Vol. I.
Poetical Essays in FEBRUARY, 1731.
71
The Universal Spectator, Saturday, February, 6, No. 122.
A new Session of the POETS, for the Year, 1730.
WITH bombaft, with doggrell, and nonsenfe quite cloy'd,His laws all despis'd, his prerogative void,Apollo, thought fit from these isles to elope,But left his commission with Swift and with Pope.Full bent was his bow, and unstrung was his lyre,When with him the Nine were oblig'd to retire.How pale was the sun! how unpleasant the day!How heavy old time runs, since he went away.
Soon Dullness, great goddess, ufurp'd his command,And publish'd her edicts all over the land,For electing a Laureat, a Sessions to keep,In the room of the late———who shall quietly sleep.
Enthron'd sat the goddefs, her subjects stood round,And subject to Dullness, what numbers abound;Came witlings, and dunces, and wrongheads so many,Came some that were rich, more worth not a penny.There was S-el-y, R-ch, W-ls-d, Concan-, and W-dCharles J-ns-n, and C-mm-ns the Gloucestershire bard.Old Dennis was cryer, and call'd out to order,John H-y was town clerk, Giles Jacob recorder.Each candidate brought the best sample he had,Some tragedies merry, some comedies sad:Some brought in whole volumes of clenches and puns,And one, by mistake, brought a parcel of duns:Some with the meer weight of their own works did blunder,And one sent an Ass, heavy loaden with plunder;Ev'n T-k-l and T-p came for sake of the pension,Tom Southern, and others, I care not to mention:First a Beau, clad in silk, produc'd his course stuff.The goddess declar'd he had merit enough;But bid him one infsance from history bring,Of the son of a Footman advanc'd to a King:Dennis told him he treated his muse like a jade,Since he drest her in Fustian, himself in Brocade.
Whose petition is that? my trusty friend C-k's;I honour him much for his dullest of books.Some other protection I wish him to seek,For I'll never give this to a dabbler in Greek.So C-mm-ns was call'd, who was bred near her throne,But he had forgotten his Cassock and Gown:So for once was asham'd, and shrunk back for fear,And miss'd being created a spiritual Peer.
Then T-b-d came newly emerg'd from his Cave,Well known to the Court for a Critick most grave;The goddess rose up, and said, this was the man,But him I've already crown'd King of a Clan.
Next P-pe appeared, and enter'd his plea,But his works did not all, with her standard agree,
