She. YES, we have lived-one pang, and then we part; He. Dear shade! I will: ON EDMUND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, Who died in the 19th year of his age, 1735. IF modest youth with cool reflection crown'd, And every opening virtue blooming round, Could save a parent's justest pride from fate, Or add one patriot to a sinking state; This weeping marble had not ask'd thy tear, Or sadly told how many hopes lie here! ON BUTLER'S MONUMENT. RESPECT to Dryden, Sheffield justly paid, 1 This Epitaph, originally written on Picus Mirandula, is applied to F. Chartres, and printed among the works of Swift. See Hawkesworth's edition, vol. vi. S. 2 Mr. Pope, in one of the prints from Scheemaker's monument of Shakspeare in Westminster Abbey, has sufficiently shown his contempt of Alderman Barber, by the following couplet, which is substituted in the place of The cloud-capt towers,' &c. Thus Britain loved me; and preserved my fame, Clear from a Barber's or a Benson's name.-A. POPE. Pope might probably have suppressed his satire on the alderman, because he was one of Swift's acquaintances and correspondents; though in the fourth book of the Dunciad he has an anonymous stroke at him: 'So by each bard an alderman shall sit, THE DUNCIAD, IN FOUR BOOKS; With the Prolegomena of Scriblerus, the Hypercritics of Aristarchus, and Notes Variorum. A LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER, Occasioned by the first correct Edition of the Dunciad. Jany inclination in my friend to be serious with such accusers, or if they had only meddled with his writings; since whoever publishes, puts himself on his trial by his country but when his moral character was attacked, and in a manner from which neither truth nor virtue can secure the most innocent; in a manner, which, though it annihilates the credit of the accusation with the just and impartial, yet ag gravates very much the guilt of the accusers: I mean by authors without names: then I thought, since the danger was common to all, the concern ought to be so; and that it was an act of justice to detect the auIt is with pleasure I hear that you have procured a thors, not only on this account, but as many of them correct copy of the Dunciad, which the many sur-are the same who for several years past have made reptitious ones have rendered so necessary; and it is free with the greatest names in church and state, exyet with more, that I am informed it will be attended posed to the world the private misfortunes of fami with a Commentary: a work so requisite, that I can- lies, abused all, even to women, and whose prostitunot think the author himself could have omitted it, ted papers (for one or other party, in the unhappy had he approved of the first appearance of this poem. division of their country) have insulted the fallen, Such notes as have occurred to me I herewith send the friendless, the exiled, and the dead. you you will oblige me by inserting them amongst Besides this, which I take to be a public concern, I those which are, or will be, transmitted to you by have already confessed I had a private one. I am others; since not only the author's friends, but even one of that number who have long loved and esstrangers, appear engaged by humanity, to take some teemed Mr. Pope; and had often declared it was care of an orphan of so much genius and spirit, which not his capacity or writings (which we ever thought its parent seems to have abandoned from the very the least valuable part of his character,) but the honbeginning, and suffered to step into the world naked, est, open, and beneficent man, that we most esteemunguarded, and unattended. ed and loved in him. Now, if what these people It was upon reading some of the abusive papers say were believed, I must appear to all my friends lately published, that my great regard to a person, either a fool or a knave; either imposed on myself, whose friendship I esteem as one of the chief honours or imposing on them: so that I am as much interested of my life, and a much greater respect to truth than to him or any man living, engaged me in inquiries, of which the inclosed notes are the fruit. in the confutation of these calumnies as he is himself. I am no author, and consequently not to be sus pected either of jealousy or resentment against any I perceive that most of these authors had been of the men, of whom scarce one is known to me by (doubtless very wisely) the first aggressors. They sight; and as for their writings, I have sought them had tried, till they were weary, what was to be got (on this one occasion) in vain, in the closets and libraby railing at each other: nobody was either con- ries of all my acquaintance. I had still been in the cerned or surprised, if this or that scribbler was dark, if a gentleman had not procured me (I suppose proved a dunce. But every one was curious to read from some of themselves, for they are generally much what could be said to prove Mr. Pope one, and was more dangerous friends than enemies) the passages I ready to pay something for such a discovery: a send you. I solemnly protest I have added nothing stratagem which, would they fairly own it, might not to the malice or absurdity of them; which it behoves only reconcile them to me, but screen them from the me to declare, since