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] '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 is _my_
thunder.'--P.
[322] 'Norton:' see ver. 417.--J. Durant Breval, author of a very
extra-ordinary Book of Travels, and some poems.--P.
[323] 'Webster:' the editor of a newspaper called the Weekly Miscellany.
[324] 'Whitfield:' the great preacher--what a contrast to his satirist!
[325] '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] '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] '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] '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] 'In naked majesty Oldmixon stands:' Mr John Oldmixon, next to Sir
Dennis the most ancient critic of our nation.--P.
[330] '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] 'Aaron Hill:' see life.
[332] '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] '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] 'Gazetteers:' temporary journals, the ephemerals of the then
press, the spawn of the minister of the hour, 'born and dying with the
_foul_ breath that made them.'
[335] '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] 'The plunging prelate:' Bishop Sherlock.
[337] '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] '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] '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] '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] '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] '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] 'Motteux:' translator of Don Quixote.
[344] '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] 'Morgan:' a writer against religion.
[346] 'Mandeville:' the famous author of the 'Fable of the Bees.'
[347] 'Norton:' Norton Defoe, natural offspring of the famous Daniel. He
edited the 'Flying Post,' and was a detractor of Pope.
[348] '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!
'I must confess I do want eloquence,
And never scarce did learn my Accidence;
For having got from _possum_ to _posset_,
I there was gravell'd, could no further get.'
He wrote fourscore books in the reign of James I. and Charles I., and
afterwards (like Edward Ward) kept an ale-house in Long-Acre. He died in
1654.--P.
[349] 'Benlowes:' a country gentleman, famous for his own bad poetry,
and for patronising bad poets, as may be seen from many dedications of
Quarles and others to him. Some of these anagrammed his name, Benlowes,
into Benevolus; to verify which, he spent his whole estate upon
them.--P.
[350] 'And Shadwell nods the poppy:' Shadwell took opium for many years,
and died of too large a dose, in the year 1692.--P.
[351] 'Old Bavius sits:' Bavius was an ancient poet, celebrated by
Virgil for the like cause as Bayes by our author, though not in so
Christian-like a manner: for heathenishly it is declared by Virgil of
Bavius, that he ought to be hated and detested for his evil works; _qui
Bavium non odit_; whereas we have often had occasion to observe our
poet's great good nature and mercifulness through the whole course of
this poem. Scribl.--P.
[352] 'Brown and Mears:' booksellers, printers for anybody.--The
allegory of the souls of the dull coming forth in the form of books,
dressed in calf's leather, and being let abroad in vast numbers by
booksellers, is sufficiently intelligible.--P.
[353] 'Ward in pillory:' John Ward of Hackney, Esq., member of
parliament, being convicted of forgery, was first expelled the House,
and then sentenced to the pillory on the 17th of February 1727. Mr Curll
(having likewise stood there) looks upon the mention of such a gentleman
in a satire as a great act of barbarity. Key to the Dunc., 3d edit. p.
16. And another author reasons thus upon it: Durgen., 8vo, pp. 11, 12,
'How unworthy is it of Christian charity to animate the rabble to abuse
a worthy man in such a situation? What could move the poet thus to
mention a brave sufferer, a gallant prisoner, exposed to the view of all
mankind? It was laying aside his senses, it was committing a crime, for
which the law is deficient not to punish him! nay, a crime which man can
scarce forgive or time efface! Nothing surely could have induced him to
it but being bribed by a great lady,' &c. (to whom this brave, honest,
worthy gentleman was guilty of no offence but forgery, proved in open
court). But it is evident this verse could not be meant of him, it being
notorious that no eggs were thrown at that gentleman. Perhaps,
therefore, it might be intended of Mr Edward Ward, the poet, when he
stood there.--P.
[354] 'Settle:' Elkanah Settle was once a writer in vogue, as well as
Cibber, both for dramatic poetry and politics.--P.
[355] 'Monarch:' Chi Ho-am-ti, Emperor of China, the same who built the
great wall between China and Tartary, destroyed all the books and
learned men of that empire.--P.
[356] 'Physic of the soul:' the caliph, Omar I., having conquered Egypt,
caused his general to burn the Ptolemaean library, on the gates of which
was this inscription, [Greek: PSYCHES IATREION], the Physic of the
soul.--P.
[357] 'Happy!--had Easter never been:' wars in England anciently, about
the right time of celebrating Easter.--P.
