Receiv'd of wits an undistinguish'd race,

Who first his judgment afk'd, and then a place;
Much they extoll'd his pictures, much his feat,
And flatter'd ev'ry day, and some days eat ;
Till, grown more frugal in his riper days,
He paid fome bards with port, and some with praise *.

DR. YOUNG'S parafites and flatterers are painted with equal humour, and a generous contempt of fervility;

Who'd be a crutch to prop a rotten peer;
Or living pendant dangling at his ear;

For ever whifp'ring fecrets, which were blown,
For months before, by trumpets thro' the town?
Who'd be a glass, with flattering grimace,
Still to reflect the temper of his face;

Or happy pin to ftick upon his fleeve,

When my lord's gracious, and vouchfafes it leave;
Or cushion, when his Heavinefs fhall please
To loll, or thump it for his better ease;
Or a vile butt, for noon or night befpoke,
When the peer rafhly fwears he'll club his joke?
Who'd shake with laughter, tho' he cou'd not find
His Lordship's jest, or, if his nose broke wind,
For bleffings to the Gods profoundly bow-
That can cry chimney-sweep, or drive a plough?

an Ambaffador at Paris, Prior had, at one time of his Kife, nothing left but the income of his fellowship of St. John's College, Cambridge. Bufo is faid to mean Lord Halifax.

• Ver: 235.

R 4

22. Dryden

22. Dryden alone (what wonder ?). came not nighs
Dryden alone escap'd his judging eye;
But ftill, the great have kindness in referve,,
He help'd to bury whom he help'd to ftarve +.

OUR poet, with true gratitude, has feized every opportunity of fhewing his reverence for his great mafter, Dryden: whom Swift as conftantly depreciated and maligned. "I do affirm (fays he, feverely, but with exquifite irony indeed, in the

Alluding to the fubfcription that was made for his funeral. Garth fpoke an oration over him. His neceffities obliged him to produce (befides many other poetical pieces) twenty-feven plays in twenty-five years. He got 251. for the copy, and 70l. for his benefits generally. Dramatic poetry was certainly not his talent. His plays, a very few' paffages excepted, are infufferably unnatural. It is remail:able, that he did not fcruple to confefs, that he could not relish the pathos and fimplicity of Euripides. When he published his fables, Tonfon agreed to give him twọ hundred and fixty-eight pounds for ten thousand verses. And, to complete the full number of lines ftipulated for, he gave the bookfeller the epiftle to his coufin, and the celebrated mufic ode." Old Jacob Tonfon used to say, that Dryden was a little jealous of rivals. He would compiiment Crown when a play of his failed, but was very cold to him if he met with fuccefs. He fometimes ufed ta say that Crown had fome genius; but then he added always, that his father and Crown's mother were very.well acquainted." Mr. Pope to Mr. Spence.

+ Ver. 245,

Dedication

Dedication of the Tale of a Tub to Prince Pofterity) upon the word of a fincere man, that there is now actually in being a certain poet, called John Dryden, whose translation of Virgil was lately printed in a large falio, well-bound, and, if diligent search were made, for aught I know is yet to be feen." And he attacks him again in the Battle of Books, SHAFTESBURY is alfo very fond of petulantly carping at Dryden. "To see the incorrigibleness of our poets, in their pedantic manner (fays he, vol. iii, p. 276) their vanity, defiance of criticism; their rhodomontade, and poetical bravado; we need only turn to our famous poetlaureat, the very Mr. BAYS himself, in one of his latest and most valued pieces, Don Sebaftian*, writ many years after the ingenious author of the Rehearsal had drawn his picture." Shaftesbury's resent

The dramatic works of Lope de Vega make twenty-fix valames, befides four hundred fcriptural dramatic pieces, his Autos Sacramentales. His biographer affirms, that he often finished a play in twenty-four hours, nay some of his comedies in lefs than five. He wrote during his life $1,316,000 verfes.

ment

ment

was excited by the admirable poem of Abfalom and Achitophel; and particularly by four lines in it, that related to Lord Ashley, his father;

And all to leave, what with his toil he won,
To that unfeather'd, two-legg'd thing a fon;
Got while his foul did huddled notions try,
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.

But Dryden's works will remain, when the Characteristics will be forgotten,

23. Bleft be the Great for those they take away, And those they left me; for they left me GAY; Left me to fee neglected genius bloom, Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb.

Of all thy blameless life the fole return

My verfe, and Queenfb'ry weeping o'er thy urn+!

• I remember to have heard my father fay, that Mr. Elijah Fenton, who was his intimate friend, and had been his master, informed him, that Dryden, upon feeing fome of Swift's earliest verses, faid to him, " Young man, you will never be a poet." And that this was the cause of Swift's rooted averfion to Dryden, mentioned above. Baucis and Philemon was fo much and fo often altered, at the inftigation of Addifon, who mentioned this circumftance to my father, at Magdalen College, that not above eight lines remain as they originally flood. The violence of party difputes never interrupted the fincere friendship that fubited between Swift and Addifon, though of fuch oppofite tempers as well as principles.

+ Ver. 255.

THE

THE sweetness and fimplicity of GAY's temper and manners, much endeared him to all his acquaintance, and made them always speak of him with particular fondness and attachment. He wrote with neatness, and terfeness, æquali quâdam mediocritate, but certainly without any elevation; frequently without any fpirit. TRIVIA * appears to be the best of his poems, in which are many strokes of genuine humour and pictures of London-life, which are now become curious, because our manners as well as our dreffes, have been fo much altered and changed within a few years. His fables, the most popular of all his works, have the fault of many modern fablewriters, the afcribing to the different animals

The fable of Cloacina is indelicate. I should think this was one of the hints given him by Swift, who himself was indebted, for many strokes in his Gulliver, to Bishop Godwin's Man in the Moon, or Voyage of Domingo Gonzales, 1638.

The long and languid introductions to the fables in the fecond volume (which is indeed much inferior to the frit) read like party pamphlets versified. Dione has not refcued us from the imputation of having no pastoralcomedy, that can be compared, in the smallest degree, to

the