full and true Accounts of Monsters, Poifons, and Murders; of any hereof there was nothing fo good, nothing fo bad, which hath not at one or other Seafon been to him ascribed: If it bore no Name, then he lay concealed; if it did, he father'd it on that Author, to be yet better concealed; if it refembled his Style, then it was evident; if it did not, then difguised he it on fet Purpose; even direct Oppositions have equally been fuppos'd in him inherent.

To fupport the Action of the Dunciad, a Person must be fix'd on to agree with the Defign; one capable of being a Party Writer, a dull Poet, and a Critick. This Phantom in the Poet's Mind must have a Name, and accordingly he calls him Tibbald; but Mr. Cibber afterwards making him angry, he difplaces the Phantom, and leaves the Throne of Duilnefs vacant for the Laureat, thus humorously in Profe:

B

By AUTHOR I T Y.

Y Virtue of the Authority in Us vested, by the Act for fubjecting Poets to the Power of a Licencer, We have revis'd this Piece; where finding the Style and Appellation of King have been given to a certain Pretender, Pfeudo-Poet, or Phantom, of the Name of Tibbald; and apprehending the fame may be deem'd in fome Sort a Reflection on Majefty, or at least an Infult on that Legal Authority, which has bestow'd on another Person the Crown of Poefy; We have ordered the faid Pretender, Pfeudo-Poet, or Phantom, utterly to vanish and evaporate out of this Work; and do declare the faid Throne of Poefy from hence-forth to be abdicated and vacant, unless duly and lawfully fupplied by the Laureat himself

And

And it is hereby enacted, That no other Perfon do prefume to fill the fame.

OC. Ch.

The Throne thus fuppofed to be fill'd, let us proceed to speak of the Dunciad more particularly. In the First Book is contain'd, The Propofition of the Subject; the Invocation, and the Infcription. Then the Original of the great Empire of Dulness, and Cause of the Continuance thereof. The beloved Seat of the Goddess is defcrib'd, with her chief Attendants and Officers, her Functions, Operations, and Effects. Then the Poem haftes into the Midft of Things, prefenting her on the Evening of a Lord Mayor's Day, revolving the long Succeffion of her Sons, and the Glories paft, and to come. She fixes her Eye on Bays to be the Inftrument of that great Event which is the Subject of the Poem. He is defcrib'd penfive in his Study, giving up the Cause, and apprehending the Period of her Empire from the old Age of the prefent Monarch Settle. Wherefore debating whether to betake himself to Law or Politicks, he raises an Altar of proper Books, and (making first his folemn Prayer and Declaration) purposes thereon to facrifice all his unsuccessful Writings. As the Pile is kindled, the Goddefs beholding the Flame from her Seat, flies in Perfon and puts it out, by cafting upon it the Poem of Thule. She forthwith reveals herself to him, tranfports him to her Temple, unfolds all her Arts, and initiates him into her Myfteries; then announcing the Death of Settle that Night, anoints, and proclaims him Succeffor.

The Satire begins thus:

The mighty Mother, and her Son, who brings The Smithfield Mufes to the Ears of Kings,

I fing.

I fing. Say you her Inftruments, the Great,
Call'd to this Work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate;
You, by whofe Care, in vain defcry'd and curft,
Still Dunce the Second reigns like Dunce the First.

This laft Line alludes to a Verfe of Mr. Dryden's, not Mac Flecknoe, as it is ignorantly faid in the Key to the Dunciad, but in his Verfes to Mr. Congreve :

And Tom the Second reigns like Tom the First.

Let us cite two Lines fpoke of the Goddefs Dulnefs, to introduce the Addrefs of the whole Poem to Dean Swift; which is a fine Acknowledgement of his Merit, and no Compliment :

Still her old Empire to reftore fhe tries;
For born a Goddefs, Dulness never dies.