[358] 'Jacob, the scourge of grammar, mark with awe:' this gentleman is
son of a considerable maltster of Romsey in Southamptonshire, and bred
to the law under a very eminent attorney; who, between his more
laborious studies, has diverted himself with poetry. He is a great
admirer of poets and their works, which has occasioned him to try his
genius that way. He has wrote in prose the Lives of the Poets, Essays,
and a great many law-books, The Accomplished Conveyancer, Modern
Justice, &c.' Giles Jacob of himself, Lives of Poets, vol. i. He very
grossly, and unprovoked, abused in that book the author's friend, Mr
Gay.--P.
[359] 'Horneck and Roome:' these two were virulent party-writers,
worthily coupled together, and one would think prophetically, since,
after the publishing of this piece, the former dying, the latter
succeeded him in honour and employment. The first was Philip Horneck,
author of a Billingsgate paper called The High German Doctor. Edward
Roome was son of an undertaker for funerals in Fleet Street, and wrote
some of the papers called Pasquin, where by malicious innuendos he
endeavoured to represent our author guilty of malevolent practices with
a great man then under prosecution of Parliament. Of this man was made
the following epigram:
'You ask why Roome diverts you with his jokes,
Yet if he writes, is dull as other folks?
You wonder at it. This, sir, is the case,
The jest is lost unless he prints his face.'
Popple was the author of some vile plays and pamphlets. He published
abuses on our author in a paper called the Prompter.--P.
[360] 'Goode:' an ill-natured critic, who wrote a satire on our author,
called The Mock Aesop, and many anonymous libels in newspapers for
hire.--P.
[361] 'Ralph:' James Ralph, a name inserted after the first editions,
not known to our author till he writ a swearing-piece called Sawney,
very abusive of Dr Swift, Mr Gay, and himself. These lines allude to a
thing of his, entitled Night, a Poem. This low writer attended his own
works with panegyrics in the journals, and once in particular praised
himself highly above Mr Addison, in wretched remarks upon that author's
account of English Poets, printed in a London journal, September 1728.
He was wholly illiterate, and knew no language, not even French. Being
advised to read the rules of dramatic poetry before he began a play, he
smiled and replied, 'Shakspeare wrote without rules.' He ended at last
in the common sink of all such writers, a political newspaper, to which
he was recommended by his friend Arnall, and received a small pittance
for pay.--P. B. Franklin seems to have thought that his friend Ralph was
alluded to here. See his Autobiography.
[362] 'Behold yon pair:' one of these was author of a weekly paper
called The Grumbler, as the other was concerned in another called
Pasquin, in which Mr Pope was abused with the Duke of Buckingham and
Bishop of Rochester. They also joined in a piece against his first
undertaking to translate the Iliad, entitled Homerides, by Sir Iliad
Doggrel, printed 1715.--P.
[363] 'Wormius hight:' let not this name, purely fictitious, be
conceited to mean the learned Olaus Wormius; much less (as it was
unwarrantably foisted into the surreptitious editions) our own
antiquary, Mr Thomas Hearne, who had no way aggrieved our poet, but, on
the contrary, published many curious tracts which he hath to his great
contentment perused.--P.
[364] 'Lo! Henley stands,' &c.: J. Henley, the orator; he preached on
the Sundays upon theological matters, and on the Wednesdays upon all
other sciences. Each auditor paid one shilling. He declaimed some years
against the greatest persons, and occasionally did our author that
honour.--P.
[365] 'Sherlock, Hare, Gibson:' bishops of Salisbury, Chichester, and
London, whose Sermons and Pastoral Letters did honour to their country
as well as stations.--P.
[366] Of Toland and Tindal, see book ii. Thomas Woolston was an impious
madman, who wrote in a most insolent style against the miracles of the
Gospel, in the year 1726, &c.--P.
[367] 'A sable sorcerer:' Dr Faustus, the subject of a set of farces,
which, lasted in vogue two or three seasons, in which both playhouses
strove to outdo each other for some years.--P.
[368] 'Hell rises, Heaven descends, and dance on earth:' this monstrous
absurdity was actually represented in Tibbald's Rape of Proserpine.--P.
[369] 'Lo! one vast egg:' in another of these farces, Harlequin is
hatched upon the stage, out of a large egg.--P.
[370] 'Immortal Rich:' Mr John Rich, master of the Theatre Royal in
Covent Garden, was the first that excelled this way.--P.
[371] Booth and Cibber were joint managers of the Theatre in Drury
Lane.--P.
[372] 'Though long my party:' 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.--P.
[373] 'Polypheme:' he translated the Italian Opera of Polifemo, but
unfortunately lost the whole gist 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 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 Gibber
(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 Punology.--P.
[374] 'Faustus, Pluto,' &c.: 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.--P.
[375] 'Ensure it but from fire:' in Tibbald's farce of Proserpine, a
corn-field was set on fire; whereupon the other play-house had a barn
burned down for the recreation of the spectators. They also rivalled
each other in showing the burnings of hell fire, in Dr Faustus.--P.
