Low bow'd the rest: he, kingly, did but nod; 210 Thy mighty Scholiast, whose unwearied pains Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton's strains. Turn what they will to verse, their toil is vain, Critics like me shall make it prose again. REMARKS. stant friend in College. B. This appears sufficiently from the records of the controversies alluded to in ver. 201, 202. Wakefield. Ver. 210. Aristarchus] A famous commentator and corrector of Homer, whose name hath been frequently used to signify a complete critic. The compliment paid by our author to this eminent Professor, in applying to him so great a name, was the reason that he hath omitted to comment on this part which contains his own praises. We shall therefore supply that loss to our best ability. SCRIBLERUS. P.W. Ver. 214. Critics like me] Alluding to two famous editions of Horace and Milton; whose richest veins of poetry he had prodigally reduced to the poorest and most beggarly prose.Verily, the learned Scholiast is grievously mistaken. Aristarchus is not boasting here of the wonders of his art, in annihilating the sublime, but of the usefulness of it, in reducing the turgid to its proper class; the words make it prose again plainly shewing that prose it was, though ashamed of its original; and therefore resolved he was that to prose it should return. Indeed, much is it to be lamented that Dulness doth not confine her critics to this useful task, and commission them to dismount what Aristophanes calls Pnμal' inπoßaμova, all prose on horseback, wherever they meet with it. SCRIBL. IMITATIONS. Ver. 207. He, kingly, did but nod;] Milton. W.† 66 He, kingly, from his state P.t "Declin'd not" Ver. 210. —“is Aristarchus yet unknown ?] "Dost thou not feel me, Rome?" Ben Jonson. P.t Roman and Greek Grammarians! know your better; Author of something yet more great than letter; While tow'ring o'er your alphabet, like Saul, Stands our Digamma, and o'ertops them all. " "Tis true, on words is still our whole debate, Dispute of Me or Te, of aut or at, 220 REMARKS. Ver. 214. Critics like me] This is the line in which, contrary to nature, character, and decorum, Bentley is made to condemn and ridicule himself, and his own labours. Besides, his Horace ought not to be ranked with his Milton, as containing many acute remarks and happy emendations; and therefore did not make Horace dull. Warton. Ver. 216. Author of something yet more great than letter ;] Alluding to Grammarians, such as Palamedes and Simonides, who invented single letters. But Aristarchus, who had found out a double one, was therefore worthy of double honour. SCRIBL. w.t Ver. 217, 218. While tow'ring o'er your alphabet, like Saul, -Stands our Digamma,] Alludes to the boasted restoration of the Eolic Digamma, in his long projected edition of Homer. He calls it something more than letter, from the enormous figure it would make among the other letters, being one Gamma set upon the shoulders of another. P. W. Ver. 220. of Me or Te,] It was a serious dispute, about which the learned were much divided, and some discourses written. Had it been about Meum and Tuum it could not have been more warmly contested, than whether at the end of the first Ode of Horace, we should read, Me doctarum hederæ præmia frontium, or, Te doctarum hedera-By this the learned scholiast would seem to insinuate that the dispute was not about Meum and Tuum, which is a mistake; for, as a venerable sage observeth, Words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools; so that we see their property was indeed concerned. SCRIBL. w.t IMITATIONS. Ver. 215. Roman and Greek Grammarians, &c.] Imitated from Propertius speaking of the Eneid: "Cedite, Romani scriptores, cedite, Graii! Nescio quid majus nascitur Iliade." P.t To sound or sink in cano, O or A, Let Freind affect to speak as Terence spoke, REMARKS. 225 Ver. 220. Dispute of Me or Te, of aut or at,] It is remarkable that there is an old Greek epigram of Herodicus, quoted by Athenæus in his fifth book, page 112. Basileæ, apud J. Valderum, 1635, folio; ridiculing verbal criticism, in a manner exactly resembling these lines of Pope, which it is not at all probable he had ever read. The two second lines follow: “ Γωνιοβόμυκες, μονοσύλλαβοι. ὅισι μέμηλε, Warton. Τὸ σφῖν, καὶ σφωῖν, καὶ τὸ μὲν, ἤδε τὸ νὶν.” Ver. 222. Or give up Cicero to C. or K.] Grammatical disputes about the manner of pronouncing Cicero's name in Greek. It is a dispute, too, whether in Latin the name of Hermagoras should end in as or a. Quintilian quotes Cicero as writing it Hermagora, which Bentley rejects, and says Quintilian must be mistaken, Cicero could not write it so, and that in this case he would not believe Cicero himself. These are his very words: Ego vero Ciceronem ita scripsisse ne Ciceroni quidem affirmanti crediderim.