Another Phoebus, thy own Phoebus, reigns', The gathering number, as it moves along, Who gently drawn, and struggling less and less, Roll in her vortex, and her power confess. Tuus jam regnat Apollo.-VIRGIL. Not the ancient Phœbus, the god of harmony, but a modern Phœbus of French extraction, married to the princess Galimathia, one of the handmaids of Dulness, and an assistant to Opera. Of whom see Bouhours, and other critics of that nation. SCRIBL. 2 Posterior, viz., her second or more certain report, unless we imagine this word posterior to relate to the position of one of her trumpets, according to Hudibras: She blows not both with the same wind, But one before and one behind; And therefore modern authors name 3 The sons of Dulness want no instructors in study, nor guides in life: they are their own masters in all sciences, and their own heralds and introducers into all places. It ought to be observed that here are three classes in this assembly, The first of men absolutely and avowedly dull, who naturally adhere to the Goddess, and are imaged in the simile of the bees about their queen. The second involuntarily drawn to her, though not caring to own her influence; from ver. 81 to 90. The third of such, as, though not members of her state, yet advance her service by flattering dulness, cultivating mistaken talents, patronising vile scribblers, discouraging living merit, or setting up for wits, and men of taste in arts they understand not; from ver. 91 to 101. In this new world of dulness each of these three classes hath its appointed station, as best suits its nature, and concurs to the harmony of the system. The first drawn only by the strong and simple impulse of attraction, are represented as falling directly down into her; as conglobed into her substance, and resting in her centre. -All their centre found, Hung to the goddess, and cohered around. The second, though within the sphere of her attraction, yet having at the same time a different motion, they are carried, by the composition of these two, in planetary revolutions round her centre, some nearer to it, some further off: Who gently drawn, and struggling less and less, The third are properly excentrical, and no constant members of her state or system: sometimes at an immense distance from her influence, and sometimes again almost on the surface of her broad effulgence. Their use in their perihelion, or nearest approach to dulness, is the same in the moral world, as that of comets in the natural, namely to refresh and recreate the dryness and decays of the system; in the manner marked out from ver. 91 to 98. Not those alone who passive own her laws, Nor absent they, no members of her state, There march'd the bard and blockhead, side by side, Who rhymed for hire, and patronised for pride. When Dulness, smiling-"Thus revive the wits 8 ! But murder first, and mince them all to bits; As erst Medea (cruel, so to save!) A new edition of old son9 gave, Let standard authors, thus like trophies borne, Appear more glorious as more hack'd and torn, 4 Spoken of the ancient and true Phœbus, not the French Phœbus, who hath no chosen priests or poets, but equally inspires any man that pleaseth to sing or preach.-SCRIBL. 5 In this division are reckoned up, 1, The idolizers of dulness in the great; 2, Ill judges; 3, Ill writers; 4, Ill patrons. But the last and worst, as he justly calls him, is the Muse's hypocrite, who is as it were the epitome of them all. He who thinks the only end of poetry is to amuse, and the only business of the poet to be witty; and consequently who cultivates only such trifling talents in himself, and encourages only such in others. 6 This man endeavoured to raise himself to fame by erecting monuments, striking coins, setting up heads, and procuring translations, of Milton; and afterwards by a great passion for Arthur Johnston, a Scotch physician's version of the Psalms, of which he printed many fine editions. See more of him, Book III. ver. 325. 7 An eminent person, who was about to publish a very pompous edition of a great author, at his own expense. 8 The goddess applauds the practice of tacking the obscure names of persons, not eminent in any branch of learning, to those of the most distinguished writers; either by printing editions of their works with impertinent alterations of their texts, as in the former instances, or by setting up monuments disgraced with their own vile names and inscriptions, as in the latter. 9 of whom Ovid (very applicable to these restored authors) Æson miratur, Dissimilemque animum subiit And you, my critics! in the chequer'd shade, Aduire new light through holes yourselves have made. Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone, Now crowds on crowds around the goddess press, Words are man's province, words we teach alone. 1 For what less than a grave can be granted to a dead author? or what less than a page can be allowed a living one? Pagina, not Pedissequus. A page of a book, not a servant, follower, or attendant; no poet having had a page since the death of Mr. Thomas Durfey.-SCRIBL. 2 Vide the Tombs of the Poets, editio Westmonasteriensis. 3 This is not to be ascribed so much to the different manners of a court and college, as to the different effects which a pretence to learning, and a pretence to wit, have on blockheads. For as judgment consists in finding out the differences in things, and wit in finding out their likenesses, so the dunce is all discord and dissension, and constantly busied in reproving, examining, confuting, &c., while the fop flourishes in peace, with songs and hymns of praise, addresses, characters, epithalamiums, &c. A cane usually borne by schoolmasters, which drives the poor souls about like the wand of Mercury.-SCRIBL. 5 An effect of fear somewhat like this, is described in the 7th Aneid, Contremuit nemus. Et trepida matres pressere ad pectora natos. Nothing being so natural in any apprehension, as to lay close hold on whatever is supposed to be most in danger. But let it not be imagined the author would insinuate these youthful senators (though so lately come from school) to be under the undue influence of any master.-SCRIBL. 6 The letter Y, used by Pythagoras as an emblem of the different roads of virtue and vice. Et tibi quæ Samios diduxit litera ramos.--PERSIUS. 7 This circumstance of the Genius Loci (with that of the index-hand before) seems to be an allusion to the Table of Cebes, where the Genius of human nature points out the road to be pursued by those entering into life. Ὁ δὲ γέρων ὁ ἄνω ἑστηκώς, ἔχων χάρτην τινὰ ἐν τῇ χειρὶ, καὶ τῇ ἑτέρῳ ὥσπερ δεικνύων, τὶ, οὗτος Δαίμων kasirat, &c. We ply the memory, we load the brain, O (cried the goddess) for some pedant reign! Some gentle JAMES, to bless the land again 13; 8 By obliging them to get the classic poets by heart, which furnishes them with endless matter for conversation, and verbal amusement for their whole lives. For youth being used like pack-horses and beaten on under a heavy load of words, lest they should tire, their instructors contrive to make the words jingle in rhyme or metre. 10 Westminister-hall and the House of Commons. 11 viz. an epigram. The famous Dr. South declared a perfect epigram to be as difficult a performance as an epic poem. And the critics say, "an epic poem is the greatest work human nature is capable of." 12 The matter under debate is how to confine men to words for life. The instructors of youth show how well they do their parts; but complain that when men come into the world they are apt to forget their learning, and turn themselves to useful knowledge. This was an evil that wanted to be redressed. And this the goddess assures them will need a more extensive tyranny than that of grammar schools. She therefore points out to them the remedy, in her wishes for arbitrary power; whose interest it being to keep men from the study of things, will encourage the propagation of words and sounds; and to make all sure, she wishes for another pedant monarch. The sooner to obtain so great a blessing, she is willing even for once to violate the fundamental principle of her polities, in having her sons taught at least one thing, but that sufficient, the doctrine of divine right. Nothing can be juster than the observation here insinuated, that no branch of learning thrives well under arbitrary government but verbal. The reasons are evident. It is unsafe under such governments to cultivate the study of things of importance. Besides, when men have lost their public virtue, they naturally delight in trifles, if their private morals secure them from being vicious. Hence so great a cloud of scholiasts and grammarians so soon overspread the learning of Greece and Rome, when once those famous communities had lost their liberties. Another reason is the encouragement which arbitrary governments give to the study of words, in order to busy and amuse active geniuses, who might otherwise prove troublesome and inquisitive. So when Cardinal Richelieu had destroyed the poor remains of his country's liberties, and made the supreme court of parliament merely ministerial, he instituted the French Academy. What was said upon that occasion, by a brave magistrate, when the letters-patent of its erection came to be verified in the parliament of Paris, deserves to be remembered: he told the assembly, that this adventure put him in mind after what manner an emperor of Rome once treated his senate; who when he had deprived them of the cognizance of public matters, sent a message to them in form for their opinion about the best sauce for a turbot. 13 Wilson tells us that this king, James the First, took To stick the doctor's chair into the throne, upon himself to teach the Latin tongue to Car, Earl of Somerset; and that Gondomar the Spanish ambassador would speak false Latin to him, on purpose to give him the pleasure of correcting it, whereby he wrought himself into his good graces. This great prince was the first who assumed the title of Sacred Majesty, which his loyal clergy transferred from God to him. "The principles of passive obedience and non-resistance (says the author of the Dissertation on Parties, letter 8.) which before his time had skulked perhaps in some old homily, were talked, written, and preached into vogue in that inglorious reign." 1 And grateful it is in Dulness to make this confession. I will not say she alludes to that celebrated verse of Claudian, nunquam Libertas gratior exstat Quam sub Rege pio But this I will say, that the words liberty and monarchy have been frequently confounded and mistaken one for the other by the gravest authors. I should therefore conjecture, that the genuine reading of the fore-cited verse was thus, nunquam Libertas gratior exstat Quam sub Lege pia and that Rege was the reading only of Dulness herself: and therefore she might allude to it.-SCRIBL. I judge quite otherwise of this passage: the genuine reading is Libertas, and Rege: So Claudian gave it. But the error lies in the first verse: it should be exit, not exstat, and then the meaning will be, that Liberty was never lost or went away with so good a grace, as under a good king: it being without doubt a tenfold shame to lose it under a bad one. This farther leads me to animadvert upon a most grievous piece of nonsense to be found in all the editions of the Author of the Dunciad himself. A most capital one it is, and owing to the confusion above-mentioned by Scriblerus, of the two words liberty and monarchy.—Essay on Crit. Nature, like Monarchy, is but restrain'd By the same laws herself at first ordain'd. Who sees not, it should be, Nature like Liberty? Correct it therefore repugnantibus omnibus (even though the author himself should oppugn) in all the impressions which have been, or shall be, made of his works.-BENTL. The philosophy of Aristotle had suffered a long disgrace in this learned university: being first expelled by the Cartesian, which, in its turn, gave place to the Newtonian. But it had all this while some faithful followers in secret, who never bowed the knee to Baal, nor acknowledged any strange god in philosophy. These, on this new appearance of the goddess, come out like confessors, and make an open profession of the ancient faith in the ipse dixit of their master. Thus far SCRIBLERUS. But the learned Mr. Colley Cibber takes the matter quite otherwise; and that this various fortune of Aristotle relates not to his natural, but his moral philosophy. For speaking of that university in his time, he says, they seemed to have as implicit a reverence for Shakspeare and Jonson, as formerly for the ETHICS of Aristotle. See his Life, p. Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day, On German Crouzaz and Dutch Burgersdyck 5. is Aristarchus 10 yet unknown! 385. One would think this learned professor had mistaken ethics for physics; unless he might imagine the morals too were grown into disuse, from the relaxation they admitted of during the time he mentions, viz. while he and the players were at Oxford. It appears by this the Goddess has been careful of keeping up a succession, according to the rule, Semper enim refice: ac ne post amissa requiras, It is remarkable with what dignity the Poet here describes the friends of this ancient philosopher. Horace does not observe the same decorum with regard to those of another sect, when he says Cum ridere voles Epicuri de grege porcum. But the word drove, armentum, here understood, is a word of honour, as the most noble Festus the grammarian assures us, Armentum id genus pecoris appellatur, quod est idoneum opus armorum. And alluding to the temper of this warlike breed, our Poet very appositely calls them a hundred head.-SCRIBL. 3 This line is doubtless spurious, and foisted in by the impertinence of the editor; and accordingly we have put it between hooks. For I affirm this college came as early as any other, by its proper deputies; nor did any college pay homage to Dulness in its whole body.-BENTL. 4 In the year 1703 there was a meeting of the heads of the University of Oxford to censure Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, and to forbid the reading it. See his letters in the last edit. 5 There seems to be an improbability that the doctors and heads of houses should ride on horseback, who of late days, being gouty or unwieldy, have kept their coaches. But these are horses of great strength, and fit to carry any weight, as their German and Dutch extraction may manifest; and very famous we may conclude, being honoured with names, as were the horses Pegasus and Bucephalus.SCRIBL. 6 The river Cam, running by the walls of these colleges, which are particularly famous for their skill in disputation. 7 viz. "now retired into harbour, after the tempests that had long agitated his society." So Scriblerus. But the learned Scipio Maffei understands it of a certain wine called Port from Oporto a city of Portugal, of which this professor invited him to drink abundantly.-SCIP. MAFF. de compotationibus Academicis. 8 The Hat-worship, as the Quakers call it, is an abomination to that sect: yet, where it is necessary to pay that respect to man (as in the Courts of Justice and Houses of Parliament) they have, to avoid offence, and yet not violate their conscience, permitted other people to uncover them. 9 Milton, He kingly, from his state 10 A famous commentator, and corrector of Homer, whose name has been frequently used to signify a complete critic. Thy mighty scholiast, whose unwearied pains Let Freinds affect to speak as Terence spoke, The compliment paid by our author to this eminent professor, in applying to him so great a name, was the reason that he hath omitted to comment on this part which contains his own praises. We shall therefore supply that loss to our best ability.-SCRIBL. Sic notus Ulysses? VIRG. Dost thou not feel me, Rome? BEN. JONSON. 1 Imitated from Propertius speaking of the Æneid: Cedite, Romani scriptores, cedite Graii! Nescio quid majus nascitur Iliade. 2 Alludes to the boasted restoration of the Eolic digamma, in his long projecte l edition of Homer. He calls it something more than letter, from the enormous figure it would make among the other letters, being one gamma set upon the shoulders of another. 3 It was a serious dispute, about which the learned were much divided, and some treatises written: had it been about meum or tuum it could not be more contested, than whether at the end of the first Ode of Horace, to read, Me doctarum hederæ præmia frontium, or, Te doctarum hedera 4 Grammatical disputes about the manner of pronouncing Cicero's name in Greek. It is a dispute whether in Latin the name of Hermagoras should end in as or a. Quintilian quotes Cicero as writing it Hermagora. which Bentley rejects, and says Quintilian must be mistaken, Cicero could not write it so, and that in this case he would not believe Cicero himself. These are his very words: Ego vero Ciceronem ita scripsisse ne Ciceroni quidem affirmanti crediderim. Epist. ad Mill. in fin. Frag. Menand. et Phil. 5 Dr. Robert Freind, master of Westminster-school, and canon of Christ-church. Dr. Anthony Alsop, a happy imitator of the Horatian style. 7 Some critics having had it in their choice to comment either on Virgil or Manilius, Pliny or Solinus, have chosen the worse author, the more freely to display their critical capacity. 8 Suidas, Gellius, Stobaus. The first a dictionary-writer, a collector of impertinent facts and barbarous words; the second a minute critic; the third an author, who gave his common-place book to the public, where we happen to find much mince-meat of old books. 9 These taking the same things eternally from the mouth of one another. Are things which Kuster, Burman, Wasse shall see, When man's whole frame is obvious to a flea. Ah, think not, mistress! more true dulness lies In Folly's 10 cap, than Wisdom's grave disguise. Like buoys, that never sink into the flood, On learning's surface we but lie and nod ". Thine is the genuine head of many a house, And much divinity without a Noûs 12. Nor could a BARROW work on every block, Nor has one ATTERBURY 13 spoil'd the flock. See! still thy own, the heavy canon" roll, And metaphysic smokes involve the Poles. 10 By this it would seem the dunces and fops mentioned ver. 139, 140, had a contention of rivalship for the Goddess's favour on this great day. Those got the start, but these make it up by their spokesmen in the next speech. It seems as if Aristarchus here first saw him advancing with his fair pupil.-SCRIEL. 11 So that the station of a Professor is only a kind of legal noticer to inform us where the shattered hulk of learning lies at anchor: which after so long unhappy navigation, and now without either master or patron, we may wish, with Horace, may lie there still. Jactes et genus, et nomen inutile. HoR. SCRIEL. 12 A word much affected by the learned Aristarchus in common conversation, to signify genius or natural acumen. But this passage has a farther view: Noûs was the Platonic term for mind, or the first cause, and that system of divinity is here hinted at which terminates in blind nature without a Noûs: such as the Poet afterwards describes (speaking of the dreams of one of these later Platonists) Or that bright Image to our Fancy draw, Which Theocles in raptured Vision saw, That Nature etc. 13 Isaac Barrow Master of Trinity, Francis Atterbury Dean of Christ-church, both great geniuses and eloquent preachers; one more conversant in the sublime geometry, the other in classical learning; but who equally made it their care to advance the polite arts in their several Societies. 14 Canon here, if spoken of artillery, is in the plural number; if of the canons of the House, in the singular, and meant only of one: in which case I suspect the Pole to be a false reading, and that it should be the poll or head of that Canon. It may be objected, that this is a mere paranomasia or pun But what of that? Is any figure of speech more apposite to our gentle Goddess or more frequently used by her, and her children, especially of the university? Doubtless it better suits the character of Dulness, yea of a doctor, than that of an angel; yet Millon feared not to put a considerable quantity into the mouths of his. It hath indeed been observed, that they were the Devil's angels, as if he did it to suggest the Devil was the author as well of false wit as of false religion, and that the father of lies was also the father of puns. But this is idle: it must be owned a Christian practice, used in the primitive times by some of the Fathers, and in later by most of the sons of the Church; till the debauched reign of Charles the Second, when the shameful passion for wit overthrew every thing: and even then the best writers admitted it, provided it was obscene, under the name of the double entendre.-SCRIEL. 15 Here the learned Aristarchus ending the first member of his harangue in behalf of words; and entering on the other half, which regards the teaching of things; very artfully connects the two parts in an encomium on METAPHYSICS, a kind of middle nature between words and things: communicating, in its obscurity with substance, and in its emptiness with names.-SCRIBL. For thee we dim the eyes, and stuff the head What though we let some better sort of fool1 Hitherto Aristarchus hath displayed the art of teaching his pupils words, without things. He shows greater skill in what follows, which is to teach things, without profit. For with the better sort of fool the first expedient is, ver. 254 to 258, to run him so swiftly through the circle of the sciences that he shall stick at nothing, nor nothing stick with him; and though some little, both of words and things, should by chance be gathered up in his passage, yet he shows, ver. 255 to 260, that it is never more of the one than just to enable him to persecute with rhyme, or of the other than to plague with dispute. But if, after all, the pupil will needs learn a science, it is then provided by his careful directors, ver. 261, 262, that it shall either be such as he can never enjoy when he comes out into life, or such as he will be obliged to divorce. And to make all sure, ver. 263 to 268, the useless or pernicious sciences, thus taught, are still applied perversely; the man of wit petrified in Euclid, or trammeled in metaphysics; and the man of judgment married, without his parents' consent, to a muse. Thus far the particular arts of modern education, used partially, and diversified according to the subject and the occasion: but there is one general method, with the encomium of which the great Aristarchus ends his speech, ver. 266 to 268, and that is AUTHORITY, the universal cement, which fills all the cracks and chasms of lifeless matter, shuts up all the pores of living substance, and brings all human minds to one dead level. For if Nature should chance to struggle through all the entanglements of the foregoing ingenious expedients to bind rebel wit, this claps upon her one sure and entire cover. So that well may Aristarchus defy all human power to get the man out again from under so impenetrable a crust. The Poet alludes to this master-piece of the schools in ver. 501, where he speaks of vassals to a name. 2 Those who have no genius, employed in works of imagination; those who have, in abstract sciences. 3 A notion of Aristotle, that there was originally in every block of marble, a statue, which would appear on the removal of the superfluous parts. 4 Why laced? Because gold and silver are necessary trimming to denote the dress of a person of rank, and the governor must be supposed so in foreign countries, to be admitted into courts and other places of fair reception. But how comes Aristarchus to know by sight that this governor came from France? Why, by the laced coat. SCRIBL. Some critics have objected to the order here, being of opinion that the governor should have the precedence before the whore, if not before the pupil. But were he Walker! our hat-nor more he deign'd to say, But, stern as Ajax' spectre', strode away. In flow'd at once a gay embroider'd race, And tittering push'd the pedants off the place 6: Some would have spoken, but the voice was drown'd By the French horn, or by the opening hound. The first came forwards7, with as easy mien, As if he saw St. James's 8 and the queen. When thus the attendant orator9 begun. Receive, great empress! thy accomplish'd son : Thine from the birth, and sacred from the rod, A dauntless infant 10! never scared with God. The sire saw, one by one, his virtues wake: The mother begg'd the blessing of a rake. Thou gavest that ripeness, which so soon began, And ceased so soon, he ne'er was boy nor man 11. Through school and college, thy kind cloud o'ercast, Safe and unseen the young Æneas pass'd 12: Thence bursting glorious, all at once let down, Stunn'd with his giddy 'larum half the town. Intrepid then, o'er seas and lands he flew: Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too. There all thy gifts and graces we display, Thou, only thou, directing all our way! To where the Seine, obsequious as she runs, Pours at great Bourbon's feet her silken sons; so placed, it might be thought to insinuate that the governor led the pupil to the whore: and were the pupil placed first, he might be supposed to lead the governor to her. But our impartial Poet, as he is drawing their picture, represents them in the order in which they are generally seen; namely, the pupil between the whore and the governor; but placeth the whore first, as she usually governs both the other. 5 See Homer Odyss. xi. where the ghost of Ajax turns sullenly from Ulysses. A passage extremely admired by Longinus. 6 Hor. Rideat et pulset lasciva decentiùs atas. 7 This forwardness or pertness is the certain consequence, when the children of Dulness are spoiled by too great fondness of their parent. 8 Reflecting on the disrespectful and indecent behaviour of several forward young persons in the presence, so offensive to all serious men, and to none more than the good Scriblerus. The governor abovesaid. The Poet gives him no particular name; being unwilling, I presume, to offend or do injustice to any, by celebrating one only with whom this character agrees, in preference to so many who equally deserve it.-SCRIBL. 10 Hor. --sine Dis Animosus Infans. 11 Nature hath bestowed on the human species two states or conditions, infancy and manhood. Wit sometimes makes the first disappear, and folly the latter; but true dulness annihilates both. For, want of apprehension in boys, not suffering that conscious ignorance and inexperience which produce the awkward bashfulness of youth, makes them assured; and want of imagination makes them grave. But this gravity and assurance, which is beyond boyhood, being neither wisdom nor knowledge, do never reach to manhood.-SCRIBL. 12 See Virg. Æn. 1. At Venus obscuro gradientes aëre sepsit, Cernere ne quis cos ;—1. neu quis contingere possit; 2. Molirive moram ;-aut 3. veniendi poscere causas. Where he enumerates the causes why his mother took this care of him: to wit, 1. that nobody might touch or correct him: 2. might stop or detain him: 3. examine him about the progress he had made, or so much as guess why he came there. |