Then caught the Schools; the Hall scarce kept awake: The Convocation gap'd, but could not speak: 610 REMARKS. that the amiable Prelate I allude to, having heard an animated discourse delivered by Gilbert, committed some of the leading ideas, and the most striking expressions, to memory; and afterwards preached the same sermon before Dr. Gilbert, and mentioned the circumstance; who very good-naturedly said, “Then you are not ashamed of" leaden Gilbert!" Bowles. Ver. 610. The Convocation gap'd, but could not speak:]. Implying a great desire so to do, as the learned Scholiast on the place rightly observes. Therefore beware, reader, lest thou take this Gape for a Yawn, which is attended with no desire, but to go to rest :. by no means the disposition of the Convocation; whose melancholy case in short is this. She was, as is reported, infected with the general influence of the Goddess; and while she was yawning carelessly at her ease, a wanton Courtier took her at advantage, and in the very nick, clapp'd a Gag into her mouth. Well therefore may we know her meaning by her gaping; and this distressful posture which our poet here describes, is just as she stands at this day, a sad example of the effects of Dulness and Malice unchecked and despised. BENTL. W. Ver. 613. Wide, and more wide, it spread o'er all the realm; Ev'n Palinurus nodded at the helm :] This very elegant allusion he owes to Young, Sat. vii. ver. 225. "What felt thy Walpole, pilot of the realm? Our Palinurus slept not at the helm : His eye ne'er clos'd, long since inur'd to wake, And out-watch ev'ry star for Brunswick's sake." The expression of the last line is taken from Milton, Penseroso, ver. 87. "Where I may oft out-watch the Bear." Wakefield. The vapour mild o'er each Committee crept; 615 may REMARKS. Ver. 615-618.] These verses were written many years ago, and be found in the State Poems of that time. So that Scriblerus is mistaken, or whoever else have imagined this poem of a fresher date. Ver. 615. The vapour mild o'er each Committee crept; P. W. These four verses are said to be taken from the State Poems; but I am unable to point out their station there. They partly existed in the poem, probably that intended, of Halifax on Orpheus and Signora Margarita : "And, when the tawny Tuscan rais'd her strain, Rook furls his sails, and dozes on the main : Treaties unfinish'd in the office sleep, And Shovel yawns for orders on the deep." Of the first of these verses our poet has made use in his Ode on St Cecilia's Day: 66 'High on the stern the Thracian rais'd his strain." Wakefield. Ver. 619. O Muse! relate] Mr. Gray's opinion of this fourth book was as follows: "The genii of operas and schools, with their attendants, the pleas of the virtuosos and florists, and the yawn of Dulness in the end, are as fine as any thing he has written. The metaphysician's part is to me the worst; and here and there a few ill-expressed lines, and some hardly intelligible." Warton. Ver. 620. Wits have short memories,] This seemeth to be the reason why the poets, whenever they give us a Catalogue, constantly call for help on the Muses, who, as the daughters of Memory, are obliged not to forget any thing. So Homer, Iliad ii. Πληθὺν δ ̓ ἐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι ἐδ' ονομήνω, Εἰ μὴ Ὀλυμπιάδες Μᾶσαι, Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο VOL. IV. Ꮓ And Relate, who first, who last resign'd to rest; Whose heads she partly, whose completely blest; What charms could Faction, what Ambition lull, The venal quiet, and entrance the dull; Till drown'd was sense, and shame, and right, and wrong O sing, and hush the nations with thy song! * In vain, in vain! The all-composing hour Resistless falls; the Muse obeys the Pow'r. She comes! she comes! the sable throne behold Of Night primeval, and of Chaos old! And Virg. Æneid. vii. REMARKS. "Et meministis enim, Divæ, et memorare potestis: Ad nos vix tenuis famæ perlabitur aura.” 625 630 upon But our poet had yet another reason for putting this task the Muse, that, all besides being asleep, she only could relate what passed. SCRIBlerus. P. W. Ver. 624. The venal quiet, &c.] It were a problem worthy the solution of