'Friend! in your epitaphs, I'm grieved,So very much is said:One-half will never be believed,The other never read.'—W.]
250 (return)[ 'New-year odes:' made by the poet laureate for the time being, to be sung at Court on every New-Year's Day, the words of which are happily drowned in the voices and instruments.—P.]
251 (return)[ 'Jacob:' Tonson, the well-known bookseller.]
252 (return)[ 'How farce and epic—how Time himself,' allude to the transgressions of the unities in the plays of such poets. For the miracles wrought upon time and place, and the mixture of tragedy and comedy, farce and epic, see Pluto and Proserpine, Penelope, &c., if yet extant.—P.]
253 (return)[ ''Twas on the day, when Thorold rich and grave, like Cimon, triumph'd:' viz., a Lord Mayor's day; his name the author had left in blanks, but most certainly could never be that which the editor foisted in formerly, and which no way agrees with the chronology of the poem.—Bentl. The procession of a lord mayor is made partly by land, and partly by water. Cimon, the famous Athenian general, obtained a victory by sea, and another by land, on the same day, over the Persians and Barbarians.—P.]
254 (return)[ 'Glad chains:' The ignorance of these moderns! This was altered in one edition to gold chains, showing more regard to the metal of which the chains of aldermen are made than to the beauty of the Latinism and Graecism—nay, of figurative speech itself:Loetas segetes, glad, for making glad, &c.—P.]
255 (return)[ 'But lived, in Settle's numbers, one day more:' a beautiful manner of speaking, usual with poets in praise of poetry, in which kind nothing is finer than those lines of Mr Addison:—
'Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng,I look for streams immortalised in song,That lost in silence and oblivion lie,Dumb are their fountains, and their channels dry;Yet run for over by the Muses' skill,And in the smooth description murmur still.—P.
Settle was poet to the city of London. His office was to compose yearly panegyrics upon the lord mayors, and verses to be spoken in the pageants. But that part of the shows being at length frugally abolished, the employment of city-poet ceased, so that upon Settle's demise there was no successor to that place.—P.]
256 (return)[ John Heywood, whose interludes were printed in the time of Henry VIII.—P.]
257 (return)[ 'Daniel Defoe,' a man in worth and original genius incomparably superior to his defamer.]
258 (return)[ 'And Eusden eke out,' &c.: Laurence Eusden, poet laureate. Mr Jacob gives a catalogue of some few only of his works, which were very numerous. Mr Cook, in his Battle of Poets, saith of him—
'Eusden, a laurell'd bard, by fortune raised,By very few was read, by fewer praised.'—P.]
259 (return)[ Nahum Tate was poet laureate, a cold writer, of no invention; but sometimes translated tolerably when befriended by Mr Dryden. In his second part of Absalom and Achitophel are above two hundred admirable lines together of that great hand, which strongly shine through the insipidity of the rest. Something parallel may be observed of another author here mentioned.—P.]
260 (return)[ 'Dennis rage:' Mr John Dennis was the son of a sadler in London, born in 1657. He paid court to Mr Dryden; and having obtained some correspondence with Mr Wycherly and Mr Congreve, he immediately obliged the public with their letters. He made himself known to the Government by many admirable schemes and projects, which the ministry, for reasons best known to themselves, constantly kept private.—P.]
261 (return)[ 'Shame to Fortune:' because she usually shows favour to persons of this character, who have a threefold pretence to it.]
262 (return)[ 'Poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes:' a great number of them taken out to patch up his plays.—P.]
263 (return)[ 'Tibbald:' this Tibbald, or Theobald, published an edition of Shakspeare, of which he was so proud himself as to say, in one of Mist's journals, June 8, 'That to expose any errors in it was impracticable.' And in another, April 27, 'That whatever care might for the future be taken by any other editor, he would still give above five hundred emendations, that shall escape them all.'—P.]
264 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ 'Nich. de Lyra:' or Harpsfield, a very voluminous commentator, whose works, in five vast folios, were printed in 1472.—P.]
270 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ 'Ridpath—Mist:' George Ridpath, author of a Whig paper, called the Flying Post; Nathanael Mist, of a famous Tory journal.—P.]
273 (return)[ '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 anserPorticibus, Gallos in limine adesse canebat.'
A passage I have always suspected. Who sees not the antithesis ofauratisandargenteusto 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 whyauratis 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 itauritis. Horace uses the same epithet in the same sense.—P.]
274 (return)[ 'Bear and Fiddle:' see 'Butler's Hudibras.']
275 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ 'Tate, Shadwell:' two of his predecessors in the Laurel.—P.]
