I left no calling for this idle trade, No duty broke, no father difobey'd. 130 The Muse but ferv'd to ease some friend, not Wife, To help me thro' this long disease, my Life, To fecond, ARBUTHNOT! thy Art and Care, And teach, the Being you preferv'd, to bear. But why then publish? Granville the polite, 1 3 5 And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write; Well-natur'd Garth inflam'd with early praise, And Congreve lov'd, and Swift endur'd my lays; The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read, Ev'n mitred Rochefter would nod the head, 140 NOTES. his Father into the Foreft: and then got first acquainted with the writings of Waller, Spencer, and Dryden; in the order I have named them. On the first fight of Dryden, he found he had what he wanted. His Poems were never out of his hands; they became his model; and from them alone he learnt the whole magic of his verfification. This year he began an epic. Poem, the fame which Bp. Atterbury, long afterwards, perfuaded him to burn. Befides this, he wrote, in those early days, a Comedy and Tragedy, the latter taken from a story in the Legend of St. Genevieve. They both defervedly underwent the fame fate. As he began his Paftorals foon after, he used to fay pleafantly, that he had literally followed the example of Virgil, who tells us, Cum canerem reges et prælia, &c. VER. 130. no father difobey'd.] When Mr. Pope was yet a Child, his Father, though no Poet, would fet him to make English verses. He was pretty difficult to pleafe, and would often fend the boy back to new turn them. When they were to his mind, he took great pleasure in them, and would fay, Thefe are good rhymes. VER. 139. Talbot, &c.] All these were Patrons or Admirers of Mr. Dryden; though a scandalous libel against him, entitled, And St. John's felf (great Dryden's friends before) Soft were my numbers; who could take offence While pure Description held the place of Sense? NOTES. Dryden's Satyr to his Mufe, has been printed in the name of the Lord Somers, of which he was wholly ignorant. These are the perfons to whofe account the Author charges the publication of his first pieces: perfons, with whom he was converfant (and he adds beloved) at 16 or 17 years of age; an early period for fuch acquaintance. The catalogue might be made yet more illuftrious, had he not confined it to that time when he writ the Paftorals and Windfor Foreft, on which he paffes a fort of Cenfure in the lines following, While pure Description held the place of Senfe? &c. P. VER. 146. Burnets, &c.] Authors of fecret and scandalous History. Ibid. Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.] By no means Authors of the fame clafs, though the violence of party might hurry them into the fame mistakes. But if the firft offended this way, it was only through an honeft warmth of temper, that allowed too little to an excellent understanding. other two, with very bad heads, had hearts ftill worfe. The VER. 148. While pure Defcription held the place of Senfe ?1 He uses pure equivocally, to fignify either chaste or empty; and has given in this line what he efteemed the true Character of defcriptive poetry, as it is called. A compofition, in his opinion, as abfurd as a feaft made up of fauces. The ufe of a pictorefque imagination is to brighten and adorn good fenfe; fo that to employ it only in defcription, is like childrens delighting in a prifm for the fake of its gaudy colours; which when frugally Cz Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme, I wish'd the man a dinner, and fate ftill. Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; 150 If want provok'd, or madness made them print, 155 I wag'd no war with Bedlam or the Mint. Did fome more fober Critic come abroad; If wrong, I fmil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod. Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence, And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense. 160 Comma's and points they fet exactly right, And 'twere a fin to rob them of their mite. Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel grac'd these ribalds, From flashing Bentley down to pidling Tibalds : NOTES. managed, and artfully difpofed, might be made to represent and illustrate the nobleft objects in nature. VER. 150. A painted meadow, or a purling ftream. is a verfe of Mr. Addison. P. VER. 163. thefe ribalds,] How defervedly this title is given to the genius of PHILOLOGY, may be seen by a fhort account of the manners of the modern Scholiafts. When in these latter ages, human learning raised its head in the Weft, and its tail, verbal criticism, was, of course, to rise with it; the madnefs of Critics foon became fo offenfive, that the fober ftupidity of the monks might appear the more tolerable evil. 7. Argyropylus, a mercenary Greek, who came to teach