Let Bawdry, Billinfgate, my daughters dear, O! when shall rife a Monarch all our own, REMARK S. VER. 309, 310. under Archer's wing,-Gaming, &c.] When the Statute against Gaming was drawn up, it was represented, that the King, by ancient cuftom, plays at Hazard one night in the year; and therefore a clause was inferted, with an exception as to that particular. Under this pretence, the Groomporter had a Room appropriated to Gaming all the fummer the Court was at Kenfington, which his Majesty accidentally being acquainted of, with a juft indignation prohibited. It is reported the fame practice is yet continued wherever the Court refides, and the Hazard Table there open to all the profeffed Gamefters in town. Greatest and jufteft Sov'REIGN; know you this? Alas! no more, than Thames' calm head can know IMITATIONS. VER. 311. O! when fall rife a Monarch, &c.] Boileau, Lutrin, Chant, ¡I. Helas! qu'eft devenu ce tems, cet heureux tems, Où les Rois s'honoroient du nom de Faineans: &c. Till Senates nod to Lullabies divine, And all be fleep, as at an Ode of thine. She ceas'd. Then fwells the Chapel-royal throat: God fave king Cibber! mounts in ev'ry note. 320 Familiar White's, God fave king Colley! cries; God fave king Colley! Drury-lane replies: To Needham's quick the voice triumphal rode, But pious Needham dropt the name of God; Back to the Devil the laft echoes roll, And Coll! each Butcher roars at Hockley-hole. So when Jove's block defcended from on high (As fings thy great forefather Ogilby) REMARK S. 325 VER. 319. Chapel-royal] The Voices and Inftruments used in the fervice of the Chapel-royal being alfo employed in the performance of the Birth-day and New-year Odes. 66 VER. 324. But pious Needham] A Matron of great fame, and very religious in her way; whofe conftant prayer it was, that the might get enough by her profeffion to leave it off in "time, and make her peace with God." But her fate was not fo happy; for being convicted, and fet in the pillory, she was (to the lafting fhame of all her great Friends and Votaries) fo ill ufed by the populace, that it put an end to her days. VER. 225 Back to the Devil] The Devil Tavern in Fleetftreet, where thefe Odes are ufually rehearfed before they are performed at Court. Upon which a Wit of thofe times made this Epigram, When Laureates make odes, Do you ask of what fort? You may judge-From the Devil they come to the Court, Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog, REMARK S. VER. 328. Ogilby)-God fave king Log!] See Ogilby's Æfop's Fables, where, in the ftory of the Frogs and their King, this excellent hemiftic is to be found. Our Author manifefts here, and elsewhere, a prodigious tenderness for the bad writers. We fee he felects the only good paffage, perhaps, in all that ever Ogilby writ; which fhews how candid and patient a reader he must have been. What can be more kind and affectionate than these words in the preface to his Poems, where he labours to call up all our humanity and forgiveness toward these unlucky men, by the most moderate reprefentation of their cafe that has ever been given by any author?" Much may be faid to extenuate the fault of "bad poets: What we call a genius is hard to be diftinguish"ed, by a man himself, from a prevalent inclination: And if "it be never fo great, he can at firft discover it no other way "than by that strong propensity which renders him the more "liable to be mistaken. He has no other method but to make "the experiment, by writing, and fo appealing to the judg"ment of others: And if he happens to write ill (which is "certainly no fin in itself) he is immediately made the object "of ridicule! I wish we had the humanity to reflect, that even "the worst authors might endeavour to please us, and, in that "endeavour, deferve fomething at our hands. We have no "caufe to quarrel with them, but for their obftinacy in perfifting, and even that may admit of alleviating circumstances: "For their particular friends may be either ignorant, or unfin66 cere; and the reft of the world too well bred to shock them "with a truth which generally their bookfellers are the first "that inform them of." t But how much all indulgence is loft upon these people may appear from the just reflection made on their conftant conduct and conftant fate, in the following Epigram: "Ye little Wits, that gleam'd a while, "When Pope vouchtaf'd a ray, "Alas! depriv'd of his kind fmile, "To compafs Phoebus' car about, "Thus empty vapours rise; "Each lends his cloud, to put him out, "That rear'd him to the skies. "Alas! those skies are not your sphere ; "There He fhall ever burn: "Weep, weep, and fall! for Earth ye were, "And muft to Earth return. The END of the FIRST BOOK. THE DUNCIA D: BOOK the SECOND. ARGUMENT. The King being proclaimed, the folemnity is graced with public Games and sports of various kinds; not inftituted by the Hero, as by Eneas in Virgil, but for greater bonour by the Goddefs in perfon (in like manner as the games Pythia, Ifthmia, &c. were anciently faid to be ordained by the Gods, and as Thetis berfelf appearing, according to Homer, Ody. xxiv. propofed the prizes in bonour of her fon Achilles.) Hither flock the Poets and Critics, attended, as is but just, with their Patrons and Bookfellers. The Goddess is first pleased, for her dif port, to propofe games to the Bookfellers, and fetteth up the Phantom of a Poet, which they contend to overtake. The Races defcribed, with their divers accidents. Next, the game for a Poetefs. Then follow the Exercifes for the Poetes of tickling, vociferating, diving: The first holds forth the arts and practices of Dedicators, the fecond of Difputants and fuftian Poets, the |
