Oratio cujus summa virtus est perspicuitas, quam sit vitiosa, si egeat interprete? Ergo ut novorum optima erunt maxime vetera, ita veterum maxime nova. Idem.

 

13 See Ben Johnson's Every Man in his Humour.

 

14 Quis populi sermo est? quis enim? nisi carmine molli

Nunc demum numero fluere, ut per læve severos

Effundat junctura ungues: scit tendere versum

Non secus ac si oculo rubricam dirigat uno. Pers. Sat. i.

 

15 Fugiemus crebras vocalium concursiones, quæ vastam atque hiantem orationem reddunt. Cic. ad Herenn. lib. iv. Vide etiam Quintil. lib. ix, c. 4.

 

16 See Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Music; an Ode by Mr. Dryden.

 

17 A place where old and second-hand books were sold formerly, near Smithfield.

 

18 The rhyming Clowns that gladded Shakespear's age,

No more with crambo entertain the stage.

Who now in Anagrams their Patron praise,

Or sing their Mistress in Acrostic lays?

Ev'n pulpits pleas'd with merry puns of yore;

Now all are banish'd to the Hibernian shore!

Thus leaving what was natural and fit,

The current folly prov'd their ready wit;

And authors thought their reputation safe,

Which liv'd as long as fools were pleas'd to laugh.

 

19 The author has omitted two lines which stood here, as containing a National Reflection, which in his stricter judgment he could not but disapprove on any People whatever.

 

20 This picture was taken to himself by John Dennis, a furious old Critic by profession, who, upon no other provocation, wrote against this Essay and its author, in a manner perfectly lunatic: For, as to the mention made of him in v. 270. he took it as a Compliment, and said it was treacherously meant to cause him to overlook this Abuse of his Person.

 

21 A common slander at that time in prejudice of that deserving author. Our Poet did him this justice, when that slander most prevail'd; and it is now (perhaps the sooner for this very verse) dead and forgotten.

 

22 In vain you shrug, and sweat, and strive to fly;

These know no Manners but in Poetry.

They'll stop a hungry Chaplain in his grace,

To treat of Unities of time and place.

 

23 He, when all Nature was subdu'd before,

Like his great Pupil, sigh'd, and long'd for more:

Fancy's wild regions yet unvanquish'd lay,

A boundless empire, and that own'd no sway.

Poets, etc.

 

24 Of Halicarnassus.

 

25 Vain Wits and Critics were no more allow'd,

When none but Saints had licence to be proud.

 

26 M. Hieronymus Vida, an excellent Latin Poet, who writ an Art of Poetry in verse. He flourished in the time of Leo the Tenth.

 

27 Essay on Poetry by the Duke of Buckingham. Our Poet is not the only one of his time who complimented this Essay, and its noble Author. Mr. Dryden had done it very largely in the Dedication to his translation of the Æneid; and Dr. Garth in the first Edition of his Dispensary says,

 

The Tyber now no courtly Gallus sees,

But smiling Thames enjoys his Normanbys.

 

Tho' afterwards omitted, when parties were carried so high in the reign of Queen Anne, as to allow no commendation to an opposite in Politics. The Duke was all his life a steady adherent to the Church of England-Party, yet an enemy to the extravagant measures of the Court in the reign of Charles II. On which account after having strongly patronized Mr. Dryden, a coolness succeeded between them on that poet's absolute attachment to the Court, which carried him some lengths beyond what the Duke could approve of. This Nobleman's true character had been very well marked by Mr. Dryden before,

 

the Muse's friend,

Himself a Muse. In Sanadrin's debate

True to his prince, but not a slave of state.

Abs.