Bays, form'd by Nature, ftage, and town to bless, | Dulness with transport eyes the lively Dunce, And act, and be, a coxcomb with fuccfes. 110 Remembering the herself was Pertnefs once. REMARKS. reflection. Nor ought Mr. Oldmixon to complain, fo long after, that the laurel would have become his own brows, or any other's: It were more decent to acquiefce in the opinion of the Duke of Buckingham upon this matter: " —In rush'd Eufden, and cry'd, Who shall have it, "But I, the true laureate, to whom the king gave it, Apollo begg'd pardon, and granted his claim, 黏 "But vow'd that till then he ne'er heard of his name." Seffion of Poets. The fame plea might alfo ferve for his fucceffor,. Mr. Cibber; and is further ftrengthened in the following epigram made on that occafion : In merry old England it once was a rule, The king had his poet, and also his fool; But now we're fo frugal, I'd have you to know it, That Cibber can serve both for fool and for poet. Of Blackmore, fee Book ii. Of Philips, Book i. ver. 262. and Book iii. prope fin. Nahum Tate was poet laureate, a cold writer, of no invention; but fometimes tranflated tolerably when befriended by Mr. Dryden. In his fecond part of Abfalom and Achitophel are above two hundred admirable lines together of that great hand, which ftrongly shine through the infipidity of the reft. Something parallel may be observed of another author here mentioned. Ver. 106. And all the mighty mad in Dennis' rage.] Mr. Theobald, in the Cenfor, vol. ii. N. 33. calls Mr. Dennis by the name of Furius. "The "modern Furius is to be looked upon more as an object of pity, than of that which he daily pro"vokes, laughter and contempt. Did we really "know how much this poor man" [I wish that reflection on poverty had been spared]" fuffers by being contradicted, or, which is the fame thing in effect, by hearing another praised; we fhould, in compaffion, fometimes attend to him " with a filent nod, and let him go away with "the triumphs of his ill-nature.-Poor Furius (again) when any of his contemporaries are "well spoken of, quitting the ground of the pre"fent difpute, fteps back a thousand years to call "in the fuccour of the ancients. His very panegyric is fpiteful, and he uses it for the fame "reafon as fome ladies do their commendations of a dead beauty, who would never have had their good word, but that a living one happened to be in their company. His applaufe is not the tri"bute of his heart, but the facrifice of his revenge," &c. Indeed his pieces against our poet are fomewhat of an angry character, and as they are now fcarce extant, a taste of his style may be fatisfactory to the curious. " A young, fquab, fhort gen"tleman, whose outward form, though it fhould "be that of downright monkey, would not differ -“fo much from human shape as his unthinking ་་ REMARKS. "immaterial part does from human understand"ing. He is as ftupid and as venomous as a "hunch-backed toad." A book, through which "folly and ignorance, those brethren fo lame and "impotent, do ridiculously look big and very " dull, and ftrut and hobble, cheek by jowl, with "their arms on kimbo, being led and fupported, "and bully-backed by that blind Hector, Impu"dence." Reflect. on the Effay on Criticism, p. 26. 29, 30. It would be unjust not to add his reafons for this fury, they are fo ftrong and coercive. "I regard "him (faith he) as an enemy, not fo much to me, as to my king, to my country, to my re"ligion, and to that liberty which has been the "fole felicity of my life. A vagary of fortune, "who is fometimes pleased to be frolicfome, and "the epidemic madnefs of the times, have given "him reputation, and reputation (as Hobbes fays) "is power, and that has made him dangerous. "Therefore I look on it as my duty to King George, whofe faithful fubject I am; to my country, of which I have appeared a conftant "lover; to the laws, under whofe protection I "have fo long lived; and to the liberty of my "country, more dear to me than life, of which I "have now for forty years been a conftant af"fertor, &c. I look upon it as my duty, I fay, "to do-you fhall fee what-to pull the lion's "fkin from this little afs, which popular error has "thrown round him; and to fhow that this au"thor, who has been lately fo much in vogue, "has neither fenfe in his thoughts, nor English in "his expreffions." DENNIS' Rem. on Hom. Pref. p. 2. 