And now the Queen, to glad her sons, proclaims By herald hawkers high heroic games. They summon all her race: an endless band Amid that area wide they took their stand, Glory and gain the' industrious tribe provoke, REMARKS. 35 quenter of the Pope's table, drank abundantly, and poured forth verses without number. Paulus Jovius, Elog. Vir. doct. cap. xxxii. Some idea of his poetry is given by Fam. Strada in his Prolusions. IMITATIONS. W. 35 A poet's form she plac'd before their eyes.] This is what Juno does to deceive Turnus, Æn. X. 'Tum Dea nube cava, tenuem sine viribus umbram -Dat inania verba, Dat sine mente sonum The reader will observe how exactly some of these verses suit with their allegorical application here to a plagiary. There seems to me a great propriety in this episode, where such an one is imaged by a phantom that deludes the grasp of the expecting bookseller. W. No meagre, muse-rid mope, adust and thin, A fool so just a copy of a wit; So like, that critics said, and courtiers swore, 53 This prize is mine, who tempt it are my foes; With me began this genius, and shall end.' He spoke; and who with Lintot shall contend? Fear held them mute. Alone untaught to fear, Stood dauntless Curl: Behold that rival here! REMARKS. 58 50 Moore] Curl, in his Key to the Dunciad, affirmed this to be James Moore Smith, Esq. 59 We enter here upon the Episode of the Booksellers; persons, whose names being more known and famous in the learned world than those of the authors in this Poem, do therefore need less explanation. The action of Mr. Lintot bere imitates that of Dares in Virgil, rising just in this manner to lay hold on a bull. This eminent bookseller printed the Rival Modes before mentioned. W. 58 Stood dauntless Curl.] We come now to a character IMITATIONS. 59 But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise.] 'Vix illud lecti bis sex Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus.' VIRG. En. XII. The race by vigour, not by vaunts, is won; REMARKS, 61 60 of much respect, that of Mr. Edmund Curl. As a plain repetition of great actions is the best praise of them, we shall only say of this eminent man, that he carried the trade many lengths beyond what it ever before had arrived at; and that he was the envy and admiration of all his profession. He possessed himself of a command over all authors whatever; he caused them to write what he pleased; they could not call their very names their own. He was not only famons among these; he was taken notice of by the State, the Church, and the Law, and received particular marks of distinction from each. It will be owned that he is here introduced with all possi ble dignity; he speaks like the intrepid Diomed; he runs like the swift-footed Achilles; if he falls, it is like the beloved Nisus; and (what Homer makes to be the chief of all praises) he is favoured of the gods: he says but three words, and his praver is heard; a goddess conveys it to the seat of Jupiter. Though he loses the prize, he gains the victory; the great mother herself comforts him, she inspires him with expedients, she honours him with an immortal present (such as Achilles receives from Thetis, and Æneas from Venus) at once instructive and prophetical. After this, he is unrivalled and triumphant: The tribute our author here pays him is a grateful return for several unmerited obligations many weighty animadversions on the public affairs, and many excellent and diverting pieces on private persons, has he given to his name. IMITATIONS. 60 So take the hindmost, hell.] ་ Occupet extremum scabies; mihi turpe relinqui est,' 61, &c.] Something like this is in Homer, Iliad X. ver. 220, of Diomed. Two different manners of the same author in his similies are also imitated in the two following; the first, of the Bailiff, is short, unadorned (and as the critics well know) from familiar life; the second, of the Water-fowl, more extended, picturesque, and from rural life. The 59th verse is likewise a literal translation of one in Homer. W. VOL. IV. I As when a dab-chick waddles through the copse On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops; So labouring on, with shoulders, hands, and head, Wide as a windmill all his figure spread, With arms expanded Bernard rows his state, 67 Full in the middle way there stood a lake, REMARKS. If ever he owed two verses to any other he owed Mr. Curl some thousands. He was every day extending his fame, and enlarging his writings; witness innumerable instances; but it shall suffice only to mention the Court Poems, which he meant to publish as the work of the true writer, a lady of quality; but being first threatened, and afterwards punished for it by Mr. Pope, he generously transferred it from her to him, and ever since printed it in his name. The single time that ever he spoke to C. was on that affair, and to that happy incident he owed all the favours since received from him: so true is the saying of Dr. Sydenham, That any one shall be, at some time or other, the better or the worse for hay. ing but seen or spoken to a good or bad man.' W. 70-Curi's Corinna.] This name, it seems, was taken by one Mrs. Thomas, who procured some private letters of Mr. Pope, while almost a boy, to Mr. Cromwell, and sold them without the consent of either of those gentlemen to Curl, who printed them in 12mo. 1727. He discovered her to be IMITATIONS. 64, 65 On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops; So labouring on, with shoulders, hands, and head.] So eagerly the fiend O'er bog, o'er steep, through streight, rough, dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.' MILTON, Book II. 67, 68 With arms expanded Bernard rows his state, And left-legg'd Jacob seems to emulate.] Milton, of the motion of the swan, rows His state with oary feet.' And Dryden, of another's-With two left legs (Such was her wont, at early dawn to drop Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewray'd, 'Hear, Jove! whose name my bards and I adore, A place there is betwixt earth, air, and seas, Where, from ambrosia, Jove retires for ease. There in his seat two spacious vents appear, On this he sits, to that he leans his ear, REMARKS. ,82 83 the publisher, in his Key, p. 11. We only take this opportunity of mentioning the manner in which those letters got abroad, which the author was ashamed of as very trivial things, full not only of levities, but of wrong judgments of men and books, and only excusable from the youth and inexperience of the writer. W. The Bible, Curl's sign: the Cross Keys, Lintot's. IMITATIONS. 73 Here fortun'd Curl to slide.] 'Labitur infelix, cæsis ut forte juvencis Fusus humum, viridesque super madefecerat herbas 83 A place there is betwixt earth, air, and seas.] OVID. Met. xii. |