Page:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu/93

Or tread the path by vent'rous Heroes trod,^{[R. 1]}
This Box my Thunder, this right hand my God?^{[I. 1]}
Or chair'd at White's amidst the Doctors sit,^{[R. 2]}
Teach Oaths to Gamesters, and to Nobles Wit?
205 Or bidst thou rather Party to embrace?
(A friend to Party thou, and all her race;
'Tis the same rope at different ends they twist;
To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist.)^{[R. 3]}

Remarks

a French Wit did of Tully, seeing his works in a library, "Ah! mon cher Ciceron! je le connois bien; c'est le même que Marc Tulle." But he had a better title to call Fletcher his own, having made so free with him.

1. Ver. 200. Take up the Bible, once my better guide?] When, according to his Father's intention, he had been a Clergyman, or (as he thinks himself) a Bishop of the Church of England. Hear his own words: "At the time that the fate of King James, the Prince of Orange and Myself, were on the anvil, Providence thought fit to postpone mine, 'till theirs were determined: But had my father carried me a month sooner to the University, who knows but that purer fountain might have washed my Imperfections into a capacity of writing, instead of Plays and annual Odes, Sermons, and Pastoral Letters?" Apology for his Life, chap. iii.
2. V. 203, at White's amidst the Doctors] "These Doctors had a modest and fair Appearance, and, like true Masters of Arts, were habited in black and white; they were justly styled subtiles and graves, but not always irrefragabiles, being sometimes examined, laid open, and split." Scribl.This learned Critic is to be understood allegorically: The Doctors in this place mean no more than false Dice, a Cant phrase used amongst Gamesters. So the meaning of these four sonorous Lines is only this, "Shall I play fair, or foul?"
3. Ver. 206. Ridpath—Mist.] George Ridpath, author of a Whig paper, called

Imitations

1. Ver. 202. This Box my Thunder, this Right hand my God]
   Dextra mihi Deus, & telum quod missile libro.
   Virgil of the Gods of Mezentius.