O thou, whatever Title please thy Ear,
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!
Whether thou chufe Cervantes's ferious Air,
Or laugh and shake in Rablais' eafy Chair;
Or praise the Court; or magnify Mankind;
Or thy griev❜d Country's Copper Chains unbind;
From thy Baotia tho' her Pow'r retires,
Mourn not my Swift at ought our Realm acquires:
Here pleas'd, behold her mighty Wings out-fpread,
To hatch a new Saturnian Age of Lead.

There is nothing can exceed the Description of the College of Dulness in the City, nor the fatirical Turns against the feveral Perfons there nam'd and hinted at; but for Bays and his Library, if they do not outshine the reft, (where all fhines, they ferve beft our prefent Purpofe, which is to draw short Pictures of all who have appear'd either for or against our Satirift, either in publick Print or private Life.

Bays,

Bays, form'd by Nature, Stage and Town to bless,
And act and be a Coxcomb with Succefs,
Dulness with Tranfport eyes the lively Dunce;
Rememb'ring the herfelf was Pertnefs once.
Now (Shame to Fortune!) an ill Run at Play,
Blank'd his bold Vifage, and a thin third Day;
Swearing, and fupperlefs the Heroe fate,
Blafphem'd his Gods, the Dice, and damn'd his Fate;
Then gnaw'd his Pen, then dafh'd it on the Ground,
Sinking from Thought to Thought, a vast Profound!
Plung'd for his Senfe, but found no Bottom there;
Yet wrote and flounder'd on in meer Defpair.
Round him much Embryo, much Abortion lay,
Much future Ode, and abdicated Play;
Nonfenfe precipitate like running Lead,

That flip'd thro' Cracks and Zig-Zags of the Head;
Ale, that on Folly Frenzy could beget,
Fruits of dull Heat, and Sooterkins of Wit.
Next o'er his Books his Eyes began to roll,

In pleafing Memory of all he ftole;

How here he fipp'd, how there he plunder'd fnug,
And fuck'd all o'er, 'like an induftrious Bug.
Here lay poor Fletcher's half-eat Scenes, and here
The Frippery of crucify'd Moliere.

There hapless Shakespear, yet of Tibbald fore,
Wifh'd he had blotted for himself before.
The reft on outside Merit but prefume,
Or ferve, like other Fools to fill a Room;
Such with their Shelves as due Proportion hold,
Or their fond Parents drefs'd in Red and Gold;
Or where the Pictures for the Page atone,
And Quarles is fav'd by Beauties not his own.
Here fwells the Shelf with Ogylby the Great;
Then stamp'd with Arms, Newcastle fhines compleat.

Here

Here all his fuffering Brotherhood retire,
And 'fcape the Martyrdom of Jakes and Fire:
A Gothick Library! Of Greece and Rome,

Well purg'd, and worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome ;
But high above more folid Learning fhone,
The Clafficks of an Age that heard of None;
There Caxton flept, with Wynkin at his Side,
One clafp'd in Wood, and one in ftrong Cow-hide;
There, fav'd by Spice, like Mummies, many a Year,
Dry Bodies of Divinity appear :

De Lyra there a dreadful Front extends,

And here the groaning Shelves Philemon bend.

Nicholas de Lyra, or Harpfield, was a very voluminous Commentator, whofe Works, in five large Folios, were printed in 1472.

Philemon Holland was Doctor in Phyfick; he tranflated fo many Books, that a Man would think he had done nothing else; infomuch, that he might be call'd Tranflator-general of his Age. But the Caxton mentioned in the Verses above, was a Printer in the Time of Edward IV. Richard III. and Henry VII. Wynkin de Ward, his Succeffor, in that of Henry VII. and VIII. The former tranflated into Profe Virgil's Eneis as a Hiftory, of which he speaks, in his Proem, in a very fingular Manner, as of a Book hardly known, as follows.

66

A

FTER dyuerfe Werkes, made tranflated and achieued, hauyng, noo Werke in hande "I fitting in my studye where as laye many dy"uerfe paunflettes and bookys. happened that to "my hande came a lytyl booke in frenfhe. whyche

late was tranflated oute of latyn by fome clerke "of fraunce whiche booke is named Eneydos (made in latyn by that noble poete & grete clerke Vyr