[376] 'Another Æschylus appears:' it is reported of Æschylus, that when
his tragedy of the Furies was acted, the audience were so terrified that
the children fell into fits, and the big-bellied women miscarried.--P.
[377] 'On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ:' W-----m 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 a
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 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 nearly
ninety years.--P.
[378] 'Ambrose Philips:' 'he was,' saith Mr Jacob, 'one of the wits at
Button's, and a justice of the peace.'--P.
[379] 'While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall:' at the time when
this poem was written, the banqueting-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.--P.
[380] 'Mad Máthesis:' alluding to the strange conclusions some
mathematicians have deduced from their principles, concerning the real
quantity of matter, the reality of space, &c.--P. W.
[381] 'Pure space:' i.e. pure and defaecated from matter. 'Ecstatic
stare:' the action of men who look about with full assurance of seeing
what does not exist, such as those who expect to find space a real
being.--W.
[382] 'Running round the circle, finds it square:' regards the wild and
fruitless attempts of squaring the circle.--P. W.
[383] 'Nor couldst thou,' &c.: this noble person in the year 1737, when
the act aforesaid was brought into the House of Lords, opposed it in an
excellent speech (says Mr Cibber), 'with a lively spirit, and uncommon
eloquence.' This speech had the honour to be answered by the said Mr
Cibber, with a lively spirit also, and in a manner very uncommon, in the
8th chapter of his Life and Manners.--P.
[384] 'Harlot form:' the attitude given to this phantom represents the
nature and genius of the Italian Opera; its affected airs, its
effeminate sounds, and the practice of patching up these operas with
favourite songs, incoherently put together. These things were supported
by the subscriptions of the nobility. This circumstance, that Opera
should prepare for the opening of the grand sessions, was prophesied of
in book iii. ver. 304,
'Already Opera prepares the way,
The sure forerunner of her gentle sway.'
P. W.
[385] 'Division reign:' alluding to the false taste of playing tricks in
music with numberless divisions, to the neglect of that harmony which
conforms to the sense, and applies to the passions. Mr Handel had
introduced a great number of hands, and more variety of instruments into
the orchestra, and employed even drums and cannon to make a fuller
chorus; which proved so much too manly for the fine gentlemen of his
age, that he was obliged to remove his music into Ireland. After which
they were reduced, for want of composers, to practise the patch-work
above mentioned.--P. W.
[386] 'Chromatic:' that species of the ancient music called the
Chromatic was a variation and embellishment, in odd irregularities, of
the diatonic kind. They say it was invented about the time of Alexander,
and that the Spartans forbad the use of it, as languid and
effeminate.--W.
[387] 'Wake the dull church, and lull the ranting stage:' i.e. dissipate
the devotion of the one by light and wanton airs; and subdue the pathos
of the other by recitative and sing-song.--W.
[388] 'Narcissus:' Lord Hervey.
[389] 'Bold Benson:' this man endeavoured to raise himself to fame by
erecting monuments, striking coins, setting up heads, and procuring
translations of Milton; and afterwards by as great passion for Arthur
Johnston, a Scotch physician's version of the Psalms, of which he
printed many fine editions. See more of him, book iii. v. 325.--P. W.
[390] 'The decent knight:' Sir Thomas Hanmer, who was about to publish a
very pompous edition of a great author, at his own expense.--P. W.
[391] 'So by each bard an alderman,' &c.: alluding to the monument of
Butler erected by Alderman Barber.
[392] 'The Samian letter:' the letter Y, used by Pythagoras as an emblem
of the different roads of Virtue and Vice.
'Et tibi quae Samios diduxit litera ramos.'--Pers. P. W.
[393] 'House or Hall:' Westminster Hall and the House of Commons.--W.
[394] 'Master-piece of man:' viz., an epigram. The famous Dr South
declared a perfect epigram to be as difficult a performance as an epic
poem. And the critics say, 'An epic poem is the greatest work human
nature is capable of.'--P. W.
[395] 'Gentle James:' Wilson tells us that this king, James I., took
upon himself to teach the Latin tongue to Carr, Earl of Somerset; and
that Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, would speak false Latin to him,
on purpose to give him the pleasure of correcting it, whereby he wrought
himself into his good graces.--P. W. See Fortunes of Nigel.
[396] 'Locke:' in the year 1703 there was a meeting of the heads of the
University of Oxford to censure Mr Locke's Essay on Human Understanding,
and to forbid the reading it. See his Letters in the last edit.--P. W.
[397] 'Crousaz:' see Life.
[398] 'The streams:' the River Cam, running by the walls of these
colleges, which are particularly famous for their skill in
disputation.--P. W.