HIGH on a gorgeous seat, that far outshone | |
| Henley’s gilt tub or Fleckno’s Irish throne, | |
| Or that whereon her Curlls the public pours, | |
| All bounteous, fragrant grains and golden showers, | |
| Great Cibber sate; the proud Parnassian sneer, | 5 |
| The conscious simper, and the jealous leer, | |
| Mix on his look: all eyes direct their rays | |
| On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze. | |
| His peers shine round him with reflected grace, | |
| New-edge their dulness, and new-bronze their face. | 10 |
| So from the sun’s broad beam, in shallow urns, | |
| Heav’n’s twinkling sparks draw light, and point their horns. | |
| Not with more glee, by hands pontific crown’d, | |
| With scarlet hats wide-waving circled round, | |
| Rome, in her capitol saw Querno sit, | 15 |
| Throned on sev’n hills, the Antichrist of wit. | |
| And now the Queen, to glad her sons, proclaims | |
| By herald hawkers, high heroic games. | |
| They summon all her race: an endless band | |
| Pours forth, and leaves unpeopled half the land; | 20 |
| A motley mixture! in long wigs, in bags, | |
| In silks, in crapes, in Garters, and in Rags, | |
| From drawing rooms, from colleges, from garrets, | |
| On horse, on foot, in hacks, and gilded chariots; | |
| All who true Dunces in her cause appear’d, | 25 |
| And all who knew those Dunces to reward. | |
| Amid that area wide they took their stand, | |
| Where the tall Maypole once o’erlook’d the Strand, | |
| But now (so ANNE and Piety ordain) | |
| A Church collects the saints of Drury-lane. | 30 |
| With Authors, Stationers obey’d the call | |
| (The field of glory is a field for all); | |
| Glory and gain th’ industrious tribe provoke, | |
| And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke. | |
| A poet’s form she placed before their eyes, | 35 |
| And bade the nimblest racer seize the prize; | |
| No meagre, Muse-rid Mope, adust and thin, | |
| In a dun nightgown of his own loose skin, | |
| But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise, | |
| Twelve starveling bards of these degen’rate days. | 40 |
| All as a partridge plump, full fed and fair, | |
| She form’d this image of well-bodied air; | |
| With pert flat eyes she window’d well its head, | |
| A brain of Feathers, and a heart of Lead; | |
| And empty words she gave, and sounding strain, | 45 |
| But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain! | |
| Never was dash’d out, at one lucky hit, | |
| A Fool so just a copy of a Wit; | |
| So like, that Critics said, and Courtiers swore, | |
| A Wit it was, and call’d the phantom Moore. | 50 |
| All gaze with ardour: some a poet’s name, | |
| Others a swordknot and laced suit inflame. | |
| But lofty Lintot in the circle rose: | |
| ‘This prize is mine, who tempt it are my foes; | |
| With me began this genius, and shall end.’ | 55 |
| He spoke; and who with Lintot shall contend? | |
| Fear held them mute. Alone untaught to fear, | |
| Stood dauntless Curll: ‘Behold that rival here! | |
| The race by vigour, not by vaunts, is won; | |
| So take the hindmost, Hell,’ he said, and run. | 60 |
| Swift as a bard the bailiff leaves behind, | |
| He left huge Lintot, and outstript the wind. | |
| As when a dabchick waddles thro’ the copse | |
| On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops; | |
| So lab’ring on, with shoulders, hands, and head, | 65 |
| Wide as a windmill all his figure spread, | |
| With arms expanded Bernard rows his state, | |
| And left-legg’d Jacob seems to emulate. | |
| Full in the middle way there stood a lake, | |
| Which Curll’s Corinna chanced that morn to make | 70 |
| (Such was her wont, at early dawn to drop | |
| Her ev’ning cates before his neighbour’s shop): | |
| Here fortuned Curll to slide; loud shout the band, | |
| And ‘Bernard! Bernard!’ rings thro’ all the Strand. | |
| Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewray’d, | 75 |
| Fall’n in the plash his wickedness had laid: | |
| Then first (if Poets aught of truth declare) | |
| The caitiff Vaticide conceiv’d a prayer. | |
| ‘Hear, Jove! whose name my bards and I adore, | |
