The Defcriptions are fingular, the Comparisons very quaint, the Narration various, yet of one colour. The purity and chastity of Diction is fo preserved, that in the places moft fufpicious, not the Words, but only the Images, have been cenfured; and yet are thofe Images no other than have been fanctified by ancient and claffical authority, (though, as was the manner of thofe good times, not fo curioufly wrapped up,) yea, and commented upon by the moft doctors and approved critics. grave As it beareth the name of Epic, it is thereby fubjected to fuch fevere indifpenfable rules as are laid on all Neoterics, a ftrict imitation of the Ancients; infomuch that any deviation, accompanied with whatever poetic beauties, hath always been cenfured by the found critic. How exact that imitation hath been in this piece, appeareth not only by its general structure, but by particular allufions infinite, many whereof have efcaped both the Commentator and Poet himself: yea divers, by his exceeding diligence, are fo altered and interwoven with the reft, that feveral have already been, and more will be, by the ignorant abused, as altogether and originally his own. In a word, the whole Poem proveth itself to be the work of our Author, when his faculties were in full vigour and perfection; at that exact time when years have ripened the judgment without diminishing the imagination; which, by good critics, is held to be punctually at forty: for at that feafon it was that Virgil finifhed his Georgics; and Sir Richard Blackmore at the like age compofing his Arthurs, declared the fame to be the very acme and pitch of life for epic poefy; though, fince, he hath altered it to fixty, the year in which he published his Alfred.* True it is, that the talents for criticifm, namely, smartness, quick cenfure, vivacity of remark, certainty of affeveration, indeed all but acerbity, feem rather the gifts of youth than of riper age: but it is far otherwife in poetry; witnefs the works of Mr. Rymer and Mr. Dennis, who beginning with Criticifm, became afterwards *See his Effays. fuch poets as no age hath paralleled. With good reafon, therefore, did our Author choofe to write his Effay on that fubje&t at twenty, and referve for his maturer years this great and wonderful work of THE DUNCIAD. P. OF RICARDUS ARISTARCHUS OF THE HERO OF THE POEM. the nature of Dunciad in general, whence derived, and on what authority founded, as well as of the art and conduct of this our Poem in particular, the learned and laborious Scriblerus hath, according to his manner, and with tolerable fhare of judgment, differtated; but when he cometh to speak of the Perfon of the Hero fitted for fuch Poem, in truth he miferably halts and hallucinates: for, mifled by one Monfieur Bofu, a Gallic critic, he prateth of I cannot tell what phantom of a hero, only raifed up to fupport the fable. A putid conceit! as if Homer and Virgil, like modern undertakers, who firft build their house, and then feek out for a tenant, had contrived the ftory of a War and a Wandering before they once thought either of Achilles or Æneas. We fhall therefore fet our good brother and the world alfo right in this particular, by affuring them that, in the Greater Epic, the prime intention of the Mufe is to exalt heroic virtue, in order to propagate the love cf it among the children of men; and, confequently, that the Poet's first thought muft needs be turned upon a real fubje&t meet for laud and celebration; not one whom he is to make, but one whom he may find, truly illuftrious. This is the primum mobile of this poetic world, whence every thing is to receive life and motion: for this fubject being found, he is immediately ordained, or rather acknowledged, an hero, and put upon fuch action as befitteth the dignity of his character. But But the Mufe ceafeth not here her eagle-flight: for fometimes, fatiated with the contemplation of these funs of glory, the turneth downward on her wing, and darts with Jove's lightning on the goofe and ferpent kind. For we apply to the Mufe, in her various moods, what an ancient mafter of wisdom affirmeth of the gods in general: Si Dii non irafcuntur impiis et injuftis, nec pios utique juftofque diligunt. In rebus enim diverfis, ut in utramque partem moveri necceffe eft, aut in neutram. Itaque qui bonos diligit et malos odit; et qui malos non odit, nec bonos diligit. Quia et diligere bonos ex odio malorum venit; et malos odiffe ex benorum caritate defcendit.' Which, in our vernacular idiom, may be thus interpreted: "If the gods be not provoked at evil men, neither "are they delighted with the good and juft: for con trary objects must either excite contrary affections ❝or no affections at all. So that he who loveth good "men must at the fame time hate the bad; and he "who hateth not bad men cannot love the good; be"caufe to love good men proceedeth from an averfion "to evil, and to hate evil men from a tenderness to "the good." From this delicacy of the