Virtue; it followeth, that those of the leffer Epic Hero fhould be Vanity, Affurance, and Debauchery, from which happy affemblage refulteth heroic Dulness, the never-dying subject of this our Poem.

This being fettled, come we now to particulars. It is the character of true Wisdom, to feek its chief fupport and confidence within itself; and to place that fupport in the resources 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 self-complacence? Nay, are they not, in the opinion of the enamoured owner, far beyond it? "Let the world (will such a one fay) impute to me what Folly or weakness they pleafe; but till Wisdom can give me something that will make me more heartily happy, I am content to be GAZED AT "." This, we fee, is Vanity according to the heroic gage or measure; not that low and ignoble fpecies 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 afk (fays he) why I make my follies public? Why not? I have paffed my time very pleafantly with them." In short, there is no fort of Vanity such a Hero would fcruple to exult in, but that which might go near to degrade him from his high ftation in this our Dunciad; namely,

b

·

namely, "Whether it would not be Vanity in him, to take fhame to himself for not being a wife mand?"

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 bravest character in all the Aeneis: 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 Summum bonum in thofe follies, which he was not content barely to poffefs 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 fpecies of Courage, when we confider those illuftrious marks of it, which made his FACE "more known (as he justly boasteth) than most in the kingdom;" and his Language to confift 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 compofition, is a mere bird of paffage, or (as Shakespear

Life, p. 2. octavo edit.

Life, p. 23. octavo.

Shakespear calls it) Summer-teeming Luft, and evaporates in the heat of Youth; doubtless by that refinement it suffers in paffing through those certain Atrainers which our Poet fomewhere speaketh of *. But when it is let alone to work upon the Lees, it acquireth ftrength by Old age; and becometh a lafting ornament to the little Epic. It is true, indeed, there is one objection to its fitnefs for fuch an ufe: For not only the ignorant may think it common, but it is admitted to be fo, even by him who best knoweth its value. "Don't you think, (argueth he) to fay only a man has his Whore', ought to go for little or nothing? Because defendit numerus, take the first ten thousand men you meet, and, I believe you would be no lofer if you betted ten to one, that every single finner of them, one with another, had been guilty of the fame frailty §." But here he seems not to have done juftice to himself; † the man is fure enough a Hero, who hath his Lady at fourfcore. How doth his modefty herein leffen the merit of a whole well-fpent Life: not taking to himself the commendation (which Horace accounted the

Luft, through fome certain ftrainers well refin'd,
Is gentle love, and charms all womankind.”
Alluding to thefe lines in the Epift. to Dr. Arbuthnot.
"And has not COLLY fill his Lord and Whore,
His Butchers Henley, his Free-Masons Moore ?"

C. Cibber's Letter to Mr. P.

p. 46.

† Here Aristarchus defcends improperly from his gravity into a ftrain a little ludicrous,

the greatest in a theatrical character) of continuing, to the very dregs, the fame he was from the beginning,

"Servetur ad IMUM

Qualis ab incepto procefferat."

But here, in justice both to the Poet and the Hero, let us farther remark, that the calling her his Whore, implieth fhe was his own and not his neighbour's. Truly a commendable Continence! and fuch as Scipio himself must have applauded. For how much Self-denial was exerted not to covet his neighbour's whore? and what diforders must the coveting her have occafioned 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 conftituent qualities of either Hero. But it is not in any, nor in all of these, that Heroifm properly or effentially refideth. It is a lucky refult rather from the collifion of these lively qualities against one another. Thus, as from Wisdom, Bravery, and Love, ariseth Magnanimity the object of Admiration, which is the aim of the greater Epic; fo from Vanity, Impudence, and Debauchery, springeth Buffoonry, the fource of Ridicule, that " laughing ornament," as the owner well termeth it, of the little Epic.

h Colly Cibber's Letter to Mr. P. p. 31.

He

He is not ashamed (God forbid he ever should be afhamed!) of this character; who deemeth that not Reafon but Rifibility distinguisheth the human fpecies. from the brutal. "As Nature (faith this profound

philofopher) distinguished our species from the mute. creation by our Rifibility, her defign muft have been by that faculty as evidently to raise our happiness, as by our Os fublime, OUR ERECTED FACES, to lift the dignity of our form above them." All this confidered, how complete a Hero* must he be, as well as how. happy a Man, whofe Rifibility lieth not barely in his muscles, as in the common fort, but (as himself informeth us) in his very fpirits? And whofe Os fublime is not fimply an ERECT FACE, but a brazen head; as fhould feem by his preferring it to one of Iron, said to belong to the late king of Sweden *.

But whatever perfonal qualities a Hero may have, the examples of Achilles and Aeneas fhew us, that all these are of fmall avail, without the conftant. affiftance of the GODS: for the fubverfion and erection of Empires have never been adjudged the work of Man. How greatly foever then we may esteem of his high talents, we can hardly conceive his perfonal prowess alone fufficient to restore the decayed empire

of

i Cibber's Life, p. 23, 24.

k Letter, page 8.

* In this and many other paffages of this discourse, the attempts of Aristarchus, at fatire and ridicule, are very frigid and awkward indeed.