The race by vigour, nor by vaunts, is won;
So take the hindmost, hell," he said, and run,
Swift as a bard the bailiff leaves behind,

He left huge Lintot, and outstript the wind.
As when a dab-chick waddles through the copse
On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops;
So labouring on, with shoulders, hands, and head,
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 Curl's Corinnat chanc'd that morn to make:

REMARKS.

of much respect, that of Mr. Edmund Curl. We shall only say of this eminent man, that he carried the trade many lengths beyond what it ever before had arrived at; and that he was the envy and admiration of his profession. He possessed himself of a command over all authors whatever; he caused them to write what he pleased; they could not call their very names their own. He was not only famous among these; he was noticed by the State, the Church, and the Law, and received particular marks of distinction from each.

The tribute our author here pays him is a grateful return for several unmerited obligations: if ever he owed two verses to any other, he owed Mr. Curl some thousands. He was every day extending his fame, and enlarging his writings; but it shall suffice only to mention the Court Poems, which he meant to publish as the work of the true writer, a lady of quality; but being first threatened, and afterwards punished for it by Mr. Pope, he transferred it from her to him, and ever since printed it in his name.

+ Curl's Corinna.] This name was taken by a Mrs. Thomas, who procured some private letters of Mr. Pope, while almost a boy, to Mr. Cromwell, and sold them without the consent of either of those gentlemen to Curl, who printed them in 12mo. 1727.

IMITATIONS.

So take the hindmost, hell.]

"Occupet extremum scabies; mihi turpe relinqui est."

Hor, de Arte.

(Such was her wont, at early dawn to drop
Her evening cates before his neighbour's shop)
Here fortun'd Curl to slide; loud shout the band,
And "Bernard! Bernard!" rings through all the
Strand.

Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewray'd,
Fall'n in the plash his wickedness had laid:
Then first (if poets aught of truth declare)
The caitiff vaticide conceiv'd a pray'r.

"Hear, Jove! whose name my bards and I adore,
As much at least as any god's, or more;
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, t
Where, from ambrosia, Jove retires for ease.
There in his seat two spacious vents appear,
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:
Amus'd 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 votary's pray'r,
And plac'd it next him, a distinction rare!
Oft had the goddess heard her servant's call,
From her black grottoes near the temple-wall,
Listening delighted to the jest unclean
Of link-boys vile, and watermen obscene;

REMARKS.

The Bible, Curl's sign: the Cross Keys, Lintot's.
The Roman goddess of the common-sewers.

IMITATIONS.

A place there is betwixt earth, air, and seas.]
"Orbe locus medio est, inter terrasque, fretumque,
Coelestosque plagas.
Ovid. Met. xii.

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,
Vigorous he rises; from the' effluvia strong
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; A shapeless shade, it melted from his sight,* Like forms in clouds, or visions of the night. To seize his papers, Curl, was next thy care; His papers light, fly diverse, toss'd in air; t Songs, sonnets, epigrams, the winds uplift, And whisk 'em back to Evans, Young, and Swift.t The' 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. 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; }

REMARKS.

Evans, Young, and Swift.] Some of those persons whose writings, epigrams, or jests, he had owned.

Like Congreve, Addison, and Prior.] These authors, whose names will reach posterity, we shall not give any account of them, but proceed to those of whom it is necessary.Bezaleel Morris was author of some satires

Virg. En. vi,

His papers light, fly diverse, toss'd in air.] Virgil, En. vi. of the Sibyl's leaves:

"Carmina

Turbata volent rapidis ludibria ventis,"

Mears, Warner, Wilkins, run: delusive thought!
Breval, Bond, Bezaleel, the varlets caught.
Curl stretches after Gay, but Gay is gone,
He grasps an empty Joseph + for a John:
So Proteus, hunted in a nobler shape,
Became, when seiz'd, a puppy, or an ape.
To him the goddess: "Son! thy grief lay down,
And turn this whole illusion on the town.
As the sage dame, experienc'd in her trade,
By names of toasts retails each batter'd jade;
(Whence hapless Monsieur much complains at Paris
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."
With that she gave him (piteous of his case,
Yet smiling at his rueful length of face) ||

REMARKS.

on the translators of Homer, with many other things printed in newspapers-Bond wrote a satire against Mr. P. Capt. Breval was author of The Confederates, a dramatic performance, to expose Mr. P. Mr. Gay, Dr. Arbuthnot, and some ladies of quality.

Mears, Warner, Wilkins.] Booksellers, and printers of much anonymous stuff.

+Joseph Gay.] A fictitious name put by Curl before several pamphlets, which made them pass with many for Mr. Gay's.

Cook shall be Prior.] The man here specified wrote a thing called the Battle of Poets, in which Philips and Welsted were the heroes, and Swift and Pope utterly routed. His chief work was a translation of Hesiod, to which Theobald wrote notes, and half notes, which be carefully owned.

IMITATIONS.

(piteous of his case,

Yet smiling at his rueful length of face)]

Risit pater optimus olli.

Me liceat casus miserari insontis amici,
Sic fatus, tergum Gætuli immane leonis," &c.
Virg. En. 1.

A shaggy tap'stry, worthy to be spread
On Codrus' old, or Dunton's modern bed;
Instructive work! whose wry-mouth'd portraiture
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, I cudgell'd might he view,
The very worsted still look'd black and blue:
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,
And the fresh vomit run for ever green !"

REMARKS,

-Dunton's modern bed.] John Dunton was a broken bookseller, and abusive scribbler: he wrote Neck or Nothing, a violent satire on some ministers of state; a libel on the Duke of Devonshire and the Bishop of Fe terborough, &c.

+And Tutchin flagrant from the scourge.] John Tutehin, author of some vile verses, and of a weekly paper called The Observator: he was sentenced to be whipped through several towns in the west of England, upon which he petitioned King James II. to be hanged. He lived to the time of Queen Anne.

There Ridpath, Roper.] Authors of the Flying-Post, and Post-Boy, two scandalous papers on different sides, for which they equally and alternately deserved to be cudgelled, and were so.

of his

Himself among the storied chiefs he spies.] The history of Curl's being tossed in a blanket, and whipped by the scholars of Westminster, is well known. purging and vomiting, see a full and true account of a horrid revenge on the body of Edmund Curl, &c. in Swift and Pope's Miscellanies.

IMITATIONS.

And the fresh vomit run for ever green] A parody

of these lines of a late noble author:

His bleeding arm had furnish'd all their rooms,
And run for ever purple in the looms,"