278 (return)[ '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 (return)[ 'Thulè:' 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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 knowWhose meads his arms drown, or whose corn o'erflow.'
DONNE to QUEEN ELIZ.—P.]
286 (return)[ '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 (return)[ 'But pious Needham:' a matron of great and peculiar fame, and very religious in her way.—P.]
288 (return)[ 'Back to the Devil:' the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street, where these odes are usually rehearsed before they are performed at court.—W.]
289 (return)[ '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 (return)[ Sir George Thorald, Lord Mayor of London in the year 1720.]
291 (return)[ 'A little Ajax:' in duodecimo, translated from Sophocles by Tibhald.]
292 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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.]
297 (return)[ '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 (return)[ '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.]
299 (return)[ 'But lofty Lintot:' we enter here upon the episode of the booksellers, persons whose names being more known and famous in the learned world than those of the authors in this poem, do therefore need less explanation. The action of Mr Lintot here imitates that of Dares in Virgil, rising just in this manner to lay hold on a bull. This eminent bookseller printed the Rival Modes before-mentioned.—P.]
300 (return)[ 'Stood dauntless Curll:' we come now to a character of much respect, that of Mr Edmund Curll. As a plain repetition of great actions is the best praise of them, we shall only say of this eminent man, that he carried the trade many lengths beyond what it ever before had arrived at; and that he was the envy and admiration of all his profession. He possessed himself of a command over all authors whatever; he caused them to write what he pleased; they could not call their very names their own. He was not only famous among these; he was taken notice of by the state, the church, and the law, and received particular marks of distinction from each. It will be owned that he is here introduced with all possible dignity: he speaks like the intrepid Diomede; he runs like the swift-footed Achilles; if he falls, 'tis like the beloved Nisus; and (what Homer makes to be the chief of all praises) he is favoured of the gods; he says but three words, and his prayer is heard; a goddess conveys it to the seat of Jupiter: though he loses the prize, he gains the victory; the great mother herself comforts him, she inspires him with expedients, she honours him with an immortal present (such as Achilles receives from Thetis, and Aeneas from Venus) at once instructive and prophetical: after this he is unrivalled and triumphant. The tribute our author here pays him is a grateful return for several unmerited obligations. Many weighty animadversions on the public affairs, and many excellent and diverting pieces on private persons, has he given to his name. If ever he owed two verses to any other, he owed Mr Curll some thousands. He was every day extending his fame, and enlarging his writings: witness innumerable instances; but it shall suffice only to mention the Court Poems, which he meant to publish as the work of the true writer, a lady of quality; but being first threatened, and afterwards punished for it by Mr Pope, he generously transferred it from her to him, and ever since printed it in his name. The single time that ever he spoke to C. was on that affair, and to that happy incident he owed all the favours since received from him: so true is the saying of Dr Sydenham, 'that any one shall be, at some time or other, the better or the worse for having but seen or spoken to a good or bad man.'—P.]
301 (return)[ 'Left-legged Jacob:' Jacob Tonson.]
302 (return)[ 'Curll's Corinna:' this name, it seems, was taken by one Mrs T——, who procured some private letters of Mr Pope, while almost a boy, to Mr Cromwell, and sold them without the consent of either of those gentleman to Curll, who printed them in 12mo, 1727. He discovered her to be the publisher, in his Key, p. 11. We only take this opportunity of mentioning the manner in which those letters got abroad, which the author was ashamed of as very trivial things, full not only of levities, but of wrong judgments of men and books, and only excusable from the youth and inexperience of the writer.—P.—See Life.]
303 (return)[ 'Down with the Bible, up with the Pope's Arms:' the Bible, Curll's sign; the Cross-keys, Lintot's.]
304 (return)[ 'Seas:' see Lucian's Icaro-Menippus, where this fiction is more extended.—P.]
305 (return)[ 'Evans, Young, and Swift:' some of those persons whose writings, epigrams, or jests he had owned.—P.]
306 (return)[ 'Bezaleel:' Bezaleel Morris was author of some satires on the translators of Homer, with many other things printed in newspapers. 'Bond wrote a satire against Mr P——. Capt. Breval was author of the Confederates, an ingenious dramatic performance to expose Mr P., Mr Gay, Dr Arb., and some ladies of quality,' says Curll, Key, p. 11.—P.]
307 (return)[ 'Joseph:' Joseph Gay, a fictitious name put by Curll before several pamphlets, which made them pass with many for Mr Gay's.—P.]
308 (return)[ '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.—P.]