| As much at least as any God’s, or more; | 80 |
| And him and his, if more devotion warms, | |
| Down with the Bible, up with the Pope’s Arms.’ | |
| A place there is betwixt earth, air, and seas, | |
| Where, from ambrosia, Jove retires for ease. | |
| There in his seat two spacious vents appear, | 85 |
| On this he sits, to that he leans his ear, | |
| And hears the various vows of fond Mankind; | |
| Some beg an eastern, some a western wind: | |
| All vain petitions, mounting to the sky, | |
| With reams abundant this abode supply: | 90 |
| Amused he reads, and then returns the bills, | |
| Sign’d with that ichor which from Gods distils. | |
| In office here fair Cloacina stands, | |
| And ministers to Jove with purest hands. | |
| Forth from the heap she pick’d her vot’ry’s prayer, | 95 |
| And placed it next him, a distinction rare! | |
| Oft had the Goddess heard her servant’s call, | |
| From her black grottos near the temple wall, | |
| List’ning delighted to the jest unclean | |
| Of linkboys vile, and watermen obscene; | 100 |
| Where as he fish’d her nether realms for wit, | |
| She oft had favour’d him, and favours yet. | |
| Renew’d by ordure’s sympathetic force, | |
| As oil’d with magic juices for the course, | |
| Vig’rous he rises; from th’ effluvia strong; | 105 |
| Imbibes new life, and scours and stinks along; | |
| Repasses Lintot, vindicates the race, | |
| Nor heeds the brown dishonours of his face. | |
| And now the victor stretch’d his eager hand | |
| Where the tall Nothing stood, or seem’d to stand; | 110 |
| A shapeless shade, it melted from his sight, | |
| Like forms in clouds, or visions of the night. | |
| To seize his papers, Curll, was next thy care; | |
| His papers light, fly diverse, toss’d in air; | |
| Songs, Sonnets, Epigrams, the winds uplift, | 115 |
| And whisk ’em back to Evans, Young, and Swift. | |
| Th’ embroider’d suit at least he deem’d his prey; | |
| That suit an unpaid tailor snatch’d away. | |
| No rag, no scrap, of all the Beau or Wit, | |
| That once so flutter’d and that once so writ. | 120 |
| Heav’n rings with laughter: of the laughter vain, | |
| Dulness, good Queen, repeats the jest again. | |
| Three wicked imps of her own Grub-street choir, | |
| She deck’d like Congreve, Addison, and Prior; | |
| Mears, Warner, Wilkins, run; delusive thought! | 125 |
| Breval, Bond, Bezaleel, the varlets caught. | |
| Curll stretches after Gay, but Gay is gone, | |
| He grasps an empty Joseph for a John: | |
| So Proteus, hunted in a nobler shape, | |
| Became, when seized, a puppy or an ape. | 130 |
| To him the Goddess: ‘Son! thy grief lay down, | |
| And turn this whole illusion on the town. | |
| As the sage dame, experienced in her trade, | |
| By names of toasts retails each batter’d jade | |
| (Whence hapless Monsieur much complains at Paris | 135 |
| Of wrongs from Duchesses and Lady Maries); | |
| Be thine, my stationer! this magic gift; | |
| Cook shall be Prior; and Concanen Swift; | |
| So shall each hostile name become our own, | |
| And we, too, boast our Garth and Addison.’ | 140 |
| With that she gave him (piteous of his case, | |
| Yet smiling at his rueful length of face) | |
| A shaggy tap’stry, worthy to be spread | |
| On Codrus’ old, or Dunton’s modern bed; | |
| Instructive work! whose wry-mouth’d portraiture | 145 |
| Display’d the fates her confessors endure. | |
| Earless on high stood unabash’d De Foe, | |
| And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge below: | |
| There Ridpath, Roper, cudgell’d might ye view, | |
| The very worsted still look’d black and blue: | 150 |
| Himself among the storied chiefs he spies, | |
| As, from the blanket, high in air he flies, | |
| And, ‘Oh! (he cried) what street, what lane but knows | |
| Our purgings, pumpings, blanketings and blows? | |
| In every loom our labours shall be seen, | 155 |
| And the fresh vomit run for ever green!’ | |
| See in the circle next Eliza placed, | |
| Two babes of love close clinging to her waist; | |
| Fair as before her works she stands confess’d, | |
| In flowers and pearls by bounteous Kirkall dress’d. | 160 |
| The Goddess then: ‘Who best can send on high | |
