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When, lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood,
Slow rose a form, in majesty of mud,
Shaking the horrors of his sable brows,
And each ferocious feature grim with ooze :
Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares;
Then thus the wonders of the deep declares :
First he relates, how sinking to the chin,
Smit with his mien, the mud-nymphs suck'd him in: Judge of all present, past, and future wit;

Which most conduce to soothe the soul in slumbers,
My Henley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers;
Attend the trial we propose to make:

How young Lutetia, softer than the down,
Nigrina black, and Merdamante brown,
Vied for his love in jetty bowers below,
As Hylas fair was ravish'd long ago.

330

340

Then sung, how, shown him by the nut-brown maids,
A branch of Styx here rises from the shades;
That, tinctured as it runs with Lethe's streams,
And wafting vapours from the land of dreams
(As under seas Alpheus' secret sluice,
Bears Pisa's offering to his Arethuse,)
Pours into Thames; and hence the mingled wave
Intoxicates the pert, and lulls the grave:
Here brisker vapours o'er the Temple creep,
There, all from Paul's to Aldgate drink and sleep.
Thence to the banks where reverend bards repose,
They led him soft; ach reverend bard arose;
And Milbourne chief, deputed by the rest,
Gave him the cassock, surcingle, and vest.
'Receive,' he said, 'these robes which once were mine:
Dulness is sacred in a sound divine.'

350

He ceased, and spread the robe; the crowd confess
The reverend flamen in his lengthen'd dress.
Around him wide a sable army stand,
A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band,
Prompt or to guard or stab, to saint or damn:
Heaven's Swiss, who fight for any god, or man.
Through Lud's famed gates, along the well-known
Fleet,

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 powers, to sit

To cavil, censure, dictate, right or wrong,
Full and eternal privilege of tongue.'

371

381

Three college sophs and three pert templars came,
The same their talents, and their tastes the same:
Each prompt to query, answer, and debate,
And smit with love of poesy and prate.
The ponderous books two gentle readers bring!
The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring.
The clamorous crowd is hush'd with mugs of mum,
Till all, tuned equal, send a general hum.
Then mount the clerks, and in one lazy tone
Through the long, heavy, painful page drawl on;
Soft creeping, words on words, the sense compose;
At every line they stretch, they yawn, they doze. 390
As to soft gales top-heavy pines bow low
Their heads, and lift them as they cease to blow,
Thus oft they rear, and oft the head decline,
As breathe, or pause, by fits, the airs divine.
And now to this side, now to that they nod,
As verse, or prose, infuse the drowsy god.
Thrice Budgel aim'd to speak, but thrice suppress
By potent Arthur, knock'd his chin and breast.
Toland and Tindal, prompt at priests to jeer,
Yet silent bow'd to 'Christ's no kingdom here.' 400
Who sat the nearest, by the words o'ercome,
Slept first, the distant nodded to the hum.
Then down are roll'd the books; stretch'd o'er them
lies

Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street, 360 Each gentle clerk, and muttering seals his eyes.

Till showers 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;

REMARKS.

this insinuation, he called it vile and malicious, as any candid man, he said, might understand, by his having paid a willing compliment to this very prelate in another part of the poem.

Ver. 349. And Milbourne.] Luke Milbourne, a clergyman, the fairest of critics; who, when he wrote against Mr. Dryden's Virgil, did him justice in printing at the same time his own translations of him, which were intolerable. His manner of writing has a great resemblance with that of the gentlemen of the Dunciad against our author, as will be seen in the parallel of Mr. Dryden and him.

d

As what a Dutchman plumps into the lakes,
One circle first, and then a second makes,
What Dulness dropp'd among her sons impress'd
Like motion from one circle to the rest:
So from the midmost the nutation spreads
Round and more round, o'er all the sea of heads. 410
At last Centlivre felt her voice to fail,
Motteux himself unfinish'd left his tale,

REMARKS.

Ver. 397. Thrice Budgel aim'd to speak.] Famous for his speeches on many occasions about the South Sea schemes, &c. He is a very ingenious gentleman, and hath written some excellent epilogues to plays, and one small piece on Love, which is very pretty.-Jacob, Lives of Po ets, vol. ii. p. 289. But this gentleman since made himself much more eminent, and personally well known to be the greatest statesman of all parties, as well as to all the courts of law in this nation.

