And who the most in love of dirt excel,
Or dark dexterity of groping well.49

Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around
The stream, be his the weekly journals bound; 50

FLEET DITCH.

49 The three chief qualifications of party writers: to stick at nothing, to delight in flinging dirt, and to slander in the dark, by guess.

50 Papers of news and scandal intermixed, on different sides and parties, and frequently shifting from one side to the other, called the London Journal, British Journal, Daily Journal, &c., the concealed writers of which, for some time, were Oldmixon, Roome, Arnall, Concanen, and others: persons never seen by our author.

A pig of lead to him who dives the best;
A peck of coals a-piece shall glad the rest."51
In naked majesty Oldmixon stands,52
And, Milo like, surveys his arms and hands;
Then sighing, thus, "And am I now threescore ? 53

Ah why, ye gods! should two and two make four ?"
He said, and climb'd a stranded lighter's height,
Shot to the black abyss, and plunged downright,
The senior's judgment all the crowd admire,
Who but to sink the deeper, rose the higher.

Next Smedley dived; slow circles dimpled o'er
The quaking mud, that closed, and oped no more.
All look, all sigh, and call on Smedley lost; 54
Smedley, in vain, resounds through all the coast.
Then essay'd;55 scarce vanish'd out of sight,

*

He buoys up instant, and returns to light:

He bears no tokens of the sable streams,

And mounts far off among the swans of Thames.56

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290

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51 Our indulgent poet, whenever he has spoken of any dirty or low work, constantly puts us in mind of the poverty of the offenders, as the only extenuation of such practices. Let any one but remark, when a thief, a pickpocket, a highwayman, or a knight of the post, are spoken of, how much our hate to those characters is lessened, if they add a needy thief, a poor pickpocket, a hungry highwayman, a starving knight of the post, &c.

52 In the first edition,

53

"In naked majesty great Dennis stands."

66

Fletque Milon senior, cum spectat inanes
Herculeis similes, fluidos pendere lacertos."-Ovid.

54 "Alcides wept in vain for Hylas lost,

Hylas, in vain, resounds through all the coast."

Lord Roscom. Translat. of Virgil's vi. Ecl.

55 [Aaron Hill. See Life of Pope in this edition, and Notes to the Dunciad.]

56 In the first edition followed these:

"Far worse unhappy D- -r succeeds:

He search'd for coral, but he gather'd weeds."

["Dr" was Diaper, whom Curll calls "a a very modest and ingenious clergyman: he wrote, among other poetical pieces, 'Nereides, or Sea Eclogues,' inscribed to Mr. Congreve, 1712." Instead of Concanen, Young and Newcome were introduced into the early editions, alluding, as Curll says, to Dr. Young's Seven Satires on the Universal Passion, still left unfinished (whence, probably, the phrase "long-winded"), and to the Rev. T. Newcome, of Sussex, who wrote a large folio volume in twelve books, on the

True to the bottom, see Concanen creep, A cold, long-winded native of the deep:

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If perseverance gain the diver's prize,
Not everlasting Blackmore this denies:57

No noise, no stir, no motion canst thou make,

The unconscious stream sleeps o'er thee like a lake.
Next plunged a feeble, but a desperate pack,
With each a sickly brother at his back:
Sons of a day! just buoyant on the flood,58
Then number'd with the puppies in the mud.
Ask ye their names? I could as soon disclose
The names of these blind puppies as of those.
Fast by, like Niobe (her children gone) 59
Sits mother Osborne, stupified to stone!
And monumental brass this record bears,
"These are, ah no! these were the gazetteers!"
Not so bold Arnall; with a weight of skull,
Furious he dives, precipitately dull.60
Whirlpools and storms his circling arms invest,
With all the might of gravitation blest.
No crab more active in the dirty dance,
Downward to climb, and backward to advance.
He brings up half the bottom on his head,
And loudly claims the journals and the lead.

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310

315

320

Last Judgment. It may be doubted, whether Pope could have aimed his satire at the author of the Night Thoughts; but this constant shifting of characters in the Dunciad certainly weakened the force of his ridicule, and gave some truth to Curll's remark, that the Dunciad seemed to "mimic a weather-glass, and vary every impression, as the author's malice increased to one or abated to another." Johnson makes a somewhat similar observation.]

57 "Nec bonus Eurytion prælato invidit honori," &c.-Virg. Æneid. 58 These were daily papers, a number of which, to lessen the expense, were printed one on the back of another.

59 See the story in Ovid, Met. vii., where the miserable petrifaction of this old lady is pathetically described. Osborne was a name assumed by the eldest and gravest of these writers, who at last, being ashamed of his pupils, gave his paper over, and in his age remained silent.

60 [In the edition of 1729, the unlucky Welsted is the diver. The line stands,

"Not Welsted so, drawn endlong by his skull."]

