There Fezzan's thrum-capp'd tribes, Turks, Chris

tians, Jews,

Accommodate, ye gods! their feet with shoes.

NOTES.

"with shoes,† and the head is protected by a-woollen "nightcap."

AFRICAN ASSOCIATION, p. 139.

"From this scene of gladsome contrast, i. e. from "the mountain of Zilau (p. 288), whose rugged sides "are marked with scanty spots of brushwood, and "enriched with stores of water, to the long ascent of "the broad rock of Gerdobah (p. 289), from whose "inflexible barrenness little is to be got-from this scene, I say, of gladsome contrast to the inveterate "mountains of Gegogib, &c."

+ Shoes. By your leave, master critic, here is a small oversight in your quotation. The gentleman does not say their feet are accommodated with shoes, but with slippers. For the rest, accommodate, as I learn, is a scholar-like word, and a word of exceeding great propriety. Accommodate! it comes from accommodo: that is, when a man's feet are, as they say, accommodated: or when they are being whereby they may be thought to be accommodated: which is an excellent thing!

PRINTER'S DEVIL.

There meagre shrubs inveterate mountains grace,
And brushwood breaks the amplitude of space.
Perplex'd with terms so vague and undefin'd,
I blunder on; till wilder'd, giddy, blind,
Where'er I turn, on clouds I seem to tread;
And call for Mandeville to ease my head.

Oh for the good old times! WHEN all was new,
And every hour brought prodigies to view,
Our sires in unaffected language told

210.

215

220

Of streams of amber, and of rocks of gold:
Full of their theme, they spurn'd all idle art;
And the plain tale was trusted to the heart.
Now all is changed! We fume and fret, poor elves;
Less to display our subject, than ourselves:
Whate'er we paint—a grot, a flow'r, a bird,

Heavens! how we sweat, laboriously absurd!

225

Words of gigantic bulk, and uncouth sound,
In rattling triads the long sentence bound;

NOTES.

"In the long course of a seven-days passage, the "traveller is scarcely sensible that a few spots of thin "and meagre brushwood slightly interrupt the vast

expanse of sterility, and diminish the amplitude of "desolation!!!"

While points with points, with periods periods jar,
And the whole work seems one continued war!

Is not THIS sad?

F. "'Tis pitiful, God knows,

"'Tis wond'rous pitiful." E'en take the prose ; But for the poetry-oh, that my friend,

I still aspire-nay, smile not-to defend.

230

(s) You praise our sires, but, though they wrote with

force,

Their rhymes were vicious, and their diction coarse; We want their strength: agreed. But we atone

For that, and more, by sweetness all our own. For instance-"Hasten to the lawny vale, "Where yellow morning breathes her saffron gale,

236

(s) Sed numeris decor est, et junctura addita crudis. Claudere sic versum didicit Berecynthius Atin, Et qui cæruleum dirimebat Nerea Delphin. Sic costam longo subduximus Appennino.

NOTES.

* Hasten, &c.-This and the following quotation are taken from the "Laurel of Liberty," a work on which the great author most justly rests his claim to immortality. See p. 18.

"And bathes the landscape-"

P. Pshaw! I have it here:

"A voice seraphic grasps my listening ear:
"Wond'ring I gaze; when lo! methought afar,
"More bright than dauntless day's imperial star,
"A godlike form advances."

F. You suppose

These lines perhaps too turgid; what of those? "THE MIGHTY MOTHER (t)"

240

245

P. Now 'tis plain you sneer,

For Weston's self could find no semblance here.
Weston! who slunk from truth's imperious light,
Swells like a filthy toad with secret spite,

* Weston. This indefatigable gentleman has been attacking the moral character of Pope in the Gentleman's Magazine, with all the virulence of Gildon, all the impudence of Smedley, and all the ignorance of Curl and his associates.

What the views of the bland Sylvanus may be, in standing cap in hand, and complacently holding open the door of the temple, for near two years, to this

And, envying the fair fame he cannot hope,
Spits his black venom at the dust of Pope.

250

NOTES.

na

"+execrable" Erostratus, I know not. He cannot sure be weak enough to suppose an obscure scribbler like this, has any charges to bring against our great poet, that escaped the vigilant malevolence of the Westons of the Dunciad. Or if ever, from the " "tural goodness of his heart," he cherished so laudable a supposition, he ought (whatever it may cost. him) to forego it: when, after twenty months preparation, nothing is produced but an exploded accusation taken from the most common edition of the Dunciad; which, as nothing but Westonian rancour could first make, so nothing but Westonian stupidity can now revive.

It has been suggested to me, that this nightman of literature designs to reprint as much as can be collected of the heroes of the Dunciad.-If it be so, the dirty work of traducing Pope may be previously necessary; and prejudice itself must own, that he has shewn uncommon penetration in the selection of the

+ Such is the epithet applied to Pope by the "virtuous "indignation" of this "amiable" traducer of worth and genius!