sued by two booksellers, and vanishes from the grasp of
him who has first clutched the fluttering shade. "Gentle Dulness ever
loves a joke;" and the aforesaid admirable jest having kindled
inextinguishable laughter in heaven, Gentle Dulness repeats it (she
loves to repeat herself,) and starts three phantoms in the likenesses
respectively of Congreve, Addison, Prior. Three booksellers give chase,
and catch Heaven knows what, three foolish forgotten names. For the
second exertion of talent, confined to the booksellers Osborne and Curl,
the prize is the fair Eliza, and Curl is Victor. Osborne, too, is
suitably rewarded; but as this game borders on the indelicate, it shall
be nameless. Hitherto, after the simplicity of ancient manners, there
have been contentions of bodily powers. But the games of the Dunces
belong to an advanced age of the world, and a part of them are
accordingly spiritual. The third falls under this category. A patron is
proposed as the prize. He who can best tickle shall carry him off. The
dedicators fall to their task with great zeal and adroitness. Alas!
there steps in a young thief of a competitor unknown to Phoebus, but
deep in the counsels of Venus! He, aided by the goddess, and a votaress
of her order whom the goddess deputes, avails himself of the noble
prize's most susceptible side,

"And marches off, his Grace's secretary."

The fourth game sets up a desirable rivalry with monkeys and asses. Who
shall chatter the fastest? Who the loudest shall bray?

----"Three cat-calls be the bribe
Of him whose chatt'ring shames the monkey tribe:
And his this drum, whose hoarse heroic base
Drowns the loud clarion of the braying ass."

So numerous are the monkey-mimics that the claims of the chatterers
cannot be adjusted--

"Hold (cried the Queen) a cat-call each shall win;
Equal your merits! equal is your din!
But that this well-disputed game may end,
Sound forth, my Brayers, and the welkin rend."

Sir Richard Blackmore, with his six epics and sundry other poems, brays
louder and longer than the most leathern or brazen of the other throats;
Chancery Lane and Westminster Hall taking prominent part in the
reverberating orchestra. The place is to be ranked amongst the famous
echo-descriptions, and beats Drayton's and Wordsworth's hollow.

The fifth game is DIVING.

"This labor past, by Bridewell all descend,
(As morning pray'r and flagellation end)
To where Fleet-ditch, wi