of the Little Epic. Thus it being agreed that the constituent qualities of the Greater Epic Hero are wisdom, bravery, and love, from whence springeth heroic virtue; it followeth that those of the Lesser Epic Hero should be vanity, assurance, and debauchery from which assemblage resulteth Heroic Dullness, the never-dying subject of this our Poem. This being settled, come we now to particulars. -It is the character of true wisdom to seek its chief support and confidence within itself, and to place that support in the resources which proceed from a conscious rectitude of will. And are the advantages of vanity, when arising to the heroic standard, at all, short of this self-complacence? nay, are they not in the opinion of the enamored owner, far beyond it? Let the world (will such a one say) impute to me what folly, or weakness they please; but till wisdom can give me something that will make me more heartily happy, I am contented to be gazed at *.' This, we see, is vanity, according to the heroic gauge 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 those vices which every body knows we have. The world may ask (says he) why I make my follies public? Why not? I have passed my time very pleasantly Ded. to the life of C. Cibber. with them *. In short, there is no sort of vanity, such a Hero would scruple 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 shame to himself for not being a wise man †?' Bravery, the second attribute of the true hero, is courage manifesting itself in every limb; while its correspondent virtue in the mock hero is that same courage all collected into the face. And as power, when drawn together, must needs have more force and spirit than when dispersed, we generally find this kind of courage in so high and heroic a degree, that it insults not only men, but gods. Mezentius is, without doubt, the bravest character in all the Æneis: but how? His bravery, we know, was an high courage of blasphemy. And can we say less of this brave man's? who having told us that he placed 'his summum bonum in those follies which he was not content barely to possess, but would likewise glory in,' adds, If I am misguided, 'tis Nature's fault, and 'I follow her.' Nor can we be mistaken in making this happy quality a species of courage, when we consider those illustrious marks of it which made his face more known (as he justly boasteth) than most in the kingdom; and his 6 -language to consist of what we must allow to be the most daring figure of speech; that which is taken from the name of God. Gentle love, the next ingredient in the true hero's composition, is a mere bird of passage, or (as Shakespear calls it) Summer-teeming lust, and evaporates in the heat of youth; doubtless by that refinement it suffers in passing through those certain strainers, which our Poet somewhere speaketh of *; but when it is let alone to work upon the lees, it acquireth strength by old age, and becometh a lasting ornament to the Little Epic. It is true, indeed, there is one objection to its fitness for such an use; for not only the ignorant may think it common, but it is admitted to be so even by him who best knoweth its value. 'Don't you think (argueth he) to say only a man has a w—et, ought to go for little, or nothing?. Because, defendit numeris, take the first ten thousand men you meet, and, I believe, you would be no loser if you betted ten to one that every single sinner of them, one with another, had been guilty of the same frailty .' But here he seemeth not to have done justice to himself, the man is sure enough a hero who hath his lady at fourscore. How doth • Lust, through some certain strainers well refin'd, Alluding to these lines in the Epist. to Dr. Arbuthnot: his modesty herein lessen the merit of a whole wellspent life? not taking to himself the commendation, (which Horace accounted the greatest in a theatrical character,) of continuing to the very dregs, the same he was from the beginning, -Servetur ad imum 'Qualis ab incepto processerat.' But here, in justice both to the Poet and the Hero, let us farther remark, that the calling her his we, implieth she was his own, and not his neighbour's. Truly a commendable continence! and such as Scipio himself must have applauded: for how much self-denial was necessary not to covet his neighbor's w-e! and what disorders must the coveting her have occasioned in that society, where (according to this political calculator) nine in ten of all ages have their concubines! We have now, as briefly as we could devise, gone through the three constituent qualities of either Hero; but it is not in any, or in all of these, that heroism properly or essentially resideth. It is a lucky result rather, from the collision of these lively qualities against one another. Thus, as from wisdom, bravery, and love, ariseth magna nimity, the object of admiration, which is the aim of the Greater Epic; so from vanity, assurance, and debauchery, springeth buffoonery, the source of ridicule, that' laughing ornament,' as the owner well termeth it* of the Little Epic. C. Cibber's Letter to Mr. P. p. He is not ashamed (God forbid he ever should be ashamed!) of his character, who deemeth that not reason, but risibility, distinguisheth the human species from the brutal. As Nature (saith this 'profound philosopher) distinguisheth our species 'from the mute creation by our risibility, her design must have been, by that faculty, as evidently ' to raise our happiness, as by our os sublime (our ' erected faces) to lift the dignity of our form ' above them *. All this considered, how complete a hero must he be, as well as how happy a man, whose risibility lieth not barely in his muscles, as in the common sort, but (as himself informeth us) in his very spirits! and whose os sublime is not simply an erect face, but a brazen head; as should seem by his preferring it to one of iron, said to belong to the late King of Sweden +. But whatever personal qualities a hero may have, the examples of Achilles and Æneas, shew us, that all those are of small avail without the constant assistance of the gods; for the subversion and erection of empires have never been adjudged the work of man. How greatly soever then we may esteem of his high talents, we can hardly conceive his personal prowess alone sufficient, to restore the decayed empire of Dullness. So weighty an achievement, must require the particular favor and protection of the great, who being the natural patrons *C. Cibber's Life, p. 23, 21. F + Letter, p. 8. |