Ver. 399. Toland and Tindal,] Two persons not so Ver. 355. Around him wide, &c.] It is to be hoped, happy as to be obscure, who writ against the religion of that the satire in these lines will be understood in the con- their country. Toland, the author of the atheist's liturgy, fined sense in which the author meant it, of such only of the called Pantheisticon, was a spy, in pay to lord Oxford. Tiaclergy, who, though solemnly engaged in the service of re-dal was author of the Rights of the Christian Church, and ligion, dedicate themselves for venal and corrupt ends to Christianity as old as the Creation. He also wrote an abu that of ministers or factions; and though educated under an sive pamphlet against earl S, which was suppressed entire ignorance of the world, aspire to interfere in the while yet in MS. by an eminent person, then out of the ni government of it, and consequently, to disturb and disorder nistry, to whom he showed it, expecting his approbation. it; in which they fall short of their predecessors only by This doctor afterwards published the same piece, mutatis being invested with much less of that power and authority, mutandis, against that very person. which they employed indifferently (as is hinted at in the Ver. 400. Christ's no kingdom.] This is said by Carll, lines above) either in supporting arbitrary power, or in ex-Key to Dunc. to allude to a sermon of a reverend bishop. citing rebellion; in canonizing the vices of tyrants, or in blackening the virtues of patriots; in corrupting religion by superstition, or betraying it by libertinism, as either was thought best to serve the ends of policy, or flatter the follies

of the great.

Ver. 411. Centlivre.] Mrs. Susanna Centlivre, wife to Mr. Centlivre, yeoman of the mouth to his majesty. She writ many plays, and a song, (says Mr. Jacob, vol. i. p. 32 before she was seven years old. She also writ a ballad against Mr. Pope's Homer, before he began it.

Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o'er,
Morgan and Mandevil could prate no more;
Norton, from Daniel and Ostrœa sprung,
Bless'd with his father's front, and mother's tongue,
Hung silent down his never-blushing head;
And all was hush'd, as folly's self lay dead.

Thus the soft gifts of sleep conclude the day,
And stretch'd on bulks, as usual, poets lay.
Why should I sing, what bards the nightly muse
Did slumbering visit, and convey to stews?
Who prouder march'd with magistrates in state,
To some famed round-house, ever-open gate?
How Henley lay inspired beside a sink,
And to mere mortals seem'd a priest in drink :
While others, timely, to the neighbouring Fleet
'Haunt of the muses) made their safe retreat?

BOOK THE THIRD.
ARGUMENT.

420

known to the king himself, till they are explained to be the wonders of his own reign now commencing. On this subject Settle breaks into a congratulation, yet not unmixed with concern, that his own times were but the types of these. He prophesies how first the nation shall be overrun with farces, operas, and shows; the throne of Dulness shall be advanced over the theatres, and set up even at court: then how her sons shall preside in the seats of arts and sciences: giving a glimpse, or Pisgah sight, of the future ful ness of her glory, the accomplishment whereof is the subject of the fourth and last book.

BOOK III.

BUT in her temple's last recess enclosed, On Dulness' lap the anointed head reposed. Him close she curtains round with vapours blue, And soft besprinkles with Cimmerian dew, Then raptures high the seat of sense o'erflow, Which only heads refined from reason know. Hence from the straw where Bedlam's prophet nods, After the other persons are disposed in their proper He hears loud oracles, and talks with gods: places of rest the goddess transports the king to her Hence the fool's paradise, the statesman's scheme, temple, and there lays him to slumber, with his head The air-built castle, and the golden dream, on her lap; a position of marvellous virtue, which The maid's romantic wish, the chemist's flame, causeth all the visions of wild enthusiasts, projectors, And poet's vision of eternal fame. politicians, inamoratos, castle-builders, chemists, and

And now, on fancy's easy wing convey'd,

10

poets. He is immediately carried on the wings of
fancy, and led by a mad poetical Sibyl to the Elysian The king descending, views the Elysian shade.
shade; where, on the banks of Lethe, the souls of the A slip-shod Sibyl led his steps along,
dull are dipped by Bavius, before their entrance into In lofty madness meditating song;
this world. There he is met by the ghost of Settle, and
by him made acquainted with the wonders of the place,
and with those which he himself is destined to perform.
He takes him to a mount of vision, from whence he
shows him the past triumphs of the empire of Dulness,
then the present, and lastly the future: how small a
part of the world was ever conquered by science, how
soon those conquests were stopped, and those very na-
tions again reduced to her dominion. Then distin-
guishing the island of Great Britain, shows by what
aids, by what persons, and by what degrees it shall be
brought to her empire. Some of the persons he causes
to pass in review before his eyes, describing each by
his proper figure, character, and qualifications. On a
sudden the scene shifts, and a vast number of mira-
cles and prodigies appear, utterly surprising and un-

Her tresses staring from poetic dreams,
And never wash'd, but in Castalia's streams.
Taylor, their better Charon, lends an oar,
(Once swan of Thames, though now he sings no more.)

