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Intervalla vides humane commoda.

"Verum

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Puræ sunt plateæ, nihil ut meditantibus obstet."
Festinat calidus mulis gerulisque redemtor:
Torquet nunc lapidem, nunc ingens machina
tignum:

Tristia robustis luctantur funera plaustris:
Hac rabiosa fugit canis, hac lutulenta ruit sus.
I nunc, et versus tecum meditare canoros.
Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus, et fugit
urbes,

Rite cliens Bacchi, somno gaudentis et umbra.
Tu me inter strepitus nocturnos atque diurnos
Vis canere, et contracta sequi vestigia vatum?
'Ingenium, sibi quod vacuas desumsit Athenas,
Et studiis annos septem dedit, insenuitque
Libris et curis, statua taciturnius exit

Plerumque, et risu populum quatit; hic ego rerum

NOTES.

Je reçois vingt airs qui me glacent d'effroy,
Hier, dit on, de vous en parla chez le roy--

Epistre 6. v. 45.

Compare also the sixth satire of Boileau, containing the Description of Les Embarras de Paris, from verse 3, to verse 82 ticularly verse 45.

2; par

Ver. 112. Blackmore himself,] In the Battle of the Books, we are surprised to find Swift preferring Blackmore to Dryden.

Ver. 113. Tooting-Earl's-Court.] Two villages within a few miles of London. P.

Ver. 123. court, and city roars,] Not so strong as the original metaphor;

"Fluctibus in mediis, et tempestatibus urbis."

Milton wrote his Paradise Lost in London, as did Thomson his three last Seasons, and his charming Castle of Indolence; and

Before the Lords at twelve my Cause comes on— There's a Rehearsal, Sir, exact at one.

"Oh but a Wit can study in the streets,

And raise his mind above the mob he meets."

Not quite so well however as one ought;

100

A hackney-coach may chance to spoil a thought;
And then a nodding beam, or pig of lead,
God knows, may hurt the very ablest head.

Have you not seen, at Guildhall's narrow pass,
Two Aldermen dispute it with an Ass?
And Peers give way, exalted as they are,

105

Ev'n to their own S-r-v-nce in a Car?

k

* Go, lofty Poet! and in such a crowd, Sing thy sonorous verse-but not aloud. Alas! to Grottos and to Groves we run, To ease and silence, ev'ry Muse's son:

110

Blackmore himself, for any grand effort,

Would drink and doze at Tooting or Earl's-Court. How shall I rhyme in this eternal roar?

114

How match the bards whom none e'er match'd before?

'The man, who stretch'd in Isis' calm retreat,
To books and study gives sev'n years complete.
See! strew'd with learned dust, his nightcap on,
He walks, an object new beneath the sun?
The boys flock round him, and the people stare :
So stiff, so mute! some statue you would swear,
Stept from its pedestal to take the air!

119

And here, while town, and court, and city, roars, With mobs, and duns, and soldiers, at their doors;

NOTES.

Armstrong his Art of Preserving Health, a fine classical poem, omitted in the Collection of English Poets.

Fluctibus in mediis, et tempestatibus urbis,
Verba lyræ motura sonum connectere digner?
m Frater erat Romæ consulti rhetor; ut alter
Alterius sermone meros audiret honores:
Gracchus ut hic illi foret; huic ut Mucius ille,
Qui minus argutos vexat furor iste poetas?
"Carmina compono, hic elegos; mirabile visu,

NOTES.

Ver. 132. And shook his head at MURRAY, as a Wit.] It is the silly consolation of blockheads in all professions, that he, whom Nature has formed to excel, does it not by his superior knowledge, but his wit; and so they keep themselves in countenance as not fairly outdone, but only outwitted.—The miserable glory of knowing nothing but in their own trade, M. de Voltaire has well exposed, where, speaking of a great French Lawyer, of the like genius and talents with our admirable countrymen, he says, "Il faisoit ressouvenir la France de ces tems, où les plus austères Magistrats, consommés comme lui dans l'etude des Loix, se delassoient des fatigues de leur état, dans les travaux de la literature. Que ceux qui meprisent ces travaux amiables; que ceux qui mettent je ne sai quelle miserable grandeur à se renfermer dans le cercle étroit de leurs emplois, sont à plaindre! ignorent ils que CICERON, après avoir rempli la première place du monde, plaidoit encore les causes des Citoyens, écrivoit sur la nature des Dieux, conferoit avec des Philosophes; qu'il alloit au Théatre; qu'il daignoit cultiver l'amitié d'Esopus et de Roscius, et laissoit aux petits esprits, leur constante gravité, qui n'est que la masque de la mediocrité ?"