309 (return)[ 'Cook shall be Prior:' the man here specified wrote 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, to which Theobald wrote notes and half-notes, which he carefully owned.—P.]
310 (return)[ '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 would 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; 'tis 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 have 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.'—P.]
311 (return)[ 'On Codrus' old, or Dunton's modern bed:' of Codrus the poet's bed, see Juvenal, describing his poverty very copiously, Sat. iii. ver. 103, &c. John Dunton was a broken bookseller, and abusive scribbler. He wrote Neck or Nothing, a violent satire on some ministers of state; a libel on the Duke of Devonshire, and the Bishop of Peterborough, &c.—P.]
312 (return)[ 'And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge:' John Tutchin, 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.—P.]
313 (return)[ 'There Ridpath, Roper:' authors of the Flying-post and Post-boy, two scandalous papers on different sides, for which they equally and alternately deserved to be cudgelled, and were so.—P.]
314 (return)[ '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.—P.]
315 (return)[ 'Eliza:' Eliza Haywood. This woman was authoress of those most scandalous books called the Court of Carimania, and the New Utopia.—P.]
316 (return)[ '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.—P.]
317 (return)[ 'Osborne, Thomas;' a bookseller in Gray's Inn, very well qualified by his impudence to act this part; and therefore placed here instead of a less deserving predecessor. 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 copperplates, on a worse paper, and never above half the value.—P. This was the man Johnson knocked down.]
318 (return)[ 'Rolli:' Paolo Antonio Rolli, an Italian poet, and writer of many operas in that language, which, partly by the help of his genius, prevailed in England near twenty years. He taught Italian to some fine gentlemen, who affected to direct the operas.—P.]
319 (return)[ 'Bentley:' this applies not to Richard but to Thomas Bentley, his nephew, and a small imitator of his great uncle.]
320 (return)[ 'Welsted:' Leonard Welsted, author of the Triumvirate, or a Letter in verse from Palaemon to Celia at Bath, which was meant for a satire on Mr P. and some of his friends about the year 1718.—P.]
321 (return)[ '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 ismythunder.'—P.]
322 (return)[ 'Norton:' see ver. 417.—J. Durant Breval, author of a very extra-ordinary Book of Travels, and some poems.—P.]
323 (return)[ 'Webster:' the editor of a newspaper called the Weekly Miscellany.]
324 (return)[ 'Whitfield:' the great preacher—what a contrast to his satirist!]
325 (return)[ 'As morning prayer, and flagellation end:' it is between eleven and twelve in the morning, after church service, that the criminals are whipped in Bridewell. This is to mark punctually the time of the day: Homer does it by the circumstance of the judges rising from court, or of the labourers' dinner; our author by one very proper both to the persons and the scene of his poem, which we may remember commenced in the evening of the Lord-mayor's day. The first book passed in that night; the next morning the games begin in the Strand; thence along Fleet Street (places inhabited by booksellers); then they proceed by Bridewell towards Fleet-ditch; and, lastly, through Ludgate to the City and the temple of the goddess.—P.]
326 (return)[ 'Dash through thick and thin—love of dirt—dark dexterity:' the three chief qualifications of party-writers: to stick at nothing, to delight in flinging dirt, and to slander in the dark by guess.—P.]
327 (return)[ 'The weekly journals:' papers of news and scandal intermixed, on different sides and parties, and frequently shifting from one side to the other, called the London Journal, British Journal, Daily Journal, &c., the concealed writers of which for some time were Oldmixon, Roome, Arnall, Concanen, and others; persons never seen by our author.—P.]
328 (return)[ 'A peck of coals a-piece:' our indulgent poet, whenever he has spoken of any dirty or low work, constantly puts us in mind of the poverty of the offenders, as the only extenuation of such practices. Let any one but remark, when a thief, a pickpocket, a highwayman, or a knight of the post are spoken of, how much our hate to those characters is lessened, if they add a needy thief, a poor pickpocket, a hungry highwayman, a starving knight of the post, &c.—P.]
329 (return)[ 'In naked majesty Oldmixon stands:' Mr John Oldmixon, next to Sir Dennis the most ancient critic of our nation.—P.]
330 (return)[ 'Next Smedley dived:' the person here mentioned, an Irishman, was author and publisher of many scurrilous pieces, a weekly Whitehall journal, in the year 1722, in the name of Sir James Baker; and particularly whole volumes of Billingsgate against Dr Swift and Mr Pope, called Gulliveriana and Alexandriana, printed in octavo, 1728.—P.]
331 (return)[ 'Aaron Hill:' see life.]
