Or where the pictures for the page atone, And Quarles is fav'd by beauties not his own. Here fwells the fhelf with Ogilby the great *; 140 There, ftamp'd with arms, Newcastle fhines complete+: Here all his fuffering brotherhood retire, And 'fcape the martyrdom of jakes and fire: A Gothic library! of Greece and Rome 145 Well purg'd, and worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome B b 2 * “ John Ogilby was one, who from a late inititaion into literature, made "fuch a progrefs as might well style him the prodigy of his time! sending in"to the world fo many large volumes! His tranflations of Homer and Virgil "done to the life, and with fuch excellent fculptures: and, what added great grace to his works) he printed them all on spesial good paper, and in a 46 very good letter." WINSTANLEY, Lives of Poets. ↑ "The duchefs of Newcastle was one who bufied herf. If in the ravishing "delights of poetry; leaving to pofterity in print three ample Volumes of "her ftudious endeavours." WINSTANLEY, ib. Langbaine reckons up eight folios of her Grace's; which were ufually adorned with gilded covers, and had her coat of arms upon them. The poet has mentioned these three authors in particular, as they are parallel to our hero in his three capacities: 1. Settle was his brother laureate ; only indeed upon half-pay, for the city instead of the court; but equally famous for unintelligible fights in his poems on public occasions, fuch as fhows, births days, etc. 2. Banks was his rival in tragedy (tho' more fuccefsful) in one of his tragedies, the Earl of Effex, which is yet alive: Anna Boleyn, the Queen of Scots, and Cyrus the Great, are dead and gone. These he drest in a fo ́t of B-ggar's velvet, or a happy mixture of the thick fufian and thin profaic; exactly imitated in Perolia, and Ifidora Cæfar in Egypt, and the Heroic Daughter. 3. Broome was a ferving man of Ben Johnson, who once picked up a comedy from his betters, or from fome caft fcenes of his master, not entirely contemptible. § Some have objected, that books of this fort fuit not fo well the library of our Bays, which they imagined confifted of Novels, Plays, and obscene books; but they are to confider, that he furnished his fhelves only for ornament, and read these books no more than the dry bodies of divinity, which, no doubt, were purchased by his father when he defigned him for the gown. See the note on yer. 200. A printer in the time of Edw. 1V. Rich. III, and Hen. VII. Wynkyn de 6 There, fav'd by fpice, like Mummies, many a year, De Lyra there a dreadful front extends, And here the groaning fhelves Philemon bends †. Of thefe twelve volumes, twelve of ampleft fize, 155 Redeem'd from tapers and defrauded pies, Infpir'd he feizes: these an altar raise; An hecatomb of pure, unfully'd lays That altar crowns: A folio common-place Founds the whole pile, of all his works the base : A twifted Birth-day Ode completes the spire. : Firft in my care, and ever at my heart t; 160 de Word, hi, fucceffor, in that of Hen. VII. and VIII. The former tranflated into prof Virgil's Eneis, as a history; of which he fpeaks, in his proeme, in a very fingular manner, is of a book hardly known. "Hap"pened that to my hand: cam a lytyl book in frenche, whiche late was * tranflated out of latyn by fome noble clerke of fraunce, whiche booke is named Enydes (made in letyn by that noble pocte and grete clerke Vyrgyle) which book I fawe over and redde therein, How after the generall "deftruccyon of the grete Troy, Eneas departed berynge his old fader an"chiles upon his fholdres, his lytyl fon yolas on his hande, his wyfe wyth "moche other people followynge, and how he shipped and departed; wythe "all thy ftorye of his adventures that he had er he cam to the atchicvement "of his conqueft of ytaly, as all alonge fhall be fhewed in this present "booke. In whiche booke. I had grote playfyr, by cause of the fayr and honest termes and word.s in frenche, whiche I never fawe to fore lyke, ne none fo playfant ne fo well ordred: whiche booke as me femed fhold "be moche requylite to nobis men to fee, as wel for the eloquence as the hyftoryes. How wel that many hondred yerys paffed was the fayd booke of Eneydus wyth other workes made and lerned dayly in fcolis, efpecyally in ytaly and other places, which hiftorye the fayd Wyrgyle made in metre." Til bald quotes a rare paffage from him in Mit's Journal of March 16, 1728, concerning a jirange and marvey loufe beafte called Sagittarye, which he would have Shakespear to mean rather than Tucer, the archer celebrated by Homer. * Nich. de Lyra, or Harpsfield, a very voluminous commentator, whofe works, in five vatt folios, were printed in 1472. + Philemon Holland, doftor in phyfic. "He tranflated fo many books, that a man would think he had done nothing else; infomuch that he might be called Tranflator general of his age. The books alone of his turning into English are fufficient to make a Country Gentleman a compleat library." WINSTANLY. Dulness! 