[Footnote 72: The absurdity of converting ancient history into romance, and all her heroes into whining lovers, as where Cyrus is introduced a knight-errant, under the assumed name of Artamenes, was well ridiculed by Boileau, in a separate dialogue.] [Footnote 73: See some specimens of this bombast piece, Vol. VI. p. 376.] [Footnote 74: I suspect here an attack on Milton.] [Footnote 75: A whimsical character in Jonson's "Epicœne."] [Footnote 76: In the "Volpone," or Fox, of Ben Jonson, Sir Politic Woudbe, a foolish politician, as his name intimates, disguises himself as a tortoise, and is detected on the stage;--a machine much too farcical for the rest of the piece.] [Footnote 77: A bookseller mentioned in "Mac-Flecnoe;" a great publisher of plays and poetry.] [Footnote 78: A burlesque poem on a quarrel and scuffle in the Counter-prison, which occurs in Dryden's Miscellanies, Vol. III. It is written with considerable humour, though too long to be supported throughout.] [Footnote 79: _Boutefeu_, a gallicism for _incendiary:_ in Dryden's time it was a word of good reputation, but is now obsolete.] TARQUIN AND TULLIA. This piece, and that which immediately follows, bear no trace of Dryden's hand. They have been attributed, by Mr Malone, with much probability, to Mr Mainwaring, a violent Jacobite. The satire is coarse and intemperate, without having that easy flow of verse, and felicity of expression, which always distinguishes the genuine productions of our author. The comparison of William and Mary with Tarquin and Tullia, was early insisted upon as a topic of reproach. It occurs in a letter concerning the coronation medal, which, as is well known, represented, on the reverse, the destruction of Phaeton. The letter-writer says, that "one gentleman seeing the chariot, but not understanding the Latin inscription, and having heard the town talk of Tullia, who instigated her husband Tarquinius to kill her father Servius Tullius king of the Romans, that he might succeed him in the throne, and, as Livy says, caused her chariot to be driven over his mangled body, cried out, 'Is this Tullia's chariot?' This I say shocked me, and raised my anger against the contriver, who had chosen so ill an emblem, which, upon so superficial a view, brought such an odious history into men's minds." SOMERS' _Tracts_, p. 333. TARQUIN AND TULLIA.