And while on Fame's triumphal car they ride,
Some slave of mine be pinion'd to their side."
Now crowds on crowds around the Goddess press,
Each eager to present the first address. 136
Dunce scorning dunce beholds the next advance,
But fop shows fop superior complaisance.
When lo! a spectre rose, whose index-hand
Held forth the virtue of the dreadful wand; 140
His beaver'd brow a birchin garland wears,
Dropping with infants' blood and mothers' tears,
O'er ev'ry vein a shudd'ring horror runs,
Eaton and Winton shake through all their sons.
All flesh is humbled, Westminster's bold race 145
Shrink, and confess the genius of the place:
The pale-boy senator yet tingling stands,

And holds his breeches close with both his hands. Then thus: Since man from beast by words is known,

Words are man's province, word we teach alone. When reason doubtful, like the Samien letter, 151 Points him two ways, the narrower is the better. Plac'd at the door of Learning, youth to guide, We never suffer it to stand too wide.

To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence, 155 As Fancy opens the quick springs of sense,

IMITATIONS.

v. 142. Dropping with infant's blood, &c.]

First Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice and parents' tears.'

Mile

165

We ply the memory, we load the brain,
Bind rebel Wit, and double chain on chain,
Confine the thought, to exercise the breath,
And keep them in the pale of words till death. 160
Whate'er the talents, or howe'er design'd,
We hang one jingling padlock on the mind:
A poct the first day he dips his quill;
And what the last? a very poet still.
Pity! the charm works only in our wall,
Lost, lost too soon in yonder House or Hall.
There truant Wyndham ev'ry muse gave o'er,
There Talbot sunk, and was a wit no more!
How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast!
How many Martials were in Pult'ney lost!
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 mar.

170

Oh (cry'd the Goddess) for some pedant reign!
Some gentle James, to bless the land again: 176
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 counsel to a grammar-school! 180
For sure if Dulness sees a grateful day,
'Tis in the shade of arbitrary sway.

O! 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: 185

May you, my 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 woods, and caps, a sable shoal: 190 Thick and more thick the black blockade extends, A hundred head of Aristotle's friends.

Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day,
[Through Christ-church long kept prudishly away.]
Each staunch Polemic, stubborn as a rock, 195
Each fierce Logician, still expelling Locke, [thick
Came whip and spur, and dash'd through thin and
On German Crouzaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck.
As many quit the streams that murm'ring fall
To lull the sons of Margret and Clare-hall, 200
Where Bentley late tempestuous wont to sport
In troubled waters, but now sleeps in Port.
Before them march'd that awful Aristarch;
Plow'd was his front with many a deep remark:
His hat, which never veil'd to human pride, 205
Walker with rev'rence took, and laid rside.
Low bow'd the rest: he, kingly, did but nod;
So upright Quakers please both man and God.

REMARKS.

D. 196...still expelling Locke.] In the year 1703 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. See his Letters in the last edit.

IMITATIONS.

207. He, kingly, did but nod.]

..lic, kingly, from his state
Declin'd not.'..

Milton

210

Mistress! dismiss that rabble from your throne:
Avaunt-is Aristarchus yet unknown ?
The mighty scholiast, whose unweary'd pains
Mrde 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.
214
Roman and Greek graminarians! know you better;
Author of something yet more great than letter;
While tow'ring o'er your alphabet, like Saul,
Stands our Digamma, and o'ertops them all.
'Tis true, on words is still our whole debate,
Dispute 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 Alsop, never but like Horace joke:
For me, what Virgil, Pliny would deny,
Manilius or Solinus shall supply:

For Attic phrase in Plato let them seek,
I poach in Suidas for unlicens'd Greek.

REMARKS.

220

223

v. 293, 224. Freind.. Alsop. Dr. Robert Freind, master of Westminster-school, and canon of Christ-church..Dr. Anthay Alsop, a happy imitator of the Horatian style.

Gellius, Stobaus.] The first a dietionary.

v. 228. &c. Suidas,

Dost thou not feel me, Rome?

Virg.

Ben Jonson,

v. 215. Roman and Greck grammarians, &c.] linitated from

Propertius, speaking of the Eneid,

Cedite, Romani scriptores, cedite Graii!
Nescio quid majus hascitur Iliade.'

In ancient sense if any needs will deal,

Be sure I give them fragments, not a meal; 230
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, 235
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, then Wisdom's grave disguise. 240 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 Nus Nor could a Barrow work on ev'ry block, Nor has one Atterbury spoil'd the flock. 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:

REMARKS.

245

250

writer, a collector of impertinent facts and barbarous words: the second a minute critic; the third an author who gave his common-place book to the Public, where we happen to find much mince meat of old books.

v. 245, 245. Barrow...Atterbury] Isaac Barrow, Master of Trinity, Francis Atterbury Dean of Christ-church, both great geniusses 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 se

eral societies.