As when the birds of ev'ry tuneful kind,
Within the limits of a grove confin'd;
To him the Classics all their art have shewn,
Yet all his wit and spirit are his own ;
He knows their methods to pursue their race,
Yet scorns their footsteps servilely to trace.
Before Columbus rose, mistaken men

B'liev'd nought beyond their sires' short-sighted ken,
So heretofore our plodding Criticks thought
Nothing was sense but what the Ancients taught,
Till Swift launch'd forth, and boldly dar'd explore
New worlds of Wit, unknown to those before.
So many charms in Granville's Muse appear,
'Tis doublful if his Mira be more fair:
Mira, the sex's envy, and their shame,
By cruelty for ever blasts her fame,
Unmov'd she listens to their syren tongue,
And hears the melting accents of that song
Which ev'ry other fair with softness wound,
Who bless the pain, and die upon the sound.

There Young arrests the Muse, and claims her praise From the vast grandeur of his tow'ring lays; In him no abject words, expressions mean, Or grov'ling thoughts, debase the labour'd scene; Him Heaven ordain'd the boast of Britain's Isle, Prop of her Stage, and standard of her style; With pleasing force he boldly strikes the heart, And adds to strength and nature grace and art. Soft Philips next, who to his artful song Tunes the gay gambols of the rustic throng, Our lyre ennobles, and exalts our scene, With the great names of Sappho and Racine; Reflects their beauties like a flatt'ring glass, And shews ev'n Strada fairer than he was: The tuneful hand can all our senses charm, With tempests please, with frozen billows warm.

Fain would I rove through Steele's instructive page, Admire the Bard, and venerate the Sage;

Sewel's unbounded excellence display,

Or trace the pleasing elegance of Gay;

Their artless musick warble through the sprays,

And in divine confusion mix their lays :

The note still chang'd, our raptur'd sense confounds

With mingling melody, and blending sounds;

While none its single excellence can boast,

But in the gen'ral harmony is lost.
Such are his works, and such is ev'ry song
Alike all easy, and alike all strong.

The grateful Muse to Swift exulting flies,
By whom upborn these arduous tracts she tries;

Grov'ling

Grov'ling on earth she lay unfledg'd before,
Till, rais'd by him, she first essay'd to soar :
But dare not venture, lest my want of skill
Should praise them better than my strength of will,
Their lines draw lustre from the shades in mine,
And painting ill obstruct my great design.

Nor are these all--unnumber'd lights appear,
To guide our ways, and gild our hemisphere
With pow'r illustrious, and with art divine,
And in collected excellence they shine.

As when the clouded mantle of the Night,
With stars bespangled, shines serenely bright,
Some more conspicuous dart their trembling rays,
While some united form one common blaze."

P. 199, note, l. 1. r. “1728-9."

P. 263. Hawley Bishop, esq. the "other kind labourer in the vineyard," is enumerated by Mr. Theobald in his Preface among his generous assistants. He probably died about that period; as did another of his friends, Edward Roome, esq. See p. 326. P.669. The following pathetic lines, on the death of the younger Dr. Lettsom, were written by the Rev. Thomas Maurice.

"On virtuous LETTSOM, in his manly bloom,
Resistless, Death's eternal shades descend;

While kindred love and friendship round his tomb,
In speechless agony distracted bend.

Ah! what avails above the vulgar throng,
To rise in genius, or in worth to soar;
Impetuous rolls the stream of time along,
The bubble bursts, and life's gay dream is o'er.
In ev'ry stage of varying life approv'd,

And still of toiling want the stedfast friend,

He passed his transient day-admir'd—belov'd ;

ALL prais'd him living-ALL bemoan his end.

From Heaven's high throne the Almighty Sire look'd down,
Well pleas'd to view such worth below the skies;

He saw him ripe for an immortal crown,

And bade his soul quit Earth for PARADISE."

P. 683. 1. 34. r. Elysian Fields; though, &c.-Dr. Lettsom's pleasing Letter of invitation, to a Sermon for the Royal Humane Society, and a dinner at his Camberwell Villa, was thus answered: Leicester, Sept. 7, 1795.

