I left no calling for this idle trade, No duty broke, no father disobey'd. 130 The Mufe but ferv'd to eafe fome friend, not Wife, To help me through this long difeafe, my Life, To fecond, ARBUTH NOT! thy Art and Care, And teach, the Being you preferv'd, to bear. 135 A. But why then publish? P. Granville the polite, And knowing Walf, would tell me I could write; Well-natur'd Garth inflam'd with early praife, And Congreve lov'd, and Swift endur'd my lays; The NOTES. glected, and fuffered to go to the comedy with the greater boys, he turned the tranfactions of the Iliad into a play, made up of a number of speeches from Ogilby's tranflation, tacked together with verfes of his own. He had the addrefs to perfuade the upper boys to act it; he even prevailed on the Mafter's Gardener to reprefent Ajax, and contrived to have all the Actors drefled after the pictures in his favourite Ogilby. At twelve he went with his father into the Forest: and then got first acquainted with the Writings of Waller, Spenfer, and Dryden; in the order I have named them. On the firft fight of Dryden, he found he had what he wanted. His Poems were never out of his hands; they became his model; and from them alone he learnt the whole magic of his verfification. This year he began an epic poem; the fame which Bp. Atterbury, long afterwards, perfuaded him to burn. Befides this, he wrote, in thofe early days, a Comedy and Tragedy, the latter taken from a ftory in the legend of St. Genevieve. They both defervedly underwent the fame fate. As he began his Paftorals foon after, he used to say pleasantly, that he had literally followed the example of Virgil, who tells us, Cum canerem reges et praelia, etc. VER. 130. no father difobey'd.] When Mr. Pope was yet a child, his Father, though no Poet, would fet him to make English werfes. He was pretty difficult to please, and would often The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read, Soft were my numbers; who could take offence While pure Description held the place of Senfe? NOTES. Like often fend the boy back to new turn them. When they were to his mind, he took great pleature in them, and would fay, Thefe are good rhymes. VER. 139. Talbot, etc ] All thefe were Patrons or Admirers of Mr. Dryden; though a fcandalous libel against him, entitled, Dryden's Satyr to his Mufe, has been printed in the name of the Lord Somers, of which he was wholly ignorant. These are the perfons to whofe account the Author charges the publication of his firft pieces: perfons, with whom he was converfant (and he adds beloved) at 16 or 17 years of age; an early period for fuch acquaintance. The catalogue might be made yet more illuftrious, had he not confined it to that time when he writ the Paftorals and Windfer Foreft, on which he paffes a fort of Cenfure in the lines following, "While pure Description held the place of Senfe," etc. P. VER. 146. Burnets, etc.] Authors of fecret and fcandalous History. P. Ibid. Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cooks.] By no means Authors of the fame clafs; though the violence of party might hurry them into the fame mistakes. But if the first offended this way, it was only through an honeft warmth of temper, that allowed too little to an excellent understanding. The other two, with very bad heads, had hearts ftill worse. VER. 148. While pure Defeription held the place of Senfe ?] 1 Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme, 150 If want provok'd, or madness made them print, I wag'd no war with Bedlam or the Mint. 156 Did fome more fober Critic come abroad; If wrong, I fmil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod. Pains, reading, ftudy, are their juft pretence, And all they want is fpirit, tafte, and sense. 160 Commas and points they fet exactly right, And 'twere a fin to rob them of their mite. Yet ne'er one fprig of laurel grac'd these ribalds, From flashing Bentley down to piddling Tibalds : Each NOTES. He uses pure equivocally, to fignify either chaffe or empty; and has given in this line what he esteemed the true Character of defcriptive poetry, as it is called. A compofition, in his opinion, as abfurd as a feast made up of fauces. The office of a picturesque imagination is to brighten and adorn good fense; so that to employ it only in defcription, is like childrens delighting in a prifm for the fake of its gaudy colours; which when frugally managed, and artfully disposed; might be made to unfold and illuftrate the nobleft objects in nature. VER. 150. A painted meadow, or a purling fiream,] is a verfe of Mr. Addison. P. Ibid. A painted mistress, or a purling ftream.] Meaning the Rape of the Lock, and Windsor-Foreft. VER. 163. these ribalds,] How deservedly this title is given to Each wight who reads not, and but fcans and fpells, Each Word-catcher that lives on syllables, NOTES. 