REMARKS.

REMARKS.

19

Ver 5, 6, &c.] Hereby is intimated that the following vision is no more than the chimera of the dreamer's brain, and not a real or intended satire on the present age, doubtwith great geniuses in divinity, politics, and whatever arts less more learned, more enlightened, and more abounding and sciences, than all the preceding. For fear of any such mistake of our poet's honest meaning, he hath again, at the end of the vision, repeated this monition, saying that it all passed through the ivory gate, which (according to the ancients) denoteth falsity.

Scribl.

How much the good Scriblerus was mistaken, may be seen from the fourth book, which, it is plain from hence, he had never seen. Bentl.

Ver. 413. Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o'er,] just, no conformation of the mind so much subjecting it to Ver. 15. A slip-shod Sibyl.] This allegory is extremely A. Boyer, a voluminous compiler of annals, political collec- real madness, as that which produces real dulness. Hence tions, &c.-William Law, A. M. wrote with great zeal we find the religious (as well as the poetical) enthusiasts of against the stage; Mr. Dennis answered with as great; their all ages were ever, in their natural state, most heavy and books were printed in 1726. The same Mr. Law is author lumpish; but on the least application of heat, they ran like of a book entitled, An Appeal to all that doubt of or disbe lead, which of all metals falls quickest into fusion. Wherelieve the truth of the Gospel; in which he has detailed a as fire in a genius is truly Promethean; it hurts not its consystem of the rankest Spinosism, for the most exalted the stituent parts, but only fits it (as it does well-tempered ology; and amongst other things as rare, has informed us of steel) for the necessary impressions of art. But the common this, that air Isaac Newton stole the principles of his phi-people have been taught (I do not know on what foundalosophy from one Jacob Behmen, a German cobbler. guished no otherwise from the rabble of his tribe, than by of madness assigned by a great philosopher be true, it will Ver. 414. Morgan) A writer against religion, distin- tion) to regard lunacy as a mark of wit, just as the Turks and our modern Methodists do of holiness. But if the cause the pompousness of his title; for having stolen his morality unavoidably fall upon the dunces. He supposes it to be the from Tindal, and his philosophy from Spinosa, he calls him-dwelling over-long on one object or idea. Now as this at self, by the courtesy of England, a moral philosopher. Ibid. Mandevil This writer who prided himself in the by dulness: which hath not quickness enough to compre tention is occasioned either by grief or study, it will be fixed reputation of an immoral philosopher, was author of a fa-hend what it seeks, nor force and vigour enough to divert mous book called the Fable of the Bees; written to prove the imagination from the object it laments. that moral virtue is the invention of knaves, and Christian

rare example of modesty in a poet!

virtue the imposition of fools; and that vice is necessary, man, who owns he learned not so much as the accidence: a Ver. 19. Taylor.] John Taylor, the water poet, an honest and alone sufficient to render society flourishing and happy Ver. 415. Norton,] Norton De Foe, offspring of the famous Daniel, fortes creantur fortibus. One of the authors of the Flying Post, in which well-bred work Mr. P. had. sometime the honour to be abused with his betters; and of many hired scurrilities and daily papers, to which he never set his name.

Ver. 427. Fleet,] A prison for insolvent debtors on the bank of the ditch

'I must confess I do want eloquence,
And never scarce did learn my accidence:
For having got from possum to posset,

I there was gravell'd, could no farther get."
He wrote fourscore books in the reign of James 1. and
Charles I. and afterwards (like Edward Ward) kept an ale-
house in Long-acre. He died in 1654.

