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Swift as a bard the bailiff leaves behind,

He left huge Lintot, and out-stripp'd the wind.
As when a dab-chick waddles thro' the copse
On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops;
So lab'ring on, with shoulders, hands, and head, 65
Wide as a wind-mill all his figure spread,

With arms expanded Bernard rows his state,
And left-legg'd Jacob seems to emulate.

REMARKS.

single time that ever he spoke to C. was on that affair, and to that happy incident he owed all the favours since received from him. So true is the saying of Dr. Sydenham," that any one shall be, at some time or other, the better or the worse, for having but seen or spoken to a good or bad man.” P.

Ver. 60. So take the hindmost,] In that eccentric publication called the Life of John Buncle, is an account of Curl, with whom the author professes to have been well acquainted; describing him as "in person very tall and thin, an ungainly, awkward, white-faced man: his eyes were a light-grey, large, projecting, goggle, and purblind. He was splay-footed and bakerkneed."

IMITATIONS.

Ver. 61. Swift as a bard] Something like this in Homer, II. x. ver. 220. of Diomed. Two different manners of the same author in his similes are also imitated in the two following; the first, of the bailiff, is short, unadorned, and (as the critics well know) from familiar life; the second, of the water-fowl, more extended, picturesque, and from rural life. The 59th verse is likewise a literal translation of one in Homer.

P.

Ver. 64, 65. On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops; So lab'ring on with shoulders, hands, and head,]

"So eagerly the Fiend

O'er bog, o'er steep, thro' strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies."

Milton, Book ii. P.

Full in the middle way there stood a lake,
Which Curl's Corinna chanc'd that morn to make:
(Such was her wont, at early dawn to drop
Her ev'ning cates before his neighbour's shop ;)
Here fortun'd Curl to slide; loud shout the band,
And Bernard! Bernard! rings thro' all the Strand.

REMARKS.

Ver. 67. With arms expanded, &c.] That is, Jacob Tonson; to whom Dryden, on being refused the price asked for his Virgil, sent the following verses:

"With leering look, bull-fac'd, and freckled fair,
With two left legs, with Judas-colour'd hair,
And frowsy pores, that taint the ambient air :"

adding to the messenger, "Tell the dog that he who wrote them, can write more." The money was paid accordingly.

The couplet before us stood thus in a former edition:

With legs expanded Bernard urg'd the race,
And seem'd to emulate great Jacob's puce.

Wakefield.

Ver. 70. Curl's Corinna] 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. He discovered her to be the publisher, in his Key, p. 11. 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.

IMITATIONS.

Ver. 67, 68. With arms expanded, Bernard rows his state,
And left-legg'd Jacob seems to emulate.]

Milton, of the motion of the Swan,

"6 rows

His state with oary feet."

And Dryden, of another's,--With two left legs—

P.

W.

Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewray'd, 75 Fall'n in the plash his wickedness had laid:

REMARKS.

Ver. 75. Obscene with filth, &c.] Though this incident may seem too low and base for the dignity of an Epic poem, the learned very well know it to be but a copy of Homer and Virgil: the very words and fimus are used by them, though our poet, in compliance to modern nicety, has remarkably enriched and coloured his language, as well as raised the versification, in this Episode, and in the following one of Eliza.

P.

Ver. 75. Obscene] All this, and the following, is as nauseous as it is stupid. Warburton defends it by a note still more nauseous, if possible. Bowles.

The note referred to by Mr. Bowles is not Warburton's, but Pope's, who defends the passage by comparing it with the grosser language of Dryden; to which he adds, "but our author is more grave; and, (as a fine writer says of Virgil in his Georgics) tosses about his dung with an air of majesty. If we consider that the exercises of his authors could with justice be no higher than tickling, chattering, braying, or diving, it was no easy matter to invent such games as were proportioned to the meaner degree of booksellers. In Homer and Virgil, Ajax and Nisus, the persons drawn in this plight, are Heroes; whereas here they are such with whom it had been great impropriety to have joined any but vile ideas; besides the natural connection there is between libellers and common nuisances. Nevertheless, I have heard our author own, that this part of his poem was (as it frequently happens) what cost him most trouble, and pleased him least; but that he hoped it was excusable, since levelled at such as understood no delicate satire. Thus the

IMITATIONS.

Ver. 73. Here fortun'd Curl to slide;]

"Labitur infelix, cæsis ut forte juvencis

Fusus humum viridesque super madefecerat herbas

Concidit, immundoque fimo, sacroque cruore."

Virgil, Æneid. v. of Nisus. P.

Ver. 74. And Bernard! Bernard!]

"Ut littus, Hyla, Hyla, omne sonaret."

Virgil, Ecl. vi. P.

Then first, if poets aught of truth declare,
The caitiff Vaticide conceiv'd a pray❜r.

85

Hear, Jove! whose name my bards and I adore, As much at least as any God's, or more; 80 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; 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; Amus'd he reads, and then returns the bills Sign'd with that ichor which from Gods distils.

REMARKS.

90

the politest men are obliged sometimes to swear, when they happen to have to do with porters and oyster-wenches."

Ver. 82. Down with the Bible, up with the Pope's Arms.] The Bible, Curl's sign; the Cross-keys, Lintot's.

P.

Ver. 83. See Lucian's Icaro-Menippus; where this fiction is more extended.

Ver. 92. Alludes to Homer, Iliad v.

· ῥέε δ' ἄμβροτον αἷμα Θέοιο,

Ἰχώρ, οἷος πέρ τε ξέει μακάρεσσι Θεοῖσιν.

"A stream of nect'rous humour issuing flow'd,
Sanguine, such as celestial sp'rits may bleed."

P.

IMITATIONS.

Milton. P.

Ver. 83. A place there is, betwixt earth, air, and seas,]
"Orbe locus medio est, inter terrasque, fretumque,
Coelestesque plagas".

VOL. IV.

Ovid. Met. xii. P.

M

In office here fair Cloacina stands,

And ministers to Jove with purest hands.

100

Forth from the heaps he pick'd her vot'ry's pray'r,
And plac'd 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 fish'd her nether realms for wit,
She oft had favour'd him, and favours yet.
Renew'd by ordure's sympathetic force,
As oil'd by magic juices for the course,
Vig'rous he rises; from th' effluvia strong
Imbibes new life, and scours and stinks along;
Re-passes Lintot, vindicates the race,
Nor heeds the brown dishonours of his face.

105

And now the victor stretch'd his eager hand Where the tall Nothing stood, or seem'd 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, toss'd in air;

"

REMARKS.

Ver. 93. Cloacina] The Roman Goddess of the common

sewers.

P.

Ver. 101. Where, as he fish'd, &c.] See the preface to Swift's and Pope's Miscellanies.

P.

Ver. 104. As oil'd with magic juices] Alluding to the opinion that there are ointments used by witches to enable them to fly in the air, &c.

IMITATIONS.

Ver. 108. Nor heeds the brown dishonours of his face.]

"faciem ostentabat, et udo

P.

Turpia membra fimo”

Virg. Æneid. v.

P.

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