Till Thames see Eton's sons for ever play, REMARKS. 335 bestow a great civility upon the King and Queen. She hopes by such an unprecedented order as this, that the King will see as few as he wishes at his court (particularly such as dare think or speak the truth). I dare not do otherwise, and ought not; nor could I have imagined that it would not have been the highest compliment that I could possibly pay the King, to endeavour to support truth and innocence in his house; particularly when the King and Queen had both told me that they had not read Mr. Gay's play. I have certainly done right then to stand to my own word, rather than his Grace of Grafton's, who hath neither made use of truth, judgment, or honour, through this whole affair, either for himself or his friends. C. QUEENSBERRY." What follows was written by her Grace at the bottom of the copies of the above answer, which she gave to her particular friends: "This is the answer I gave in writing to the Vice Chamberlain to read to the King, in answer to the message he brought me from the King to refrain coming to court." Warton. Ver. 330. Gay dies unpension'd, with a hundred friends;] An allusion seems intended to this poet's fable, The Hare and many Friends; the introduction to which thus concludes: ""Tis thus in friendship, who depend On many, rarely find a friend." Wakefield. Ver. 331. Hibernian politics, O Swift! thy fate;] See Book i. ver. 26. P. Ver. 332. And Pope's, ten years to comment and translate.] Johnson says in his Life of Broome, upon the subject of the disagreement and alienation between him and Pope, "I have been told that they were afterwards reconciled." The verse before us may be fairly considered as a strong presumption of this reconciliation, from the reading of former editions: "And Pope's translating three whole years with Broome:" where his name was unpleasantly associated with circumstances of misfortune and regret. Wakefield. Ver. 332. And Pope's, ten years to comment and translate.] The author Till Isis' elders reel, their pupils sport, REMARKS. author here plainly laments that he was so long employed in translating and commenting. He began the Iliad in 1713, and finished it in 1719. The edition of Shakespear (which he undertook merely because nobody else would) took up near two years more in the drudgery of comparing impressions, rectifying the Scenery, &c. and the translation of half the Odyssey employed him from that time to 1725. P.t Ver. 333. "Proceed, great days! &c.] It may perhaps seem incredible, that so great a revolution in learning as is here prophesied, should be brought about by such weak instruments as have been [hitherto] described in our poem; but do not thou, gentle reader, rest too secure in thy contempt of these instruments. Remember what the Dutch stories somewhere relate, that a great part of their Provinces was once overflowed, by a small opening made in one of their dykes by a single Water-Rat. However, that such is not seriously the judgment of our poet, but that he conceiveth better hopes from the diligence of our schools, from the regularity of our universities, the discernment of our great men, the accomplishments of our nobility, the encouragement of our patrons, and the genius of our writers in all kinds, (notwithstanding some few exceptions in each,) may plainly be seen from his conclusion; where, causing all this vision to pass through the Ivory Gate, he expressly, in the language of poesy, declares all such imaginations to be wild, ungrounded, and fictitious. SCRIBLERUS. P. Ver. 333. "Proceed, great days! &c.—Till birch shall blush, &c.] Another great prophet of Dulness, on this side Styx, promiseth VARIATIONS. After Ver. 338. in the first Edit. were the following lines: those w.t "Enough! enough!" the raptur'd Monarch cries; And thro' the Ivory Gate the Vision flies. 340 REMARKS. those days to be near at hand. "The devil (saith he) licensed Bishops to license Masters of Schools to instruct youth in the knowledge of the Heathen Gods, their religion, &c. The Schools and Universities will soon be tired and ashamed of Classics, and such trumpery." HUTCHINSON'S Use of Reason recovered. SCRIBLERUS. W.† Ver. 340. And thro' the Ivory Gate.] See what the truly learned Jortin has said in his Sixth Dissertation on the subject of this Ivory Gate. This Sixth Dissertation very unfortunately produced a Seventh, on the Delicacy of Friendship, which it must be lamented was ever published. Warton. IMITATIONS. Ver. 333. "Proceed, great days!] Virgil, Ecl. iv. 12. --incipient magni procedere menses." Ver. 340. And thro' the Ivory Gate, &c.] "Sunt geminæ Somni portæ ; quarum altera fertur Sed falsa ad cœlum mittunt insomnia manes.” P. Virg. Æneid. vi. P. THE END OF THE THIRD BOOK |