91, &c. Befides thefe public fpirited reafons, Mr. D. had a private one; which, by his manner of expreffing it in p 92, appears to have been equally strong. He was even in bodily fear of his life from the machinations of the faid Mr. P. "The story "(fays he) is too long to be told, but who would "be acquainted with it, may hear it from Mr. "Curll, my bookfeller. However, what my rea"fon has fuggefted to me, that I have, with a "just confidence faid, in defiance of his two clan"deftine weapons, his flander and his poifon." Which laft words of his book plainly discover Mr. D's fufpicion was that of being poisoned, in like manner as Mr. Curl had been before him: of which fact, fee a full and true account of the horrid and barbarous revenge, by poifon, on the body of Edmund Curll, printed in 1716, the year antecedent to that wherein thefe Remarks of Mr. Dennis were publifhed. But what puts it beyond all queftion, is a paffage in a very warm treatise, in which Mr. D. was also concerned, price twopence, called a True character of Mr. Pope and his Writings, printed for S. Popping, 1716, in the tenth page whereof he is faid "to have infulted " people in those calamities and diseases which he Now (fhame to Fortune!) an ill run at play REMARKS. "himself gave them, by adminiftering poifon to "them :" and is called (p. 4.) a lurking way. "laying coward, and a stabber in the dark." Which (with many other things moft lively fet forth in that piece) must have rendered him a terror, not to Mr. Dennis only, but to all Chriftian people. This charitable warning only provoked our incorrigible poet to write the following epi gram: Should Dennis publish you had stabb'd your bro- Swearing and fupperlefs the hero fate, All that on Folly Frenzy could beget, VARIATIONS. Ver. 121. Round him much embryo, &c.] In the former editions, thus, He roll'd his eyes that witness'd huge difmay, REMARKS. Quoth Cibber to Pope, "Though in verfe you foreclofe, profe." "I'll have the aft word: for, by G-, I'll write Poor Colly, thy reasoning is none of the strongest, For know, the laft word is the word that lafts longeft. For the reft; Mr. John Dennis was the fon of a faddler in London, born in 1657. He paid court to Mr. Dryden; and having obtained fome correfpondence with Mr. Wycherley 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 reafons best known to themselves, conftantly kept private. For his chatacter, as a writer, it is given us as follows: "Mr. "Dennis is excellent at Pindaric writings, per"fectly regular in all his performances, and a per"fon of found learning. That he is master of a "great deal of penetration and judgment, his cri-a fupper. In truth a great abfurdity! Not that "ticifms (particularly on Prince Arthur) do suf"ficiently demonftrate," From the fame account it alfo appears that he writ plays "more to get reputation than money." Dennis of himself. See Giles Jacob's Lives of Dramatic Poets, p. 68, 69, compared with p. 286. Ver. 115. fupperlefs the hero fate.] It is amazing how the fenfe of this hath been mistaken by all the former commentators, who moft idly fuppose it to imply that the hero of the poem wanted fentence, that "Temperance is the life of Study." The language of poefy brings all into action; and to reprefent a critic encompaffed with books but without a fupper, is a picture which lively expreffeth how much the true critic prefers the diet of the mind to that of the body, one of which he always caftigates, and often totally neglects, for the greater improvement of the other. SCRIBL. we are ignorant that the hero of Homer's Odyffey is frequently in that circumstance, and therefore it can no way derogate from the grandeur of epic poem to reprefent fuch hero under a calamity, to which the greateft, not only of critics and poets, but of kings and warriors, have been fubject. But Ver. 109. Bays, form'd by Nature, &c.] It is much more refined, I