plying them, to bear great vogue
among certain writers, whom I exceedingly reverence. And indeed it seems
not unreasonable that books, the children of the brain, should have the
honour to be christened with variety of names, as well as other infants
of quality. Our famous Dryden has ventured to proceed a point farther,
endeavouring to introduce also a multiplicity of godfathers; which is an
improvement of much more advantage, upon a very obvious account. It is a
pity this admirable invention has not been better cultivated, so as to
grow by this time into general imitation, when such an authority serves
it for a precedent. Nor have my endeavours been wanting to second so
useful an example: but, it seems, there is an unhappy expense usually
annexed to the calling of a godfather, which was clearly out of my head,
as it is very reasonable to believe. Where the pinch lay, I cannot
certainly affirm; but, having employed a world of thoughts and pains to
split my treatise into forty sections, and having entreated forty lords
of my acquaintance, that they would do me the honour to stand, they all
made it a matter of conscience, and sent me their excuses."

[17] Besides the notes on Virgil, he wrote many single sermons, and a
metrical version of the psalms, and died in 1720.

[18] He is described as a rake in "The Pacificator," a poem bought by
Mr. Luttrell, 15th Feb. 1699-1700, which gives an account of a supposed
battle between the men of wit and men of sense, as the poet calls them:

"M----n, a renegade from wit, came on,
And made a false attack, and next to none;
The hypocrite, in sense, could not conceal
What pride, and want of brains, obliged him to reveal.
In him, the critic's ruined by the poet,
And Virgil gives his testimony to it.
The troops of wit were so enraged to see
This priest invade his own fraternity,
They sent a party out, by silence led,
And, without answer, shot the turn-coat dead.
The priest, the rake, the wit, strove all in vain,
For there, alas! he lies among the slain.
_Memento mori_; see the consequence,
When rakes and wits set up for men of sense."

[19] This, Mr. Malone has proved by the following extract from Motteux's
"Gentleman's Journal." "That best of poets (says Motteux) having so long
continued a stranger to tolerable English, Mr. Milbourne pitied his hard
fate; and seeing that several great men had undertaken some episodes of
his Aeneis, without any design of