"DEAR DOCTOR, "After three or four days hard fatigue in the exploring of Antiquarian Mines, on returning to Leicester through perilous roads at one in the morning, I find a large packet of letters, many of them from those I esteem-particularly one which I read with singular pleasure, from the man who unites the two qualities for which Dr. Johnson commended Dr. James and Mr. Garrick- from him who lengthens, and him who gladdens life. -Yes, my good Doctor, I will certainly meet you at Philippi;

aye, and philip your beef and your wine afterwards; and look forward with satisfaction to our Committees in that Elysium you so pleasantly describe. We are congenial, I see, in the choice of our planets, as well as our plans; and have no great objection to a slice of the Mahometan Paradise. But the rolls and butter of Leicester call me to a more solid repast; so I shall now resign the pen to Mr. Pridden, who is with me, and will answer for himself. May the comforts of this Globe be long continued to us both; and to all our deserving friends, and be succeeded by the consequential rewards of a better existence. Yours ever, J. NICHOLS." "Dear Doctor, if possible, I will gladly join the jovial crew. J. P." P. 743. The two following publications occasioned the introduction of their respective Authors into the notes on The Dunciad: 1. "Critical Observations on Shakespeare, by John Upton, Prebendary of Rochester, 1746;" a second Edition in 1748.

"Yours respectfully,

This produced the following note on Book IV. ver. 237, "Much wiser Critics than Dennis and Gildon; celebrated in the foregoing Book, who became the public scorn by a mere mistake of their talents. They would needs turn Critics of their own Countrymen (just as Aristotle and Longinus did of theirs) and discourse upon the beauties and defects of composition :

How parts relate to parts, and they to whole;
The Body's harmony, the beaming Soul.

Whereas had they followed the example of these Microscopes of Wit, Kuster, Burman, and their followers, in verbal criticism on the learned languages, their acuteness and industry might have raised them a name equal to the most famous of the Scholiasts. We can therefore but lament the late Apostasy of the Prebendary of Rochester, who, beginning in so good a train, has now turned short, to write Comments on the FIRE-SIDE and DREAMS upon Shakespeare; where we find the spirit of Oldmixon, Gildon, and Dennis, all revived in his belaboured observations. SCRIBL. Here, Scriblerus! in this affair of the FIRESIDE *, I want thy usual candour. It is true Mr. Upton did write notes upon it; but with all honour and good faith. He took it to

Bp. Warburton, in a Letter to Mr. Hurd, Feb. 24, 1749-50, thus notices the circumstance: "You ask about the Prebendary of Rochester. Browne (the Pipe-of-Tobacco Browne) wrote a lampoon on Lord Granville, called "The Fire-side." To add the more poignancy to his satire, he, in the wantonness of his spleen, conceived a design that Upton should write notes upon it. He knew him to be dull enough not to see the drift of the lampoon, and vain enough to think himself honoured by the request; so he got him to his chambers, and persuaded him to write what indeed he himself in part dictated to him. In this condition the lampoon was printed, and then Browne told all his acquaintance the joke. I had it not from himself, and therefore was at liberty to speak of it. But was it not a charity to caution him against a commerce with this species of Wits, whose characteristic is what Mr. Pope gives them, of

'A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead!'

For one

"Upton's offence was well known, but it is not always so. does not care to trouble the publick with particularities, nor perpetuate the memory of impertinent and forgotten abuse; hence you gain the character, amongst those who neither know you, nor your provocations, of being unjustly censorious and satirical." 3 I

VOL. II.

be

be a panegyric on his Patron. This it is to have to do with Wits ; a commerce unworthy a Scholiast of so solid learning *." W. W. In another Note, Book IV. 650, "Aristarchus himself," in 1749, is changed to "the profound Mr. Upton himself" in 1751. 2. "A Supplement to Mr. Warburton's Edition of Shakespeare, 1747," of which two Editions were published: and another in 1748, under the new title of "The Canons of Criticism." See the "Literary Anecdotes," vol. II. pp. 199, 203; and vol. V. p. 597. Mr. Edwards was bespattered in a note on the " Essay on Criticism," line 463; and again in The Dunciad, IV. 568:

But he thus spiritedly retorted on the learned Commentator : "SIR, If Fame is one of the ingredients, or, as you elegantly call them, extremes of happiness, I am more obliged to you, whom I do not know, than to any person whom I do. Had not you called him forth to the public notice, the OTHER gentleman of Lincoln's-inn might have died in the obscurity which, you say, his modesty affected; and the few people who had read the last Edition of Shakespeare, and the Supplement to it, after having sighed over the one, and laughed at the other, would soon have forgotten both. As I have no reason to repent the effects of that curiosity which you have raised on my subject, to borrow another expression of yours; I take this opportunity of thanking you for that civil treatment, so becoming a Gentleman and a Clergyman, which I have received at your hands; and offer to your protection a work, from which, if Shakespeare, or good letters, have received any advantage, and the publick any benefit or entertainment, the thanks are due to Mr. Warburton. I am, Sir, not your enemy, though you have given me no great reason to be "Your very humble servant, THOMAS EDWards." P. 760. In the early Editions, The Dunciad, III. 331, reads, "Hibernian politicks, O Swift, thy doom;

And Pope's translating THREE whole years with Broome." Thus benoted in 1729: “He concludes his irony with a stroke upon himself: for whoever imagines this a sarcasm on the other ingenious person, is surely mistaken. The opinion our Author had of him was sufficiently shewn, by his joining him in the undertaking of the Odyssey: in which Mr. Broome having engaged without any previous agreement, discharged his part so much to Mr. Pope's satisfaction, that he gratified him with the full suni of five hundred pounds, and a present of all those books for which his own interest could procure him Subscribers, to the value of one hundred more. The Author only seems to lament, that he was employed in Translation at all."

In 1749 the Text and the Note stand thus:

"Hibernian Politics, O Swift! thy fate;

And Pope's, TEN years to comment and translate." "The Author here plainly laments that he was so long employed in translating and commenting. He began the Iliad in 1713, and finished it in 1719. The Edition of Shakespeare (which he undertook merely because nobody else would) took up

* In subsequent Editions the Note is wholly omitted.

near

near two years more in the drudgery of comparing impressions, rectifying the scenery, &c. and the Translation of half the Odyssey employed him from that time to 1725." In the subsequent Editions this Note was restored by Dr. Warburton.

P.772, note, 1. 2. r. Stonehenge."-Mr. Strutt, in his "Dictionary of Engravers," mentions Dr. Stukeley as "a celebrated Antiquary, who has published several curious and interesting works. This ingenious gentleman," he adds, "drew the greater part of the Designs for the Plates with which they are embellished, and etched a considerable number of them with his own hand; particularly those for the Itinerarium Curiosum.'"— In Ayscough's Catalogue of MSS. in the British Museum, 1782, are noticed the following articles by Dr. Stukeley; 1. Observations on Natural History, in his Travels through England, 1721 (4432.) 2. Account of a Shower of Wheat, 1732 (Ibid.) 3. An Account of his Book on the Course and Cure of the Gout, 1733 (Ibid.) 4. An Account of a Chaise that was beworked by a Man carried upon it, and vertical Ships, 1740-1, with a Drawing (4431). 5. Account of a Silver Plate found at Risley in Derbyshire (4438). -I have several neat Drawings by the Doctor of Druidical and Antiquarian subjects; one particularly, which he calls A View from my Study Window, Ormond-street, two doors West of Powis-house, 1722. The View presents the site of my house and grounds at Kentish Town; which I purchased 40 years after."— Another Drawing is called "The Duke of Montagu's Mausoleum, July 13, 1746."

P. 773. Mr. Creyk was Chaplain and Executor to his noble Friend the Earl of Winchelsea.

P. 796, 1.35. for "solicitude," r. "service."

P. 814. David Fordyce, Professor of Philosophy in the Marischal College, Aberdeen, and Author of several valuable works, was born in that City, in 1711, probably in March, as we find he was baptized on April 1. His father was an eminent merchant, who had a family of twenty children by his wife, a sister to Dr. Thomas Blackwell. This, their second son, after being educated at the Grammar School of his native city, was entered of Marischal College in 1724, where he went through a course of Philosophy under Professor Daniel Garden, and of Mathematics under Mr. John Stewart. He took his degree of M. A. in 1728, when he was but little more than seventeen years old. Being intended for the Church, his next application was to the study of Divinity, under the Professor of that branch, James Chalmers. Mr. Fordyce studied Divinity with great ardour, the utmost of his ambition being Ordination in a Church that affords her sons but a moderate emolument. Circumstances with which we are unacquainted, appear to have prevented his full intention, as he never became a settled Minister in the Establishment of his native country. He was admitted, however, to what may be termed the first degree of orders in the Church of Scotland, that is, he was licensed to preach, and continued to preach occasionally for some time. He is said, indeed, to have been once Domestic

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