Mufe arose the Little Epic, (more lively and choleric than her elder fifter, whofe bulk and complexion incline her to the flegmatic,) and for this fome notorious vehicle of vice and folly was fought out to make thereof an example; an early inftance of which (nor could it efcape the accurate Scriblerus) the father himfelf of epic poem afforded us. From him the practice defcended to the Greek dramatic poets, his offspring; who, in the compofition of their tetralogy, or fet of four pieces, were wont to make the last a fatiric tragedy. Happily one of thefe ancient Dunciads (as we may well term it) is come down unto us, amongst the tragedies of the poet Euripides; and what doth the reader fuppofe may be the fubject thereof? Why, in truth, and it is worthy obfervation, the unequal conteft of an old, dull, debauched buffoon Cyclops, with the heaven-directed favourite of Minerva; who, after having quietly borne all all the monster's obfcene and impious ribaldry, endeth the farce, in punishing him with the mark of an indelible brand in his forehead. May we not then be excufed if, for the future, we confider the epics of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, together with this our Poem, as a complete tetralogy, in which the last worthily holdeth the place or ftation of the fatiric piece? Proceed we therefore in our fubject. It hath been long, and, alas for pity! ftil! remaineth a queftion, whether the Hero of the Greater Epic fhould be an honeft man; or, as the French critics exprefs it, un bonnéte homme ;* but it never admitted of any doubt but that the Hero of the Little Epic fhould be his very oppofite. Hence, to the advantage of our Dunciad, we may obferve how much jufter the moral of that poem, muft needs be where fo important a question is previously decided. But then it is not every knave, nor (let me add) every fool, that is a fit fubject for a Dunciad. There muft ftill exist fome analogy, if not resemblance, of qualities between the heroes of the two poems; and this, in order to admit what Neoteric critics call the Parody, one of the livelieft graces of the Little Epic. Thus it being agreed that the conftituent qualities of the Greater Epic Hero are wisdom, bravery, and love, from whence fpringeth heroic virtue; it followeth that thofe of the Leffer Epic Hero fhould be vanity, affurance, and debauchery: from which happy affemblage refulteth Heroic Duinefs, the never-dying fubject of this our Poem. This being fettled, come we now to particulars. It is the character of true wifdom to feek its chief fupport and confidence within itself, and to place that fupport in the refources which proceed from a conscious rectitude of will.-And are the advantages of vanity, when arifing to the heroic standard, at all short of this felf-complacence? nay, are they not, in the opinion of the enamoured owner, far beyoud it? "Let the world VOL. II. (will Si un heros poetique doit etre un honnete homme, Boffu, Du Poems Epique, liv, v, ch. 5. U "(will fuch a one fay) impute to me what folly or "weakness they pleafe; but till wisdom can give me "fomething that will make me more heartily happy, "I am contented to be gazed at.”* This, we fee, is vanity, according to the heroic gage or measure: not that low and ignoble species which pretendeth to virtues we have not; but the laudable ambition of being gazed at for glorying in thofe vices which every body knows we have. The world may ask (fays he) "why I make my follies public? Why not? I have "passed my time very pleasantly with them."+ In fhort, there is no fort of vanity fuch a Hero would fcruple to exult in, but that which might go near to degrade him from his high station in this our Dunciad, namely, "Whether it would not be vanity in him to take fhame to himself for not being a wife man?”‡ Bravery, the fecond attribute of the true hero, is courage manifefting itself in every limb; while its correfpondent virtue in the mock hero is that fame courage all collected into the face. And as power, when drawn together, must needs have more force and spirit than when difperfed, we generally find this kind of courage in fo high and heroic a degree, that it infults not only men, but gods. Mezentius is, without doubt, the braveft character in all the neis: but how? His bravery, we know, was an high courage of blafphemy. And can we fay lefs of this brave man's? who having told us that he placed "His fummum bonum in those follies which he was not content barely to poffefs, "but would likewife glory in," adds, "If I am "mifguided, 'tis Nature's fault, and I follow her." Nor can we be mistaken in making this happy quality a fpecies of courage, when we confider thofe illuftrious marks of it which made his face "more known (as "he juftly boafteth) than moft in the kingdom;" and his language to confift of what we must allow to be the most daring figure of fpeech, that which is taken from the name of God. Ded. to the Life of C. Cibber. + Life, p. 2. oct. edit. |
