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With good reason therefore did our author chufe to write his Effay on that fubject at twenty, and referve for his maturer years this great and wonderful work of the Dunciad.

P.

RICHARDUS ARISTARCHUS

OF THE

HERO OF THE POEM *.

OF

F 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 fpeak of the PERSON of the Hero fitted for fuch poem, in truth he miferably halts and hallucinates. For, mifled by one Monfieur Boffu, a Gallic critic, he prateth of I cannot tell what phantom of a Hero, only raised up to fupport the fable. A putid conceit! As if Homer and Virgil, like modern Undertakers, who firft build their houfe, and then feek out for a tenant, had contrived the ftory of a war and a wandring, before they once thought either of Achilles or Aeneas. We fhall therefore set our good brother and the world alfo right in this particular, by affuring them,

* It is a fingular circumstance, that the hero of the Rehearsal, as well as of the Dunciad, should have been changed. Howard, not Dryden, was the original hero of the former. And perhaps thefe changes, in both pieces, were for the worse.

them, that, in the greater epic, the prime intention of the mufe is to exalt heroic virtue, in order to propagate the love of it among the children of men; and confequently that the poet's first thought must needs be turned upon a real fubject 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 his 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 such action as befitteth the dignity of his character.

But the Muse ceaseth not here her eagle-flight. For fometimes, fatiated with the contemplation of these funs of glory, fhe 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 master of wifdom 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 neceffe 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 bonorum 'caritate defcendit." Which in our vernacular idiom may be thus interpreted: provoked at evil men, with the good and juft.

"If the gods be not neither are they delighted For contrary objects must

either

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either excite contrary affections, or no affections at all. So that he who loveth good men, muft at the fame time hate the bad; and he who hateth not bad men, cannot love the good; because 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 arofe the little Epic, more lively and choleric than her elder fister, (whose 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 instance of which (nor could it escape the ⚫ accurate Scriblerus) the Father himself of Epic-poem, affordeth us. From him the practice defcended to the Greek dramatic Poets, his Offspring; who in the composition of their Tetralogy*, or set of four pieces, were wont to make the last a Satiric Tragedy. Happily one of these 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 subject thereof? Why in truth, and it is worthy obfervation, the unequal contest of an old, dull, debauched buffoon Cyclops, with the heaven-directed Favourite of Minerva: who, after

* Richardus Ariftarchus is fond of bringing things, however improper and incongruous, into a fyftem. Our Dunciad is to be added to the epics of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, as a fatiric piece, to make, as it were, a complete Tetralogy, as the Cyclops of Euripides was added to serious tragedies. This conceit is extremely trained and tortured.

after having quietly born 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 excused, 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 laft worthily holdeth the place or station of the fatiric piece?

Proceed we therefore in our fubject. It hath been long, and, alas for pity! ftill remaineth a question, whether the Hero of the greater Epic fhould be an boneft Man; or, as the French Critics express it, un honnête homme : but it never admitted of a 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 juster 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 must still exist some 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;

a Si un Heros Poetique doit etre un honnête homme. Boffu, du Poeme Epique, liv. v. ch. 5.

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