'Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng, I look for streams immortalised in song, That lost in silence and oblivion lie, Dumb are their fountains, and their channels dry; Yet run for over by the Muses' skill, And in the smooth description murmur still.--P. Settle was poet to the city of London. His office was to compose yearly panegyrics upon the lord mayors, and verses to be spoken in the pageants. But that part of the shows being at length frugally abolished, the employment of city-poet ceased, so that upon Settle's demise there was no successor to that place.--P. [256] John Heywood, whose interludes were printed in the time of Henry VIII.--P. [257] 'Daniel Defoe,' a man in worth and original genius incomparably superior to his defamer. [258] 'And Eusden eke out,' &c.: Laurence Eusden, poet laureate. Mr Jacob gives a catalogue of some few only of his works, which were very numerous. Mr Cook, in his Battle of Poets, saith of him-- 'Eusden, a laurell'd bard, by fortune raised, By very few was read, by fewer praised.'--P. [259] Nahum Tate was poet laureate, a cold writer, of no invention; but sometimes translated tolerably when befriended by Mr Dryden. In his second part of Absalom and Achitophel are above two hundred admirable lines together of that great hand, which strongly shine through the insipidity of the rest. Something parallel may be observed of another author here mentioned.--P. [260] 'Dennis rage:' Mr John Dennis was the son of a sadler in London, born in 1657. He paid court to Mr Dryden; and having obtained some correspondence with Mr Wycherly and Mr Congreve, he immediately obliged the public with their letters. He made himself known to the Government by many admirable schemes and projects, which the ministry, for reasons best known to themselves, constantly kept private.--P. [261] 'Shame to Fortune:' because she usually shows favour to persons of this character, who have a threefold pretence to it. [262] 'Poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes:' a great number of them taken out to patch up his plays.--P. [263] 'Tibbald:' this Tibbald, or Theobald, published an edition of Shakspeare, of which he was so proud himself as to say, in one of Mist's journals, June 8, 'That to expose any errors in it was impracticable.' And in another, April 27, 'That whatever care might for the future be taken by any other editor, he would still give above five hundred emendations, that shall escape them all.'--P. [264] 'Wish'd he had blotted:' it was a ridiculous praise which the players gave to Shakspeare, 'that he never blotted a line.' Ben Jonson honestly wished he had blotted a thousand; and Shakspeare would certainly have wished the same, if he had lived to see those alterations in his works, which, not the actors only (and especially the daring hero of this poem) have made on the stage, but the presumptuous critics of our days in their editions--P.