'Tis yours, a Bacon or a Locke to blame, That beams on earth, each virtue he inspires, But "Learn, ye DUNCES! not to scorn your God'." Till one wide conflagration swallows all. Thence a new world to nature's laws unknown, Breaks out refulgent, with a heaven its own: Another Cynthia her new journey runs, And other planets 5 circle other suns. The forests dance, the rivers upward rise, Whales sport in woods, and dolphins in the skies; And last, to give the whole creation grace, Lo! one vast egg7 produces human race. Joy fills his soul, joy innocent of thought; What power, he cries, what power these wonders wrought? Son, what thou seek'st is in thee8! Look, and find Wings the red lightning9, and the thunder rolls. 1 VIRG. Æn. vi. puts this precept into the mouth of a wicked man, as here of a stupid one. Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere divos ! See this subject pursued in Book IV. 2 Mr. Cibber tells us, in his Life, p. 149, that Goodman being at the rehearsal of a play, in which he had a part, clapped him on the shoulder, and cried, " If he does not make a good actor, I'll be d-d. And (says Mr. Cibber) I make it a question, whether Alexander himself, or Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, when at the head of their first victorious armies, could feel a greater transport in their bosoms than I did in mine." 3 Dr. Faustus, the subject of a set of farces, which lasted in vogue two or three seasons, in which both playhouses strove to outdo each other for some years. All the extravagancies in the sixteen lines following were introduced on the stage, and frequented by persons of the first quality in England, to the twentieth and thirtieth time. 4 This monstrous absurdity was actually represented in Tibbald's Rape of Proserpine. Angel of Dulness, sent to scatter round On grinning dragons thou shalt mount the wind 11. And are these wonders, son, to thee unknown? 9 Like Salinoneus, in Æn. vi. Dum flammas Jovis, et sonitus imitatur Olympi. Ere et cornipedum cursu simularat equorum. 10 Alludes to Mr. Addison's verse, in the praises of Italy: Poctic fields encompass me around, And still I seem to tread on classic ground. As ver. 264 is a parody on a noble one of the same author in The Campaign; and ver. 259, 260, on two sublime verses of Dr. Y. 11 Mr. John Rich, Master of the Theatre Royal in Coventgarden, was the first that excelled this way. 12 The history of the foregoing absurdities is verified by himself, in these words (Life, chap. xv.) "Then sprung forth that succession of monstrous medleys that have so long infested the stage, which arose upon one another alternately at both houses, out-vying each other in expense." He then proceeds to excuse his own part in them, as follows: "If I am asked why I assented? I have no better excuse for my error than to confess I did it against my conscience, and had not virtue enough to starve. Had Henry IV. of France a better for changing his religion? I was still in my heart, as much as he could be, on the side of Truth and Sense; but with this difference, that I had their leave to quit them when they could not support me. But let the question go which way it will, Harry IVth has always been allowed a great man." This must be confest a full answer, only the question still seems to be, 1. How the doing a thing against one's conscience is an excuse for it? and 2dly, It will be hard to prove how he got the leave of Truth and Sense to quit their service, unless he can produce a certificate that he ever was in it. 13 Booth and Cibber were joint managers of the Theatre in Drury-lane. 14 In his letter to Mr. P., Mr. C. solemnly declares this not to be literally true. We hope, therefore, the reader will understand it allegorically only. 15 Annual trophies, on the Lord-mayor's day; and monthly wars in the Artillery-ground. In the former edit. followed, For works like these let deathless Journals tell "None but thyself can be thy parallel." 16 Settle, like most party-writers, was very uncertain in his political principles. He was employed to hold the pen Yet lo! in me what authors have to brag on! The sure fore-runner of her gentle sway: Let her thy heart; next drabs and dice, engage, in the character of a popish successor, but afterwards printed his Narrative on the cther side. He had managed the ceremony of a famous Pope-burning on Nov. 17, 1680, then became a trooper in King James's army, at Hounslow-heath. After the Revolution he kept a booth at Bartholomew-fair, where in the droll called St. George for England, he acted in his old age in a dragon of green leather of his own invention; he was at last taken into the Charter-house, and there died, aged sixty years. In the former edit. followed, Different our parties, but with equal grace 1 In the former edit. Too safe in inborn heaviness to stray; 2 It stood in the first edition with blanks, ** and **. Concanen was sure " they must needs mean nobody but King GEORGE and Queen CAROLINE; and said he would insist it was so, till the poet cleared himself by filling up the blanks otherwise, agreeably to the context, and consistent with his allegiance." Pref. to a Collection of verses, essays, letters, &c. against Mr. P. printed for A. Moor, p. 6. * He translated the Italian Opera of Polifemo; but unfortunately lost the whole jest of the story. The Cyclops asks Ulysses his name, who tells him his name is Noman: After his eye is put out, he roars and calls the brother Cyclops to his aid: They inquire who has hurt him? he answers Noman; whereupon they all go away again. Our ingenious translator made Ulysses answer, I take no name, whereby all that followed became unintelligible. Hence it appears that Mr. Cibber (who values himself on subscribing to the English translation of Homer's Iliad) had not that merit with respect to the Odyssey, or he might have been better instructed in the Greek Pun-nology. ♦ Names of miserable farces which it was the custom to act at the end of the best tragedies, to spoil the digestion of the audience. > In the farce of Proserpine a corn-field was set on fire: whereupon the other play-house had a barn burnt down for the recreation of the spectators. They also rivaled each other in showing the burnings of hell-fire, in Dr. Faustus. Another Eschylus appears! prepare • It is reported of Eschylus, that when his tragedy of the Furies was acted, the audience were so terrified that the children fell into fits, and the big-bellied women miscarried. Beneath his reign, shall Eusden wear the bays, Benson sole judge of architecture sit, And Namby Pamby be preferr'd for Wit! I see the unfinish'd dormitory wall, I see the Savoy totter to her fall; And Pope's, translating three whole years with Broome. 9 W-m Benson (Surveyor of the buildings to his Majesty King George L.) gave in a report to the Lords, that their house and the Painted Chamber adjoining were in immediate danger of falling. Whereupon the lords met in committee to appoint some other place to sit in, while the house should be taken down. But it being proposed to cause some other builders first to inspect it, they found it in very good condition. The lords, upon this, were going upon an address to the king against Benson, for such a misrepresentation; but the Earl of Sunderland, then secretary, gave them an assurance that his Majesty would remove him, which was done accordingly In favour of this man, the famous Sir Christopher Wren, who had been architect to the crown for above fifty years, who built most of the churches in London, laid the first stone of St. Paul's, and lived to finish it, had been displaced from his employment at the age of near ninety years. 10 He was (saith Mr. Jacob) "one of the wits at Button's, and a justice of the peace;" but he hath since met with higher preferment in Ireland; and a much greater character we have of him in Mr. Gildon's Complete Art of Poetry, vol. i. p. 157. "Indeed he confesses, he dares not set him quite on the same foot with Virgil, lest it should seem flattery; but he is much mistaken if posterity does not afford him a greater esteem than he at present enjoys." He endeavoured to create some misunderstanding between our author and Mr. Addison, whom also soon after he abused as much. His constant cry was, that Mr. P. was an enemy to the government; and in particular he was the avowed author of a report very industriously spread, that he had a hand in a party-paper called the Examiner: a falsehood well known to those yet living, who had the direction and publication of it. 11 At the time when this poem was written, the Banqueting-house of Whitehall, the church and piazza of Coventgarden, and the palace and chapel of Somerset-house, the works of the famous Inigo Jones, had been for many years While Wren with sorrow to the grave descends, Gay dies unpension'd' with a hundred friends, Hibernian politics, O Swift ! thy fate 2 ; And Pope's ten years to comment and translate 3. Proceed, great days 4 ! till learning fly the shore, Till birch shall blush with noble blood no more, so neglected, as to be in danger of ruin. The portico of Covent-garden church had been just then restored and beautified at the expense of the Earl of Burlington; who, at the same time, by his publication of the designs of that great master and Palladio, as well as by many noble buildings of his own, revived the true taste of architecture in this kingdom. 1 See Mr. Gay's fable of the Hare and many Friends. This gentleman was early in the friendship of our Author, which continued to his death. He wrote several works of humour with great success, the Shepherd's Week, Trivia, the What-d ye-call it, Fables, and lastly, the celebrated Beggar's Opera; a piece of satire, which hit all tastes and degrees of men, from those of the highest quality to the very rabble: That verse of Horace Primores populi arripuit, populumque tributim, could never be so justly applied as to this. The vast success of it was unprecedented, and almost incredible: what is related of the wonderful effects of the ancient music or tragedy hardly came up to it: Sophocles and Euripides were less followed and famous. It was acted in London sixty-three days, uninterrupted; and renewed the next season with equal applauses. It spread into all the great towns of England, was played in many places to the thirtieth and fortieth time, at Bath and Bristol fifty, &c. It made its progress into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, where it was performed twenty-four days together: it was lastly acted in Minorca. The fame of it was not confined to the author only; the ladies carried about with them the favourite songs of it in fans; and houses were furnished with it in screens. The person who acted Polly, till then obscure, became all at once the favourite of the town; her pictures were engraved, and sold in great numbers; her life written, books of letters and verses to her published; and pamphlets made even of her sayings and jests, Furthermore, it drove out of England, for that season, the Italian Opera, which had carried all before it for ten years. That idol of the nobility and the people, which the great critic Mr. Dennis by the labours and outcries of a whole life could not overthrow, was demolished by a single stroke of this gentleman's pen. This happened in the year 1728. Yet so great was his modesty, that he constantly prefixed to all the editions of it this motto, Nos hæc novimus esse nihil. 2 See Book I. ver. 26. In the former editions thus: O Swift! thy doom, And Pope's, translating ten whole years with Broome. 3 The author here plainly laments that he was so long employed in translating and commenting. He began the Iliad in 1713, and finished it in 1719. The edition of Shakspeare (which he undertook merely because nobody else would) took up near two years more in the drudgery of comparing impressions, rectifying the scenery, &c., and the translation of half the Odyssey employed him from that time to 17:25. It may perhaps seem incredible, that so great a revolution in learning as is here prophesied, should be brought about by such weak instruments as have been [hitherto] described in our poem: but do not thou, gentle reader, rest too secure in thy contempt of these instruments. Remember what the Dutch stories somewhere relate, that a great part of their provinces was once overflowed, by a small opening made in one of their dykes by a single water rat. However, that such is not seriously the judgment of our Poet, but that he conceiveth better hopes from the diligence of our schools, from the regularity of our universities, the discernment of our great men, the accomplish Till Thames see Eton's sons for ever play, Enough ! enough ! the raptured monarch eries, And through the ivory gate the vision flies 6. BOOK THE FOURTH 7. ARGUMENT. THE Poet being, in this book, to declare the completion of the prophecies mentioned at the end of the former, makes a new invocation; as the greater poets are wont, when some high and worthy matter is to be sung. He shows the goddess coming in her majesty, to destroy order and science, and to substitute the kingdom of the dull upon earth. How she leads captive the sciences, and silenceth the muses; and what they be who succeed in their stead. All her children, by a wonderful attraction, are drawn about her; and bear along with them divers others, who promote her empire by connivance, weak resistance, or discouragement of arts; such as half-wits, tasteless admirers, vain pretenders, the flatterers of dunces, or the patrons of them. All these crowd round her; one of them, offering to approach her, is driven back by a rival, but she commends and encourages both. The first who speak in form are the Geniuses of the schools, who assure her of their care to advance her cause, by confining youth to words, and keeping them out of the way of real knowledge. Their address, and her gracious answer; with her charge to them and the Universities. The Universities appear by their proper deputies, and assure her that the same method is observed in the progress of education; the speech of Aristarchus on this subject. They are driven off by a band of young gentlemen returned from travel with their tutors; one of whom delivers to the goddess, in a polite oration, an account of the whole conduct and fruits of their travels; presenting to her at the same time a young nobleman perfectly accomplished. She receives him graciously, and indues him with the happy quality of want of shame. She sees loitering about her a number of indolent persons abandoning all business and duty, and dying with laziness: to these approaches the antiquary Annius, intreating her to make them virtuos08, and assign them over to him: but Mummius, another antiquary, complaining of his fraudulent proceeding, ments of our nobility, the encouragement of our patrons, and the genius of our writers in all kinds (notwithstanding some few exceptions in each) may plainly be seen from his conclusion; where causing all this vision to pass through the ivory gate, he expressly, in the language of poesy, declares all such imaginations to be wild, ungrounded, and fictitious.-SCRIBL. 5 In the first edit. were the following lines: • Sunt gemina Somni portæ ; quarum altera fertur Sed falsa ad cœlum mittunt insomnia manes.-VIRG. Æn. vi. 7 This book may be properly distinguished from the former, by the name of the GREATER DUNCIAD, not so indeed in size but in subject; and so far contrary to the distinction anciently made of the Greater and Lesser Iliad. But much are they mistaken who imagine this work in any wise inferior to the former, or of any other hand than of our Poet; of which I am much more certain than that the Iliad itself was the work of Solomon, or the Batrachomuomachia of Homer, as Barncs hath affirmed.-BENT. Then she finds a method to reconcile their difference. enter a troop of people fantastically adorned, offering her strange and exotic presents: amongst them one stands forth and demands justice on another, who had deprived him of one of the greatest curiosities in nature: but he justifies himself so well, that the goddess gives them both her approbation. She recommends to them to find proper employment for the indolents before-mentioned in the study of butterflies, shells, birds'-nests, moss, &c., but with particular caution, not to proceed beyond trifles, to any useful or extensive views of nature, or of the Author of nature. Against the last of these apprehensions, she is secured by a hearty address from the minute philosophers and freethinkers,one of whom speaks in the name of the rest. The youth thus instructed and principled, are delivered to her in a body, by the hands of Silenus; and then admitted to taste the cup of the Magus her high priest, which causes a total oblivion of all obligations, divine, civil, moral, or rational. To these her adepts she sends priests, attendants, and comforters, of various kinds; confers on them orders and degrees; and then dismissing them with a speech, confirming to each his privileges and telling what she expects from each, concludes with a yawn of extraordinary virtue; the progress and effects whereof on all orders of men, and the consummation of all, in the restoration of night and chaos, conclude the poem. YET, yet a moment, one dim ray of light 1 I This is an invocation of much piety. The Poet, willing to approve himself a genuine son, beginneth by showing (what is ever agreeable to Dulness) his high respect for antiquity and a great family, how dull or dark soever: next declareth his love for mystery and obscurity; and lastly his impatience to be re-united to her.-SCRIBL. 2 Invoked, as the restoration of their empire is the action of the poem. 3 This is a great propriety, for a dull poet can never express himself otherwise than by halves, or imperfectly.-SCRIBL. I understand it very differently; the author in this work had indeed a deep intent; there were in it mysteries or anóponτα which he durst not fully reveal, and doubtless in divers verses (according to Milton) —more is meant than meets the ear.-BENT. 4 Fair and softly, good poet! (cries the gentle Scriblerus on this place.) For sure in spite of his unusual modesty, he shall not travel so fast toward oblivion, as divers others of more confidence have done: for when I revolve in my mind the catalogue of those who have the most boldly promised to themselves immortality, viz. Pindar, Luis Gongora, Ronsard, Oldham, lyrics; Lycophron, Statius, Chapman, Blackmore, heroics; I find the one half to be already dead, and the other in utter darkness. But it becometh not us, who have taken upon us the office of commentator, to suffer our Poet thus prodigally to cast away his life; contrariwise, the more hidden and abstruse is his work, and the more remote its beauties from common understanding, the more is it our duty to draw forth and exalt the same, in the face of men and angels. Herein shall we imitate the laudable spirit of those who have (for this very reason) delighted to comment on the fragments of dark and uncouth authors, preferred Ennius to Virgil, and chosen to turn the dark lanthorn of Lycophron, rather than to trim the everlasting lamp of Homer.-SCRIBL. 5 Alluding to the vis inertia of matter, which, though it really be no power, is yet the foundation of all the qualities and attributes of that sluggish substance. Now flamed the dog-star's unpropitious ray, Smote every brain, and wither'd every bay; Sick was the sun, the owl forsook his bower, The moon-struck prophet felt the madding hour: Then rose the seed of Chaos, and of Night, To blot out order, and extinguish light 7, Of dull and venal 8 a new world to mould, And bring Saturnian days of lead and gold 1o. She mounts the throne: her head a cloud conIn broad effulgence all below reveal'd", [ceal'd, ('Tis thus aspiring Dulness ever shines) Soft on her lap her laureate son reclines 12. 6 The Poet introduceth this, (as all great events are supposed by sage historians to be preceded) by an celipse of the sun; but with a peculiar propriety, as the sun is the emblem of that intellectual light which dies before the face of Dulness. Very apposite likewise is it to make this eclipse, which is occasioned by the moon's predominancy, the very time when Dulness and Madness are in conjunction; whose relation and influence on each other the Poet hath shown in many places, B. I. ver. 22, B. III. ver. 5, &c. 7 The two great ends of her mission; the one in quality of daughter of Chaos, the other as daughter of Night. Order here is to be understood extensively, both as civil and moral, the distinctions between high and low in society, and true and false in individuals: light, as intellectual only, wit, science, arts. The allegory continued; dull referring to the extinction of light or science, venal to the destruction of order, or the truth of things. 9 In allusion to the Epicurean opinion, that from the dissolution of the natural world into night and chaos, a new one should arise; this the Poet alluding to, in the production of a new moral world, makes it partake of its original principles. 10 i. e. dull and venal. 11 Vet. Adag. The higher you climb, the more you shew your A-: verified in no instance more than in Dulness aspiring. Emblematised also by an ape climbing and exposing his posteriors.-SCRIBL. 12 With great judgment it is imagined by the Poet, that such a colleague as Dulness had elected, should sleep on the throne, and have very little share in the action of the poem. Accordingly, he hath done little or nothing from the day of his anointing; having passed through the second book without taking part in any thing that was transacted about him, and through the third in profound sleep. Nor ought this, well considered, to seem strange in our days, when so many king-consorts have done the like.-SCRIBL. This verse our excellent laureate took so to heart, that he appealed to all mankind, "if he was not as seldom asleep as any fool ?" But it is hoped the Poet hath not injured him, but rather verified his prophecy (p. 243, of his own life, 8vo. ch. ix.) where he says "the reader will be as much pleased to find me a dunce in my old age, as he was to prove me a brisk blockhead in my youth." Whereever there was any room for briskness, or alacrity of any sort, even in sinking, he hath had it allowed him; but here, where there is nothing for him to do but to take his natural rest, he must permit his historian to be silent. It is from their actions only that princes have their character, and poets from their works: and if in those he be as much asleep as any fool, the poet must leave him and them to sleep to all eternity.- BENT. "When I find my name in the satirical works of this poet, I never look upon it as any malice meant to me, but PROFIT to himself. For he considers that my face is more known than most in the nation; and therefore a lick at the laureate will be a sure bait ad captandum vulgus, to catch little readers." Life of Colley Cibber, chap. ii. Now if it be certain, that the works of our Poet have owed their success to this ingenious expedient, we hence derive an unanswerable argument, that this fourth DUNCIAD, as well as the former three, hath had the author's last Beneath her foot-stool, Science groans in chains, And Wit dreads exile, penalties and pains. There foam'd rebellious Logic, gagg'd and bound, There, stript, fair Rhetoric languish'd on the ground; His blunted arms by Sophistry are borne, And shameless Billingsgate her robes adorn. Morality, by her false guardians drawn, Chicane in furs, and Casuistry in lawn, Gasps, as they straiten at each end the cord, And dies, when Dulness gives her Page the word 3. Mad Mathesis 4 alone was unconfined, Too mad for mere material chains to bind, Now to pure space 5 lifts her ecstatic stare, Now running round the circle, finds it square6. But held in ten-fold bonds the Muses lie, Watch'd both by Envy's and by Flattery's eye7: There to her heart sad Tragedy addrest The dagger wont to pierce the tyrant's breast; But sober History 8 restrain'd her rage, And promised vengeance on a barbarous age. hand, and was by him intended for the press; or else to what purpose hath he crowned it, as we see, by this finishing stroke, the profitable lick at the laureate ?—BENT. We are next presented with the pictures of those whom the goddess leads in captivity. Science is only depressed and confined so as to be rendered useless; but Wit or Genius, as a more dangerous and active enemy, punished or driven away: Dulness being often reconciled in some degree with Learning, but never upon any terms with Wit. cordingly it will be seen that she admits something like each science, as Casuistry, Sophistry, &c. And ac 2 Morality is the daughter of Astrea. This alludes to the mythology of the ancient poets; who tell us that in the gold and silver ages, or in the state of nature, the gods cohabited with men here on carth; but when by reason of human degeneracy, men were forced to have recourse to a magistrate, and that the ages of brass and iron came on, (that is, when laws were wrote on brazen tablets and inforced by the sword of justice) the celestials soon retired from earth, and Astræa last of all; and then it was she left this her orphan daughter in the hands of the guardians aforesaid.-SCRIBL. 3 There was a judge of this name, always ready to hang any man, of which he was suffered to give a hundred miserable examples during a long life, even to his dotage. -Though the candid Scriblerus imagined Page here to mean no more than a page or mute, and to allude to the custom of strangling state criminals in Turkey by mutes or pages. A practice more decent than that of our Page, who before he hanged any person, loaded him with reproachful language.—SCRIBL. 4 Alluding to the strange conclusions some mathematicians have deduced from their principles concerning the real quantity of matter, the reality of space, &c. 5 i. e. pure and defæcated from matter.-Ecstatic stare, the action of men who look about with full assurance of seeing what does not exist, such as those who expect to find space a real being. 6 Regards the wild and fruitless attempts of squaring the circle. One of the misfortunes falling on authors, from the Act for subjecting plays to the power of a licenser, being the false representations to which they were exposed from such as either gratified their envy to merit, or made their court to greatness, by perverting general reflections against vice into libels on particular persons. 8 History attends on Tragedy, Satire on Comedy, as their substitutes in the discharge of their distinct functions: the one in high life, recording the crimes and punishments of the great; the other in low, exposing the vices or follies of the common people. But it may be asked, how came History and Satire to be admitted with impunity to minister comfort to the Muses, even in the presence of the goddess, and There sunk Thalia, nerveless, cold, and dead, She tripp'd and laugh'd, too pretty much to stand; O cara! cara! silence all that train: in the midst of all her triumphs? A question, says Scriblerus, which we thus resolve: History was brought up in her infancy by Dulness herself: but being afterwards espoused into a noble house, she forgot (as is usual) the humility of her birth, and the cares of her early friends. This occasioned a long estrangement between her and Dulness. At length, in process of time, they met together in a monk's cell, were reconciled, and became better friends than ever. After this they had a second quarrel, but it held not long, and are now again on reasonable terms, and so are like to continue. This accounts for the connivance shown to History on this occasion. But the boldness of Satire springs from a very different cause; for the reader ought to know, that she alone of all the sisters is unconquerable, never to be silenced, when truly inspired and animated (as should seem) from above for this very purpose, to oppose the kingdom of Dulness to her last breath. This noble person, in the year 1737, when the Act aforesaid was brought into the House of Lords, opposed it in an excellent speech (says Mr. Cibber) "with a lively spirit and uncommon eloquence." This speech had the honour to be answered by the said Mr. Cibber, with a lively spirit also, and in a manner very uncommon, in the 8th chapter of his Life and Manners. And here, gentle reader, would I gladly insert the other speech, whereby thou mightest judge between them: but I must defer it on account of some differences not yet adjusted between the noble author and myself, concerning the true reading of certain passages.-SCRIBL. 10 The attitude given to this phantom represents the nature and genius of the Italian opera; its affected airs, its effeminate sounds, and the practice of patching up these operas with favourite songs, incoherently put together. These things were supported by the subscriptions of the nobility. This circumstance that Opera should prepare for the opening of the grand sessions, was prophesied of in Book III. ver. 304. Already Opera prepares the way, The sure fore-runner of her gentle sway. 11 Alluding to the false taste of playing tricks in music with numberless divisions, to the neglect of that harmony which conforms to the sense and applies to the passions. Mr. Handel had introduced a great number of hands, and more variety of instruments into the orchestra, and employed even drums and cannon to make a fuller chorus; which proved so much too manly for the fine gentlemen of his age, that he was obliged to remove his music into Ireland. After which they were reduced, for want of composers, to practise the patch-work above mentioned. 12 That species of the ancient music called the chromatic was a variation and embellishment, in odd irregularities, of the diatonic kind. They say it was invented about the time of Alexander, and that the Spartans forbad the use of it, as languid and effeminate. |