| The salient spout, far-streaming to the sky, | |
| His be yon Juno of majestic size, | |
| With cow-like udders, and with ox-like eyes. | |
| This China Jordan let the chief o’ercome | 165 |
| Replenish, not ingloriously, at home.’ | |
| Osborne and Curll accept the glorious strife | |
| (Tho’ this his son dissuades, and that his wife); | |
| One on his manly confidence relies, | |
| One on his vigour and superior size. | 170 |
| First Osborne lean’d against his letter’d post; | |
| It rose, and labour’d to a curve at most: | |
| So Jove’s bright bow displays its wat’ry round | |
| (Sure sign that no spectator shall be drown’d). | |
| A second effort brought but new disgrace, | 175 |
| The wild mæander wash’d the Artist’s face: | |
| Thus the small jet, which hasty hands unlock, | |
| Spirts in the gard’ner’s eyes who turns the cock. | |
| Not so from shameless Curll; impetuous spread | |
| The stream, and smoking flourish’d o’er his head: | 180 |
| So (famed like thee for turbulence and horns) | |
| Eridanus his humble fountain scorns; | |
| Thro’ half the heav’ns he pours th’ exalted urn; | |
| His rapid waters in their passage burn. | |
| Swift as it mounts, all follow with their eyes; | 185 |
| Still happy Impudence obtains the prize. | |
| Thou triumph’st, victor of the high-wrought day, | |
| And the pleas’d dame, soft smiling, lead’st away. | |
| Osborne, thro’ perfect modesty o’ercome, | |
| Crown’d with the Jordan, walks contented home. | 190 |
| But now for Authors nobler palms remain; | |
| Room for my Lord! three jockeys in his train; | |
| Six huntsmen with a shout precede his chair: | |
| He grins, and looks broad nonsense with a stare. | |
| His honour’s meaning Dulness thus exprest, | 195 |
| ‘He wins this patron who can tickle best.’ | |
| He chinks his purse, and takes his seat of state; | |
| With ready quills the dedicators wait; | |
| Now at his head the dext’rous task commence, | |
| And, instant, fancy feels th’ imputed sense; | 200 |
| Now gentle touches wanton o’er his face, | |
| He struts Adonis, and affects grimace; | |
| Rolli the feather to his ear conveys, | |
| Then his nice taste directs our operas; | |
| Bentley his mouth with classic flatt’ry opes, | 205 |
| And the puff’d orator bursts out in tropes. | |
| But Welsted most the poet’s healing balm | |
| Strives to extract from his soft, giving palm. | |
| Unlucky Welsted! thy unfeeling master, | |
| The more thou ticklest, gripes his fist the faster. | 210 |
| While thus each hand promotes the pleasing pain, | |
| And quick sensations skip from vein to vein, | |
| A youth unknown to Phœbus, in despair, | |
| Puts his last refuge all in Heav’n and prayer. | |
| What force have pious vows! The Queen of Love | 215 |
| Her sister sends, her vot’ress from above. | |
| As taught by Venus, Paris learn’d the art | |
| To touch Achilles’ only tender part; | |
| Secure, thro’ her, the noble prize to carry, | |
| He marches off, his Grace’s Secretary. | 220 |
| ‘Now turn to diff’rent sports (the Goddess cries), | |
| And learn, my sons, the wondrous power of Noise. | |
| To move, to raise, to ravish ev’ry heart, | |
| With Shakespeare’s nature, or with Jonson’s art, | |
| Let others aim; ’t is yours to shake the soul | 225 |
| With thunder rumbling from the mustard bowl; | |
| With horns and trumpets now to madness swell, | |
| Now sink in sorrow with a tolling bell! | |
| Such happy arts attention can command | |
| When Fancy flags, and Sense is at a stand. | 230 |
| Improve we these. Three Cat-calls be the bribe | |
| Of him whose chatt’ring shames the monkey tribe; | |
| And his this drum, whose hoarse heroic bass | |
| Drowns the loud clarion of the braying ass.’ | |
| Now thousand tongues are heard in one loud din: | 235 |
| The monkey mimics rush discordant in; | |
| ’T was chatt’ring, grinning, mouthing, jabb’ring all, | |
| And noise and Norton, brangling and Breval, | |
| Dennis and dissonance, and captious art, | |
| And snipsnap short, and interruption smart, | 240 |
| And demonstration thin, and theses thick, | |
| And Major, Minor, and Conclusion quick. | |
