Sur quelle vigne a Rheims nous avons hypotheque ;
Vignt muids rangez chez moi font ma Bibliotheque.
En plaçant un Pupitre on croit nous rabbaiffer,
Mon bras feul fans Latin faura le renverfer.

Que m'importe qu'Arnauld me condamne ou m'approuve?
J'abbats ce qui me nuit par tout où je le trouve.
C'eft la mon fentiment. A quoi bon tant d'apprêts?
Du refte déjeunons, Meffieurs, et beuvons frais. *

His knowledge of the rents of his church, and of the mortgages belonging to it, his scorn of the pious and laborious Arnauld, his contempt of learning, and, above all, his. ruling paffion of good-eating, are strokes highly comic. It is wonderful the ecclesiastics of France were not as much irritated by the publication of the LUTRIN, as by the TARTUFFE of Moliere; which was fuppreffed by their interest, after it had been acted a few nights: although at the same time, a very profane farce was permitted to have a long run. When Louis XIV. expreffed to the Prince of Condè, his wonder at the different fates of these two pieces, and asked the reason of it, the prince answered,

*.Chant. 4.

"In the farce, RELIGION only is ridiculed; but, Moliere in the TARTUFFE, has attacked even the PRIESTS."

BOILEAU has raised his fubjects by many perfonifications; particularly, in the beginning of the fixth canto, PIETY who had retired to the great Carthufian monaftery on the Alps, is introduced as repairing to Paris, accompanied by FAITH, HOPE, and CHARITY, in order to make her complaint to THEMIS: to which may be added, the monftrous figure of CHICANERY, attended by FAMINE, WANT, SORROW, and RUIN, in the beginning of the fifth canto. The chief divinity that acts throughout the poem, is DISCORD; which goddess is reprefented as coming from a convent of Cordeliers. A fine stroke of fatire; but imitated from the fatyrical Ariofto, who makes Michael find DISCORD in a cloister, inftead of SILENCE, whom he there searched for in vain. NIGHT is also introduced as an actress with great propriety, in the third canto; where the repairs to the famous

famous old tower at Montlery, in order to find out an owl which fhe may convey into the DESK, and which afterwards produces fo ridiculous a confternation. SLOTH is another principal perfonage: fhe alfo is discovered in the dormitory of a monastery.

Les Plaifirs nonchalans folêtrent a l'entour.

L'un pâitrit dans un coin l'embonpoint des Chanoines; L'autre broie en riant le vermillon des Moines. *

The speech she afterwards makes has a peculiar beauty, as it ends in the middle of a line, and by that means fhews her inability to proceed.

THE third heroi-comic poem was the DISPENSARY of Garth: a palpable imitation of the LUTRIN, and the beft fatire on the phificians extant, except the SAngrado of Le Sage, who have indeed been the object of almost every fatirift. The behaviour and fentiment of SLOTH, the firft imaginary being that occurs, are almoft literally translated from Boileau: particularly the compliment

that SLOTH pays to king William, whose actions disturb her repose:

Or if fome cloyster's refuge I implore,

Where holy drones o'er dying tapers fnore;
The peals of Naffau's arms these eyes unclose,.
Mine he molefts, to give the world repose.

Je croyois, loin des lieux d'on ce prince m'exile, Que l'Eglife du moins m'affûroit un azile. Mais envain j'efperois y regner fans effroi : Moines, Abbes, Prieurs, tout f'arme contre moi. † Garth, in ridiculing the clergy, fpeaks of that order with more acrimony than Boileau, who merely laughs at them. laughs at them. But Garth was one of the free-thinking WITs at Button's. He has introduced many excellent parodies of the claffics: among which I cannot forbear quoting one, which is an imitation of some paffages, which the reader will remember, in Virgil's fixth book, and where the circumftances are happily inverted.

Since, faid the ghost, with pity you'll attend,
Know, I'm Guiacum, once your firmest friend.

Boileau fays admirably of his phifician, Chant. 4. Art. Poet.
Le rhume a fon aspect fe change en pleurifie;
Et par lui la migraine eft bientôt phrenefie.

F f

And on this barren beach, in discontent

Am doom'd to ftay, 'till th' angry pow'rs relent.
These spectres feam'd with scars that threaten here,
The victims of my late ill conduct are.

They vex with endless clamours my repose,
This wants his palate, that demands his nofe;
And here they execute ftern Pluto's will,
And ply me ev'ry moment with a pill.

THIS author has been guilty of a strange impropriety, which cannot be excused, in making the fury DISEASE talk like a critic, give rules of writing, and a panegyric on the best poets of the age. The descent into the earth in the fixth canto, is a fine mixture of poetry and philofophy; the hint is taken from the SYPHILIS of Fracaftorius. verfification is flowing and mufical; his style perfpicuous, and neat; and the poem in general abounds with fallies of wit, and nervous fatire.

Garth's

THE RAPE OF THE LOCK, now before us, is the fourth, and most excellent of the heroicomic poems. The subject was a quarrel

* Cant. 6. '

+ Cant. 4.

occafioned