See him on Shakespeare pore, intent to steal
Poor farce, by fragments, for a third-day meal.
Such that grave bird in northern seas is found,
Whose name a Dutchman only knows to found.
Where-e'er the king of fish moves on before,
This humble friend attends from shore to shore;
With eye still earnest, and with bill inclin'd,
He picks up what his patron drops behind ;
With those choice cates his palate to regale,
And is the careful Tibbald of a whale.

Bleft genius! who bestows his oil and pains
On each dull paffage, each dull book contains;
The toil more grateful, as the task more low:
So carrion is the quarry of a crow.

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75

80

Where his fam'd author's page is flat and poor,

There, most exact the reading to restore;
By dint of plodding, and by sweat of face,
A bull to change, a blunder to replace :

85

Whate'er is refuse critically gleaning,

And mending nonsense into doubtful meaning.

V. 78. This remarkable bird is called the Strundt-Jager. Here you see how he purchases his food: and the fame author, from whom this account is taken, tells us farther how he comes by his drink. You may see him, adds the Dutchman, frequently pursuing a fort of sea-mew, called Kulge.Gehef, whom he torments incessantly to make him void an excrement; which being liquid, serves him, I imagine, for drink. See a Collection of Voyages to the North.

For دو

95

For this, dread Dennis (* and who can forbear,
Dunce or not Dunce, relating it, to stare ?)
His head though jealous, and his years fourscore,
Ev'n Dennis praises, who ne'er prais'd before!
For this, the Scholiaft claims his share of fame,
And, modeft, prints his own with Shakespeare's name:
How justly, Pope, in this short story view;
Which may be dull, and therefore should be true.
A Prelate, fam'd for clearing each dark text,
Who sense with found, and truth with rhetoric mixt,
Once, as his moving theme to rapture warm'd,
Inspir'd himself, his happy hearers charm'd.
The fermon o'er, the croud remain'd behind,
And freely, man or woman, spoke their mind:
All faid they lik'd the lecture from their foul,
And each, remembering something, prais'd the whole.
At last an honest fexton join'd the throng
(For as the theme was large, their talk was long);
Neighbours, he cry'd, my confcience bids me tell,
Though 'twas the Doctor preach'd-I toll'd the bell.
In this the Critic's folly most is shown:

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105

Is there a Genius all-unlike his own,
With learning elegant, with wit well bred,
And, as in books, in men and manners read;

JIO

Himself with poring erudition blind,

Unknowing, as unknown of human kind;

115

That Writer he selects, with aukward aim
His fenfe, at once, to mimic and to maim.
So Florio is a fop, with half a nose:
So fat West Indian Planters dress at Beaux.
Thus, gay Petronius was a Dutchman's choice,
And Horace, strange to say, tun'd Bentley's voice.120
Horace, whom all the Graces taught to please,
Mix'd mirth with morals, eloquence with ease;
His genius social, as his judgement clear;
When frolic, prudent; smiling when severe;
Secure, each temper, and each taste to hit,
His was the curious happiness of wit.
Skill'd in that noblest Science, How to live;
Which Learning may direct, but Heaven must give;

125

Grave with Agrippa, with Mæcenas gay;
Among the Fair, but just as wife as they :
First in the friendships of the Great enroll'd,
The St. Johns, Boyles, and Lyttletons, of old.

130

While Bentley, long to wrangling schools confin'd,

And, but by books, acquainted with mankind,
Dares, in the fulness of the pedant's pride,

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Rhyme, though no genius; though no judge, decide.

Yet he, prime pattern of the captious art,

Out-tibbalding poor Tibbald, tops his part :

Holds high the scourge o'er each fam'd author's head;

Nor are their graves a refuge for the dead.

140

To Milton lending sense, to Horace wit,
He makes them write what never Poet writ:

The Roman Muse arraigns his mangling pen;
And Paradise, by him, is lost again.

Such was his doom impos'd by Heaven's decree, 145 With ears that hear not, eyes that shall not fee,

The low to fwell, to level the fublime,
To blast all beauty, and beprose all rhyme.
Great eldest-born of Dullness, blind and bold!

Tyrant! more cruel than Procrustes old;

150

Who, to his iron-bed, by torture, fits,
Their nobler part, the fouls of fuffering Wits.
Such is the. Man, who heaps his head with bays,

And calls on human kind to found his praise,
For points transplac'd with curious want of skill, 155
For flatten'd founds, and sense amended ill.

So wife Caligula, in days of yore,

His helmet fill'd with pebbles on the shore,
Swore he had rifled ocean's rich spoils,
And claim'd a trophy for his martial toils.
Yet be his merits, with his faults, confeft:

160

Fair-dealing, as the plaineft, is the best.

V. 144. This sagacious Scholiaft is pleased to create an imaginary editor of Milton; who, he says, by his blunders, interpolations, and vile alterations, lost Paradise a second time. This is a poftulatum which furely none of his readers can have the heart to deny him; because otherwise he would have wanted a fair opportunity of calling Milton himself, in the person of this phantom, fool, ignorant, ideot, and the like critical compellations, which he plentifully bestows on him. But, though he had no tafte in poetry, he was otherwise a man of very confiderable abilities, and of great erudition.

Long

Long lay the Critic's work, with trifles stor'd,
Admir'd in Latin, but in Greek ador'd.

Men, so well read, who confidently wrote,
Their readers could have sworn, were men of note:

165

To pass upon the croud for great or rare,

Aim not to make them knowing, make them stare.

For these blind votaries good Bentley griev'd,

Writ English notes-and mankind undeceiv'd:
In such clear light the serious folly plac'd,
Ev'n thou, Browne Willis, thou may'st see the jeft.

170

But what can cure our vanity of mind,

Deaf to reproof, and to discovery blind ?
Let Crooke, a Brother-Sholiaft Shakespeare call, 175
Tibbald, to Hefiod-Cooke returns the ball.

So runs the circle still: in this, we fee

The lackies of the Great and Learn'd agree.
If Britain's nobles mix in high debate,
Whence Europe, in suspence, attends her fate; 180
In mimic session their grave footmen meet,

Reduce an army, or equip a fleet:
And, rivaling the critic's lofty stile,

Mere Tom and Dick are Stanhope and Argyll.

Yet those, whom pride and dulness join to blind, 185 To narrow cares in narrow space confin'd, Though with big titles each his fellow greets, Are but to wits, as scavenger's to streets : The humble black-guards of a Pope or Gay, To brush off duft, and wipe their spots away. Or, if not trivial, harmful is their art; Fume to the head, or poifon to the heart.

190

Where