| ‘Hold (cried the Queen), a Cat-call each shall win; | |
| Equal your merits! equal is your din! | |
| But that this well-disputed game may end, | 245 |
| Sound forth, my Brayers, and the welkin rend.’ | |
| As when the long-ear’d milky mothers wait | |
| At some sick miser’s triple-bolted gate, | |
| For their defrauded absent foals they make | |
| A moan so loud, that all the guild awake; | 250 |
| Sore sighs Sir Gilbert, starting at the bray, | |
| From dreams of millions, and three groats to pay, | |
| So swells each windpipe; ass intones to ass, | |
| Harmonic twang! of leather, horn, and brass; | |
| Such as from lab’ring lungs th’ Enthusiast blows, | 255 |
| High sound, attemper’d to the vocal nose; | |
| Or such as bellow from the deep divine; | |
| There Webster! peal’d thy voice, and, Whitefield! thine. | |
| But far o’er all, sonorous Blackmore’s strain; | |
| Walls, steeples, skies, bray back to him again; | 260 |
| In Tot’nam Fields the brethren, with amaze, | |
| Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze! | |
| Long Chancery Lane retentive rolls the sound, | |
| And courts to courts return it round and round; | |
| Thames wafts it thence to Rufus’ roaring hall, | 265 |
| And Hungerford reëchoes bawl for bawl. | |
| All hail him victor in both gifts of song, | |
| Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long. | |
| This labour past, by Bridewell all descend | |
| (As morning prayer and flagellation end) | 270 |
| To where Fleet Ditch, with disemboguing streams, | |
| Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames; | |
| The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud | |
| With deeper sable blots the silver flood. | |
| ‘Here strip, my children! here at once leap in; | 275 |
| Here prove who best can dash thro’ thick and thin, | |
| And who the most in love of dirt excel, | |
| Or dark dexterity of groping well: | |
| Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around | |
| The stream, be his the Weekly Journals bound; | 280 |
| A Pig of Lead to him who dives the best; | |
| A Peck of Coals apiece shall glad the rest.’ | |
| In naked majesty Oldmixon stands, | |
| And, Milo-like, surveys his arms and hands; | |
| Then sighing, thus, ‘And am I now threescore? | 285 |
| Ah, why, ye Gods! should two and two make four?’ | |
| He said, and climb’d a stranded lighter’s height, | |
| Shot to the black abyss, and plunged downright. | |
| The senior’s judgment all the crowd admire, | |
| Who but to sink the deeper rose the higher. | 290 |
| Next Smedley dived; slow circles dimpled o’er | |
| The quaking mud, that closed and oped no more. | |
| All look, all sigh, and call on Smedley lost; | |
| ‘Smedley!’ in vain resounds thro’ all the coast. | |
| Then [Hill] essay’d; scarce vanish’d out of sight, | 295 |
| He buoys up instant, and returns to light; | |
| He bears no tokens of the sabler streams, | |
| And mounts far off among the swans of Thames. | |
| True to the bottom, see Concanen creep, | |
| A cold, long-winded native of the deep; | 300 |
| If perseverance gain the diver’s prize, | |
| Not everlasting Blackmore this denies: | |
| No noise, no stir, no motion canst thou make; | |
| Th’ unconscious stream sleeps o’er thee like a lake. | |
| Next plunged a feeble, but a desp’rate pack, | 305 |
| With each a sickly brother at his back: | |
| Sons of a Day! just buoyant on the flood, | |
| Then number’d with the puppies in the mud. | |
| Ask ye their names? I could as soon disclose | |
| The names of these blind puppies as of those. | 310 |
| Fast by, like Niobe (her children gone), | |
| Sits mother Osborne, stupefied to stone! | |
| And monumental brass this record bears, | |
| ‘These are, ah no! these were the Gazetteers!’ | |
| Not so bold Arnall; with a weight of skull | 315 |
| Furious he dives, precipitately dull. | |
| Whirlpools and storms his circling arms invest, | |
| With all the might of gravitation blest. | |
| No crab more active in the dirty dance, | |
| Downward to climb, and backward to advance, | 320 |
| He brings up half the bottom on his head, | |
| And loudly claims the Journals and the Lead. | |
| The plunging Prelate, and his pond’rous Grace, | |
