Wings the red lightning 9, and the thunder rolls. Her magic charms o'er all unclassic ground': Here shouts all Drury, there all Lincoln's-inn; Alike their labours, and alike their praise. And are these wonders, son, to thee unknown? Unknown to thee? These wonders are thy own. Like Salmoneus, in Æn. vi. Dum flammas Jovis, et sonitus imitatur Olympi. Ere et cornipedum cursu simularat equorum. Alludes to Mr. Addison's verse, in the praises of Italy: And still I seem to tread on classic ground. As ver. 264 is a parody on a noble one of the same author in The Campaign; and ver. 259, 260, on two sublime verses of Dr. Y. s Mr. John Rich, Master of the Theatre Royal in Covent-garden, was the first that excelled this way. The history of the foregoing absurdities is verified by himself, in these words (Life, chap. xv.) "Then sprung forth that succession of monstrous medleys that have so long infested the stage, which arose upon one another alternately at both houses, outvying each other in expense." He then proceeds to excuse his own part in them, as follows: "If I am asked why Í assented? I haye no better excuse for my error than to confess I did it against my conscience, and had not virtue enough to starve. Had Henry IV. of France a better for changing his religion? I was still in my heart, as much as he could be, on the side of Truth and Sense; but with this difference, that I had their leave to quit them when they could not support me.-But let the question go which way it will, Harry IVth has always been allowed a great man." This must be confest a full answer, only the question still seems to be, 1. How the doing a thing against one's conscience is an excuse for it? and 2dly. It will be hard to prove how he got the leave of Truth and Sense to quit their service, unless he can produce a certificate that he ever was in it. " Booth and Cibber were joint managers of the Theatre in Drury-lane. ▾ In his letter to Mr. P., Mr. C. solemnly declares this not to be literally true. We hope, therefore, the reader will understand it allegorically only. These Fate reserved to grace thy reign divine, Coach'd, carted, trod upon; now loose, now fast, The sure fore-runner of her gentle sway: * Annual trophies, on the Lord Mayor's day; and monthly wars in the Artillery-ground. Settle, like most party-writers, was very uncertain in his political principles. He was employed to hold the pen in the character of a popish successor, but afterwards printed his Narrative on the other side. He had managed the ceremony of a famous Pope-burning on Nov. 17, 1680, then became a trooper in King James's army, at Hounslow-heath. After the Revolution he kept a booth at Bartholomew-fair, where in the droll called St. George for England, he acted in his old age in a dragon of green leather of his own invention; he was at last taken into the Charter-house, and there died, aged sixty years. He translated the Italian Opera of Polifemo; but unfortunately lost the whole jest of the story. The Cyclops asks Ulysses his name, who tells him his name is Noman: After his eye is put out, he roars and calls the brother Cyclops to his aid: They inquire who has hurt him? he answers B B To aid our cause, if Heaven thou canst not bend, For new abortions, all ye pregnant fair! с Noman; whereupon they all go away again. Our ingenious translator made Ulysses answer, I take no name, whereby all that followed became unintelligible. Hence it appears that Mr. Cibber (who values himself on subscribing to the English translation of Homer's Iliad) had not that merit with respect to the Odyssey, or he might have been better instructed in the Greek Pun-nology. Names of miserable farces which it was the custom to act at the end of the best tragedies, to spoil the digestion of the audience. a In the farce of Prosperine a corn-field was set on fire: whereupon the other play-house had a barn burnt down for the recreation of the spectators. They also rivalled each other in showing the burnings of hell-fire, in Dr. Faustus. b It is reported of Eschylus, that when his tragedy of the Furies was acted, the audience were so terrified that the children fell into fits, and the pregnant women miscarried. Hic vir, hic est! tibi quem promitti sæpius audis, Secula qui rursus Latio, regnata per arva Saturno quondam VIRG. Æn. vi. Saturnian here relates to the age of Lead, mentioned Book I. verse 26. d Wm Benson (Surveyor of the Buildings to his Majesty King George I.) gave in a report to the Lords, that their house and the Painted Chamber adjoining were in immediate danger of falling. Whereupon the lords met in committee to appoint some other place to sit in, while the house should be taken down. But it being proposed to cause some other builders first to inspect it, they found it in very good condition. The lords, upon this, were going upon an address to the king against Benson, for such a misrepresentation; but the Earl of Sunderland, then secretary, gave them an assurance that his Majesty would remove him, which was done accordingly. In favour of this man, the famous Sir Christopher Wren, who had been architect to the crown for above fifty years, who Lo! Ambrose Philips is preferr'd for wit! And Pope's, ten years to comment and translate. built most of the churches in London, laid the first stone of St. Paul's, and lived to finish it, had been displaced from his employment at the age of near ninety years. He was (saith Mr. Jacob) "one of the wits at Button's, and a justice of the peace; " but he hath since met with higher preferment in Ireland. fAt the time when this poem was written, the Banquetting-house of Whitehall, the church and piazza of Covent-garden, and the palace and chapel of Somerset-house, the works of the famous Inigo Jones, had been for many years so neglected, as to be in danger of ruin. The portico of Covent-garden church had been just then restored and beautified at the expense of the Earl of Burlington; who, at the same time, by his publication of the designs of that great master and Palladio, as well as by many noble buildings of his own, revived the true taste of architecture in this kingdom. 