— Epist. ad Mill. in fin. Frag. Menand. et Phil. W. Ver. 223, 224. Freind-Alsop] Dr. Robert Freind, master of Westminster-school, and canon of Christ-church-Dr. Anthony Alsop, a happy imitator of the Horatian style. P. W. Ver. 226. Manilius or Solinus] Some critics having had it in their choice to comment either on Virgil or Manilius, Pliny or Solinus, have chosen the worse author, the more freely to display their critical talents. P. W. Ver. 228. &c. Suidas, Gellius, Stobaus] The first a dictionarywriter of impertinent facts and barbarous words; the second a minute critic; the third a collector, who gave his common-place book In ancient sense if any needs will deal, Be sure I give them fragments, not a meal; Or chew'd by blind old Scholiasts o'er and o'er. Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit: 230 How parts relate to parts, or they to whole, 235 The body's harmony, the beaming soul, REMARKS. book to the public, where we happen to find much mince-meat of good old authors. P. W. All these three writers abound in useful and elegant remarks, and in facts, which, but for their collections, would have been lost and unknown; and therefore deserved not this ridicule, especially from a poet, who, as Dr. Jortin observes, knew very little of their works. Burman, Kuster, and Wasse, mentioned verse 237, were men of real and useful erudition. Warton. Ver. 228. 231. I poach on Suidas for unlicens'd Greek— On which verses thus Pope and Warburton; "The first a dictionary writer, of impertinent facts and barbarous words, &c."Now, if we should deduct from the compilation of Suidas all his chronological, historical, and biographical communications, which are very copious and important, as they consist of extracts from the best authors of antiquity; and should leave only his philological information with its concomitant examples; a mass of literature would remain, of much the same value as Johnson's dictionary, if a general wreck of English authors should be produced by casualty and time: but how inestimably valuable such a repository would then be, it is easy for any man to discover. Considering, therefore, this strange and ignorant decision of Warburton, what can possibly be conceived more unseasonable and out of place, than Toup's critical epistle, as addressed to this prelate? Wakefield. Ver. 232. Or chew'd by blind old Scholiasts o'er and o'er.] These men taking the same things eternally from the mouth of one another. P. W. Are things which Kuster, Burman, Wasse shall see, When man's whole frame is obvious to a Flea. "Ah, think not, Mistress! more true dulness lies In Folly's cap, than Wisdom's grave disguise. 240 Like buoys that never sink into the flood, On Learning's surface we but lie and nod. Thine is the genuine head of many a house, And much divinity without a Νοῦς. REMARKS. Ver. 239, 240. "Ah, think not, Mistress! &c.—In Folly's cap, &c.] By this it appears, that the Dunces and Fops mentioned ver. 139, 140, had a contention for the Goddess's favour on this great day. Those got the start; but these make it up by their Spokesman in the next speech. It seems as if Aristarchus here first saw him advancing with his fair Pupil. P. W. Ver. 241, 242. Like buoys, &c.-On Learning's surface, &c.] So that the station of a Professor is only a kind of legal Noticer to inform us where the shattered hulk of Learning lies sunk and foundered; which after so long unhappy navigation, and now without either Master or Patron, we may wish, with Horace, may lie there still. Nonne vides, ut Nudum remigio latus? non tibi sunt integra lintea; Non Dî, quos iterum pressa voces malo. Quamvis pontica pinus, Sylvæ filia nobilis, Jactes et genus, et nomen inutile. Hor. W. Ver. 243. Thine is the genuine] It has been suggested that Dr. Warburton inserted some lines of his own composition in this fourth book of the Dunciad, which the poet wrote at his earnest request; and these two verses, as containing some common cant words peculiar to the university, are mentioned as some of them; as also the following, "As erst Medea, cruel so to save, A new edition of old Æson gave." And the calling the members of the University of Oxford, "Apollo's May'r and Aldermen," is |