| With holy envy gave one layman place. | |
| When lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood, | 325 |
| 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. | 330 |
| 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, | 335 |
| As Hylas fair was ravish’d long ago. | |
| Then sung, how shown him by the nut-brown maids | |
| A branch of Styx here rises from the shades, | |
| That tinctured as it runs with Lethe’s streams, | |
| And wafting vapours from the land of dreams | 340 |
| (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: | |
| Here, brisker vapours o’er the Temple creep; | 345 |
| There, all from Paul’s to Algate drink and sleep. | |
| Thence to the banks where rev’rend bards repose | |
| They led him soft; each rev’rend bard arose; | |
| And Milbourn chief, deputed by the rest, | |
| Gave him the cassock, surcingle, and vest. | 350 |
| ‘Receive (he said) these robes which once were mine; | |
| Dulness is sacred in a sound divine.’ | |
| He ceas’d, and spread the robe; the crowd confess | |
| The rev’rend flamen in his lengthen’d dress. | |
| Around him wide a sable army stand, | 355 |
| A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band, | |
| Prompt or to guard or stab, or saint or damn, | |
| Heav’n’s Swiss, who fight for any God or Man. | |
| Thro’ Lud’s famed gates, along the well-known Fleet, | |
| Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street, | 360 |
| Till showers 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. | |
| Here stopt the Goddess; and in pomp proclaims | 365 |
| 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 soothe the soul in slumbers, | |
| My Henley’s periods, or my Blackmore’s numbers; | 370 |
| 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 powers to sit | 375 |
| Judge of all present, past, and future wit; | |
| To cavil, censure, dictate, right or wrong, | |
| Full and eternal privilege of tongue.’ | |
| Three college Sophs, and three pert Templars came, | |
| The same their talents, and their tastes the same! | 380 |
| Each prompt to query, answer, and debate, | |
| And smit with love of Poesy and Prate. | |
| The pond’rous books two gentle readers bring; | |
| The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring; | |
| The clam’rous crowd is hush’d with mugs of mum, | 385 |
| Till all tuned equal send a gen’ral hum. | |
| Then mount the clerks, and in one lazy tone | |
| Thro’ the long, heavy, painful page drawl on; | |
| Soft creeping words on words the sense compose, | |
| At ev’ry line they stretch, they yawn, they doze. | 390 |
| 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, | 395 |
| As verse, or prose, infuse the drowsy God. | |
| Thrice Budgell aim’d to speak, but thrice supprest | |
| By potent Arthur, knock’d his chin and breast. | |
| Toland and Tindal, prompt at priests to jeer, | |
| 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, | |
| Then down are roll’d the books; stretch’d o’er ’em lies | |
| Each gentle clerk, and mutt’ring seals his eyes. | |
| As what a Dutchman plumps into the lakes, | 405 |
| One circle first and then a second makes, | |
| What Dulness dropt among her sons imprest | |
| 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; | |
| Motteux himself unfinish’d left his tale; | |
| Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o’er; | |
| Morgan and Mandeville could prate no more; | |
| Norton, from Daniel and Ostrœa sprung, | 415 |
| Bless’d with his father’s front and mother’s tongue, | |
| Hung silent down his never-blushing head, | |
| And all was hush’d, as Folly’s self lay dead. | |
| Thus the soft gifts of sleep conclude the day, | |
| And stretch’d on bulks, as usual Poets lay. | 420 |
| Why should I sing what bards the nightly Muse | |
| Did slumb’ring visit, and convey to stews? | |
| Who prouder march’d, with magistrates in state, | |
| To some famed roundhouse, ever-open gate? | |
| How Henley lay inspired beside a sink, | 425 |
| And to mere mortals seem’d a priest in drink, | |
| While others, timely, to the neighb’ring Fleet | |
| (Haunt of the Muses) made their safe retreat? | |
| |
