As to soft gales top-heavy pines bow low
Their heads, and lift them as they cease to blow:
Thus oft they rear, and oft the head decline,
As breathe, or pause, by fits, the airs divine.
And now to this side, now to that they nod,395
As verse, or prose, infuse the drowzy God.
Thrice Budgel aim'd to speak,[R 1] but thrice supprest
By potent Arthur, knock'd his chin and breast.
Toland and Tindal,[R 2] prompt at priests to jeer,
Yet silent bow'd to Christ's No kingdom here.[R 3] 400
Who sate the nearest, by the words o'ercome,
Slept first; the distant nodded to the hum.
Then down are roll'd the books; stretch'd o'er 'em lies
Each gentle clerk, and mutt'ring seals his eyes.
As what a Dutchman plumps into the lakes,[R 4] 405
One circle first, and then a second makes;
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 397. Thrice Budgel aim'd to speak,] Famous for his speeches on many occasions about the South Sea scheme, &c. "He is a very ingenious gentleman, and hath written some excellent Epilogues to Plays, and one small piece on Love, which is very pretty." Jacob, Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 289. But this gentleman since made himself much more eminent, and personally well-known to the greatest Statesmen of all parties, as well as to all the Courts of Law in this nation.
- ↑ Ver. 399. Toland and Tindal,] Two persons, not so happy as to be obscure, who writ against the Religion of their Country.
- ↑ Ver. 400. Christ's No kingdom, &c.] This is said by Curl, Key to Dunc. to allude to a sermon of a reverend Bishop.
- ↑ Ver. 405. As what a Dutchman, &c.] It is a common and foolish mistake, that a ludicrous parody of a grave and celebrated passage is a ridicule of that passage. The reader therefore, if he will, may call this a parody of the author's own Similitude in the Essay on Man, Ep. iv.
As the small pebble, &c.
but will any body therefore suspect the one to be a ridicule of the other? A ri-