Aristarchus himself (and perhaps not of less importance than some of those so long disputed amongst Homer's Scholiasts, as, in which hand Venus was wounded, and what Jupiter whispered in the ear of Juno,) to inform us, which required the greatest effort of our Goddess's power, to entrance the dull, or to quiet the venal. For though the venal may be more unruly than the dull, yet, on the other hand, it demands a much greater expense of her virtue to entrance than barely to quiet. SCRIBL. W. Ver. 629. She comes! she comes! &c.] Here the Muse, like Jove's Eagle, after a sudden stoop at ignoble game, soareth again to the skies. As prophecy hath ever been one of the chief provinces of poesy, our poet here foretels from what we feel, what IMITATIONS. Ver. 621. Relate, who first, who last resign'd to rest ; ̧ Whose heads she partly, whose completely blest ;] we "Quem telo primum, quem postremum, aspera Virgo, Dejicis? aut quot humi morientia corpora fundis?" Virg. W.† Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, REMARKS. 635 640 we are to fear; and in the style of Apollo's prophets, hath used the future tense for the preterit; since what he says shall be, is already to be seen, in the writings of some even of our most adored authors, in Divinity, Philosophy, Physics, Metaphysics, &c. who are too good indeed to be named in such company. P. W. Ver. 629. the sable throne behold] The sable thrones of Night and Chaos, here represented as advancing to extinguish the light of the Sciences, in the first place blot out the colours of Fancy and damp the fire of Wit, before they proceed to their greater work. W. Ver. 641. Truth to her old cavern fled,] Alluding to the saying of Democritus, that Truth lay at the bottom of a deep well, from whence he had drawn her; though Butler replied, archly enough, He first put her in, before he drew her out. W. Ver. 643. Philosophy, that lean'd on Heav'n] Philosophy has IMITATIONS. Ver. 637. As Argus' eyes, &c.] "Et quamvis sopor est oculorum parte receptus, at Parte tamen vigilat Vidit Cyllenius omnes Succubuisse oculos," &c. Ovid. Met. ii. P.t Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense! REMARKS. 645 at length brought things to that pass, as to have it esteemed unphilosophical to rest in the first cause; as if its business were an endless indagation of cause after cause, without ever coming to the First. So that to avoid this unlearned disgrace, some of the propagators of our best philosophy have had recourse to the contrivance here hinted at. For this philosophy, which is founded on the principle of Gravitation, first considered that property in matter as something extrinsical to it, and impressed by God upon it; which fairly and modestly coming up to the first Cause, was pushing natural inquiries as far as they should go. But this stopping, though at the extent of our ideas, and on the maxim of the great founder of this Philosophy, Bacon, who says, Circa ultimates rerum frustranea est inquisitio, was mistaken by foreign philosophers as recurring to the occult qualities of the Peripatetics; whose sense is thus delivered by a great poet, whom, indeed, it more became than a philosopher : "Sed gravitas etiam crescat, dum corpora centro Pellai juvenis Doctor conjecerat olim In Physica studium." Anti-Lucr. To avoid which imaginary discredit to the new theory, it was thought proper to seek for the cause of gravitation in a certain subtile matter or elastic fluid, which pervaded all body. By this. means, instead of really advancing in natural inquiries, we were brought back again, by this ingenious expedient, to an unsatisfactory second cause : "Philosophy, that lean'd on Heaven before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more." For it might still, by the same kind of objection, be asked, what was the cause of that elasticity? See this folly censured, ver. 475. and confuted in the words of an excellent philosopher: BAXTER'S Appendix to his Inquiry into the nature of the human soul, p. 194. W. Ver. 645, 646. Physic of Metaphysic, &c.-And Metaphysic calls, &c.] Certain writers, as Malbranche, Norris, and Berkeley, have thought it of importance, in order to secure the existence of the |