Lo! sneering Goode, half malice and half whim, Each cygnet sweet, of Bath and Tunbridge race, 155 REMARKS. High German Doctor. Edward Roome was son of an undertaker for funerals in Fleet-street, and wrote some of the papers called Pasquin, where by malicious inuendos he endeavoured to represent our author guilty of malevolent practices with a great man then under the prosecution of Parliament. On this man was made the following Epigram: "You ask why Roome diverts you with his jokes, Yet, if he writes, is dull as other folks ; You wonder at it.-This, Sir, is the case; The jest is lost unless he prints his face." P. Is it surprising, shall I say, or mortifying, to see the pains and patience of our author and his friends who compiled these large notes, in tracing out the lives and works of such paltry and forgotten scribblers! It is like walking through the darkest alleys of the dirtiest part of St. Giles's. To pull out these literary Cacuses, incendia vana vomentes, from their dark dungeons and deep retreats, was a truly Herculean (though not very heroic) labour. These, in truth, were Avia Pieridum loca! Warton. P. Ver. 153. Goode,] An ill-natur'd critic, who wrote a satire on our author, called The mock Esop, and many anonymous libels in newspapers for hire. Ver. 155. Each cygnet sweet,] Borrowed from two lines of Young's Universal Passion, S. 6. "Is there a wit who chants the reigning lass, And sweetly whistles as the waters pass !" Warton. Ver. 156. Whose tuneful whistling] There were several successions of these sort of minor poets, at Tunbridge, Bath, &c. singing the praise of the Annuals flourishing for that season; whose names indeed would be nameless, and therefore the poet slurs them over with others, in general. P.t Ver. 157. ev'ry nameless name,] Personal satire, on objects so obscure Some strain in rhyme; the Muses, on their racks, howls, 165 And makes Night hideous! Answer him, ye owls! REMARKS. obscure, is unavoidably attended with the inconvenience of accompanying it with large notes and explanations, which, though tedious, are necessary; and without which it would be unintelligible. Brossette has been forced to use this method in his many notes on the Lutrin, and on the Satires of Boileau. Warton. Ver. 165. Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls,] A. Phillips, in his Letters from Copenhagen: "The starving wolves along the main sea prowl, And to the moon in icy valleys howl.” Wakefield. Ver. 165. Ralph] James Ralph, a name inserted after the first editions, not known to our author till he writ a swearingpiece called Sawney, very abusive of Dr. Swift, Mr. Gay, and Ver. 157. Each songster, riddler, &c.] In the former Edd. Lo! Bond and Foxton, ev'ry nameless name. Two inoffensive offenders against our poet; persons unknown, but by being mentioned by Curl. P. After ver. 158, in the first Edit. followed, How proud, how pale, how earnest all appear! How rhymes eternal jingle in their ear! W.t "Sense, speech, and measure, living tongues, and dead, Let all give way-and Morris may be read. REMARKS. himself. These lines allude to a thing of his, intitled, Night, a Poem. This low writer attended his own works with panegyrics in the Journals, and once in particular praised himself highly above Mr. Addison, in wretched remarks upon that author's account of English Poets, printed in a London Journal, Sept. 1728. He was wholly illiterate, and knew no language, not even French. Being advised to read the rules of dramatic poetry before he began a play, he smiled and replied, "Shakespear writ without rules." P. He ended at last in the common sink of all such writers, a political newspaper, to which he was recommended by his friend Arnall, and received a small pittance for pay; and being detected in writing on both sides on one and the same day, he publicly justified the morality of his conduct. P.t He was afterwards patronized by Lord Melcombe (Bubb Doddington) who assisted him in compiling a very curious History of England, from the Restoration to the Revolution, and is frequently mentioned in Lord Melcombe's Diary. Warton. Ver. 169. Flow, Welsted, &c.] Of this author see the Remark VARIATIONS. on Ver. 168.] In the first editions it stood: Let all give way-and Durgen may be read. Ver. 168.] Durgen. A ridiculous thing of Ward's. IMITATIONS. P. Ver. 169. Flow, Welsted, flow! &c.] Parody on Denham, Cooper's Hill: "O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme: Tho' deep, yet clear; tho' gentle, yet not dull; Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full !" P. So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull; REMARKS. on Book ii. ver, 209. But (to be impartial) add to it the following different character of him : Mr. Welsted had, in his youth, raised so great expectations of his future genius, that there was a kind of struggle between the most eminent in the two universities, which should have the honour of his education. To compound this, he (civilly) became a member of both, and after having passed some time at the one, he removed to the other. From thence he returned to town, where he became the darling expectation of all the polite writers, whose encour ragement he acknowledged in his occasional poems, in a manner that will make no small part of the fame of his protectors. It also appears from his works, that he was happy in the patronage of the most illustrious characters of the present age.-Encouraged by such a combination in his favour, he published a book of poems, some in the Ovidian, some in the Horatian manner, in both which the most exquisite judges pronounce he even rivalled his masters. His Love verses have rescued that way of writing from contempt. -In his Translations, he has given us the very soul and spirit of his author. His Ode his Epistle-his Verses-his Love-tale-all, are the most perfect things in all poetry. WELSTED, of Himself, Char. of the Times, 8vo. 1728, pp. 23, 24. P. It should not be forgot to his honour, that he received at one time the sum of 500 pounds for secret service, among the other excellent authors hired to write anonymously for the Ministry. See Report of the Secret Committee, &c. in 1742. P.t An ode of merit on the Duke of Marlborough by Welsted, was inserted in Dodsley's Miscellanies, at the desire of Dr. Akenside, who, I remember, much commended it. The simile of Beer is exactly copied from Addison in the Freeholder, No. 20. Warton. Ver. 172. o'erflowing, tho' not full.] It was stronger in the first Edition, -" and foaming, though not full." Bowles. Ver. 173. Ah Dennis! &c.] The reader who has seen, through the Blockheads with reason wicked wits abhor, REMARKS. 175 the course of these notes, what a constant attendance Mr. Dennis paid our author and all his works, may perhaps wonder he should be mentioned but twice, and so slightly touched, in this poem. But in truth he looked upon him with some esteem, for having (more generously than all the rest) set his name to such writings. He was also a very old man at this time. By his own account of himself in Mr. Jacob's Lives, he must have been above threescore, and happily lived many years after. So that he was senior to Mr. Durfey, who hitherto of all our poets enjoyed the longest bodily life. P.† Ver. 173. Ah Dennis! Gildon ah!] These men became the public scorn by a mere mistake of their talents. They would needs turn critics of their own country writers (just as Aristotle and Longinus did of theirs) and discourse upon the beauties and defects of composition; How parts relate to parts, and they to whole : The body's harmony, the beaming soul. Whereas had they followed the example of those microscopes of wit, Kuster, Wasse, Burman, and their followers, in verbal criticism on the learned languages, their acuteness and industry might have raised them a name equal to the most famous of the Scholiasts. w.t Ver. 177. Embrace, embrace, my sons! be foes no more! This much resembles the beginning of Lucan's Pharsalia : 66 66 Gentibus invisis Latium præbere cruorem ?" Say, Romans, whence so dire a fury rose To glut with Latian blood your barbarous foes?" Rowe. But the language of the former verse is more closely modelled from Dryden's version of the verses in the Æneid, expressly parodied : "Embrace again, my sons; be foes no more, Nor stain your country with her children's gore. Wakefield. |