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 flight regard in nameless lays,
Whom Bufo treats, and Lady Woud-be pays?
Pride of his own, and wonder of this age,
Who firft created, and yet rules, the stage,
Bold to defign, all-powerful to express,
Shakespeare each paffion drew in every dress:
Great above rule, and imitating none;
Rich without borrowing, Nature was his own.
Yet is his fenfe debas'd by grofs allay :
As gold in mines lies mix'd with dirt and clay.
Now, eagle-wing'd, his heavenward flight he takes ;
The big ftage thunders, and the foul awakes:
Now, low on earth, a kindred reptile creeps;
Sad Hamlet quibbles, and the hearer fleeps.
Such was the Poet: next the Scholiaft view;
Faint though the colouring, yet the features true.
Condemn'd to dig and dung a barren foil,
Where hardly tares will grow with care and toil,
He, with low induftry, goes gleaning on
From good, from bad, from mean, neglecting none:
His brother book-worm fo, in shelf or stall,
Will feed alike on Woolfton and on Paul.
By living clients hopeless now of bread,
He pettyfogs a fcrap from authors dead:
See him on Shakespeare pore, intent to steal
Poor farce, by fragments, for a third-day meal.
Such that grave bird in northern feas is found,
Whofe name a Dutchman only knows to found.
Where-e'er the king of fish moves on before,
This humble friend attends from fhore to shore:
With eye ftill 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.
Bleft genius! who bettows his oil and pains
On each dull paffage, each dull book contains;
The toil more grateful, as the task more low:
So carrion is the quarry of a crow.
Where his fam'd author's page is flat and poor,
There, moft exact the reading to restore;
By dint of plodding, and by sweat of face,
A bull to change, a blunder to replace:
Whate'er is refuse critically gleaning,
And mending nonfenfe into doubtful meaning.
V.78.This remarkable bird is called the Strundt-Jager. Here you fee how he purchases his food: and the fame author, from whom this account is taken, tells us farther how he comes by his drink. You may fee him, adds the Dutchman, frequently pursuing a fort of feamew, called Kulge-Gehef, whom he torments inceffantly to make him void an excrement; which being liquid, ferves him, I imagine, for drink. See a Collection of Voyages to the North.
For this, dread Dennis (* and who can forbear,
Dunce or not Dunce, relating it, to stare?)
His head though jealous, and his years fourfcore,
Ev'n Dennis praises, who ne'er prais'd before!
For this, the Scholiaft claims his fhare of fame,
And, modeft, prints his own with Shakespeare's name:
How justly, Pope, in this fhort story view;
Which may be dull, and therefore should be true.
A Prelate, fam'd for clearing each dark text, Who fenfe with found, and truth with rhetoric mixt, Once, as his moving theme to rapture warm'd, Infpir'd himself, his happy hearers charm'd. The fermon o'er, the croud remain'd behind, And freely, man or woman, spoke their mind: All faid they lik'd the lecture from their foul, And each, remembering fomething, prais'd the whole. At laft an honeft fexton join'd the throng
(For as the theme was large, their talk was long);
Neighbours, he cry'd, my confcience bids me tell,
Though 'twas the Doctor preach'd,—I toll'd the bell.
In this the Critic's folly moft is shown:
Is there a Genius all-unlike his own,
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;
Myrmidonum, Dolopumve," &c.
See the Dedication of his Remarks on the Dunciad to Mr. Lewis Theobald.
That Writer he felects, with aukward aim
His fenfe, at once, to mimic and to maim.
So Florio is a fop, with half a nofe:
So fat Weft Indian Planters drefs 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 focial, as his judgement clear;
When frolic, prudent; fmiling when severe;
Secure, each temper, and each taste to hit,
His was the curious happiness of wit.
Skill'd in that nobleft Science, How to live;
Which Learning may direct, but Heaven must give:
Grave with Agrippa, with Mecenas gay;
Among the Fair, but just as wife as they :
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,
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 fcourge o'er each fam'd author's head;
Nor are their graves a refuge for the dead.
To Milton lending fenfe, to Horace wit,
He makes them write what never Poet writ:
The Roman Mufe arraigns his mangling pen;
And Paradife, by him, is loft again.
Such was his doom impos'd by heaven's decree,
With ears that hear not, eyes that fhall not fee,
The low to fwell, to level the fublime,
To blaft all beauty, and beprose all rhyme.
Great eldeft-born of Dulnefs, blind and bold!
Tyrant! more cruel than Procruftes old;
Who, to his iron-bed, by torture, fits,
Their nobler part, the fouls of fuffering Wits.
Such is the Man, who heaps his head with bays, And calls on human kind to found his praife,
For points tranfplac'd with curious want of skill, 155 For flatten'd founds, and fenfe amended ill.
So wife Caligula, in days of yore,
His helmet fill'd with pebbles on the fhore,
Swore he had rifled ocean's richest spoils,
And claim'd a trophy for his martial toils.
Yet be his merits, with his faults, confeft:
Fair-dealing, as the plaineft, is the best.
V. 144. This fagacious Scholiaft is pleased to create an imaginary editor of Milton; who, he fays, by his blunders, interpolations, and vile alterations, loft Paradife a fecond time. This is a poftulatum which furely none of his readers can have the heart to deny him; becaufe otherwife he would have wanted a fair opportunity of calling Milton himself, in the perfon of this phantom, fool, ignorant, ideot, and the like critical compellations, which he plentifully bestows on him. But, though he had no talte in poetry, he was otherwife a man of very confiderable abilities, and of great erudition.
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