fchool in Italy, after the facking of Conftantinople by the Turks, Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each Word-catcher, that lives on fyllables, 166 NOTES. used to maintain that Cicero understood neither Philosophy nor Greek: while another of his Countrymen, J. Lafcaris by name, threatened to demonftrate that Virgil was no Poet. Countenanced by fuch great examples, a French Critic afterwards undertook to prove that Ariftotle did not understand Greek, nor Titus Livius, Latin. It was the fame difcernment of fpirit, which has fince difcovered that Jofephus was ignorant of Hebrew; and Erafmus fo pitiful a Linguift, that, Burman aflures us, were he now alive, he would not deserve to be put at the head of a country fchool. For though time has ftrip'd the prefent race of Pedants of all the real accomplishments of their predeceffors, it has conveyed down this fpirit to them, unimpaired; it being found much easier to ape their manners, than to imitate their science. However, those earlier Ribalds raised an appetite for the Greek language in the Weft: infomuch, that Hermolaus Barbarus, a paffionate admirer of it, and a noted Critic, used to boast, that he had invoked and raised the Devil, and puzzled him into the bargain, about the meaning of the Ariftotelian ENTEAEXEIA. Another, whom Balzac fpeaks of, was as eminent for his Revelations and was wont to say, that the meaning of fuch or such a verse, in Perfius, no one knew but GOD and himself. While the celebrated Pomponius Lætus, in excess of Veneration for Antiquity, became a real Pagan, raised altars to Romulus, and facrificed to the Gods of Latium: in which he was followed by our countryman, Baxter, in every thing, but in the expence of his facrifices. But if the Greeks cried down Cicero, the Italian Critics knew how to fupport his credit. Every one has heard of the childish exceffes into which the ambition of being thought CICERONIANS carried the most celebrated Italians of this time. They abftained from reading the Scriptures for fear of spoiling their ftyle: Cardinal Bembo ufed to call the Epiftles of St. Paul by the contemptuous name of Epiftolaccias, great overgrown Epiftles. But ERASMUS cured their frenzy in that masterpiece of good fenfe, his Ciceronianus. For which (in the way Lunatics treat their Phyficians) the elder Scaliger infulted him with all the brutal fury peculiar to his family and profeffion. Ev'n fuch small Critics fome regard may claim, Preferv'd in Milton's or in Shakespear's name. NOTES. His fon Jofeph, and Salmafius had indeed fuch endowments of nature and art, as might have raised modern learning to a rivalship with the ancient. Yet how did they and their adverfaries tear and worry one another? The choiceft of Jofeph's flowers of fpeech were, Stercus Diaboli, and Lutum ftercore maceratum. It is true, these were lavished upon his enemies: for his friends he had other things in ftore. In a letter to Thuanus, speaking of two of them, Clavius and Lipfius, he calls the first, a monster of ignorance; and the other, a flave to the Jefuits, and an Idiot. But fo great was his love of facred amity at the fame time, that he fays, I still keep up my correspondence with him, notwithstanding his Idiotry, for it is my principle to be conftant in my friendships Je ne refte de luy eferire, nonobftant fon Idioterie, d'autant que je fuis conftant en amitié. The character he gives of his own Chronology, in the fame letter, is no less extraordinary: Vous vous pouvez affurer que noftre Eufebe fera un tréfor des merveilles de la doctrine Chronologique. But this modeft account of his own work, is nothing in comparison of the idea the Father gives his Bookfeller of his own Perfon. Who, when he was preparing fomething of Julius Scaliger's for the Prefs, defired the Author would give him directions concerning his Picture, which was to be fet before the book. Whofe answer (as it stands in his collection of Letters) is, that if the engraver could collect together the feveral graces of Maffiniffa, Xenophon, and Plato, he might then be enabled to give the public fome faint and imperfect resemblance of his Perfon. Nor was Salmafius's judg ment of his own parts lefs favourable to himfelf; as Mr, Colomies tells the ftory. This Critic, on a time, meeting two of his brethren, Meff. Gaulmin and Mauffac, in the Royal Library at Paris, Gaulmin, in a virtuous consciousness of their Importance, told the other two, that he believed, they three could make head against all the learned in Europe: To which the great Salmafius fiercely replied, "Do you and M. Maussac join yourfelves to all that are learned in the world, and you shall find that I alone am a match for you all." Voffius tells us, that when Laur. Valla had fnarl'd at every name of the firft order in antiquity, fuch as Ariftotle, Cicero. and one |