the vouchers themselves will be resentment of their lawful superiors, whom they so soon and irrecoverably lost. You may in some daily abuse, only (as I charitably hope) to get that by measure prevent it, by preserving at least their titles, them, which they cannot get from them. and discovering (as far as you can depend on the truth of your information) the names of the concealed authors. I found this was not all: ill success in that had transported them to personal abuse, either of himself, or (what I think he could less forgive) of his friends. The first objection I have heard made to the They had called men of virtue and honour bad men, poem is, that the persons are too obscure for satire. long before he had either leisure or inclination to call The persons themselves, rather than allow the objec them bad writers; and some had been such old of- tion, would forgive the satire; and if one could be fenders, that he had quite forgotten their persons as tempted to afford it a serious answer, were not all aswell as their slanders, till they were pleased to re-sassinates, popular insurrections, the insolence of the vive them. rabble without doors, and of domestics within, most Now what had Mr. Pope done before, to incense wrongfully chastised, if the meanness of offenders inthem? He had published those works which are in demnified them from punishment? On the contrary, the hands of every body, in which not the least men-obscurity renders them more dangerous, as less tion is made of any of them. And what has he done thought of: law can pronounce judgment only on since? He has laughed, and written the Dunciad. open facts: morality alone can pass censure on inWhat has that said of them? A very serious truth, tentions of mischief; so that for secret calumny, or which the public had said before, that they were dull; the arrow flying in the dark, there is no public punishand what it had no sooner said, but they themselves ment left, but what a good writer inflicts. were at great pains to procure, or even purchase, The next objection is, that these sort of authors room in the prints, to testify under their hands the are poor. That might be pleaded as an excuse at the truth of it. Old Bailey, for lesser crimes than defamation, (for it I should still have been silent, if either I had seen is the case of almost all who are tried there,) but sure it can be none here; for who will pretend that the robbing another of his reputation, supplies the want of it in himself? I question not but such authors are poor, and heartily wish the objection were removed by any honest livelihood. But poverty is here the accident, not the subject: he who describes malice and villany to be pale and meagre, expresses not the least anger against paleness or leanness, but against malice and villany. The Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet is poor; but is he therefore justified in vending poison? Not but poverty itself becomes a just subject of satire, when it is the consequence of vice, prodigality, or neglect of one's lawful callings; for then it increases the public burthen, fills the streets and highways with robbers, and the garrets with clippers, coiners, and weekly journalists. But admitting that two or three of these offend less in their morals than in their writings: must poverty make nonsense sacred? If so, the fame of bad authors would be much better consulted than that of all the good ones in the world; and not one of a hundred had ever been called by his right name. They mistake the whole matter: it is not charity to encourage them in the way they follow, but to get them out of it; for men are not bunglers because they are poor, but they are poor because they are bunglers. Is it not pleasant enough to hear our authors crying out on the one hand, as if their persons and characters were too sacred for satire; and the public objecting on the other, that they are too mean even for ridicule? But whether bread or fame be their end, it must be allowed, our author, by and in this poem, has mercifully given them a little of both. There are two or three, who by their rank and fortune have no benefit from the former objections, supposing them good; and these I was sorry to see in such company. But if, without any provocation, two or three gentlemen will fall upon one, in an affair wherein his interest and reputation are equally embarked; they cannot certainly, after they have been content to print themselves his enemies, complain of being put into the number of them. Others, I am told, pretend to have been once his friends. Surely, they are their enemies who say so; since nothing can be more odious than to treat a friend as they have done. But of this I cannot persuade myself, when I consider the constant and eternal aversion of all bad writers to a good one. claim this as a justice, it lies not on him, but entirely on the public, to defend its own judgment. There remains what, in my opinion, might seem a better plea for these people, than any they have made use of. If obscurity or poverty were to exempt a man from satire, much more should folly or dulness, which are still more involuntary; nay, as much so as personal deformity. But even this will not help them: deformity becomes an object of ridicule when a man sets up for