2

Now gentle touches wanton o'er his face,
He struts Adonis, and affects grimace:
Rolli1 the feather to his ear conveys,
Then his nice taste directs our Operas:
Bentley his mouth with classic flatt'ry opes,
And the puff'd orator bursts out in tropes.
But Welsted most the Poet's healing balm
Strives to extract from his soft, giving palm;
Unlucky Welsted! thy unfeeling master,
The more thou ticklest, gripes his fist the faster.
While thus each hand promotes the pleasing pain,
And quick sensations skip from vein to vein;
A youth unknown to Phoebus, in despair,
Puts his last refuge all in heav'n and pray'r.
What force have pious vows! The Queen of Love
His sister sends, her vot'ress, from above.
As, taught by Venus, Paris learnt the art
To touch Achilles' only tender part;

Secure, thro' her, the noble prize to carry,
He marches off his Grace's Secretary.

"Now turn to diff'rent sports," (the Goddess cries)
“And learn, my sons, the wond'rous pow'r of Noise.
To move, to raise, to ravish ev'ry heart,
With Shakespear's nature, or with Jonson's art,
Let others aim: 'tis yours to shake the soul
With Thunder rumbling from the mustard-bowl5,
With horns and trumpets now to madness swell,
Now sink in sorrows with a tolling bell";
Such happy arts attention can command,
When fancy flags, and sense is at a stand.
Improve we these. Three Cat-calls be the bribe

1 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.

2 Bentley his mouth &c.] Not spoken of the famous Dr Richard Bentley, but of one Tho. Bentley, a small critic, who aped his uncle in a little Horace. The great one who was intended to be dedicated to the Lord Halifax, but (on a change of the Ministry) was given to the Earl of Oxford; for which reason the little one was dedicated to his son the Lord Harley. P. [Part om.]

3 Welsted] Leonard Welsted, author of the Triumvirate, or a Letter in verse from Palæmon to Cælia at Bath, which was meant for a satire on Mr P. and some of his friends about the year 1718. He writ other things which we cannot remember. You have him again in Book 111. 169. P. [Part om.] [He was a hanger-on of the Whigs, and a copious writer.]

4 A youth unknown to Phabus, &c.] The satire of this Episode, being levelled at the base flatteries of authors to worthless wealth or greatness, concludes here with an excellent lesson to

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a crea

such men: That altho' their pens and praises
were as exquisite as they conceit of themselves,
yet (even in their own mercenary views)
ture unlettered, who serveth the passions, or
pimpeth to the pleasures of such vain, braggart,
puft Nobility, shall with those patrons be much
more inward, and of them much higher reward-
ed. SCRIBL.

5 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
"
"Thunder.'
my
P. [Dennis' tragedy was Ap
pius and Virginia; and 'his thunder' was used
in Macbeth. See note to Essay on Criticism,
v. 586.]

7-with a tolling bell;] A mechanical help to the Pathetic, not unuseful to the modern writers of Tragedy. P.

6 Three Cat-calls ] Certain musical instruments used by one sort of Critics to confound the Poets of the Theatre, P.

Of him, whose chatt'ring shames the monkey-tribe;
And his this Drum, whose hoarse heroic bass
Drowns the loud clarion of the braying Ass."

Now thousand tongues are heard in one loud din; The monkey-mimics rush discordant in;

'Twas chatt'ring, grinning, mouthing, jabb'ring all, And Noise and Norton, Brangling and Breval, Dennis and Dissonance, and captious Art,

And Snip-snap short, and Interruption smart,

And Demonstration thin, and Theses thick,

And Major, Minor, and Conclusion quick.

"Hold!" (cry'd the Queen), a Cat-call each shall win Equal your merits! equal is your din!

But that this well-disputed game may end,

Sound forth, my Brayers, and the welkin rend."

As, when the long-ear'd milky mothers wait

At some sick miser's triple bolted gate,
For their defrauded, absent foals they make
A moan so loud, that all the guild awake;
Sore sighs sir Gilbert2, starting at the bray,

From dreams of millions, and three groats to pay.
So swells each wind-pipe; Ass intones to Ass;
Harmonic twang! of leather, horn, and brass;

Such as from lab'ring lungs th' Enthusiast blows,

High Sound, attemper'd to the vocal nose;
Or such as bellow from the deep Divine;

There, Webster! peal'd thy voice, and Whitfield 3! thine.

But far o'er all, sonorous Blackmore's strain;

Walls, steeples, skies, bray back to him again.
In Tot'nham fields, the brethren, with amaze,
Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze;
Long Chanc'ry-lane retentive rolls the sound,
And courts to courts return it round and round;
Thames wastes it thence to Rufus' roaring hall 5,
And Hungerford re-echoes bawl for bawl.
All hail him victor in both gifts of song,
Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long.

This labour past, by Bridewell all descend1,
(As morning pray'r and flagellation end)"
To where Fleet-ditch with disemboguing streams
Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames,
The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud
With deeper sable blots the silver flood.

"Here strip, my children! here at once leap in,

"Here prove who best can dash thro' thick and thin,

"And who the most in love of dirt excel,

"Or dark dexterity 3 of groping well.

"Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around

The stream, be his the Weekly Journals bound;

"A pig of lead to him who dives the best;

"A peck of coals a-piece shall glad the rest.” In naked majesty Oldmixon stands,

And Milo-like surveys his arms and hands;

Then, sighing, thus, "And am I now three-score?

