Book I.
The Dunciad.
73
'Till Senates nod to Lullabies divine,
And all be sleep, as at an Ode of thine.
And all be sleep, as at an Ode of thine.
She ceas'd. Then swells the Chapel-royal[R. 1] throat:
320 God save king Cibber! mounts in ev'ry note.
Familiar White's, God save king Colley! cries;
God save king Colley! Drury-lane replies:
To Needham's quick the voice triumphal rode,
But pious Needham[R. 2] dropt the name of God;
325 Back to the Devil[R. 3] the last echoes roll,
And Coll! each Butcher roars at Hockley-hole.
So when Jove's block descended from on high
(As sings thy great forefather Ogilby[R. 4])
320 God save king Cibber! mounts in ev'ry note.
Familiar White's, God save king Colley! cries;
God save king Colley! Drury-lane replies:
To Needham's quick the voice triumphal rode,
But pious Needham[R. 2] dropt the name of God;
325 Back to the Devil[R. 3] the last echoes roll,
And Coll! each Butcher roars at Hockley-hole.
So when Jove's block descended from on high
(As sings thy great forefather Ogilby[R. 4])
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 319. Chapel-royal] The Voices and Instruments used in the service of the Chapel-royal being also employed in the performance of the Birth-day and New-year Odes.
- ↑ Ver. 324. But pious Needham] A Matron of great fame, and very religious in her way; whose constant prayer it was, that she might "get enough by her profession to leave it off in time, and make her peace with God." But her fate was not so happy; for being convicted, and set in the pillory, she was (to the lasting shame of all her great Friends and Votaries) so ill used by the populace, that it put an end to her days.
- ↑ Ver. 325. Back to the Devil] The Devil Tavern in Fleet-street, where these Odes are usually rehearsed before they are performed at Court.
- ↑ Ver. 328.—Ogilvy)—God save king Log!] See Ogilby's Æsop's Fables, where, in the story of the Frogs and their King, this excellent hemistic is to be found.
Our Author manifests here, and elsewhere, a prodigious tenderness for the bad writers. We see he selects the only good passage, perhaps, in all that ever Ogilby writ; which shews how candid and patient a reader he must have been. What can be more kind and affectionate than these words in the preface to his Poems, where he labours to call up all our humanity and forgiveness toward these unlucky men, by the most moderate representation of their case that has ever been given by any author? "Much may be said to extenuate the fault of bad poets: What we call a genius is hard to be distinguished, by a man himself,
