And thrice he dropt it from his quivering hand; The opening clouds disclose each work by turns, Roused by the light, old Dulness heaved the head; Great in her charms"! as when on shrieves and mayors She looks, and breathes herself into their airs. She bids him wait her to her sacred dome : Well pleased he enter'd, and confess'd his home. -Jam Deiphobi dedit umpla ruinam Vulcano superante domus; jam proximus ardet w 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 méprise Cotin, n'estime point son roi, Et n'a, selon Cotin, ni Dieu, ni foi, ni loi.-BOILEAU. 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." * An unfinished poem of that name, of which one sheet was printed many years ago, by Amb. Phillips, 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. y Alma parens confessa Deam; qualisque videri Et lætos oculis afflavit honores.-Id. Æn. i. Here to her chosen all her works she shows; Prose swell'd to verse, verse loitering into prose: How random thoughts now meaning chance to find, Now leave all memory of sense behind : How prologues into prefaces decay, And these to notes are fritter'd quite away : How, with less reading than makes felons 'scape, Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece, The goddess then, o'er his anointed head, 2 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. "Mr. John Ozell (if we may 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. a 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. b "George Withers was a great pretender to poetical zeal, and abused the greatest personages in power, which brought upon him frequent correction. The Marshalsea and Newgate were no strangers to him."— WINSTANLY, Lives of Poets. 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. P. very scandalously in an anonymous pamphlet of the Life of Mr. Wycherley, printed by Curl; in another, called the New Rehearsal, printed in 1714; in a third, intituled the Complete Art of English Poetry, in two volumes; and others. And high-born Howard, more majestic sire, And thou! his aid-de-camp, lead on my sons, And all be sleep, as at an ode of thine.” She ceased. Then swells the chapel-royal throat'; God save king Cibber! mounts in every note. 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. 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 you this? Alas! no more, than Thames' calm head can know Whose meads his arms drown, or whose corn o'erflow. DONNE to Queen Eliz. • BOILEAU, Lutrin, Chant. ii. Hélas! qu'est devenu ce tems, cet heureux tems, Où les rois s'honoroient du nom de Fainéans: S'endormoient sur le trône, et me servant sans honte, Laissoient leur sceptre aux mains ou d'un maire, ou d'un comte : On reposoit la nuit, on dormoit tout le jour, &c. f 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. Familiar White's, God save king Colley! cries; Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog, BOOK THE SECOND. ARGUMENT. The king being proclaimed, the solemnity is graced with public games and sports of various kinds; not instituted by the hero, as by Æneas in Virgil, but for greater honour by the Goddess in person (in like manner as the games Pythia, Isthmia, &c., were anciently said to be ordained by the Gods, and as Thetis herself appearing, according to Homer, Odyss. 24, proposed the prizes in honour of her son Achilles.) Hither flock the poets and critics, attended, as is but just, with their patrons and booksellers. The Goddess is first pleased, for her disport, to propose games to the booksellers, and setteth up the phantom of a poet, which they contend to overtake. The races described, with their divers accidents. Next, the game for a poetess. Then follow the exercises for the poets, of tickling, vociferating, diving: the first holds forth the arts and practices of dedicators: the second of disputants and fustian poets; the third of profound, dark, and dirty party-writers. Lastly, for the critics, the Goddess proposes (with great propriety) an exercise, not of their parts, but their patience, in hearing the works of two voluminous authors, one in verse and the other in prose, deliberately read, without sleeping; the various effects of which, with the several degrees and manners of their operation, are here set forth, till the whole number, not of critics only, but of spectators, actors, and all present, fall fast asleep, which naturally and necessarily ends the games. i HIGH on a gorgeous seat, that far out-shone Henley's gilt tub, or Fleckno's Irish throne3, The Devil Tavern in Fleet-street, where these odes are usually rehearsed before they are performed at Court. h See Ogilby's Esop's Fables, where, in the story of the Frogs and their King, this excellent hemistich is to be found. i Parody of Milton, book ii. High on a throne of royal state, that far j The pulpit of a dissenter is usually called a tub; but that of Mr. Orator k Or that, where on her Curls the public pours, And now the Queen, to glad her sons, proclaims They summon all their race: an endless band 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. Richard Fleckno 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. I doubt not our author took occasion to mention him in respect to the poem of Mr. Dryden, to which this bears some resemblance, though of a character more different from it than that of the Æneid from the Iliad, or the Lutrin of Boileau from the Défaite des Bouts Rimés of Sarazin. It may be just worth mentioning, that the eminence from whence the ancient sophists entertained their auditors was called by the pompous name of a throne :- ἐπὶ θρόνον τινὸς ὑψηλοῦ μάλὰ σοφιστικῶς καὶ σοβαρῶς.— THEMISTIUS, Orat. i. Edmund Curl stood in the pillory at Charing-cross, in March, 1727-8. Mr. Curl loudly complained of this note as an untruth, protesting "that he stood in the pillory, not in March, but in February." And of another on ver. 152, saying "he was not tossed in a blanket, but a rug." ." CURLIAD, duodecimo, 1729, pp. 19, 25. Much in the same manner Mr. Cibber remenstrated 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 lessened the relationship. 1 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. 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. * See Life of C. C. chap. vi. p. 149. |