Note 124 — HOGARTH ILLUSTRATED. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Doctor Arbuthnot, Mr. Pope, and the Dean, have united their talents to expose the anti-climax, and selected innumerable conceits from the ponderous works of Sir Richard Blackmore and others. They have unkindly neglected their friend Gay; and yet Blackmore's mowing the beard is not much worse than Gay's shaving the grass:
"When the fresh spring in all her state is crown'd, And high luxuriant grass o'erspreads the ground, The lab'rer with the bending scythe is seen Shaving the surface of the waving green; Of all her native pride disrobes the land, And meads lays waste before his sweeping hand."
—Gay's Pastorals, p. 5, l. 39, etc.