Else sure some bard, to our eternal praise,
In twice ten thousand rhyming nights and days,
Had reach'd the work, the all that mortal can;
And South beheld that masterpiece of man.*
Oh (cried the goddess) for some pedant reign!
Some gentle JAMES, to bless the land again ;†
To stick the doctor's chair into the throne,
Give law to words, or war with words alone,
Senates and courts with Greek and Latin rule,
And turn the council to a grammar school!
For sure, if Dulness sees a grateful day,
'Tis in the shade of arbitrary sway.
Oh! if my sons may learn one earthly thing,
Teach but that one, sufficient for a king;
That which my priests, and mine alone, maintain,
Which, as it dies or lives, we fall or reign :
May you, may Cam, and Isis preach it long!
"The RIGHT DIVINE of Kings to govern wrong."
Prompt at the call, around the goddess roll
Broad hats, and hoods, and caps, a sable shoal:
Thick and more thick the black blockade extends,
A hundred head of Aristotle's friends.
Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day,——
Though Christchurch long kept prudishly away.-
Each stanch polemic, stubborn as a rock,
Each fierce logician, still expelling Locke,+
Came whip and spur, and dash'd through thin and thick,
On German Crouzaz and Dutch Burgersdyck.
As many quit the streams§ that murmuring fall
To lull the sons of Margaret and Clare Hall,
Where Bentley late tempestuous wont to sport
In troubled waters, but now sleeps in port.
Before them march'd that awful Aristarch;
Plough'd was his front with many a deep remark:
His hat, which never veil'd to human pride,
Walker with reverence took, and laid aside.
Low bow'd the rest: he, kingly, did but nod;
So upright quakers please both man and God.
*Viz., an epigram. The famous Dr South declared a perfect epigram to be as difficult a performance as an epic poem. And the critics say, poem is the greatest work human nature is capable of."
+ Wilson tells us that this king, James the First, took upon himself to teach the Latin tongue to Car Earl of Somerset; and that Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, would speak false Latin to him, on purpose to give him the pleasure of correcting it, whereby he wrought himself into his good graces.
In the year 1708 there was a meeting of the heads of the University of Oxford to censure Mr Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, and to forbid the reading it.
§ The river Cam, running by the walls of these colleges, which are particularly famous for their skill in disputation.
Mistress! dismiss that rabble from your throne:
Avaunt- -is Aristarchus* yet unknown?
Thy mighty scholiast, whose unwearied pains
Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton's strains.
Turn what they will to verse, their toil is vain,
Critics like me shall make it prose again.
Roman and Greek grammarians! know your better;
Author of something yet more great than letter;
While towering o'er your alphabet, like Saul,
Stands our Digamma, and o'ertops them all.
'Tis true, on words is still our whole debate,
Disputes of me or te, of aut or at,
To sound or sink in cano, O or A,
Or give up Cicero to C or K.
Let Freind+ affect to speak as Terence spoke,
And Alsopt never but like Horace joke;
For me, what Virgil, Pliny may deny,
Manilius or Solinus shall supply:
For attic phrase in Plato let them seek,
I poach in Suidas for unlicensed Greek.
In ancient sense if any needs will deal,
Be sure I give them fragments, not a meal;
What Gellius or Stobæus§ hash'd before,
Or chew'd by blind old scholiasts o'er and o'er.
The critic eye, that microscope of wit,
Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit:
How parts relate to parts, or they to whole,
The body's harmony, the beaming soul,
Are things which Kuster, Burman, Wasse shall see,
When man's whole frame is obvious to a flea.
Ah, think not, mistress! more true dulness lies
In Folly's cap than Wisdom's grave disguise.
Like buoys, that never sink into the flood,
On learning's surface we but lie and nod.
Thine is the genuine head of many a house,
And much divinity without a Noûs.
Nor could a BARROW work on every block,
Nor has one ATTERBURY|| spoil'd the flock.
* A famous commentator and corrector of Homer, whose name has been frequently used to signify a complete critic.
Dr Robert Freind, master of Westminster School, and canon of Christ
Dr Anthony Alsop, a happy imitator of the Horatian style.
§ Suidas, Gellius, Stobæus. The first a dictionary-writer, a collector of impertinent facts and barbarous words; the second a minute critic; the third an author, who gave his commonplace-book to the public, where we happen to find much mince-meat of old books.
Isaac Barrow, Master of Trinity, Francis Atterbury, Dean of Christ church, both great geniuses and eloquent preachers: one more conversant in the sublime geometry, the other in classical learning; but who equally made it their care to advance the polite arts in their several Societies,
See still thy own, the heavy canon roll,
And metaphysic smokes involve the pole.
For thee we dim the eyes, and stuff the head
With all such reading as was never read:
For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,
And write about it, goddess, and about it:
So spins the silk-worm small its slender store,
And labours till it clouds itself all o'er.
What though we let some better sort of fool
Thrid every science, run through every school?
Never by tumbler through the hoops was shewn
Such skill in passing all, and touching none.
He may, indeed, (if sober all this time,)
Plague with dispute, or persecute with rhyme.
We only furnish what he cannot use,
Or wed to what he must divorce, a Muse:
Full in the midst of Euclid dip at once,
And petrify a genius to a dunce:
Or set on metaphysic ground to prance,
Shew all his paces, not a step advance.
With the same cement, ever sure to bind,
We bring to one dead level every mind.
Then take him to develop, if you can,
And hew the block off,* and get out the man.
But wherefore waste I words! I see advance
A pupil, and laced governor from France.
Walker! our hat-nor more he deign'd to say,
But, stern as Ajax' spectre, strode away.