will venture to fay, is the hoped the poet here hath done full juftice to his meaning of our author: was to give us obliquehero's character, which it were a great mistake toly a curious precept, or what Boffu calls a disguised imagine was wholly funk in ftupidity: he is allowed to have fupported it with a wonderful mixture of vivacity. This character is heightened according to his own desire, in a letter he wrote to our author." Pert and dull at least you might "have allowed me. What am I only to be dull, "and dull still, and again, and for ever?" He then folemnly appealed to his own confcience, that he could not think himself fo, nor believe that "our poet did; but that he spake worfe of him "than he could poffibly think; and concluded it "must be merely to fhow his wit, or for fome "profit or lucre to himself." Life of C. C. chap. vii. and letter to Mr. P. page 15, 40, 53. And to show his claim to what the poet was fo unwilling to allow him, of being pert as well as dull, he declares he will have the last word; which occafioned the following epigram: But fince the difcovery of the true hero of the poem, may we not add, that nothing was fo natural, after fo great a lofs of money at dice, or of reputation by his play, as that the poet should have no great ftomach to cat a fupper? Befides, how well has the poet confulted his heroic character, in adding that he fwore all the time? BENTL. Ver. 131. poor Fletcher's half-eat fcenes.] A great number of them taken out to patch up his plays. Next o'er his books his eyes began to roll, How here he fip'd, how there he plunder'd fnug, There hapless Shakspeare, yet of Tibbald fore, REMARKS. Here all his fuffering brotherhood retire, VARIATIONS. Ver. 145 in the first edit, it was A Gothic Vatican! of Greece and Rome It was printed in the furreptitious editions, W-ly, W-s, who were perfons eminent for good life; the one writ the Life of Chrift in verfe, the other fome valuable pieces in the lyric kind, on pious fubjects. The line is here reftored according to its orriginal. Ver. 13%. The frippery] " When I fitted up an "old play, it was as good a housewife will mend "old linen, when she has not better employment."" Life, p. 217, octavo. "George Withers was a great pretender to poe"tical zeal against the vices of the times, and abused the greatest perfonages in power, which "brought upon him frequent correction. The Ver. 133. hapless Shakspeare, &c.] It is not " Marthalfea and Newgate were no ftrangers to to be doubted but Bays was a fubfcriber to Tib-"him." WINSTANLY.-Quarles was as dull a bald's Shakspeare. He was frequently liberal in writer, but an honeft dall man. Blome's books this way; and, as he tells us, " fubicribed to Mr. are remarkable for their cuts. "Pope's Homer, out of pure generofity and civi“lity; but when Mr. Pope did fo to his Nonju"ror,he concluded it could be nothing but a joke."|" and Virgil done to the life, and with fuch excelLetter to Mr. P. p. 24. "lent fculptures: And (what added great grace "to his works) he printed thenr all on special good paper, and in a very good letter." This Tibbald, or Theobald, published an edition of Shakspeare, of which he was fo proud himself as to fay, in one of Mift's Journals, June 8, "That to expofe any errors in it was impractica "ble." And in another, April 27, "That what"ever care might for the future be taken by any "other editor, he would still give above five hun "dred emendations, that shall escape them all." Ver. 134. With'd he had blotted] It was a ridiculous praise which the players gave to Shakspeare, that he never blotted a line." Ben Jonfon honeftly wished he had blotted a thousand; and Shakspeare would certainly have wished the fame, if he had lived to fee thofe alterations in his works, which, not the actors only (and especially the daring hero of this poem) have made on the ftage, but the prefumptuous critics of our days in their editions. Ver. 135. The reft on outfide merit, &c.] This library is divided into three parts: The firit confits of thofe authors from whom he ftole, and whofe works he mangled; the fecond of fuch as fitted the shelves, or were gilded