Thus, nicely trifling, accurately dull,
How one may toil, and toil-to be a fool !

But is there then no honour due to age ?
Ne reverence to great Shakespeare's noble page ?
And he, who half a life has read him o'er,
His mangled points and commas to restore,
Meets he fuch Night regard in nameless lays, 45
Whom Bufo treats, and Lady Woud-be pays ?

Pride of his own, and wonder of this age, Who first created, and yet rules, the stage, Bold to design, all-powerful to express, Shakespeare each passion drew in every dress: Great above rule, and imitating none; Rich without borrowing, Nature was his own. Yet is his sense debas'd by gross allay: As gold in mines lies mix'd with dirt and clay. Now, eagle-wing'd, his heavenward flight he takes; The big stage thunders, and the foul awakes : 56 Now, low on earth, a kindred reptile creeps ; Sad Hamlet quibbles, and the hearer sleeps.

Such was the Poet: next the Scholiast view;
Faint though the colouring, yet the features true. 60

Condemn'd to dig and dung a barren soil,
Where hardly tares will grow with care and toil,
He, with low industry, goes gleaning on
From good, from bad, from mean, neglecting none :
His brother book-worm fo, in shelf or stall,

65
Will feed alike on Woolston and on Paul.
By living clients hopeless now of bread,
He pettyfogs a scrap from authors dead :
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Sec

75

See him on Shakespeare pore, intent to steal
Poor farce, by fragments, for a third-day meal.
Such that grave bird in northern seas is found,
Whose name a Dutchman only knows to found.
Where-e'er the king of fish moves on before,
This humble friend attends from shore to shore :
With eye still earnest, and with bill inclin'd,
He picks up what his patron drops behind;
With those choice cates his palate to regale,
And is the careful Tibbald of a whale.

Blest genius! who bestows his oil and pains
On each dull paffage, each dull book contains;
The toil more grateful, as the talk more low:
So carrion is the quarry of a crow.
Where his fam'd author's page is flat and poor,
There, most exact the reading to restore,
By dint of plodding, and hy sweat of face,
A bull to change, a blunder to replace :
Whate'er is refuse critically gleaning,
And mending nonsense into doubtful meaning.

85

For

V.78. This remarkable bird is called the Strundt-Jager. Here you see how he purchases his food: and the same author, from whom this account is taken, tells us farther how he comes by his drink. You may see him, adds the Dutchman, frequently pursuing a sort of seamew, called Kulge-Gehef, whom he torments incessantly to make him void an excrement; which being liquid, serves him, I imagine, for drink. See a Cola lection of Voyages to the North.

100

For this, dread Dennis (* and who can forbear,
Dunce or not Dunce, relating it, to stare?) go
His head though jealous, and his year's fourscore,
Ev'n Dennis praises, who ne'er prais'd before !
For this, the Scholiaft claims his share of fame,
And, modeft, prints his own with Shakespeare's name:
How justly, Pope, in this Ahort story view;

95 Which may be dull, and therefore Mould be true.

A Prelate, fam'd for clearing each dark text, Who sense with sound, and truth with rhetoric mixt, Once, as his moving theme to rapture warm’d, Inspir’d himself, his happy hearers charm’d. The sermon o'er, the croud remain'd behind, And freely, man or woman, spoke their mind : All faid they lik'd the lecture from their soul, And each, remembering something, prais'd the whole, At last an honest fexton join'd the throng 105 (For as the theme was large, their talk was long); Neighbours, he cry'd, my conscience bids me tell, Though 'twas the Doctor preach'd, I toll’d the bell.

In this the Critic's folly most is shown : Is there a Genius all-unlike his own,

119 With learning elegant, with wit well bred, And, as in books, in men and manners read; Himself with poring erudition blind, Unknowing, as unknown, of human kind;

That *.!! Quis talia fando Myrmidonum, Dolopumve," &c.- . VIRG. V.92. See the Dedication of his Remarks on the Dunciad to Mr. Lewis Theobaid,

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V.89.

a

That Writer he selects, with aukward aim 115
His sense, at once, to mimic and to maim.
So Florio is a fop, with half a nose:
So fat West Indian Planters dress at Beaux.
Thus, gay Petronius was a Dutchman's choice, 119
And Horace, ftrange to say, tun'd Bentley's voice.

Horace, whom all the Graces taught to please,
Mix'd mirth with morals, eloquence with ease;
His genius social, as his judgement clear;
When frolic, prudent; smiling when severe;
Secure, each temper, and each taste to hit, 325
His was the curious happiness of wit.
Skill'd in that noblest Science, How to live;
Which Learning may direct, but Heaven must give:
Grave with Agrippa, with Mæcenas gay;
Among the Fair, but just as wise as they: 130
First in the friendships of the Great enroll'd,
The St. Johns, Boyles, and Lytteltons, of old.

While Bentley, long to wrangling schools confin'd, And, but by books, acquainted with mankind, Dares, in the fulness of the pedant's pride,

135 Rhyme, though no genius ; though no judge, decide. Yet he, prime pattern of the captious art, Out-tibbalding poor Tibbald, tops his part: Holds high the scourge o'er each fam'd author's head; Nor are their graves a refuge for the dead. 140 To Milton lending sense, to Horace wit, He makes them write what never Poet writ:

The

.

The Roman Muse arraigns his mangling pen ;
And Paradise, by him, is lost again.
Such was his doom impos'd by heaven's decree, 145
With ears that hear not, eyes that shall not see,
The low to swell, to level the sublime,
To blast all beauty, and beprose all rhyme.
Great eldest-born of Dulness, blind and bold !
Tyrant! more cruel than Procrustes old;

150
Who, to his iron-bed, by torture, fits,
Their nobler part, the fouls of suffering Wits.

Such is the Man, who heaps his head with bays,
And calls on human kind to found his praise,
For points transplac'd with curious want of skill, 155
For Aatten’d sounds, and sense amended: ill.
So wife Caligula, in days of yore,
His helmet fillid with pebbles on the shore,
Swore he had rifled ocean's richest (poils,
And claim'd a trophy for his martial toils. 16

Yet be his merits, with his faults, confest:
Fair-dealing, as the plainest, is the best.

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Long

V. 144. This fagacious Scholiaft is pleased to create an imaginary editor of Milton; who, he lays, by his blunders, interpolations, and vile alterations, loft Pa. radife a second time. This is a poftulatum which surely none of his readers can have the heart to deny him; because otherwise he would have wanted a fair opportunity of calling Milton himself, in the perton of this phantom, fool, ignorant, ideot, and the like critical compellations, which he plentifully bestows on him. But, though he had no taite in poetry, he was otherwise a fan of very considerable abilities, and of great erudition,