in the British, London, and Daily Journals; and at the same time wrote letters to Mr. Pope, protesting his innocence. His chief work was a translation of Hesiod, in which Theobald writ notes, and half notes, which he carefully owned. Ibid.-and Concanen, Swift;] In the first edition of this poem there were only asterisks in this place, but the names were since inserted, merely to fill up the verse, and give ease to the ear of the reader. Ver. 140. And we too boast our Garth and Addison.] Nothing is more remarkable than our author's love of praising good writers. He has in this very poem celebrated Mr. Locke, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Barrow, Dr. Atterbury, Mr. Dryden, Mr. Congreve, Dr. Garth, Mr. Addison; in a word, almost every man of his time that deserved it; even Cibber himself (presuming him to be the author of the Careless Husband). It was very difficult to have that pleasure in a poem on this subject, yet he has found means to insert their panegyric, and has made even Dulness out of her own mouth pronounce it. It must have been particularly agreeable to him to celebrate Dr. Garth; both as his constant friend, and as he was his predecessor in this kind of satire. The Dispensary attacked the whole body of apothe carles, a much more useful one undoubtedly than that of the bad poets; if in truth this can be a body, of which no two members With that she gave him (piteous of his case, Yet smiling at his rueful length of face) REMARKS. ever agreed. It also did what Mr. Theobald says is unpardonable, draw in parts of private character, and introduced persons independent of his subject. Much more would Boileau have incurred his censure, who left all subjects whatever, on all occasions, to fall upon the bad poets (which, it is to be feared, would have been more immediately his concern). But certainly, next to commending good writers, the greatest service to learning is to expose the bad, who can only that way be made of any use to it. This truth is very well set forth in these lines, addressed to our author: "The craven rook, and pert jackdaw (Though neither birds of moral kind), Becomes a precious mummy dead.' Ver.142.-rueful length of face-]The decrepit person or figure of a man are no reflections upon his genius. An honest mind will love and esteem a man of worth, though he be deformed or poor. Yet the author of the Dunciad hath libelled a person for his rueful length of face!' Mist's Journal, June 8. This genius and man of worth, whom an honest mind should love, is Mr. Curll. True it is, he stood in the pillory, an incident which will lengthen the face of any man, though it were ever so comely, therefore is no reflection on the natural beauty of Mr. Curll. But as to reflections on any man's face or figure, Mr. Dennis saith excellently; Natural deformity comes not by our fault; it is often occasioned by calamities and diseases, which a man can no more help than a monster can his deformity. There is no one misfortune, and no one disease, but what all the rest of mankind are subject to.-But the deformity of this author is visible, present, lasting, unalterable, and peculiar to himself. Tis the mark of God and nature upon him, to give us warning that we should hold no society with him, as a creature not of our original, nor of our species: and they who have refused to take this warning which God and nature has given them, and have, in spite of it, by a senseless presumption, ventured to be familiar with him, have severely suffered, &c. 'Tis certain his original is not from Adam, but from the devil,' &c.-Dennis, character of Mr. P., octavo, 1716. Admirably it is observed by Mr. Dennis against Mr. Law, p. 33: That the language of Billingsgate can never be the language of charity, nor consequently of Christianity.' I should else be tempted to use the language of a critic; for what is more provoking to a commentator, than to behold his author thus pourtrayedt Yet I consider it really hurts not him! whereas to call some others dull, might do them prejudice with a world too apt to believe it. Therefore, though Mr. D. may call another A shaggy tapestry, worthy to be spread a little ass, or a young toad, far be it from us to call him a toothless lion, or an old serpent. Indeed, had I written these notes (as was once my intent) in the learned language, I might have given him the appellations of balatro, calceatum capul, scurra in triviis, being phrases in good esteem and frequent usage among the best learned: but in our mother-tongue, were I to tax any gentleman of the Danciad, surely it should be in words not to the vulgar intelligible; whereby Christian charity, decency, and good accord among authors, might be preserved.Scribi. The good Scriblerus here, as on all occasions, eminently shews his humanity. But it was far otherwise with the gentlemen of the Dunciad, whose scurrilities were always personal, and of that nature which provoked every honest man but Mr. Pope; yet never to be lamented, since they occasioned the following amiable verses: "While malice, Pope, denies thy page While critics, and while bards in rage, While wayward pens thy worth assail, These times, though many a friend bewail, But when the world's loud praise is thine, When none shall rail, and every lay Devote a wreath to thee; That day (for come it will), that day Ver. 143. A shaggy tapestry,] A sorry kind of tapestry frequent in old inns, made of worsted or some coarser stuff like that which is spoken of by Donne: Faces as frightful as theirs who whip Christ in old hangings.' This imagery woven in it alludes to the mantle of Cloanthus, in Æn. v. Ver. 144, John Dunton was a broken bookseller, and abusive scribbler; he writ Neck or Nothing, a violent satire on some ministers of state; a libel on the Duke of Devonshire and the Bishop of Peterborough, &c. Ver.148. And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge-] JohnTutchin, author of some vile verses, and of a weekly paper called the Observator. He was sentenced to be whipped through several towns in the west of England, upon which he petitioned King James II. to be hanged. When that prince died in exile, he wrote an invective against his memory, occasioned by some humane elegies on his death. He lived to the time of Queen Anne. There Ridpath, Roper, cudgell'd might ye view, 150 'And oh!" he cried, 'what street, what lane, but knows. See in the circle next, Eliza placed, 159 Two babes of love close clinging to her waist; The goddess then: Who best can send on high With cow-like udders, and with ox-like eyes. REMARKS, Ver. 149. There Ridpath, Roper,] Authors of the Flyingpost and Post-boy, two scandalous papers on different sides, for which they equally and alternately deserved to be cudgelled, and were so. Ver. 151. Himself among the storied chiefs he spies,] The history of Curll's being tossed in a blanket, and whipped by the scholars of Westminster, is well known. Of his purging and vomiting, see a full and true Account of a horrid Revenge on the Body of Edmund Curll, &c. in Swift's and Pope's Miscellanies. 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 shew his indignation, hath shewn his contempt, as much as possible; having here drawn as vile a picture as could be represented in the colours of epic poesy.-Scribl. Ibid, 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 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. Ver. 160.-Kirkall-] the name of an engraver. Some of this lady's works were printed in four volumes in 12mo. with her pieture thus dressed up before them. This China jordan let the chief o'ercome Osborne and Curll accept the glorious strife 170 First Osborne lean'd against his letter'd post : Through half the heavens he pours th' exalted urn; REMARKS. Ver. 167. Osborne, Thomas-] A bookseller in Gray's-Inn, very well qualified by his impudence to act this part; therefore placed here instead of a less deserving predecessor. [Chapman, the publisher of Mrs. Haywood's New Utopia, &c.] This man pubfished advertisements for a year together, pretending to sell Mr. Pope's subscription books of Homer's Iliad at half the price of which book 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. Ver. 183. Through half the heavens he pours th' exalted urn;] In a manuscript Dunciad (where are some marginal corrections of some gentlemen some time deceased) I have found another reading of these lines: thus, And lifts his urn through half the heavens to flow; This I cannot but think the right: for, first, though the difference between burn and glow may seem not very material to others, to me I confess the latter has an elegance, a je ne sçay quoy, which |