THE king being proclaimed, the solemnity is graced with public games, and sports of various kinds; not instituted by the hero, as by Eneas in Virgil, but for greater honour by the goddess in person (in like manner as the games Pythia, Isthmia, &c., were anciently said to be ordained by the gods, and as Thetis herself appearing, according to Homer, Odyss. XXIV. proposed the prizes in honour of her son Achilles). Hither flock the poets and critics, attended, as is but just, with their patrons and booksellers. The goddess is first pleased, for her disport, to propose games to the booksellers, and setteth up the phantom of a poet, which they contend to overtake. The races described, with their divers accidents. Next, the game for a poetess. Then follow the exercises for the poets, of tickling, vociferating, diving: The first holds forth the arts and practices of dedicators, the second of disputants and fustian poets, the third of profound, dark, and dirty party-writers. Lastly, for the critics, the goddess proposes (with great propriety) an exercise, not of their parts, but their patience, in hearing the works of two voluminous authors, one in verse, and the other in prose, deliberately read without sleeping. The various effects of which, with the several degrees and manners of their operation, are here set forth; till the whole number, not of critics only, but of spectators, actors, and all present, fall asleep; which naturally and necessarily ends the games.

BOOK II.

HIGH on a gorgeous seat, that far out-shone
Henley's gilt tub,3 or Fleckno's Irish throne,*

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.

P.

1 The Devil Tavern, in Fleet Street, where those oles are usually rehearsed before they are performed at Court, upon which a wit of the Court made this epigram.

"When laureates make odes, do you ask of what sort?
Do you ask if they good are or evil?

You may judge. From the Devil they go to the Court,
And go from the Court to the Devil.'

P.

2 See Ogilby's "Esop' Fables," where, in the story of the frogs and their king, this excellent hemistic is to be found.--Pope.

3 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 this extraordinary inscription, "The Primitive Eucharist." See the history of this person, Book III. P. 4 Richard Fleckno was an Irish priest, but had laid aside (as himself

Or that where on her Curls the public pours,'
All-bounteous, fragrant grains and golden showers,
Great Cibber sate: The proud Parnassian sneer,
The conscious simper, and the jealous leer,
Mix in his look: all eyes direct their rays
On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze:
His peers shine round him with reflected grace:
New edge their dulness, and new bronze their face.
So from the sun's broad beam in shallow urns
Heav'ns twinkling sparks draw light, and point their
horns.

Not with more glee, by hands pontific crowned, With scarlet hats wide-waving circled round, Rome in her capitol saw Querno sit,"

Throned on seven hills, the antichrist of wit.

And now the queen, to glad her sons, proclaims, By herald hawkers, high heroic games. They summon all her race: an endless band Pours forth, and leaves unpeopled half the land A motley mixture! in long wigs, in bags, In silks, in crapes, in Garters, and in rags, From drawing-rooms, from colleges, from garrets, On horse, on foot, in hacks, and gilded chariots:

expressed it (the mechanic part of priesthood. He printed some plays, poems, letters, and travels. I doubt not our author took occasion to mention him in respect to the poem of Mr. Dryden, to which this bears some resemblance though of a character more different from it than that of the "Eneid" from the " Iliad," or the "Lutrin" of Boileau from the "Défait de Bouts rimées " of Sarazin. P.

1 Edmund Curl stood in the pillory at Charing Cross, in March 1727-8. "This (saith Edmund Curl) 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." And of the history of his being tost in a blanket, he saith, "Here, Scriblerus! thou leeseth in what thou assertest concerning the blanket; it was not a blanket, but a rug." 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.— Scriblerus.

2 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 honor 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. He was ever after a constant frequenter of the Pope's table, drank abundantly, and poured forth verses without number.-Paulus Jovius. Some idea of his poetry is given by Fam. Strada in his Prolusions.-Warburton.

All who true dunces in her cause appeared,
And all who knew those dunces to reward.

Amid that area wide they took their stand,
Where the tall May-pole once o'er-looked the Strand.
But now (so Anne and piety ordain)

A church collects the saints of Drury Lane.
With authors, stationers obeyed the call,
(The field of glory is a field for all).

Glory and gain, th' industrious tribe provoke;
And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.
A poet's form she placed before their eyes,
And bade the nimblest racer seize the prize;
No meagre, muse-rid mope, adust and thin,
In a dun night-gown of his own loose skin;
But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise,
Twelve starv'ling bards of these degenerate days.
All as a partridge plump, full-fed, and fair,
She formed this image of well-bodied air;
With pert flat eyes she windowed well its head:
A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead;

And empty words he gave, and sounding strain,
But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!
Never was dashed out, at one lucky hit,

A fool, so just a copy of a wit;

So like, that critics said, and courtiers swore,
A wit it was, and called the phantom More.'
All gaze with ardour: some a poet's name,
Others a sword-knot and laced suit inflame.
But lofty Lintot' in the circle rose:
"This prize is mine; who tempt it are my foes;
With me began this genius, and shall end."
He spoke: and who with Lintot shall contend?