Benlowes, propitious still to blockheads, bows;
And Shadwell nods the poppy on his brows.
Here, in a dusky vale where Lethe rolls,
Old Bavius sits, to dip poetic souls,
And blunt the sense, and fit it for a skull
Of solid proof, impenetrably dull :

Instant, when dipp'd, away they wing their flight,
Where Brown and Meers unbar the gates of light,
Demand new bodies, and in calf's array,
Rush to the world, impatient for the day.
Millions and millions on these banks he views,
Thick as the stars of night, or morning dews,
As thick as bees o'er vernal blossoms fly,
As thick as eggs at Ward in pillory.
Wondering he gazed; when, lo! a sage appears,
By his broad shoulders known, and length of ears,

REMARKS.

Known by the band and suit which Settle wore
(His only suit) for twice three years before:
All as the vest, appear'd the wearer's frame,
Old in new state, another, yet the same.
Bland and familiar as in life, begun
Thus the great father to the greater son:
Oh born to see what none can see awake.
Behold the wonders of the oblivious lake!
Thou, yet unborn, hast touch'd this sacred shore;
30 The hand of Bavius drench'd thee o'er and o'er.
But blind to former, as to future fate,
What mortal knows his pre-existent state?
Who knows how long thy transmigrating soul
Might from Baotian to Baotian roll?
How many Dutchmen she vouchsafed to thrid ?
How many stages through old monks she rid?
And all who since, in wild benighted days,
Mix'd the owl's ivy with the poet's bays.
As man's meanders to the vital spring
Roll all their tides, then back their circles bring;
Or whirligigs, twirl'd round by skilful swain,
Suck the thread in, then yield it out again:
All nonsense thus, of old or modern date,
Shall, in thee centre, from thee circulate.
For this, our queen unfolds to vision true
Thy mental eye, for thou hast much to view :
Old scenes of glory, times long cast behind,

Ver. 21. Benlowes,] A country gentleman, famous for his own bad poetry, and for patronizing bad poets, as may be seen from many dedications of Quarles and others to him. Some of these anagramed his name Benlows into Benevolus: to verify which, he spent his whole estate upon them.

Ver. 22. And Shadwell nods the poppy, &c.] Shadwell took opium for many years; and died of too large a dose,

in the year 1692.

50

Ver. 24. Old Bavius sits.] Bavius was an ancient poet, celebrated by Virgil for the like causes as Bays by our author, though not in so Christian-like a manner: for heathenishly it is declared by Virgil of Bavius, that he ought to be Shall, first recall'd, rush forward to thy mind: bated and detested for his evil works; qui Bavium non Then stretch thy sight o'er all her rising reign, odit: whereas we have often had occasion to observe our And let the past and future fire thy brain. poet's great good nature and mercifulness through the whole course of this poem. Scribl. Ascend this hill, whose cloudy point commands Ver. 28. Brown and Meers] Booksellers, printers for Her boundless empire over seas and lands: any body. The allegory of the souls of the dull coming See, round the poles, where keener spangles shine, forth in the form of books, dressed in calf's leather, and being let abroad in vast numbers by booksellers, is suffi- Where spices smoke, beneath the burning line, ciently intelligible. (Earth's wide extremes,) her sable flag display'd, Ver. 34. Ward in pillory.] John Ward, of Hackney, And all the nations cover'd in her shade! esq. member of parliament, being convicted of forgery, was first expelled the house, and then sentenced to the pillory on Far eastward cast thine eye, from whence the sun the 17th of February, 1727. Mr. Curll (having likewise And orient science their bright course begun : stood there) looks upon the mention of such a gentleman in One godlike monarch all that pride confounds, a satire, as a great act of barbarity, Key to Dunc. 3d edit. p.

16. And another author reasons thus upon it: Durgen. 8vo. He, whose long wall the wandering Tartar bounds p. 11, 12. How unworthy is it of Christian charity to ani- Heavens! what a pile! whole ages perish there, mate the rabble to abuse a worthy man in such a situation!

REMARKS.

