bibes the generous fumes awhile,
Then, downwards turn'd, the vessel gently props,
And drains with patient care the lucid drops:
O balmy spirit of Etruria's vine!
O fragrant flask, she said, too lately mine!
_If such delights, THOUGH EMPTY, thou canst yield_,
What wondrous raptures hadst thou given if filled!"
_Paloemon to Coelia at Bath, or the Triumvirate._

"The empty flask" only retaining "the costly flavour," was the
verse of Pope.

[204] Pope was made to appear as ridiculous as possible, and often
nicknamed "Poet Pug," from the frontispiece to an attack in
reply to his own, termed "Pope Alexander's Supremacy and
Infallibility examined." It represents Pope as a misshapen
monkey leaning on a pile of books, in the attitude adopted by
Jervas in his portrait of the poet.--ED.

[205] Dennis tells the whole story. "At his first coming to town he
was importunate with Mr. Cromwell to introduce him to me. The
recommendation engaged me to be about thrice in company with
him; after which I went to the country, till I found myself
most insolently attacked in his very superficial 'Essay on
Criticism,' by which he endeavoured to destroy the reputation
of a man who had published pieces of criticism, and to set up
his own. I was moved with indignation to that degree, that I
immediately writ remarks on that essay. I also writ upon part
of his translation of 'Homer,' his 'Windsor Forest,' and his
infamous 'Temple of Fame.'" In the same pamphlet he
says:--"Pope writ his 'Windsor Forest' in envy of Sir John
Denham's 'Cooper's Hill;' his infamous 'Temple of Fame' in
envy of Chaucer's poem upon the same subject; his 'Ode on St.
Cecilia's Day,' in envy of Dryden's 'Feast of Alexander.'" In
reproaching Pope with his peculiar rhythm, that monotonous
excellence, which soon became mechanical, he has an odd
attempt at a pun:--"Boileau's Pegasus has all his paces; the
Pegasus of Pope, like a _Kentish post-horse_, is always upon
the _Canterbury_."--"Remarks upon several Passages in the
Preliminaries to the _Dunciad_," 1729.

[206] Two parties arose in the literary republic, the _Theobaldians_
and the _Popeians_. The "Grub-street Journal," a