Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

The goddess then o'er his ancinted head,
With mystic words, the sacred opium shed.
And, lo! her bird (a monster of a fowl,

Something betwixt a heideggre and owl,)
Perch'd on his crown.

290

"All hail! and hail again.

My son the promis'd land expects thy reign.
Know Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise;
He sleeps among the dull of ancient day's;

REMARKS.

thor 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

[ocr errors]

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 Homer, p. 9, 10.

v. 286. 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.

295

Safe where no critics damn, no duns molest,
Where wretched Withers, Ward, and Gildon rest,
And high-born Howard, more majestic fire,
With fool of quality complete the quire.
Thou, Cibber! thou his laurel shalt support;
Folly, my son, has still a friend at court.
Lift up your gates, ye princes, see him come !
Sound, sound, ye viols, be the cat-call dumb!
Bring, bring the madding bay, the drunken vine,
The creeping, dirty, courtly ivy join.

And thou! his aid-de-camp, lead on my sons,
Light arm'd with points, antitheses, and puns.

REMARKS.

300

305

v. 296. Gildon.] Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels, of the last age, bred at St. Homer's with the Jesuits; but renouncing popery, he published Blount's books against the divinity of Christ, the oracles of reason, &c. He signalized himself as a critic, having written some very bad plays; abused Mr. P. very scandalously in an anonymous pamphlet of the Life of Mr. Wycherley, printed by Curl; in another called The New Rehearsal, printed in 1714; in a third, entitled The Complete Art of English Poetry, in two volumes; and others.

v. 297. 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.

[ocr errors]

Let bawdry, Billingsgate, my daughters dear,
Support his front, and oaths bring up the rear:
And under his, and under Archer's wing,

Gaming and Grub-street skulk behind the king. 310
"O! when shall rise a monarch all our own,
And I, a nursing-mother, rock the throne;
'Twixt prince and people close the curtain draw,
Shade him from light, and cover him from law;
Fatten the courtier, starve the learned band,
And suckle armies, and dry-nurse the land :
'Till senates nod to lullabies divine,

And all be sleep as at an ode of thine!"

315

320

She ceas'd. Then swells the chapel-royal throat; God save king Cibber! mounts in ev'ry note. Familiar White's, God save king Colley! cries; . God save king Colley! Drury-lane replies:

To Needham's quick the voice triumphal rode,
But pious Needham dropt the name of God;

REMARKS.

v. 324. But pious Needham.] A matron of great fame, and very religious in her way, whose constant prayer it was that she might "get enough by her profession to leave it "off in time, and make her peace with God." But her fate was not so happy; for being convicted, and set in the pillory, she was, to the lasting shame of all her great friends and votaries, so ill used by the populace, that it put an end to her days.

Back to the devil the last echoes roll,
And Coll! each butcher roars at Hockley-hole.
So when Jove's block descended from on high
(As sings thy great forefather Ogilby),

325

329

Loud thunder to its bottom shook the the bog,
And the hoarse nation croak'd, God save king Log!

« ÎnapoiContinuă »