for fhow, or adorned with pictures: the third clafs our author calls folid learning, old bodies of divinity, old commentaries, old English printers, or old English tranfiations: all very voluminous, and fit to erect abars to Dulnefs. Ver. 141. Ogilby the great.] “ John Ogilby was one, who, from a late initiation into literature, "made fuch a progrefs as might well style him the prodigy of his time, fending into the world fo * many large volumes His tranflations of Homer Ve. VIII. 66 REMARKS. WINSTANLY, Lives of Poets. Ver. 142. There, ftamp'd with arms, Newcastle fhines complete.] "The Duchefs of Newcastle was one who bufied herself in the ravishing de"lights of poetry; leaving to pofterity, ín print, "three ample volumes of her ftudious endea"vours." WINSTANLY, ibid.-Langbaine reckons up eight folios of her Grace's ; which were ufually adorned with gilded covers, and had her coat of arms upon them. Ver. 146. Worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.] The poet has mentioned these three authors in par ticular, as they are parallel to our hero in his three capacities; 1. Settle was his brother laureat; only, indeed, upon half pay, for the aity instead of the court; but equally famous for unintelligible flights in his poems on public occafions, fuch as fhows, birth-days, &c. 2. Banks was his rival in tragedy (though more fuccessful) in one of his tragedies, the Earl of Effex, which is yet alive: Anna Bokeyn, the Queen of Scots, and Cyrus the Great, are dead and gone. These he drest in a fort of beggar's velvet, or a happy mixture of the thick fustian and thin profaic; exactly imitated in Perolla and Ifidora, Cæfar in Egypt, and the Heroic Daughter. 3. Broome was a ferving-man of Ben. Johnson, who once picked up a comedy from his betters, or from some cast scenes of his master, not entirely contemptible. Ver. 147. More folid learning.] Some have objected, that books of this fort, fuit not fo well the ́ ́ There Caxton flept, with Wynkyn at his fide, 149 De Lyra there a dreadful front extends, Then he Great Tamer of all human art! VARIATIONS. Ver. 152. Old bodies of philofophy appear. Ver. 162. A twisted, &c.] In the former edit. And laft, a little Ajax tips the ípire. Var. A little Ajax.] In 12mo, tranflated from Sophocles, by Tibbald. Ver. 167, 168. Not in the first editions. REMARKS. library of our Bays, which they imagined confifted of novels, plays, and obfcene books; but they are to confider, that he furnished his shelves only for ornament, and read these books no more than the dry bodies of divinity, which, no doubt, were pur. chafed by his father when he defigned him for the gown. See the note on ver. 260. Ver. 149. Caxton.] A printer in the time of Edw. IV. Rich. III. and Hen. VII.; Wynkyn de Word, his fucceffor, in that of Hen. VII and VIII. The former tranflated into profe Virgil's Ancis, as a hiftory; of which he speaks, in his proeme, in a very fingular manner, as of a book hardly known. Tibbald quotes a rare paffage from him in Mift's Journal of March 16. 1728, concerning a ftraunge and marvaylloufe beafte, called Sagittayre, which he would have Shakspeare to mean rather than Tencer, the archer celebrated by Homer. Ver. 153. Nich. de Lyra, or Harpsfield, a very voluminous commentator; whofe works, in five vaft folios, were printed in 1472. Ver. 170. To human heads, &c. Ah! ftill o'er Britain ftretch that peaceful wand, Var. Now fleeps one error-Old puns restore loft blunders, &c.] As where he (Tibbald) labour. ed to prove Shakspeare guilty of terrible anachronifms, or low conundrums, which time had covered; and converfant in fuch authors as Caxton and Wynkyn, rather than in Homer or Chaucer. Nay, fo far had he loft his reverence to this incomparable author, as to fay in print, he deferved to be whipt. An infolence which nothing sure can parallel! but that of Dennis, who can be proved to have declared before company, that Shakspeare was a rafcal. O tempora! O mores! Ver. 154. Philemon Holland, doctor in phyfic.] "He tranflated fo many books, that a man would Var. And crucify poor Shakípeare one a week.