gorgeous seat, that far outshone
Henley's gilt tub, or Flecknoe's Irish throne,
Or that where on her Curls the public pours
All-bounteous, fragrant grains and golden showers,
GREAT CIBBER SATE!
----All eyes direct their rays
On him, _and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze_!"

Is that being passive? The crowds are passive--not he surely, who, in
the potent prime of coxcombhood, without shifting his seat of honour,
breathes over all his subjects such family resemblance that they seem
one brotherhood, sprung from his own royal loins. Besides, who ever
heard, in an Epic poem, of a hero contending in games instituted in his
own honour? Yet we do not fear to say, that had he, inspired by the
spectacle of Curl and Osborne displaying their prowess for the fair
Eliza, leapt from his gorgeous "seat," and amid the shouts of the
lieges, in rainbow glory jointed the contest, that infallibly he had won
the day. We have the authority of Aristotle on our side.

You cry aloud for an extract. Here is a superb one:--

"'Ye Critics! in whose heads, as equal scales,
I weigh what author's heaviness prevails;
Which most conduce to sooth the soul in slumbers,
My H--ley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers;
Attend the trial we propose to make:
If there be man who o'er such works can wake,
Sleep's all-subduing charms who dares defy,
And boasts Ulysses' ear with Argus' eye;
To him we grant our amplest pow'rs to sit
Judge of all present, past, and future wit;
To cavil, censure, dictate, right or wrong,
Full and eternal privilege of tongue.'
"Three college sophs, and three pert Templars came,
The same their talents, and their tastes the same;
Each prompt to query, answer, and debate,
And smit with love of poesy and prate.
The pond'rous books two gentle readers bring;
The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring.
The clam'rous crowd is hush'd with mugs of mum,
Till all, tun'd equal, send a gen'ral hum.
Then mount the clerks, and in one lazy tone
Through the long, heavy, painful page drawl on;
Soft creeping, words on words, the sense compose,
At ev'ry line they stretch, they yawn, they doze.
As to soft gales top-heavy pines bow low
Their heads, and lift them as they cease to blow;
Thus oft they rear, and oft the head decline,
As breathe, or pause, by fits, the airs divine.
And now to this side, now to that they nod,
As verse, or prose, infuse the drowsy