165 Dulnefs whofe good old caufe I yet defend, With whom my Mufe began, with whom fhall end, To the laft honours of the butt and bays: O thou! of bufinefs the directing foul! To this our head like byafs to the bowl, Which, as more pond'rous, made its aim more true, 170 175 180 The firft vifible caufe of the paffion of the town for our hero, was a fair flaxen full-bottomed periwig, which, he tells us, he wore in his first play of the Fool in fashion. It attracted, in a particular manner, the friendhip of Col. Brett, who wanted to purchase it. "Whatever contempt (says he) philofophers may have for a fine periwig, my friend, who was not to "defpife the world but live in it, knew very well that fo material an article of drefs upon the head of a man of fenfe, if it became him, could never fail of drawing to him a more partial regard and benevolence, than could "poffibly be hoped for in an ill made one. This, perhaps, may soften the grave cenfure, which fo youthful a purchase might otherwise have laid upon him. In a word, he made his attack upon this periwig, as your 66 young fellows generally do upon a lady of pleasure, first by a few familiar "praifes of her perfon, and then a civil enquiry into the price of it: and ་ we finished our bargain that night over a bottle." See Life, octavo, p. 393. This remarkable periwig ufually made its entrance upon the stage in a fedan, brought in by two chairmen, with infinite approbation of the audience. + For wit or reafoning are never greatly hurtful to Dulness, but when the first is founded in truth, and the other in usefulness. The thought of thefe four verses is found in a poem of our author's of a very early date (namely written at fourteen years old, and foon after printed) to the author of a poem called Succeffio. As As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe, Me Emptiness, and Dulness could inspire, 185 Some Dæmon ftole my pen (forgive th' offence) 190 Yet fure, had Heav'n decreed to fave the ftate, 195 Could Troy be fav'd by any fingle hand, This grey-goofe weapon muft have made her ftand. Take up the Bible, once my better guide? 200 Or * Alluding to the old English weapon, the arrow of the long bow, which was fletched with the feathers of the grey goofe. A familiar manner of fpeaking, used by modern critics, of a favourite anthor. Bays might as jully fpeak thus of Fletcher, as a French wit did of Tully, feing his works in a library, "Ah! mon cher Ciceron! je le con"nois bien; c'eft le même que Marc Tulle." But he had a better title to call Fletcher bis eron, having made fo frex with him. When, according to his father's intention, he had been a clergyman, or (as he thinks himself) a bishop of the church of England. Hear his own words: "At the time that the fate of K. James, the Prince of Orange, and myfelf were on the anvil, Providence thought fit to poftpone mine, 'till theirs were determined: but had my father carried me a month fooner to the University, who knows but that purer fountain might have washed my imperfections, into a capacity of writing, inftead of Plays and annual Odes, "Sermons and Paftoral Letters ?' Apology for his Life, chap. iii Thefe doctors had a modeft and upright appearance, no air of overbearing but, like true masters of arts, were only habited in black and white They Or bidft thou rather party to embrace ? To serve his cause, O queen! is ferving thine. 205 210 They were justly stiled fubtiles and graves, but not always irrefragabiles, be ing fometimes examined, and, by a nice distinction, divided and laid open. SCRIBL. This learned critic is to be understood allegorically: the DOCTORS in this place mean no more than falfe dice, a cant phrase used among gamefters. So the meaning of thefe four fonorous lines is only this, "Shall I play fair, "or foul?" * George Ridpath, author of a Whig-paper, called the Flying-post; Nathanael Mift, of a famous Tory Journal. + Relates to the well-known ftory of the geefe that faved the Capitol; of which Virgil, Æn. viii. "Atque hic auratis volitans argenteus anfer "Porticibus, Gallos in limine adeffe canebat." A paffage I have always fufpected. Who fees not the antithefis of auratis and argenteus to be unworthy the Virgilian majefty? And what abfurdity to say a goofe fings? canebat. Virgil gives a contrary character of the voice of this filly bird, in Eccl. ix. -- -argutos inter ftrepere anfer olores." Read it, therefore, adeffe ftrepebat. And why auratis porticibus? does not the very verfe preceding this inform us, "Romuleoque recens horrebat regia culmo." Is this thatch in one line, and gold in another, confiftent? I fcruple not (repugnantibus omnibus manufcriptis) to correct it auritis. Horace ufes the fame epithet in the fame fenfe, And to fay that walls bave ears is common even to a proverb. SCRIBL. Not out of any preference or affection to the Tories. For what Hobbes fo ingenuously confeffes of himself, is true of all minifterial writers whatfoever: "That he defends the fupreme powers, as the geefe by their cackling "defended the Romans, who held the Capitol; for they favoured them no more than the Gau's, their enemies, but were as ready to have defended the Gauls if they had been poffeffed of the capital." Epift.Dedic. to the Leviathan. And |