bers feebly creep;
Thy Tragic Muse gives smiles, thy Comic sleep.
With whate'er gall thou sett'st thyself to write,
Thy inoffensive satires never bite.
In thy felonious heart though venom lies,
It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.
Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame
In keen Iambics, but mild Anagram.
Leave writing Plays, and chuse for thy command
Some peaceful province in Acrostic land:
There thou may'st wings display, and altars raise,
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways:
Or if thou would'st thy diff'rent talents suit,
Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.'
He said; but his last words were scarcely heard; }
For Bruce and Longvil has a trap prepar'd }
And down they sent the yet-declaiming bard. }
Sinking, he left his drugget robe behind,
Borne upwards by a subterranean wing:
The mantle fell to the young prophet's part,
With double portion of his father's art."

The _Mac-Flecnoe_ of Dryden suggested--no more--the _Dunciad_ of Pope.
There is nothing of transcript. Flecnoe, who,

"In prose and verse, was own'd without dispute,
THROUGH ALL THE REALMS OF NONSENSE, ABSOLUTE,"

settles the succession of the state on Shadwell. That idea Pope adopts;
but the Kingdom of Dulness is re-modelled. It is no longer an aged
monarch, who, tired out with years and the toils of empire, gladly
transfers the sceptre to younger and more efficient hands, but the
GODDESS OF DULNESS who is concerned for her dominion, and elects her new
vice-regent on the demise of the Crown. The scale is immeasurably
aggrandized--multitudes of dunces are comprehended--the composition is
elaborate--the mock-heroic, admirable in Dryden, is carried to
perfection, and we have, _sui generis_, a regular epic poem.

In the year 1727, amongst the works first given to the public in the
Miscellancies of Pope and Swift, was the treatise of Martinus
Scriblerus, ~Peri Bathous~, or the _Art of Sinking in Poetry_.
The exquisite wit and humour of this piece, which was almost wholly
Pope's, enraged the Dunces to madness; and the mongrel pack opened in
full cry, with barbarous dissonance, against their supposed whipper-in.
Never was there such a senseless yell: for the philosophical treatise
"On the Profund" overflows with amenity and good-nature. Pope is all the
while at play--diverting himself in innocent recreation; and, of all the
satires that ever were indited, it is in spirit