332 (return)[ 'With each a sickly brother at his back: sons of a day, &c:' these were daily papers, a number of which, to lessen the expense, were printed one on the back of another.—P.]
333 (return)[ 'Osborne:' a name assumed by the eldest and gravest of these writers, who at last, being ashamed of his pupils, gave his paper over, and in his age remained silent.—P.]
334 (return)[ 'Gazetteers:' temporary journals, the ephemerals of the then press, the spawn of the minister of the hour, 'born and dying with thefoulbreath that made them.']
335 (return)[ 'William Arnall:' bred an attorney, was a perfect genius in this sort of work. He began under twenty with furious party-papers; then succeeded Concanen in the 'British Journal.' At the first publication of the 'Dunciad,' he prevailed on the author not to give him his due place in it, by a letter professing his detestation of such practices as his predecessor's. But since, by the most unexampled insolence, and personal abuse of several great men, the poet's particular friends, he most amply deserved a niche in the temple of infamy: witness a paper, called the 'Free Briton;' a dedication entitled, 'To the genuine blunderer,' 1732, and many others. He wrote for hire, and valued himself upon it; not indeed without cause, it appearing that he received 'for Free Britons, and other writings, in the space of four years, no less than ten thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven pounds, six shillings, and eight pence, out of the Treasury.' But frequently, through his fury or folly, he exceeded all the bounds of his commission, and obliged his honourable patron to disavow his scurrilities.—P.]
336 (return)[ 'The plunging prelate:' Bishop Sherlock.]
337 (return)[ 'And Milbourn:' Luke Milbourn, a clergyman, the fairest of critics, who, when he wrote against Mr Dryden's Virgil, did him justice in printing at the same time his own translations of him, which were intolerable.—P.]
338 (return)[ 'Lud's famed gates:' 'King Lud, repairing the city, called it after his own name, Lud's Town; the strong gate which he built in the west part he likewise, for his own honour, named Ludgate. In the year 1260, this gate was beautified with images of Lud and other kings. Those images in the reign of Edward VI. had their heads smitten off, and were otherwise defaced by unadvised folks. Queen Mary did set new heads upon their old bodies again. The 28th of Queen Elizabeth, the same gate was clean taken down, and newly and beautifully builded, with images of Lud and others, as afore.' Stowe's Survey of London.—P.]
339 (return)[ 'Thrice Budgell aim'd to speak:' famous for his speeches on many occasions about the South Sea Scheme, &c. 'He is a very ingenious gentleman, and hath written some excellent Epilogues to Plays, and one small piece on Love, which is very pretty.' Jacob, Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 289. But this gentleman since made himself much more eminent, and personally well known to the greatest statesmen of all parties, as well as to all the courts of law in this nation.—P.]
340 (return)[ 'Toland and Tindal:' two persons, not so happy as to be obscure, who wrote against the religion of their country. Toland, the author of the Atheist's liturgy, called 'Pantheisticon,' was a spy, in pay to Lord Oxford. Tindal was author of the 'Rights of the Christian Church,' and 'Christianity as Old as the Creation.' He also wrote an abusive pamphlet against Earl S——, which was suppressed, while yet in MS., by an eminent person, then out of the ministry, to whom he showed it, expecting his approbation: this doctor afterwards published the same piece,mutatis mutandis, against that very person.—P.]
341 (return)[ 'Christ's no kingdom here:' this is said by Curll, Key to Dunc., to allude to a sermon of a reverend Bishop (Hoadley).—P.]
342 (return)[ 'Centlivre:' Mrs Susanna Centlivre, wife to Mr Centlivre, Yeoman of the Mouth to his Majesty. She wrote many plays, and a song (says Mr Jacob, vol. i. p. 32) before she was seven years old. She also wrote a ballad against Mr Pope's Homer, before he began it.—P.]
343 (return)[ 'Motteux:' translator of Don Quixote.]
344 (return)[ 'Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o'er:' A. Boyer, a voluminous compiler of annals, political collections, &c.—William Law, A.M., wrote with great zeal against the stage; Mr Dennis answered with as great.—P. William Law was an extraordinary man. His 'Serious Call' made Dr Johnson religious. He became mystical in his views.]
345 (return)[ 'Morgan:' a writer against religion.]
346 (return)[ 'Mandeville:' the famous author of the 'Fable of the Bees.']
347 (return)[ 'Norton:' Norton Defoe, natural offspring of the famous Daniel. He edited the 'Flying Post,' and was a detractor of Pope.]
348 (return)[ 'Taylor:' John Taylor, the water-poet, an honest man, who owns he learned not so much as the Accidence—a rare example of modesty in a poet!