Fear held them mute. Alone, untaught to fear, Stood dauntless Curl,3 "Behold that rival here!

1 Curl, in his "Key to the Dunciad," affirmed this to be James Moore Smythe. He wrote "The Rival Modes," an unsuccessful play.

2 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. Bernard 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.-Warburton. Pope.

3 We come now to a character of much respect, that of Mr. Edmund Curl. 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

The race by vigour, not by vaunts is won;
So take the hindmost, hell," (he said), and run.
Swift as a bard the bailiff leaves behind,

He left huge Lintot and outstripped the wind.
As when a dab-chick waddles through the copse
On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops:
So lab'ring on, with shoulders, hands, and head,
Wide as a wind-mill all his figure spread,
With arms expanded Bernard rows his state,
And left-legged Jacob' seems to emulate.
Full in the middle way there stood a lake,
Which Curl's Corinna chanced that morn to make:
(Such was her wont, at early dawn to drop
Her evening cates before his neighbour's shop.)
Here fortuned Curl to slide; loud shout the band,
And "Bernard! Bernard!" rings through all the
Strand.

Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewrayed,
Fallen in the plash his wickedness had laid:
Then first (if poets aught of truth declare)
The catiff vaticide conceived a prayer.

"Hear, Jove! whose name my bards and I adore, As much at least as any god's, or more: And him and his if more devotion warms, Down with the Bible, up with the Pope's arms. A place there is, betwixt earth, air, and seas,* Where, from Ambrosia, Jove retires for ease. There in his seat two spacious vents appear,

trade many lengths beyond what it over 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.-Pope. An ironical allusion to his standing in the pillory. Pope had a quarrel with Curl. See Life.

1 Jacob, Tonson, described by Dryden with "two left legs."

2 This name, it seems, was taken by one Mrs. Thomas, 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 gentlemen to Curl, who printed them in 12mo, 1727. 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.-Warburton.

Pope.

3 The Bible, Curl's sign; the Cross-keys, the Pope's emblem, . Lintot's.

4 See Lucian's "Icaro-Menipus," where this fiction is more extended,

On this he sits, to that he leans his ear,
And hears the various vows of fond mankind;
Some beg an eastern, some a western wind:
All vain petitions, mounting to the sky,
With reams abundant this abode supply;
Amused he reads, and then returns the bills
Signed with that Ichor which from gods distils.
In office here fair Cloacina stands,

And ministers to Jove with purest hands.

Forth from the heap she picked her vot'ry's prayer,
And placed it next him, a distinction rare!
Oft had the goddess heard her servant's call,
From her black grottos near the temple-wall,
List'ning delighted to the jest unclean
Of link-boys vile, and watermen obscene;
Where as he fished her nether realms for wit,
She oft had favoured him, and favours yet.
Renewed by ordure's sympathetic force,
As oiled with magic juices' for the course,
Vigorous he rises; from the effluvia strong
Imbibes new life, and scours and stinks along;
Re-passes Lintot, vindicates the race,

Nor heeds the brown dishonours of his face.

And now the victor stretched his eager hand, Where the tall Nothing stood, or seemed to stand; A shapeless shade, it melted from his sight, Like forms in clouds, or visions of the night. To seize his papers, Curl, was next thy care; His papers light fly diverse, tossed in air; Songs, sonnets, epigrams the winds uplift, And whisk 'em back to Evans, Young, and Swift. Th' embroidered suit at least he deemed his prey; That suit an unpaid tailor3 snatched away.

2

1 Alluding to the opinion that there are ointments used by witches to enable them to fly in the air, &c.-Warburton.

2 Some of those persons whose writings, epigrams, or jests he had owned. See note on ver. 50. Dr. Evans, of St. John's College, Oxford, author of the "Apparition," which was a satire on Tyndal.Warton.

3 This line has been loudly complained of in "Mist," June 8, dedic. to Sawney, and others, as a most inhuman satire on the poverty of poets; but it is thought our author would be acquitted by a jury of tailors. To me this instance seems unluckily chosen; if it be satire on anybody, it must be on a bad paymaster, since the person to whom they have here applied it was a man of fortune. Not but poets may well be jealous of so great a prerogative as non-pay. ment; which Mr. Dennis so far asserts, as boldly to pronounce, that