70

What could move the poet thus to mention a brave sufferer, And one bright blaze turns learning into air. a gallant prisoner, exposed to the view of all mankind? It was laying aside his senses, it was committing a crime for which the law is deficient not to punish him! nay, a crime which man can scarce forgive, or time efface! nothing surely Ver. 37. Settle.] Elkanah Settle was once a writer in could have induced him to it but being bribed by a great vogue as well as Cibber, both for dramatic poetry and poli lady,' &c. (to whom this brave, honest, worthy gentleman tics. Mr. Dennis tells us, that he was a formidable rival to was guilty of no offence but forgery, proved in open court.) Mr. Dryden, and that in the university of Cambridge there But it is evident this verse could not be meant of him; it were those who gave him the preference.' Mr. Welsted goes being notorious that no eggs were thrown at that gentleman. yet farther in his behalf! Poor Settle was formerly the Perhaps, therefore, it might be intended of Mr. Edward mighty rival of Dryden; nay, for many years, bore his repu Ward, the poet, when he stood there. tation above him.' Pref. to his Poems, 8vo. p. 31. And Mr. Ver. 36. And length of ears,] This is a sophisticated Milbourne cried out, 'How little was Dryden able, eve reading. I think I may venture to affirm all the copyists when his blood run high, to defend himself against Mr. Setare mistaken here: I believe I may say the same of the tle! Notes on Dryd. Virg. p. 175. These are comfortable critics; Dennis, Oldmixon, Welsted, have passed it in silence. opinions; and no wonder some authors indulge them. I have also stumbled at it, and wondered how an error so ma- He was author or publisher of many noted pamphlets, in nifest could escape such accurate persons. I dare assert, it the time of king Charles II. He answered all Dryden's po proceeded originally from the inadvertency of some trans-litical poems; and being cried up on one side, succeeded not criber, whose head ran on the pillory, mentioned two lines a little in his tragedy of the Empress of Morocco, the first before; it is therefore amazing that Mr. Curll himself should that was ever printed with cuts. Upon this be grew insooverlook it! Yet that scholiast takes not the least notice lent, the wits writ against his play, he replied, and the town hereof. That the learned Mist also read it thus, is plain judged he had the better. In short, Settle was then thought from his ranging this passage among those in which our au- a very formidable rival to Mr. Dryden; and not only the thor was blamed for personal satire on a man's face (where- town, but the university of Cambridge was divided which to of doubtless he might take the ear to be a part;) so likewise prefer; and in both places the younger sort inclined to E Concanen, Ralph, the Flying Post, and all the herd of com- kanah.' Dennis, Pref. to Rem. on Hom. mentators-Tota armenta sequuntur.

fore wanted) will restore to us the true sense of the poet thus: A very little sagacity (which all these gentlemen, there'By his broad shoulders known, and length of years.' See how easy a change of one single letter! That Mr. Settle was old, is most certain; but he was (happily) a stranger

Ver. 50. Might from Baotian, &c.] Bootia lay under though it produced one of the greatest poets and one of the the ridicule of the wits formerly, as Ireland does now. greatest generals of Greece:

'Bootum crasso jurares aëre natum.'-Hor. Ver. 75. Chi Ho-am-ti, emperor of China, the same whe to the pillory. This note is partly Mr. Theobald's, partly built the great wall between China and Tartary, destroyed all the books and learned men of that empira

Scribl.

ས།,

Thence to the south extend thy gladden'd eyes;
There rival flames with equal glory rise,
From shelves to shelves see greedy Vulcan roll,
And lick up all their physic of the soul.

How little, mark! that portion of the ball,
Where, faint at best, the beams of science fall:
Soon as they dawn, from hyperborean skies
Embodied dark, what clouds of Vandals rise!
Lo! where Mootis sleeps, and hardly flows
The freezing Tanaïs through a waste of snows,
The North by myriads pours her mighty sons,
Great nurse of Goths, of Alans, and of Huns!
See Alaric's stern port! the martial frame
Of Genseric; and Attila's dread name!
See, the bold Ostrogoths on Latium fall;
See, the fierce Visigoths on Spain and Gaul!
See, where the morning gilds the palmy shore
(The soil that arts and infant letters bore)
His conquering tribes the Arabian prophet draws,
And saving ignorance enthrones by laws:
See Christians, Jews, one heavy sabbath keep,
And all the western world believe and sleep.

Behold yon isle, by palmers, pilgrims trod,

80 Men bearded, bald, cowl'd, uncowl'd, shod, unshod,
Peel'd, patch'd, and piebald, linsey-wolsey brothers,
Grave mummers! sleeveless some, and shirtless others
That once was Britain-Happy! had she seen
No fiercer sons, had Easter never been.
In peace, great goddess, ever be adored;

How keen the war, if Dulness draw the sword! 120
Thus visit not thy own! on this bless'd age
O spread thy influence, but restrain thy rage.
And see, my son! the hour is on its way,
90 That lifts our goddess to imperial sway;

100

Lo! Rome herself, proud mistress now no more
Of arts, but thundering against heathen lore:
Her gray-hair'd synods damning books unread,
And Bacon trembling for his brazen head.
Padua, with sighs, beholds her Livy burn,
And e'en the Antipodes Virgilius mourn.