165 Ev'n to the genius of PHILOLOGY, may be feen by a fhort account of the manners of the modern Sch liafts. When in these latter ages, human learning raifed its head in the Weft; and its tail, verbal criticism, was, of course, to rife with it; the madnefs of Critics foon became fo offenfive, that the grave ftupidity of the Monks might appear the more tolerable evil. J. Argyropylus, a mercenary Greek, who came to teach school in Italy, after the facking of Conftantinople by the Turks, ufed to maintain that Cicero understood neither Philofophy nor Greek: while another of his countrymen, J. Lafcaris by name, threatened to demonftrate that Virgil was no Poet. Countenanced by fuch great examples, a French Critic afterwards undertook to prove that Ariftotle did not understand Greek, nor Titus Livius, Latin. It has been fince difcovered that Jofephus was ignorant of Hebrew; and Erafmus fo pitiful a linguift, that, Burman affures us, were he now alive, he would not deserve to be put at the head of a country school: And even fince it has been found out that Pope had no invention, and is only a Poet by courtesy. For though time has ftripp'd the prefent race of Pedants of all the real accomplishments of their predeceffors, it has conveyed down this spirit to them, unimpaired; it being found much eafier to ape their manners, than to imitate their science. However, thofe earlier RIBALDS raised an appetite for the Greek language in the Weft: infomuch, that Hermolaus Barbarus, a paffionate admirer of it, and a noted Critic, used to boaft, that he had invoked and raised the Devil, and puzzled him into the bargain, about the meaning of the Ariftotelian ENTEAEXEIA. Another, whom Balzac fpeaks of, was as eminent for his Revelations; and was wont to say, that the meaning of fuch or fuch a verse, in Perfius, no one knew but GOD and himself. While the celebrated Pomponius Laetus, in excess of veneration for Antiquity, became a real Pagan; raised altars to Romulus, and facrificed to the Gods of Latium; in which he was followed by our countryman Baxter, in every thing, but in the coftlinefs of his facrifices. C 3 Вие Ev'n fuch finall Critics fome regard may claim, Preferv'd in Milton's or in Shakespear's name. Pretty! NOTES. But if the Greeks cried down Cicero, the Italian Critics knew how to fupport his credit. Every one has heard of the childith exceffes into which the ambition of being thought CICERONIANS carried the most celebrated Italians of this time. They abstained from reading the Scriptures for fear of fpoiling their style: Cardinal Bembo ufed to call the Epiftles of St. Paul by the contemptuous name of Epiftolaccias, great overgrown Epifles. But ERASMUS cured their frenzy by that mafter-piece of good fenfe, his Ciceronianus. For which (in the way that Lunatics treat their Phyficians) the elder Scaliger infulted him with all the brutal fury peculiar to his family and profeffion. His fon Jofeph and Salmafius had indeed fuch endowments of nature and art, as might have raised modern learning to a rivalship with the ancient. Yet how did they and their adverfaries tear and worry one another? The choiceft of Jofeph's flowers of speech were Stercus Diaboli, and Lutum Stercore maceratum. It is true, these were lavifhed upon his enemies for his friends he had other things in ftore. In a letter to Thuanus, fpeaking of two of them, Clavius and Lipfius, he calls the firft a monfler of ignorance; and the other, a flave to the Jefuits, and an Idiot. But fo great was his love of facred amity at the fame time, that he favs, Iftill keep up my correfpondence with him, notwithstanding his Idiotry, for it is my principle to be conflant in my friendships-Je ne refle de luy eferire, nonobftant fon Idioterie, d'autant que je fuis conftant en amitié. The character he gives of his own Chronology, in the fame letter, is no lefs extraordinary: Vous vous pouvez affurer que nôtre Eufebe fera un trefr des merveilles de la doctrine Chronologique. But this modeft account of his own work, is nothing in comparison of the idea the Father gives his bookfeller of his own perfen. This book feller was preparing fomething of Julius Scaliger's for the Prefs; and defired the Author would give him directions concerning his picture, which was to be fet before the book. Julius's anfwer (as it ftands in his collection of letters) is, that if the engraver could collect together the feveral graces of Maffiniffa, Xenophon, and Plato, he |