Note 183 — ALEXANDER POPE.
Reading edition
Smithfield is the place where Bartholomew Fair was kept, whose shows and dramatical entertainments were, by the hero of this poem and others of equal genius, brought to the theatres of Covent Garden, Lincolns-Inn-Fields, and the Haymarket, to be the reigning pleasures of the court and town. This happened in the reigns of King George I. and II.
[184]
Ironicé
, alluding to Gulliver's representations of both.—The next line relates to the papers of the Drapier against the currency of Wood's copper coin in Ireland, which, upon the great discontent of the people, his majesty was graciously pleased to recall.
[185]
Mr. Caius Gabriel Cibber, father of the poet laureate. The two statues of the lunatics over the gates of Bedlam Hospital were done by him, and (as the son justly says of them) are no ill monuments of his fame as an artist.
[186]
Two booksellers. The former was fined by the Court of King's Bench for publishing obscene books; the latter usually adorned his shop with titles in red letters.
[187]
It was an ancient English custom for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution at Tyburn; and no less customary to print elegies on their deaths, at the same time or before.
[188]
Made by the poet laureate for the time being, to be sung at court on every New Year's Day.
[189]
Jacob Tonson the bookseller.
[190]
Alluding to the transgressions of the unities in the plays of such poets.
[191]
Sir George Thorold, Lord Mayor of London in the year 1720. The procession of a Lord Mayor was made partly by land, and partly by water.—Cimon, the famous Athenian general, obtained a victory by sea, and another by land, on the same day, over the Persians and barbarians.
[192]
Settle was poet to the city of London. His office was to compose yearly panegyrics upon the Lord Mayors, and verses to be spoken in the pageants: but that part of the shows being at length abolished, the employment of the city poet ceased; so that upon Settle's death there was no successor appointed to that place.
[193]
John Heywood, whose "Interludes" were printed in the time of Henry VIII.
[194]
The first edition had it,—
"She saw in Norton all his father shine":
Daniel Defoe was a genius, but Norton Defoe was a wretched writer, and never attempted poetry. Much more justly is Daniel himself made successor to W. Pryn, both of whom wrote verses as well as politics. And both these authors had a semblance in their fates as well as writings, having been alike sentenced to the pillory.
[195]
Laurence Eusden, poet laureate before Gibber. We have the names of only a few of his works, which were very numerous.
Nahum Tate was poet laureate, a poor writer, of no invention; but who sometimes translated tolerably when assisted by Dryden. In the second part of Absalom and Achitophel there are about two hundred lines in all by Dryden which contrast strongly with the insipidity of the rest.
[196]
John Dennis was the son of a saddler in London, born in 1657. He paid court to Dryden; and having obtained some correspondence with Wycherley and Congreve he immediately made public their letters.