See, the Cirque falls, the unpillar'd temple nods,
Streets paved with heroes, Tyber choked with gods:
Till Peter's keys some christen'd Jove adorn,
And Pan to Moses lends his Pagan horn;
See graceful Venus to a virgin turn'd,
Or Phidias broken, and Appelles burn'd.

REMARKS.

130

This favourite isle, long sever'd from her reign,
Dove-like she gathers to her wings again.
Now look through fate! behold the scene she draws!
What aids, what armies, to assert her cause!
See all her progeny, illustrious sight!
Behold and count them, as they rise to light.
As Berecynthia, while her offspring vie
In homage to the mother of the sky,
Surveys around her, in the bless'd abode
A hundred sons, and every son a god :
Not with less glory mighty Dulness crown'd
Shall take through Grub-street her triumphant round;
And, her Parnassus glancing o'er at once,
Behold a hundred sons, and each a dunce.

140

Mark first that youth who takes the foremost place,
And thrusts his person full into your face.
With all thy father's virtues bless'd, be born!
And a new Cibber shall the stage adorn.

A second see, by meeker manners known,
110 And modest as the maid that sips alone;
From the strong fate of drams if thou get free,
Another D'Urfey, Ward! shall sing in thee:
Thee shall each alehouse, thee each gillhouse mourn,
And answering gin-shops sourer sighs return.

Ver. 81, 82. The caliph, Omar I. having conquered Jacob, the scourge of grammar, mark with awe;
Egypt, caused his general to burn the Ptolemæan library, on Nor less revere him, blunderbuss of law.
the gates of which was this inscription,

The physic of the soul.

Ver. 96. (The soil that arts and infant letters bore.)]| Phoenicia, Syria, &c. where letters are said to have been invented. In these countries Mahomet began his conquests.

REMARKS.

150

Ver. 117, 118. Happy! had Easter never been.] Wars in England anciently, about the right time of celebrating Easter.

Ver. 102. Thundering against heathen lore:] A strong instance of this pious rage is placed to pope Gregory's account. John of Salisbury gives a very odd encomium of this pope, at the same time that he mentions one of the the fourth book.

Ver. 126. Dove-like, she gathers.] This is fulfilled in

strangest effects of this excess of zeal in him: Doctor sanc-i. e. Of poets, antiquaries, critics, divines, freethinkers. But Ver. 128. What aids, what armies, to assert her cause!] tissimus ille Gregorius, qui melleo prædicationis imbre totam rigavit et inebriavit ecclesiam; non modo mathesin jussit ab as this revolution is only here set on foot by the first of these aula, sed, ut traditur a majoribus, incendio dedit probat and they only properly fall under the care and review of classes, the poets, they only are here particularly celebrated, lectionis scripta, Palatinus quæcunque tenebat Apollo ?' And in another place: Fertur beatus Gregorius bibliothe-this colleague of Dulness, the laureate. The others, who cam combussisse gentilem; quo divinæ paginæ gratior esset finish the great work, are reserved for the fourth book, where locus, et major auctoritas, et diligentia studiosior. De- the goddess herself appears in full glory. siderius, archbishop of Vienna, was sharply reproved by Ver. 140. Jacob, the scourge of grammar, mark with him for teaching grammar and literature, and explaining awe;] This gentleman is son of a considerable master of the poets: because (says this pope) ' In uno se ore cum Jovis Romsey in Southamptonshire, and bred to the law under a laudibus Christi laudes non capiunt: Et quam grave nefan- very eminent attorney, who, between his more laborious dumque sit episcopis canere quod nec laico religioso conve- studies, has diverted himself with poetry. He is a great adniat, ipse considera.' He is said among the rest to have mirer of poets and their works, which has occasioned him burned Livy; 'Quia in superstitionibus et sacris Romano- to try his genius that way. He has writ in Prose the Lives rum perpetuo versatur.' The same pope is accused by Vos-of the poets, Essays, and a great many law books, The AcBus, and others, of having caused the noble monuments of complished Conveyancer, Modern Justice, &c.' Giles Jacob the old Roman magnificence to be destroyed, lest those who of himself, Lives of Poets, vol. i. He very grossly and uncame to Rome should give more attention to triumphal provoked, abused in that book the author's friend, Mr. Gay. arches, &c. than to holy things. Bayle, Dict.