In flow'd at once a gay embroider'd race,
And tittering push'd the pedants of the place :
Some would have spoken, but the voice was drown'd
By the French horn, or by the opening hound.
The first came forwards, with as easy mien
As if he saw St James's and the queen.
When thus the attendant orator begun :
Receive, great empress! thy accomplish'd son:
Thine from the birth, and sacred from the rod,
A dauntless infant! never scared with God.
The sire saw, one by one, his virtues wake:
The mother begg'd the blessing of a rake.
Thou gav'st that ripeness, which so soon began,
And ceased so soon, he ne'er was boy nor man.
Through school and college, thy kind cloud o'ercast,
Safe and unseen the young Eneas pass'd:
Thence bursting glorious, all at once let down,
Stunn'd with his giddy 'larum half the town.
Intrepid then, o'er seas and lands he flew :
A notion of Aristotle, that there was originally in every block of marble a statue, which would appear on the removal of the superfluous parts.
Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too.
There all thy gifts and graces we display,
Thou, only thou, directing all our way!
To where the Seine, obsequious as she runs,
Pours at great Bourbon's feet her silken sons;
Or Tiber, now no longer Roman, rolls,
Vain of Italian arts, Italian souls:
To happy convents, bosom'd deep in vines,
Where slumber abbots, purple as their wines:
To isles of fragrance, lily-silver'd vales,
Diffusing languor in the panting gales:
To lands of singing, or of dancing slaves,
Love-whispering woods, and lute-resounding waves.
But chief her shrine where naked Venus keeps,
And Cupids ride the lion of the deeps:
Where, eased of fleets, the Adriatic main
Wafts the smooth eunuch and enamour'd swain.
Led by my hand, he saunter'd Europe round,
And gather'd every vice on Christian ground;
Saw every court, heard every king declare
His royal sense of operas or the fair;
The stews and palace equally DESIRED,
Intrigued, with glory and with spirit FIRED.
Tried all hors-d'œuvres, all liqueurs defined,
Judicious drank, and greatly daring dined;
Dropp'd the dull lumber of the Latin store,
Spoil'd his own language, and acquired no more;
All classic learning lost on classic ground;
And last turn'd air, the echo of a sound!
See now, half-cured, and perfectly well-bred,
With nothing but a solo in his head;
As much estate, and principle, and wit,
As Jansen, Fleetwood, Cibber* shall think fit;
Stolen from a duel, WATCHED BY EVERY ONE,
And, if a borough choose him, not undone;
See, to my country happy I restore
This glorious youth, and add one Venus more.
Pleased she accepts the hero, and the dame
Wraps in her veil, and frees from sense of shame.
Then look'd, and saw a lazy, lolling sort,
Unseen at church, at senate, or at court,
Of ever-listless loiterers, that attend
No cause, no trust, no duty, and no friend.
Thee, too, my Paridel! she mark'd thee there,
* Three very eminent persons, all managers of plays: who, though not governors by profession, had, each in his way, concerned themselves in the education of youth; and regulated their wits, their morals, or their finances, at that period of their age which is the most important, their entrance into the polite world.
Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair,
And heard thy everlasting yawn confess
The pains and penalties of idleness.
She pitied! but her pity only shed
Benigner influence on thy nodding head.
But Annius,* crafty seer, with ebon wand,
And well-dissembled emerald on his hand,
False as his gems, and canker'd as his coins,
Came, cramm'd with capon, from where Pollio dines.
Soft, as the wily fox is seen to creep,
Where bask on sunny banks the simple sheep,
Walk round and round, now prying here, now there;
So he; but pious whisper'd first his prayer:-
Grant, gracious goddess! grant me still to cheat,
Oh may thy cloud still cover the deceit !
Thy choicer mists on this assembly shed,
But pour them thickest on the noble head.
So shall each youth, assisted by our eyes,
See other Cæsars, other Homers rise;
Through twilight ages hunt the Athenian fowl,+
Which Chalcis gods, and mortals call an owl,
Now see an Attys, now a Cecrops + clear,
Nay, Mahomet! the pigeon at thine ear;
Be rich in ancient brass, though not in gold,
And keep his Lares, though his house be sold;
To headless Phoebe his fair bride postpone,
Honour a Syrian prince above his own;
Lord of an Otho, if I vouch it true;
Bless'd in one Niger, till he knows of two.
Mummius o'erheard him; Mummius,§ fool-renown'd,
Who, like his Cheops,|| stinks above the ground,
Fierce as a startled adder, swell'd, and said,
Rattling an ancient sistrum at his head :
*The name taken from Annius, the monk of Viterbo, famous for many impositions and forgeries of ancient manuscripts and inscriptions, which ne was prompted to by mere vanity, but our Annius had a more substantial motive.
The owl stamped on the reverse of the ancient money of Athens.
The first kings of Athens, of whom it is hard to suppose any coins are extant; but not so improbable as what follows, that there should be any of Mahomet, who forbade all images. Nevertheless, one of these Anniuses made a counterfeit one, now in the collection of a learned nobleman.
§ This name is not merely an allusion to the mummies he was so fond of, but probably referred to the Roman general of that name, who burned Corinth, and committed the curious statues to the captain of a ship, assuring him, "that if any were lost or broken, he should procure others to be made in their stead:" by which it should seem (whatever may be pretended) that Mummius was no virtuoso.
A king of Egypt, whose body was certainly to be known, as being buried alone in his pyramid, and is therefore more genuine than any of the Cleopatras. This royal mummy, being stolen by a wild Arab, was purchased by the consul of Alexandria, and transmitted to the museum of Munimius.
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