The miserable malice of the human heart has been always backward to confess that great Parts and great Science were to be found together. The eminent Person, here mentioned, hath long triumphed over so vile a prejudice. BACON was not so happy. The blemishes in his moral character disabled him from stemming and subduing it. Indeed, Envy was ever unwilling to allow any man to excel in more than one accomplishment. As to the particular application of this wayward judgment, it is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. Thus, for instance, when the Public would not allow the great Lawyer, Coke, to be a Classic Scholar and a

Shall I, in London, act this idle part?
Composing songs, for Fools to get by heart?

m The Temple late two brother Serjeants saw, Who deem'd each other Oracles of Law;

125

131

With equal talents, these congenial souls,
One lull'd the Exchequer, and one stunn'd the Rolls;
Each had a gravity would make you split,
And shook his head at MURRAY, as a Wit.
" "Twas, Sir, your law," and "Sir, your elo-

quence.

"Yours, Cowper's manner-and yours, Talbot's

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"Thus we dispose of all poetic merit,

Yours Milton's genius, and mine Homer's spirit.

135

NOTES.

Wit too (though he had given so many delectable specimens of both), they were perhaps in the right. But when they assumed (though they spoke by the Organ of Q. Elizabeth herself) that Bacon, a great Philosopher, was yet no Lawyer, they were certainly in the wrong. W.

Ver. 132. MURRAY, as a Wit.] Alluding to the common cant of that time, as if this eminent and accomplished person was more of a polite scholar than a profound lawyer; as if law and literature were incompatible; a notion that might easily be confuted by the examples of Lords Somers and Hardwicke, Mr. Yorke and Judge Blackstone, and many others.

Ver. 135. all poetic merit,] The words of the Original alluded to, contain a beautiful metaphor of a work, Cælatum Musis Novem, polished and finished by the hands of the Muses themselves. Bentley has wantonly and tastelessly altered the word to Sacratum; as he has done the word alterius, ver. 176, to alternis, and the word contracta, ver. 80, to non tacta; and in ver. 90, he has changed vexat for versat; and in ver. 87, frater for pactus; and would have procul repeated, ver. 199.

Pauperies immunda procul, procul

Cælatumque novem Musis opus. aspice primum, Quanto cum fastu, quanto molimine circumspectemus vacuam Romanis vatibus ædem.

Mox etiam (si forte vacas) sequere, et procul audi,
Quid ferat, et quare sibi nectat uterque coronam.
Cædimur, et totidem plagis consumimus hostem,
Lento Samnites ad lumina prima duello.

Discedo Alcæus puncto illius; ille meo quis?
Quis, nisi Callimachus? si plus adposcere visus;
Fit Mimnermus, et optivo cognomine crescit.
Multa fero, ut placem genus irritabile vatum,
Cum scribo, et supplex populi suffragia capto :
Idem, finitis studiis, et mente recepta,
Obturem patulas impune legentibus aures.

'Ridentur mala qui componunt carmina: verum Gaudent scribentes, et se venerantur, et ultro,

NOTES.

Ver. 140. but Stephen,] Mr. Stephen Duck, a modest and worthy man, who had the honour (which many who thought themselves his betters in poetry had not) of being esteemed by Mr. Pope.-Queen Caroline, who moderated in a Sovereign between the two great Philosophers, Clarke and Leibnitz, in the most sublime points in Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy, chose this man for her favourite Poet. W.

By the interest of Mr. Spence, who had a sincere regard for Stephen Duck, whose life he wrote, and published his poems, he obtained the living of Byfleet, in Surrey. He was unfortunately drowned at Reading, 1756.

Ver. 145. allow me Dryden's strains,] The older he grew, the better Dryden wrote. We may apply to him, what Oppian says, of the spirited horses of Cappadocia ;

κραιπνότεροι δὲ πέλουσιν ὅσῳ μάλα γηράσκουσι.

Lib. i. Cynegytic. ver. 201.

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