} For fome time, once a week or fortnight, he print "think he had done nothing elfe; infomuch that " he might be called tranflator-general of his age.jecture, on fome word or pointing of Shakipeare, ed in Mift's Journal, a fingle remark, or poor con. "The books alone of his turning into English, are "fufficient to make a country gentleman a com66 picte library." WINSTANLY. Ver. 167. E'er fince Sir Fopling's periwig.] The first visible cause of the paffion 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 either in his own name, or in letters to himfelf, as from others, without name. Upon these, fomebody made this epigram : "'Tis generous, Tibbald in thee and thy bro "thers, "To help us thus to read the works of others: "Never for this can just returns be shown; "For who will help us c'er to read thy own?". Or quite unravel all the reas'ning thread, Some dæmon ftole my pen (forgive th' offence) Yet fure had Heaven decreed to fave the ftate, VARIATIONS. Var. Notes to dull books, and prologues to dull plays.] As to Cook's Hefiod, where fometimes a pote, and fometimes even half a note, are carefully owned by him: And to Moore's comedy of the Rival Modes, and other authors of the fame rank: Thefe were people who writ about the year 1726. Ver. 195. Yet fure, had Heaven, &c.] In the former edit. Had Heaven decreed fuch works a longer date, REMARKS. purchase it. "Whatever contempt (fays he) philo"sophers may have for a fine periwig, my friend, "who was not to defpife the world, but live in it, "knew very well that fo material an article of "drefs upon the head of a man of sense, if it became him, could never fail of drawing to him a more partial regard and benevolence, than could "poffibly be hoped for in an ill-made one. This, "perhaps, may foften the grave cenfure, which fo "youthful a purchase might otherwise have laid upon him. In a word, he made his attack upon this periwig, as your young fellows generally do "upon a lady of pleature; firft by a few familiar "praises of her perfon, and then a civil inquiry into the price of it; and we finished our bargain "that night over a bottle." This remarkable periwig ufually made its entrance upon the stage in a fedan, brought in by two chairmen, with infinite approbation of the audience. Ver. 178, 179. Guard the fure barrier-Or quite unravel, &c.] For Wit or Reasoning are never greatly hurtful to Dulness, but when the first is founded in truth, and the other in usefulness. Ver. 181. As forc'd from wind-guns, &c.] The thought of these four verses is founded in a poem of our author's, of a very early date (namely written at fourteen years old, and foon after printed) to the author of a poem called Succellio. 200 Could Troy be fav'd by any fingle hand, VARIATIONS. ༢༠༠ Instead of ver. 200-246. in the former edits. Take up th' attorney's (once my better)`guide? Or rob the Roman geefe of all their glories, And fave the state by cackling to the Tories. Yes, to my country I my pen confign, Yes, from this moment, nighty Mist! am thine. And rival, Curtius! of thy fame and zeal, O'er head and ears plunge for the public weal. Adieu, my children! better thus expire Unstall'd, unfold; thus glorious mount in fire, Fair without fpot; than greas'd by grocers hands, Or fhip'd with Ward to Ape-and-monkey lands, Or wafting ginger, round the streets to run, And vifit ale-houfe, where ye first begun. With that he lifted thrice the sparkling brand, And thrice he dropp'd it, &c. REMARKS: Ver. 198.-gray goofe weapon.] Alluding to the old English weapon, the arrow of the long bow, which was fletched with the feathers of the gray-goofe. Ver. 199. My Fletcher.] A familiar manner of fpeaking, ufed by modern critics, of a favourite author. Bays might as juflly speak this of Fletcher, as a French wit did of Tully, feeing his works in a library; "Ah! mon cher Ciceron! je le connois bien; c'est le même que Marc Tulle" But he had a better title to call Fletcher his own, having made fo free with him... 66 "Defendi poffent, etiam hac defensa fuissent." Vito. ib. Ver. 202. This box my thunder, this right hand my God.] "Dextra mihi Deus, et telum quod miffile li bro.". -Virgil, of the Gods of Mementius. |