399 By potent Arthur, knock'd his chin and breast. Each gentle clerk, and muttering seals his eyes. REMARKS. 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. 899 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 showed it, expecting his approbation. This Doctor afterwards published the same piece, mutatis mutandis, against that very person. 400 An allusion to a famous sermon of Bishop Hoadley's. Round and more round, o'er all the sea of heads.41 413 414 411 -Centlivre] REMARKS. 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. i. p. 32) before she was seven years old. She also writ a ballad against Mr. Pope's Homer, before he began it. 418 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. 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. 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. 415 Norton] Norton de Foe, offspring of the famous Daniel; fortes creantur fortibus: one of the authors of the Flying Post, in which well-bred work Mr. P. had sometimes the honour to be abused with his betters; and of many hired scurrilities, and daily papers, to which he never set his name. 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.' BLACKM. JOB. Bless'd with his father's front and mother's tongue, 418 Thus the soft gifts of sleep conclude the day, And stretch'd on bulks, as usual, poets lay. Why should I sing what bards the nightly Muse Did slumbering visit, and convey to stews? Who prouder march'd, with magistrates in state, To some fam'd roundhouse, ever-open gate? How Henley lay inspir'd beside a sink, And to mere mortals seem'd a priest in drink, While others, timely, to the neighbouring Fleet (Haunt of the Muses) made their safe retreat? IMITATIONS. 418 And all was hush'd, as Folly's self lay dead] Alludes to Dryden's verse in the Indian Emperor: 'All things are hush'd, as Nature's self lay dead.' BOOK III. ARGUMENT. After the other persons are disposed in their proper places of rest, the goddess transports the king to her temple, and there lays him to slumber with his head on her lap; & position of marvellous virtue, which causes all the visions of wild enthusiasts, projectors, politicians, inamoratos, castle-builders, chymists, and poets. He is immediately carried on the wings of fancy, and led by a mad poetical sibyl, to the Elysian shade; where, on the banks of Lethe, the souls of the dull are dipped by Bavius, before their entrance into this world.. There he is met by the ghost of Settle, and by him made acquainted with the wonders of the place, and with those which he himself is destined to perform. He takes him to a mount of vision, from whence he shows him the past triumphs of the empire of Dulness; then, the present; and, lastly, the future: how small a part of the world was ever conquered by science, how soon those conquests were stopped, and these very nations again reduced to her dominion. Then distinguishing the island of Great Britain, shows by what aids, by what persons, and by what degrees, it shall be brought to her empire. Some of the persons he causes to pass in review before his eyes, describing each by his proper figure, character, and qualifications. On a sudden the scene shifts, and a vast number of miracles and prodigies appear, utterly surprising and unknown to the king himself, till they are explained to be the wonders of his own reign now commencing. this subject Settle breaks into a congratulation, yet not unmixed with concern, that his own times were but the types of these. He prophesies how first the nation shall be overrun with farces, operas, and shows; how the throne VOL. III. 20 On of Dulness shall be advanced over the theatres, and set up even at court; then how her sons shall preside in the seats of arts and sciences; giving a glimpse, or Pisgah-sight, of the future fulness of her glory, the accomplishment whereof is the subject of the fourth and last book. BUT in her temple's last recess inclos'd, He hears loud oracles, and talks with gods; And now, on Fancy's easy wing convey'd, IMITATIONS. 78 Hence from the straw where Bedlam's prophet nods, He hears loud oracles, and talks with gods] 'Et varias audit voces, fruiturque deorum 15 A slipshod sibyl, &c.] 'Conclamat vates VIRG. EN. VII. -Furens antro se immisit aperto.' VIRG. EN. VI |