"Ah why, ye Gods, should two and two make four?"

He said, and climb'd a stranded lighter's height,

Shot to the black abyss, and plung'd downright.

The Senior's judgment all the crowd admire,
Who but to sink the deeper, rose the higher.

Next Smedley div'd; slow circles dimpled o'er
The quaking mud, that clos'd, and op'd no more,
All look, all sigh, and call on Smedley lost;
"Smedley" in vain resounds thro' all the coast.
Then essay'd7; scarce vanish'd out of sight,

He buoys up instant, and returns to light:

He bears no token of the sabler streams,

And mounts far off among the Swans of Thames.
True to the bottom see Concanen1 creep,

A cold, long-winded native of the deep;

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If perseverance gain the Diver's prize,

Not everlasting Blackmore this denies;

No noise, no stir, no motion canst thou make,

Th' unconscious stream sleeps o'er thee like a lake.

Next plung'd a feeble, but a desp'rate pack,

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With each a sickly brother at his back:
Sons of a Day"! just buoyant on the flood,
Then number'd with the puppies in the mud.
Ask ye their names? I could as soon disclose
The names of these blind puppies as of those.
Fast by, like Niobe3 (her children gone)
Sits Mother Osborne1, stupefy'd to stone!
And Monumental brass this record bears,
"These are,-ah no! these were, the Gazetteers!"
Not so bold Arnall 5; with a weight of skull,
Furious he dives, precipitately dull.
Whirlpools and storms his circling arm invest,
With all the might of gravitation blest.
No crab more active in the dirty dance,

and spirit, who was secretly dipt in some papers of this kind, on whom our Poet bestows a panegyric instead of a satire, as deserving to be better employed than in party quarrels, and personal invectives. P. Supposed to be Aaron Hill; but Pope denied it. Warton. [Hill, however, called Pope to account by a poetical rejoinder; though, as Bowles remarks, the compliment in the above lines infinitely exceeds the abuse. Cf. Intr. Memoir, p. xxxvi. Hill wrote no less than seventeen dramatic pieces, and was, besides, according to Dibdin, 'the projector of nut oil, of masts of ships from Scotch firs, of cultivating Georgia, and of potash!']

1 Concanen] MATTHEW CONCANEN, an Irishman, bred to the law. He was author of several dull and dead scurrilities in the British and London Journals, and in a paper called the Speculatist. In a pamphlet, called a Supplement to the Profund, he dealt very unfairly with our Poet, not only frequently imputing to him Mr Broome's verses (for which he might indeed seem in some degree accountable, having corrected what that gentleman did) but those of the duke of Buckingham and others: To this rare piece somebody humorously caused him to take for his motto, De profundis clamavi. He was since a hired scribbler in the Daily Courant, where he poured forth much Billingsgate against the lord Bolingbroke, and others; after which this man was surprisingly promoted to administer Justice and Law in Jamaica. P. [Part om.] This is the scribbler to whom Warburton wrote his famous Letter, published by Dr Akenside,

Warton.

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2 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.

3 Like Niobe] See the story in Ovid, Met. vII. where the miserable petrefaction of this old Lady is pathetically described. P.

4 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.

5 Arnall] WILLIAM ARNALL, bred an Attorney, was a perfect Genius in this sort of work. He began under twenty with furious Partypapers; 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 nitch in the Temple of Infamy: He writ for hire, and valued himself upon it; not indeed without cause, it appearing by the aforesaid REPORT, 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, thro' his fury or folly, he exceeded all the bounds of his commission, and obliged his honourable Patron to disavow his scurrilities. P. [Part om.]

Downward to climb, and backward to advance.
He brings up half the bottom on his head,
And loudly claims the Journals and the Lead.

The plunging Prelate, and his pond'rous Grace,
With holy envy gave one Layman place.
When lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood;
Slow rose a form, in majesty of Mud;
Shaking the horrors of his sable brows,
And each ferocious feature grim with ooze.

Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares;

Then thus the wonders of the deep declares.

First he relates, how sinking to the chin,

Smit with his mien the Mud-nymphs suck'd him in:

How young Lutetia 2, softer than the down,

Nigrina black, and Merdamante brown,

Vied for his love in jetty bow'rs below,

As Hylas fair was ravished long ago.

Then sung, how shown him by the Nut-brown maids

A branch of Styx here rises from the Shades,

That tinctur'd as it runs with Lethe's streams,

And wafting Vapours from the Land of dreams,
(As under seas Alpheus' secret sluice
Bears Pisa's off'rings to his Arethuse)

Pours into Thames: and hence the mingled wave
Intoxicates the pert, and lulls the grave:

Here brisker vapours o'er the TEMPLE creep,

There, all from Paul's to Aldgate drink and sleep.

Thence to the banks where rev'rend Bards repose,

They led him soft; each rev'rend Bard arose;

And Milbourn 5 chief, deputed by the rest,

Gave him the cassock, surcingle, and vest.

"Receive" (he said) "these robes which once were mine, "Dulness is sacred in a sound divine."

He ceas'd, and spread the robe; the crowd confess
The rev'rend Flamen in his lengthen'd dress.
Around him wide a sable Army stand,