The plunging prelate, and his ponderous grace,

With holy envy gave one layman place.

When lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood,

325

Slow rose a form, in majesty of mud;

Shaking the horrors of his sable brows,

And each ferocious feature grim with ooze.

Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares : 61

Then thus the wonders of the deep declares.

330

First he relates, how sinking to the chin,

Smit with his mien, the mud-nymphs suck'd him in:
How young Lutetia, softer than the down,
Nigrina black, and Merdamante brown,

Vied for his love in jetty bowers below,

335

As Hylas fair was ravish'd long ago.62

Then sung, how shown him by the nut-brown maids
A branch of Styx here rises from the shades,63
That tinctured as it runs with Lethe's streams,

And wafting vapours from the land of dreams, (As under seas Alpheus' secret sluice

340

Bears Pisa's offerings to his Arethuse)

Pours into Thames: and hence the mingled wave
Intoxicates the pert, and lulls the grave:

61 Virgil, Æneid vi. of the Sibyl:

"Majorque videri,

Nec mortale sonans."

62 Who was ravished by the water-nymphs, and drawn into the river. The story is told at large by Valerius Flaccus, lib. iii. Argon. See Virgil, Ecl. vi. 63 “ Οἳ τ ̓ ἀμθ' ἱμερτὸν Τιταρήσιον ἔργ ̓ ἐνέμοντο,

Ὃς ῥ ̓ ἐς Πηνειόν προΐει καλλιῤῥόου ὕδωρ,

Οὐδ ̓ ὅγε Πηνειῷ συμμίσγεται ἀργυροδίνη,

̓Αλλά τέ μιν καθύπερθεν ἐπιῤῥέει εύτ' ἔλαιον,

Ορκου λὰρ δεινοῦ Στυγος ὕδατός ἐστιν ἀποῤῥώξ.”—Hom, I. ii. Catal. Of the Land of Dreams, in the same region, he makes mention Odyss. xxiv. See also Lucian's True History. Lethe and the Land of Dreams allegorically represent the stupefaction and visionary madness of poets, equally dull and extravagant. Of Alpheus's water gliding secretly under the sea of Pisa, to mix with those of the Arethuse in Sicily, see Moschus Idyll. viii., Virgil, Ecl. x.

"Sic tibi, cum fluctus subter labere Sicanos,
Doris amara suam non intermisceat undam."

And again, Æneid iii.—

'Alpheum sema est huc, Elidis amnem,
Occultas egisse vias subter mare, qui nunc
Ore, Arethusa, tuo Siculis confunditur undis."

Here brisker vapours o'er the Temple creep,
There, all from Paul's to Aldgate drink and sleep.
Thence to the banks where reverend bards repose,64
They led him soft; each reverend bard arose;
And Milbourn chief, deputed by the rest,
Gave him the cassock, surcingle, and vest.

"Receive (he said) these robes which once were mine,
"Dulness is sacred in a sound divine."

He ceased, and spread the robe; the crowd confess
The reverend flamen in his lengthen'd dress.
Around him wide a sable army stand,

A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band,

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350

355

Prompt or to guard or stab, or saint or damn,
Heaven's Swiss, who fight for any god, or man.

360

Through Lud's famed gates, along the well-known Fleet65
Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street,
Till showers of sermons, characters, essays,
In circling fleeces whiten all the ways:
So clouds replenish'd from some bog below,
Mount in dark volumes, and descend in snow.
Here stopp'd the goddess, and in pomp proclaims,
A gentler exercise to close the games.

"Ye critics! in whose heads, as equal scales,

I weigh what author's heaviness prevails;
Which most conduce to sooth the soul in slumbers,
My H-ley's 66 periods, or my Blackmore's numbers;

64"Tum canit errantem Permessi ad flumina Gallum,
Aonas in montes ut duxerit una sororum ;

Utque viro Phoebi chorus assurexerit omnis;
Ut Linus hæc illi divino carmine pastor,

Floribus atque apio crines ornatus, amaro,

Dixerit Hos tibi dant calomos, en accipe, Muse,

Ascraeo quos ante seni," &c.-Virg. Ecl. vi.

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370

65" King Lud repairing the City, called it after his own name, Lud's Town; the strong gate which he built in the West part, he likewise, for his own honour, named Ludgate. In the year 1260, this gate was beautified with images of Lud and other kings. Those images, in the reign of Edward VI., had their heads smitten off, and were otherwise defaced by unadvised folks. Queen Mary did set new heads upon their old bodies again. The 28th of Queen Elizabeth the same gate was clean taken down, and newly and beautifully builded, with images of Lud and others, as afore."-Stowe's Survey of London.

66 [Bishop Hoadley. See Notes J