Mr. Welſted was likewiſe characteriſed in the Treatiſe of the Art of Sinking, as a Didapper, and after as an Eel. He was likewiſe deſcribed under the character of another animal, a Mole, by the author of the following ſimile, which was handed about at the ſame time.
Dear Welſted, mark in dirty hole
That painful animal a Mole:
Above ground never born to go,
What mighty ſtir it keeps below?
To make a molehill all this ſtrife!
It digs, pokes, undermines for life.
How proud a little dirt to ſpread!
Conſcious of nothing o’er its head.
’Till lab’ring on, for want of eyes,
It blunders into light—and dies.
But mentioning him once was not enough for Mr. Pope. He is again celebrated in the third book, in that famous Parody upon Denham’s Cooper’s Hill,
O could I flow like thee, and make thy ſtream
My great example, as it is my theme;
Tho’ deep, yet clear; tho’ gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage; without o’er flowing full.
Which Mr. Pope has thus parodied;
Flow Welſted, flow; like thine inſpirer, beer,
Tho’ ſtale, not ripe; tho’ thin, yet never clear;
So ſweetly mawkiſh, and ſo ſmoothly dull;
Heady, not ſtrong; and foaming, tho’ not full.
How far Mr. Pope’s inſinuation is true, that Mr. Welſted owed his inſpiration to beer, they who
