Whirlpools and storms his circling arms invest,
With all the might of gravitation bless'd.

No crab more active in the dirty dance,
Downward to climb, and backward to advance,
He brings up half the bottom on his head,
And loudly claims the journals and the lead.
The plunging prelate, and his ponderous grace,
With holy envy gave one layman place.
When lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood,
Slow rose a form in majesty of mud;
Shaking the horrors of his sable brows,
And each ferocious feature grim with ooze.
Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares;
Then thus the wonders of the deep declares.
First he relates how, sinking to the chin,
Smit with his mien, the mud-nymphs suck'd him in ;
How young Lutetia, softer than the down,
Nigrina black, and Merdamante brown,
Vied for his love in jetty bowers below,
As Hylas fair was ravish'd long ago.

329

Then sung, how shown him by the nut-brown maids
A branch of Styx here rises from the shades,
That tinctur'd as it runs with Lethé's streams,
And wafting vapours from the land of dreams,
(As under seas Alpheus' secret sluice

Bears Pisa's offering to his Arethuse)

Pours into Thames; and hence the mingled wave Intoxicates the pert, and lulls the grave :

IMITATIONS.

329 Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares. Virg. Æn. VI. of the Sibyl:

- majorque videri, Nec mortale souans'

Here, brisker vapours o'er the temple creep;
There, all from Paul's to Aldgate drink and sleep.
Thence to the banks where reverend bards repose
They led him soft: each reverend bard arose ; [347
And Milbourn chief, deputed by the rest, 349
Gave him the cassock, surcingle, and vest.

Receive (he said) these robes which once were Dulness is sacred in a sound divine.' [mine, He ceas'd, and spread the robe; the crowd confess The reverend flamen in his lengthen'd dress. Around him wide a sable army stand,

A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band,
Prompt or to guard or stab, or saint or damn,
Heaven's Swiss, who fight for any god or man.
Through Lud's fam'd gates, along the well-known
Fleet,

Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street,
Till show'rs of sermons, characters, essays,
In circling fleeces whiten all the ways:

So clouds replenish'd from some bog below,
Mount in dark volumes, and descend in snow.

REMARKS.

349 And Milbourn.] Luke Milbourn, a clergyman, the fairest of critics who, when he wrote against Mr. Dryden's Virgil, did him justice in printing at the same time his own translations of him, which were intolerable. His mauner of writing has a great resemblance with that of the gentlemen of the Dunciad against our author, as will be seen in the parallel of Mr. Dryden and him.

IMITATIONS.

347 Thence to the banks, &c.]

'Tum canit errantem Permessi ad flumina Gallum,
Utque viro Phoebi chorus assurrexerit omnis;
Ut Linus hæc illi divino carmine pastor,

Floribus atque apio crines ornatus amaro,

Dixerit, Hos tibi dant clamos, en accipe, Musæ,
Ascræo quos ante seni'-&c.

W.

Here stop'd the goddess; and in pomp proclaims A gentler exercise to close the games.

Ye critics! in whose heads, as equal scales,
I weigh what author's heaviness prevails;
Which most conduce to sooth the soul in slumbers,
My Henley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers;
Attend the trial we propose to make :

If there be man who o'er such works can wake,
Sleep's all-subduing charms who dares defy,
And boasts Ulysses' ear with Argus' eye;
To him we grant our amplest pow'rs to sit
Judge of all present, past, and future wit;
To cavil, censure, dictate, right or wrong,
Full and eternal privilege of tongue.'

382

.380

Three college sophs,and three pert templars came, The same their talents, and their tastes the same ;3 Each prompt to query, answer, and debate, And smit with love of poësy and prate. The ponderous books two gentle readers bring; The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring: 384 The clamorous crowd is hush'd with mugs of mum, Till all tun'd equal send a general hum.

Then mount the clerks, and in one lazy tone Through the long, heavy, painful page drawl on;

IMITATIONS.

380 381 The same their talents,-Each prompt, &c.]
'Ambo florentes ætatibus, Arcades ambo,
Et certare pares, et respondere parati.'

VIRG. Ecl. VI.

382 And smit with love of poesy and prate.]
'Smit with the love of sacred song-'
384 The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring.]
'Consedere duces, et vulgi stante corona.'

MILTON.

OVID. Met. XIII.

Soft creeping words on words the sense compose,
At every line they stretch, they yawn, they doze.
As to soft gales top-heavy pines bow low
Their heads, and lift them as they cease to blow;
Thus oft they rear, and oft the head decline,
As breathe, or pause, by fits, the airs divine.
And now to this side, now to that they nod,
As verse, or prose, infuse the drowsy god.
Thrice Budgel aim'd to speak, but thrice supprest397
By potent Arthur, knock'd his chin and breast.
Toland and Tindal, prompt at priests to jeer,399
Yet silent bow'd to Christ's no kingdom here.'400
Who sat the nearest, by the words o'ercome,
Slept first; the distant nodded to the hum. [lies
Then down are roll'd the books; stretch'd o'er 'em
Each gentle clerk, and muttering seals his eyes.

REMARKS.

397 Thrice Budgel aim'd to speak.] Famous for his speeches on many occasions about the South Sea scheme, &c. "He is a very ingenious gentleman, and hath written some excellent epilogues to plays, and one small piece on Love, which is very pretty.' Jacob, Lives of Poets, Vol. II. p. 289. But this gentleman since made himself much more eminent, and personally well known to the greatest statesmen of all parties, as well as to all the courts of law in this nation.

W.

999 Toland and Tindal.] Two persons, not so happy as to be obscure, who writ against the religion of their country. Toland, the author of the Atheist's Liturgy, called Pantheisticon,' was a spy in pay to Lord Oxford. Tindal was author of the Rights of the Christian Church, and Christianity as old as the Creation. He also wrote an abusive pamphlet against Earl S-, which was suppressed while yet in MS. by an eminent person, then out of the ministry, to whom he shewed it, expecting his approbation. This Doctor afterwards published the same piece, mutatis mutandis, against that very person.

W

400 An allusion to a famous sermon of Bishop Hoadley's.

As what a Dutchman plumps into the lakes,
One circle first and then a second makes;
What Dulness drop'd among her sons impress'd
Like motion from one circle to the rest:

So from the midmost the nutation spreads,
Round and more round,o'er all the sea of heads.'410
At last Centlivre felt her voice to fail ; 411
Motteux himself unfinish'd left his tale;
Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o'er;
Morgan and Mandeville could prate no more;

413

414

REMARKS.

411 -Centlivre.] Mrs. Susannah Centlivre, wife to Mr. Centlivre, Yeoman of the Mouth to his Majesty. She writ many plays, and a song (says Mr. Jacob, Vol. 1. p. 32.) before she was seven years old. She also writ a ballad against Mr. Pope's Homer, before he began it. . W.

419 Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o'er.] A. Boyer, a voluminous compiler of annals, political collections, &c.-William Law. A.M. wrote with great zeal against the stage; Mr. Dennis answered with as great. Their books were printed in 1726.

W.

414 Morgan.] A writer against religion, distinguished no otherwise from the rabble of his tribe than by the pompousness of his title, of a Moral Philosopher. W.

414 - Mandeville.] Author of a famous book called The Fable of the Bees; written to prove, that moral virtue is the invention of knaves, and Christian virtue the imposition of fools; and that vice is necessary, and alone sufficient to render society flourishing and happy.

IMITATIONS.

410 O'er all the sea of heads.]

A waving sea of heads was round me spread,
And still fresh streams the gazing deluge fed.'

W.

BLACKM. Job.