Page:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu/101

285 'Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakespear, and Corneille,
Can make a Cibber, Tibbald,^{[R. 1]} or Ozell.^{[R. 2]}
The Goddess then, o'er his anointed head,
With mystic words, the sacred Opium shed.
And lo! her bird, (a monster of a fowl,
290 Something betwixt a Heideggre^{[R. 3]} and owl,)

Remarks

1. Ver. 286. Tibbald,) Lewis Tibbald (as pronounced) or Theobald (as written) was bred an Attorney, and son to an Attorney (says Mr. Jacob) of Sittenburn in Kent. He was Author of some forgotten Plays, Translations, and other pieces. He was concerned in a paper called the Censor, and a Translation of Ovid. "There is a notorious Idiot, one hight Whachum, who, from an under-spur-leather to the Law, is become an understrapper to the Play-house, who hath lately burlesqued the Metamorphoses of Ovid by a vile Translation, &c. This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Censor." Dennis Rem. on Pope's Hom. p. 9, 10.
2. Ibid. Ozell.] "Mr. John Ozell" (if we credit Mr. Jacob) "did go to school in Leicestershire, where somebody left him something to live on, when he shall retire from business. He was designed to be sent to Cambridge, in order for priesthood; but he chose rather to be placed in an office of accounts, in the City, being qualified for the same by his skill in arithmetic, and writing the necessary hands. He has obliged the world with many translations of French Plays." Jacob, Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 198.
   Mr. Jacob's character of Mr. Ozell seems vastly short of his merits, and he ought to have further justice done him, having since fully confuted all Sarcasms on his learning and genius, by an advertisement of Sept. 20, 1729. in a paper called the Weekly Medley, &c. "As to my learning, everybody knows that the whole bench of Bishops, not long ago, were pleased to give me a purse of guineas, for discovering the erroneous translations of the Common-prayer in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, &c. As for my genius, let Mr. Cleland shew better verses in all Pope's works, than Ozell's version of Boileau's Lutrin, which the late Lord Halifax was so pleased with, that he complimented him with leave to dedicate it to him, &c. &c. Let him shew better and truer Poetry in the Rape of the Lock, than in Ozell's Rape of the "Bucket (la Secchia rapita.) And Mr. Toland and Mr. Gildon publicly declared Ozell's translation of Homer to be, as it was prior, so likewise superior to Pope's.—Surely, surely, every man is free to deserve well of his country!
   John Ozell.
   We cannot but subscribe to such reverend testimonies, as those of the Bench of Bishops, Mr. Toland, and Mr. Gildon.
3. Ver. 290. A Heideggre] A strange