1 On poet's tombs see Benson's titles writ! REMARKS. 325 Ver. 325. On Poet's tombs fee Benson's titles writ!] W-m Benfon, (turveyor of the buildings to his Majesty King Geore 1.) gave in a report to the Lords, that their house and the Paintedchamber adjoining were in immediate danger of falling. Whereupon the Lords met in a committee to appoint fome other place to fit in, while the house should be taken down. But it being proposed to caute fome other builders first to inspect it, they found it in very good condition. The Lords, upon this, were going upon an address to the King against Benfon, for fuch a misiepresentation; but the Earl of Sunderland, then Secretary, gave them an affurance that his Majesty would remove him, which was done accordingly. In tavour of this man, the famous Sir Chriftopher Wren, who had been architect to the crown for above fifty years, who-built most of the churches in London, laid the first stone of St. Paul's, and lived to finish it, had been displaced from his employment at the age of near ninety years. Ver. 326. Ambrose Philips] " He was (faith Mr. JACOB) one " of the wits at Button's, and a justice of the peace." But he hath fince met with higher preferment in Ireland: And a much grea er character we have of him in Mr. Gildon's Complete Art of Poetry, vol. I. p. 157. "Indeed he confefies, he dares not "set him quite on the fame foot with Virgil, left it should feem 66 flattery; but he is much mistaken if posterity does not afford "him a greater esteem than he at present enjoys." He endeavoured to create some misundestanding between our author and Mr. Addifon, whom also foon after he abused as much. His contant cry was, that Mr. P. was an enemy to the government;" and in particular he was the avowed author of a report very industrioufly spread, that he had a hand in a party-paper called the Examiner: A falsehood well known to those yet living, who had the direction and publication of it. Ver. 328. While Jones' and Poyle's united labours fall:] At the time when this poem was written, the banqueting-house of Whitehall, the church and piazza of Covent garden, and the palace and chapel of Somerfet-house, the works of the famous Inigo Jones, had been for many years to neglected, as to be in danger of ruin. The portico of Covent-garden church had been just then restored and beautified at the expense of the Earl of Burlington; who, at the same time, by his publication of the designs of that great master and Palladio, as well as by many noble buildings of his own, revived the true taste of architecture in this kingdom. While While Wren with forrow to the grave defcends, a And Pope's, ten years to comment and tranflate. VARIATIONS, Ver. 331. in the former editions thus, -O Swift! thy doom, 330 Proceed, And Pope's, translating ten whole years with Broome. On which was the following note. "He concludes his irony " was a stroke upon himself: For whoever imagines this a far"casm on the other ingenious person, is surely mistaken. The " opinion our author had of him was sufficiently shewn by his " joining him in the undertaking of the Odyssey; in which Mr. ""Broome having engaged without any previous agreement, dif" charged his part so much to Mr. Pope's fatisfaction, that he " gratified him with the full sum of "five hundred pounds," and " a present of all those books for which his own interest could "procure him subscribers, to the value of one hundred more. "The author only feems to lament, that he was employed in "tranflation at all." REMARKS. Ver. 330. Gay dies unpenfion'd, etc.] See Mr. Gay's Fable of the "the Hare and many Friends." This gentleman was early in the friendship of our author, which continued to his death. He wrote several works of humour with great fuccess, the Shepherd's Week, Trivia, the What-d'ye-call it, Fables; and lastly, the celebrated Beggar's Орека; a piece of fatire which hit all tastes and degrees of men, from those of the highest quality to the very rabble: That verse of Horace, "Primores populi arripuit, populumque tributim," cou'd never be so justly applied as to this. The vast success of it was unprecedented, and almost incredible: What is related of the wonderful effects of the ancient music or tragedy hardly came up to it: Sophocles and Euripides were less followed and famous. It was acted in London fixty-three days, uninterrupted; and renewed the next season with equal applauses. It spread into all the great towns of England, was played in many places to the thirtieth and fortieth time, at Bath and Bristol fifty, etc. It made its progress into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, where it was performed twenty-four days together: It was last acted in Minorca, The fame of it was not confined to the author only; the ladies carried about with them the favourite songs of it in fans; and houses were furnished with it in screens. The 1 Proceed, great days! till Learning fly the shore, Till Birch shall blush with noble blood no more, VARIATIONS. After ver. 338. in the first edit. were the following lines, REMARKS. Till person who acted Polly, till then obfcure, became all at once the favourite of the town; her pictures were engraved, and fold in - great numbers; her life written, books of letters and verses to her, published; and pamphlets made even of her ayings and jests. Furthermore, it drove out of England, for that season, the I. talian opera, which had carried all before it for ten years. That idol of the nobility and people, which the great critic Mr. Dennis, by the labours and outcries of a whole life, could not overthrow, was demolished by a single stroke of this gentleman's This happened in the year 1728. Yet so great was his modesty, that he constantly prefixed to all the editions of it this motto, "Nos hæc novimus effe nihil." pen. Ver. 331. Hibernian politics, O Swift! thy fate;] See book i. ver. 26. Ver, 332. And Pope's, ten years to comment and translate.] The author here plainly laments that he was so long employed in tranflating 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 impreffions, rectifying the scenery, etc. and the tranflation of half the Odyssey employed him from that time to 1725. Ver. 333. Proceed, great days, etc.] It may perhaps seem incredible, that fo great a revolution in learning as is here prophefied, should be brought about by fuch weak inftruments 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 fomewhere 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 feriously the judgement of our poet, but that he conceiveth better hopes from the diligence of our schools, from the regularity of our universities, the difcernVOL. III. Till Thames fee Eaton's fons for ever play, And Alma Mater lie dissolv'd in Port? 335 Enough! enough! the raptur'd monarch cries; And thro' the Iv'ry Gate the vision flies. REMARKS. 340 ment 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 caufing all this vision to pass through the Ivory Gate, he exprefsly, in the language of poesy, declares all such imaginations to be wild, ungrounded, and fictitious. SCRIBL. Ibid. Proceed, great days! etc. Till Birch shall blush, etc.] Another great prophet of Dulness, on this fide Styx, promiseth those days to be near at hand. "The devil (faith he) licensed bishops to license masters of schools to instruct youth in the knowledge "of the heathen gods, their religion, &c. The schools and u"niversities will foon be tired and ashamed of claffics and fuch " trumpery." HUTCHINSONS'Ss use of reason recovered. IMITATIONS. Ver. 340. And thro the Iv'ry Gate, &c.] SCRIBL. "Sunt geminæ Somni portæ; quarum altera fertur "Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto, Sed falfa ad cœlum mittunt infomnia manes." END of the THIRD BOOK. Ving. Æn. vi. THE THE |