Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/255

Rh to his unblushing flatteries of royalty and to the favour of the Lord Chamberlain. At any rate he did not escape the usual quantity of sarcasms, which have ensued on even fairer appointments to the laurel. Pope put him into "The Dunciad." Cooke, the translator of Hesiod, who has himself a place in Pope's great satire, assailed him in "The Battle of the Poets," a clever poem, which deserves to be better known than it now is. The author was a man of considerable ability, a poet, scholar, and political pamphleteer. He is the man of whom Dr. Johnson said, that he lived twenty years on a translation of Plautus, for which he was always taking in subscriptions. It is also told of him, that he once presented Foote to a club, with the following introduction: "This is the nephew of the gentleman who was lately hung in chains for murdering his brother." "The Battle of the Poets," though different in plan, may have been suggested to Cooke by the Frogs, of Aristophanes, or "The Rehearsal." It is a contest of the poets of his day for precedence.

Hermes is sent to invite them to the struggle.

Then follows an invocation, quite after the epic fashion; and throughout a mock-heroic dignity is sustained in a very diverting manner.

Pope is thus described: