Page:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu/145

114 Thro' Lud's fam'd gates, along the well-known Fleet Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street, 'Till show'rs of Sermons, Characters, Essays, In circling fleeces whiten all the ways: So clouds replenish'd from some bog below, Mount in dark volumes, and descend in snow. Here stopt the Goddess; and in pomp proclaims A gentler exercise to close the games. "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 Hley'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;