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BOOK IV.

THE TRIUMPH OF DULNESS.

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 silences 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 pr mote 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 ap pear 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 endues 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 virtuosos, and assign them over to him; but Mummius, another antiquary, complaining of his fraudulent proceeding, she finds a method to reconcile their difference-Then enter a troop of people fantastically adorned, offering her strange and exotic presents: among 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, birdsnests, 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 effect 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
Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night !
Of darkness visible so much be lent,
As half to show, half veil the deep intent.
Ye powers! whose mysteries restored I sing,
To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing,
Suspend a while your force inertly strong,
Then take at once the poet and the song.

Now flamed the dogstar'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,
Of dull and venal a new world to mould,

And bring Saturnian days of lead and gold.

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She mounts the throne: her head a cloud conceal'd,
In broad effulgence all below reveal'd ;
('Tis thus aspiring Dulness ever shines :)
Soft on her lap her laureate son reclines.
Beneath her footstool 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,

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And dies when Dulness gives her Page the word. 30
Mad Mathesis alone was unconfined,

Too mad for mere material chains to bind,
Now to pure space lifts her ecstatic stare,
Now running round the circle, finds it square.
But held in tenfold bonds the Muses lie,
Watch'd both by envy's and by flattery's eye :
There to her heart sad Tragedy addrest
The dagger, wont to pierce the tyrant's breast;
But sober History restrain'd her rage,
And promised vengeance on a barbarous age.
There sunk Thalia, nerveless, cold, and dead,
Had not her sister Satire held her head :

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Nor couldst thou, Chesterfield! a tear refuse,

Thou wept'st, and with thee wept each gentle Muse.
When lo a harlot form soft sliding by,

With mincing step, small voice, and languid eye;
Foreign her air, her robe's discordant pride
In patchwork fluttering, and her head aside;
By singing peers upheld on either hand,

She tripp'd and laugh'd, too pretty much to stand; 50
Cast on the prostrate Nine a scornful look,

Then thus in quaint recitativo spoke :

'O Cara! Cara! silence all that train;

Joy to great Chaos ! let division reign :

Chromatic tortures soon shall drive them hence,
Break all their nerves, and fritter all their sense :
One trill shall harmonize joy, grief, and rage,
Wake the dull church, and lull the ranting stage;
To the same notes thy sons shall hum, or snore,
And all thy yawning daughters cry encore.
Another Phœbus, thy own Phœbus, reigns,
Joys in my jigs, and dances in my chains.
But soon, ah, soon, rebellion will commence,
If music meanly borrows aid from sense :
Strong in new arms, lo! giant Handel stands,
Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands;
To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes,
And Jove's own thunders follow Mars's drums.
Arrest him, Empress ; or you sleep no more-
She heard, and drove him to th' Hibernian shore.
And now had Fame's posterior trumpet blown,
And all the nations summon'd to the throne :
The young, the old, who feel her inward sway,
One instinct seizes, and transports away.
None need a guide, by sure attraction led,
And strong impulsive gravity of head:

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None want a place, for all their centre found,
Hung to the goddess, and cohered around.
Not closer, orb in orb, conglobed are seen
The buzzing bees about their dusky queen.

The gathering number, as it moves along,
Involves a vast involuntary throng,

Who, gently drawn, and struggling less and less,
Roll in her vortex, and her power confess.

Not those alone who passive own her laws,
But who, weak rebels, more advance her cause :
Whate'er of dunce in college or in town

Sneers at another, in toupee or gown;
Whate'er of mungrel no one class admits,
A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.
Nor absent they, no members of her state,
Who pay her homage in her sons, the great ;
Who, false to Phoebus, bow the knee to Baal,
Or impious, preach his word without a call.
Patrons, who sneak from living worth to dead,
Withhold the pension, and set up the head :
Or vest dull flattery in the sacred gown,
Or give from fool to fool the laurel crown;
And, (last and worst), with all the cant of wit,
Without the soul, the Muse's hypocrite.

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There march'd the bard and blockhead side by side, Who rhymed for hire, and patronized for pride. Narcissus, praised with all a parson's power, Look'd a white lily sunk beneath a shower. There moved Montalto with superior air; His stretch'd out arm display'd a volume fair; Courtiers and patriots in two ranks divide,

Through both he pass'd, and bow'd from side to side; But as in graceful act, with awful eye,

Composed he stood, bold Benson thrust him by : ΠΙΟ