8 See Mr. Gay's fable of the Hare and many Friends. This gentleman was early in the friendship of our Author, which continued to his death. He wrote several works of humour with great success, the Shepherd's Week, Trivia, the What-d'ye-call-it, Fables, and lastly, the celebrated Beggar's Opera; a piece of satire, which hit all tastes and degrees of men, from those of the highest quality to the very rabble: That verse of Horace Primores populi arripuit, populumque tributim, could never be so justly applied as to this. The vast success of it was unprecedented, and almost incredible: what is related of the wonderful effects of the ancient music or tragedy hardly came up to it: Sophocles and Euripides were less followed and famous. It was acted in London sixty-three days, uninterrupted; and renewed the next season with equal applauses. It spread into all the great towns of England, was played in many places to the thirtieth and fortieth time, at Bath and Bristol fifty, &c. It made its progress into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, where it was performed twenty-four days together: it was lastly acted in Minorca. The fame of it was not confined to the author only; the ladies carried about with them the favourite songs of it in fans; and houses were furnished with it in screens. The person who acted Polly, till then obscure, became all at once the favourite of the town; her pictures were engraved, and sold in great numbers; her life written, books of letters and verses to her published; and pamphlets made even of her sayings and jests. Furthermore, it drove out of England, for that season, the Italian Opera, which had carried all before it for ten years. That idol of the nobility and the people, which the great critic Mr. Dennis by the labours and outcries of a whole life could not overthrow, was demolished by a single stroke of this gentleman's pen. This happened in the year 1728. Yet so great was his modesty, that he constantly prefixed to all the editions of it this motto Nos hæc novimus esse nihil. Till Isis' elders reel, their pupils sport, Enough! enough! the raptured monarch cries, BOOK THE FOURTH. ARGUMENT. The Poet being, in this book, to declare the completion of the prophecies mentioned at the end of the former, makes a new invocation; as the greater poets are wont, when some high and worthy matter is to be sung. He shows the Goddess coming in her majesty, to destroy order and science, and to substitute the kingdom of the dull upon earth. How she leads captive the Sciences, and silenceth the Muses; and what they be who succeed in their stead. All her children, by a wonderful attraction, are drawn about her; and bear along with them divers others, who promote her empire by connivance, weak resistance, or discouragement of arts; such as half-wits, tasteless admirers, vain pretenders, the flatterers of dunces, or the patrons of them. All these crowd round her; one of them, offering to approach her, is driven back by a rival, but she commends and encourages both. The first who speak in form are the Geniuses of the Schools, who assure her of their care to advance her cause, by confining youth to words, and keeping them out of the way of real knowledge. Their address, and her gracious answer; with her charge to them and the Universities. The Universities appear by their proper deputies, and assure her that the same method is observed in the progress of education: the speech of Aristarchus on this subject. They are driven off by a band of young gentlemen returned from travel with their tutors; one of whom delivers to the Goddess, in a polite oration, an account of the whole conduct and fruits of their travels; presenting to her at the same time a young nobleman perfectly accomplished. She receives him graciously, and indues him with the happy quality of want of shame. She sees loitering about her a number of indolent persons abandoning all business and duty, and dying with laziness: to these approaches the antiquary Annius intreating her to make them virtuosos, and assign them over to him: but Mummius, another antiquary, complaining of his fraudulent proceeding, she finds a method to reconcile their difference. Then enter a troop of people fantastically adorned, offering her strange and exotic presents; amongst them one stands forth and demands justice on another, who had deprived him of one of the greatest curiosities in nature: but he justifies himself so well, that the Goddess gives them both her approbation. She recommends to them to find proper employment for the indolents before-mentioned in the study of butterflies, shells, birds'-nests, moss, &c., but with particular caution, not to proceed beyond trifles to any useful or extensive views of Nature, or of the Author of Nature. Against the last of these apprehensions, she is secured by a hearty address from the minute philosophers and freethinkers, one of whom speaks in the name of the rest. The youth thus instructed and principled, are delivered to her in a h Sunt gemina Somni porta; quarum altera fertur Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto, Sed fulsa ad cœlum mittunt insomnia manes.-VIRG. Æn. vi. |