Ver. 149, 150.

Ver. 109. Till Peter's keys some christen'd Jove adorn.] Jacob, the scourge of grammar, mark with awe; After the government of Rome devolved to the Popes, their Nor less revere him, blunderbuss of law.] zeal was for some time exerted in demolishing the heathen There may seem some error in these verses, Mr. Jacob temples and statues, so that the Goths scarce destroyed having proved our author to have a respect for him, by this more monuments of antiquity out of rage, than these out of undeniable argument: 'He had once a regard for my judg devotion. At length they spared some of the temples, by ment; otherwise he never would have subscribed two gur converting them into images of saints. In much later times, neas to me, for one small book in octavo.' Jacob's Letter to it was thought necessary to change the statues of Apollo Dennis, printed in Dennis's Remarks on the Dunciad, p. 49. and Pallas, on the tomb of Sannazarius, into David and Ju-Therefore I should think the appellation of blunderbuss to dith; the lyre easily became a harp, and the Gorgon's head Mr. Jacob, like that of thunderbolt to Scipio, was meant in turned to that of Holofernes. This honour.

Lo, P-p-le's brow, tremendous to the town,
Horneck's fierce eye, and Roome's funereal frown.
Lo sneering Goode, half malice and half whim,
A fiend in glee, ridiculously grim.

Each cygnet sweet, of Bath and Tunbridge race,
Whose tuneful whistling makes the waters pass:
Each songster, riddler, every nameless name,
All crowd, who foremost shall be damn'd to fame.
Some strain in rhyme; the muses, on their racks,
Scream like the winding of ten thousand jacks; 160
Some, free from rhyme or reason, rule or check,
Break Priscian's head, and Pegasus's neck;
Down, down the larum, with impetuous whirl,
The Pindars and the Miltons of a Curll.

Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
And make night hideous-Answer him, ye owls!
Sense, speech, and measure, living tongues and dead
Let all give way,-and Morris may be read.
Flow, Welsted, flow! like thine inspirer, beer, 169
Though stale, not ripe; though thin, yet never clear;

REMARKS.

Mr. Dennis argues the same way: My writings having made great impression on the minds of all sensible men. Mr. P. repented, and to give proof of his repentance, subscribed to my two volumes of Select Works, and afterwards to my two volumes of Letters.' Ibid. p. 80. We should hence believe, the name of Mr. Dennis hath also crept into this poem by some mistake. But from hence, gentle reader! thou mayest beware, when thou givest thy money to such authors, not to flatter thyself that thy motives are good nature or charity.

Ver. 152. Horneck and Roome.] These two were virulent party-writers, worthily coupled together, and one would think prophetically, since, after the publishing of this piece, the former dying, the latter succeeded him in honour and employment. The first was Philip Horneck, author of a Billingsgate paper, called the High German Doctor. Edward Roome was son of an undertaker for funerals in Fleet

street, and writ some of the papers called Pasquin, where, by malicious inuendos, he endeavoured to represent our author guilty of malevolent practices with a great man then under prosecution of parliament. Of this man was made the following epigram:

'You ask why Roome diverts you with his jokes? Yet if he writes, is dull as other folks! You wonder at it-This, sir, is the case, The jest is lost unless he prints his face." P-le was the author of some vile plays and pamphlets. He published abuses on our author in a paper called the Prompter.

Ver. 153. Goode,] An ill-natured critic, who writ a Fatire on our author, called the Mock Esop, and many anonymous libels in newspapers for hire.

Ver. 156. Whose tuneful whistling makes the waters pass:] There were several successions of these sorts of minor poets at Tunbridge, Bath, &c. singing the praise of the annuals flourishing for that season; whose names, indeed, would be nameless, and therefore the poet slurs them over with others in general.

Ver. 165. Ralph.] James Ralph, a name inserted after the first editions, not known to our author till he writ a swearing piece, called Sawney, very abusive of Dr. Swift, Mr. Gay, and himself. These lines allude to a thing of his, entitled Night, a Poem. This low writer attended his own works with panegyrics in the Journals, and once in particular praised himself highly above Mr. Addison, in wretched remarks upon that author's account of English Poets, printed in a London Journal, Sept. 1728. He was wholly illiterate, and knew no language, not even French. Being advised to read the rules of dramatic poetry before he began a play, he smiled and replied, 'Shakspeare writ without rules. He ended at last in the common sink of all such writers, a poItical newspaper, to which he was recommended by his friend Arnall, and received a small pittance for pay.

