Ut nihil anteferat, nihil illis comparet; errat: k Si quaedam nimis1 antique, fi pleraque * dure Dicere cedit eos, 1ignave multa fatetur ; Et fapit, et mecum facit, et Jove judicat aequo. m Non equidem infector, delendaque carmina Livî NOTES. VER. 97. Spencer himself affects the Obfolete,] This is certainly true; he extended, beyond all reason, that precept of Horace, Obfcurata diu populo bonus eruet, atque Proferet in lucem fpeciofa vocabula rerum. etc. VER. 98. And Sydney's verfe halts ill on Roman feet :] Sir Philip Sidney. He attempted to introduce the Roman hexameter and pentameter measure into English verfe. Baif, a French poet in the time of their Hen. II. had attempted the same thing before him, and with the fame fuccefs. VER. 102. And God the Father turns a School-divine.] Ben Johnfon ridicules the humour of his age, when the audience chose to take their knowledge of English history from Shakefpear's plays. The prefent fashion for Milton makes us as ready to learn our religion from the Paradife loft: tho' it be certain, he was as poor and fanciful a Divine, as Shakespear was a licentious Hiftorian. This appears from many places of that admirable Poem. As he here degrades the Father by making him follow the School-fyftems; fo, in his Paradife 1 Or fay our Fathers never broke a rule; But let them own, that greater Faults than we 95 i k And Sydney's verse halts ill on * Roman feet: Milton's ftrong pinion now not Heav'n can bound, Now Serpent-like, in 'profe he fweeps the ground, In Quibbles, Angel and Archangel join, VIOI And God the Father turns a School-divine. Not that I'd lop the Beauties from his book, Like a flashing Bentley with his defp'rate hook, n NOTES. regained, he dishonours the Son, by making him Author of the MAHOMETAN Oeconomy of grace "Victorious deeds "Flam'd in my heart, heroic acts, one while VER. 104. Bentley] This excellent critic, who had the fortune to be extravagantly despised and ridiculed by two of the greatest wits, and as extravagantly feared and flattered by two of the greatest Scholars of his time, will deferve to have that justice done him now, which he never met with while alive. Effe reor, memini quae quae " plagofum mihi parvo Orbilium dictare; fed emendata videri NOTES. He was a great mafter both of the languages and the learn ing of polite Antiquity; whofe writings he ftudied with no other defign than to correct the errors of the text. For this he Had a ftrong natural understanding, a great fhare of penetration, and a fagacity and acumen very uncommon. All which qualities he had greatly improved by long exercise and application. Yet, at the fame time, he had fo little of that elegance of judg ment, we call Tafle, that he knew nothing of Style, as it accommodates itself, and is appropriated to the various kinds of compofition. And his reasoning faculty being infinitely better than that of his Imagination, the Style of poetry was what he the leaft understood. So that, that clearness of conception, which fo much affifted his critical fagacity, in difcovering and reforming errors in books of fcience, where a philofophical precifion, and grammatical exactness of language is employed, ferved but to betray him into abfurd and extravagant conjectures when ever he attempted to reform the text of a Poet, whofe diction he was always for deducing to the profaic rules of logical feverity; and whenever he found what a great mafter of fpeech calls verbum ardens, he was fure not to leave it till he had thoroughly quenched it in his critical ftandish. But to make philologic amends, he was a perfect master of all the mysteries of the ancient Rythmus. The most important of his works, as a fcholar, is his Critic on the Epiftles of Phalaris: and the leaft confiderable, his Remarks on the Difcourfe concerning Free-thinking. Yet the first, with all its fuperiority of Learning, Argument, and Truth, was borne down by the vivacity and clamour of a Party, which (as ufual) carried the Public along with them: while the other, employed only in the eafy and trifling task of expofing a very dull and very ignorant Rhapfodift, was as extravagantly extolled. For it was his odd fortune (as our Poet expreffes it) to país for A Wit with Dunces, and a Dunce with Wits: Or damn all Shakespear, like th' affected Fool10.5 At court, who hates whate'er he read at school. But for the Wits of either Charles's days, The Mob of Gentlemen who wrote with Eafe: NOTES. whereas in truth he was neither one nor the other. The injuftice that had been done him in the first cafe, made him always speak, amongft his friends, of the blind partiality of the public in the latter, with the contempt it deferved. For however he might fometime mistake his fort, he was never the dupe of the Public judgment. Of which a learned Prelate, now living, gave me this inftance: He accidentally met Bentley in the days of Phalaris; and after having complimented him on that noble piece of Criticism (the Answer to the Oxford writers) he bad him not be discouraged at this run upon him: for tho' they had got the laughers on their fide, yet mere wit and raillery could not hold it out long against a work of so much merit. To which the other replied, "Indeed, Dr. S. I am in no pain about "the matter. For it is my maxim, that no man was ever "written out of reputation, but by himself." Ibid. his defp'rate book] Alluding to the feveral paffages of Milton, which Bentley has reprobated, by including within hooks, fome with judgment, and fome without. VER. 108. The Mob of Gentlemen who wrote with Eafe;] The Poet has here very happily exemplified this envied quality of eafy writing in the turn of the verfes that expofe it. Thefe wits formed themfelves, for the most part, on Suckling, a fine original genius. But on fo flippery a ground it was no wonder fuch Imitators fhould fall; and either fink his free and eafy⚫ manner into infipidity, or abuse it to ribaldry and licentioufnefs they did both; till eafy writing came to be defined a negligence of what they faid, and how they faid it. This was called writing like a Gentleman. But as fashions take their turn, Lord Shaftesbury has introduced a new fort of Gentlemanlike writing, which confifts indeed, like the other, in a negligence of what is faid, but joined to much affectation in the manner of faying it. Pulchraque, et exactis minimum distantia, miror:' *Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia craffe Compofitum, illepideve putetur, fed quia nuper; Nec veniam antiquis, fed honorem et praemia pofci, S $ Recte necne crocum florefque perambulet Attae Fabula, fi dubitem; clamant periiffe pudorem Cuncti pene patres: ea cum reprehendere coner, Quae gravis Aefopus, quae doctus Rofcius egit. NOTE S. 66 VER. 109. Sprat,] Rightly put at the head of the small wits. He is now known to moft advantage as the friend of Mr. Cowley. His Learning was comprised in the well rounding a period: For, as Seneca faid of Triarius, " Compofitione verborum belle "cadentium multos Scholafticos delectabat, omnes decipiebat." As to the turn of his piety and genius, it is best seen by his last Will and Teftament, where he gives God thanks, that he, who had been bred neither at Eaton nor Weftminster, but at a little country school by the Church-yard fide, fhould at laft come to be a Bishop.-But the honour of being a WestminsterSchool-boy fome have at one age, and fome at another, and fome all their life long. Our grateful bishop, tho' he had it not in his youth, yet it came upon him in his old age. VER. 113. gleams thro' many a page,] The image is taken from half-formed unripe lightening, which ftreams along the |