Then first (if Poets aught of truth declare)
The caitiff Vaticide conceiv'd a pray'r.
Hear Jove! whose name my bards and I adore,
As much at least as any God's, or more; 80
And him and his, if more devotion warms,
Down with the Bible, up with the Pope's Arms.[R 1]
A place there is, betwixt earth, air, and seas,[I 1] [I 2]
Where, from Ambrosia, Jove retires for ease.
There in his seat two spacious vents appear, 85
On this he sits, to that he leans his ear,
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 82. Down with the Bible, up with the Pope's Arms.] The Bible, Curl's sign; the Cross-keys, Lintot's.
lowing one of Eliza. Mr. Dryden in Mack-Fleckno, has not scrupled to mention the Morning Toast at which the fishes bite in the Thames, Pissing Alley, Reliques of the Bum, &c. but our author is more grave, and (as a fine writer says of Virgil in his Georgics) tosses about his Dung with an air of Majesty. If we consider that the exercises of his Authors could with justice to be no higher than tickling, chattering, braying, or diving, it was no easy matter to invent such games as were proportioned to the meaner degree of Booksellers. In Homer and Virgil, Ajax and Nisus the persons drawn in this plight are Heroes; whereas here they are such with whom it had been great impropriety to have joined any but vile ideas; besides the natural connection there is between Libellers and common Nusances. Nevertheless I have heard our author own, that this part of his Poem was (as it frequently happens) what cost him most trouble and pleased him least; but that he hoped it was excusable, since levelled at such as understand no delicate satyr: Thus the politest men are sometimes oliged to swear, when they happen to have to do with porters and oyster-wenches.
Imitations