Ver. 168. Morris] Besaleel. See Book ii. Ver. 169. Flow, Welsted, &c.] Of this author see the Remark on Book ii. v. 209. But (to be impartial) add to it the following different character of him:

So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull;
Heady, not strong; o'erflowing, though not full.

Ah Dennis! Gildon, ah! what ill-starr'd rage
Divides a friendship long confirm'd by age?
Blockheads with reason wicked wits ahhor,
But fool with fool is barbarous civil war.
Embrace, embrace, my sons! be foes no more!
Nor glad vile poets with true critics' gore.

Behold yon pair, in strict embraces join'd;
How like in manners and how like in mind! 180

REMARKS.

this he (civilly) became a member of both, and after having passed some time at the one, he removed to the other. From thence he returned to town, where he became the darling expectation of all the polite writers, whose encouragement he acknowledged in his occasional poems, in a manner that will make no small part of the fame of his protectors. It also appears from his works, that he was happy in the pa tronage of the most illustrious characters of the present age.-Encouraged by such a combination in his favour, bepublished a book of poems, some in the Ovidian, some in the Horatian manner; in both which the most exquisite judges pronounce he even rivalled his masters.-His loveverses have rescued that way of writing from contempt.--In his translations, he has given us the very soul and spirit of tale--all, are the most perfect things in all poetry." Wel his author. His Ode-his Epistle--his Verses--his Love sted of himself, Char. of the Times, 8vo. 1728, page 23, 24. It should not be forgot for his honour, that he received st among the other excellent authors hired to write anony one time the sum of five hundred pounds for secret service, mously for the ministry. See Report of the secret Commit

tee, &c. in 1742.

Ver. 173. Ah, Dennis! Gildon, ah!] These men became the public scorn by a mere mistake of their talents. They would needs turn critics of their own country writers (just as Aristotle and Longinus did of theirs,) and discourse upon the beauties and defects of composition:

'How parts relate to parts, and they to whole; The body's harmony, the beaming soul." Whereas had they followed the example of those microscopes of wit, Kuster, Burman, and their followers, in verbal criticism on the learned languages, their acuteness and industry might have raised them a name equal to the most famous of the scholiasts. We cannot, therefore, but lament the late apostacy of the prebendary of Rochester, who be ginning in so good a train has now turned short to write comments on the Fire-side, and dreams upon Shakspeare: where we find the spirit of Oldmixon, Gildon, and Dennis, all revived in his belaboured observations. Scribl.

Here Scriblerus, in this affair of the Fire-side, I want thy usual candour. It is true, Mr. Upton did write notes upon it, but with all the honour and good faith in the world. He took it to be a panegyric on his patron. This it is to have to do with wits; a commerce unworthy a scholiast of so solid learning.

Aris.

Ver. 173. Ah, Dennis, &c.] The reader who has seen through the course of these notes, what a constant attendance Mr. Dennis paid to our author and all his works, may perhaps wonder he should be mentioned but twice, and so slightly touched, in this poem. But in truth he looked upon him with some esteem, for having (more generously than all the rest) set his name to such writings. He was also a very old man at this time. By his own account of himself, in Mr. Jacob's lives, he must have been above threescore, and happily lived many years after. So that he was senior to Mr. D'Urfey, who hitherto, of all our poets, enjoyed the longest bodily life.

Ver. 179. Behold yon pair, &c.] One of these was author of a weekly paper called The Grumbler, as the othe was concerned in another called Pasquin, in which Mr. Pope was abused with the duke of Buckingham, and bishop of Rochester. They also joined in a piece against his first undertaking to translate the Iliad, entitled Homerides, by sir Iliad Doggrel, printed 1715.

Of the other works of these gentlemen the world has heard no more, than it would of Mr. Pope's, had their united laudable endeavours discouraged him from pursuing his studies. How few good works had ever appeared (since men of true merit are always the least presuming) had there been always such champions to stifle them in their concep Mr. Welsted had, in his youth, raised so great expectation! And were it not better for the public, that a million tions of his future genius, that there was a kind of struggle of monsters should come into the world, which are sure to between the most eminent of the two universities, which die as soon as born, than that the serpents should strangle should have the honour of his education. To compound one Hercules in his cradle?

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