being handsome; and so must dulness, when he sets up for a wit. They are not ridiculed, because ridicule in itself is, or ought to be, a pleasure; but because it is just to undeceive and vindicate the honest and unpretending part of mankind from imposition, because particular interest ought to yield to general, and a great number who are not naturally fools, ought never to be made so, in complaisance to a few who are. Accordingly we find, that, in all ages, all vain pretenders, were they ever so poor, or ever so dull, have been constantly the topics of the most candid satirists, from the Codrus of Juvenal to the Damon of Boileau. Having mentioned Boileau, the greatest poet and most judicious critic of his age and country, admirable for his talents, and yet perhaps more admirable for his judgment in the proper application of them, I cannot help remarking the resemblance betwixt him and our author, in qualities, fame, and fortune: in the distinction shown them by their superiors, in the general esteem of their equals, and in their extended reputation amongst foreigners; in the latter of which ours has met with a better fate, as he has had for his translators persons of the most eminent rank and abilities in their respective nations. But the resemblance holds in nothing more, than in their being equally abused by the ignorant pretenders to poetry of their times, of which not the least memory will remain but in their own writings, and in the notes made upon them. What Boileau has done in almost all his poems, our author has only in this: I dare answer for him he will do it no more; and on this principle, of attacking few but who had slandered him, he could not have done it at all, had he been confined from censuring obscure and worthless persons, for scarce any other were his enemies. However, as the parity is so remarkable, I hope it will continue to the last; and if ever he should give us an edition of this poem himself, I may see some of them treated as gently, on their repentance or better merit, as Perrault and Quinault were at last by Boileau. Such as claim merit from being his admirers, I would gladly ask if it lays him under a personal obli- In one point I must be allowed to think the characgation? At that rate he would be the most obliged ter of our English poet the more amiable. He has humble servant in the world. I dare swear for these not been a follower of fortune or success; he has in particular, he never desired them to be his ad-lived with the great without flattery; been a friend to mirers, nor promised in return to be theirs: that had men in power without pensions, from whom, as he truly been a sign he was of their acquaintance: but asked, so he received, no favour, but what was done would not the malicious world have suspected such an approbation of some motive worse than ignorance in the author of the Essay on Criticism? Be it as it 1 Essay on Criticism, in French verse, by General will, the reasons of their admiration and of his contempt are equally subsisting; for his works and theirs are the very same that they were. One, therefore, of their assertions I believe may be true, 'That he has a contempt for their writings.' And there is another which would probably be sooner allowed by himself than by any good judge beside, "That his own have found too much success with the public.' But as it cannot consist with his modesty to Hamilton; the same, in verse also, by Monsieur Roboton, counsellor and privy secretary to King George I. after by the abbe Reynel, in verse, with notes. Rape of the Lock, in French, by the princess of Conti, Paris, 1728; and in Italian verse by the abbe Conti, a noble Venetian; and by the marquis Rangoni, envoy extraordiary from Modena to King George II. Others of his works by Salvini of Florence, &c. His Essay and Dissertations on Homer, several times translated into French. Essay on Man, by the abbe Reynel, in verse; by Monsieur Silhoute, in prose, 1737, and since by others in French, Italian and Latin. Character of Mr. P. 1716. Gildon, Preface to his New Rehearsal. him in his friends. As his satires were the more just] for being delayed, so were his panegyrics; bestowThe persons whom Boileau has attacked in his ed only on such persons as he had familiarly known, writings have been for the most part authors, and most only for such virtues as he had long observed in them, of those authors, poets: and the censures he hath and only at such times as others cease to praise, if passed upon them have been confirmed by all Europe. not begin to calumniate them; I mean when out of power or out of fashion. A satire, therefore, on writers so notorious for the contrary practice, became It is the common cry of the poetasters of the town, no man so well as himself; as none, it is plain, was and their fautors, that it is an ill-natured thing to exso little in their friendships, or so much in that of pose the pretenders to wit and poetry. The judges those whom they had most abused, namely, the great- and magistrates may with full as good reason be reest and best of all parties. Let me add a further rea-proached with ill-nature for putting the laws in exeson, that, though engaged in their friendships, he cution against a thief or impostor.-The same will never espoused their animosities; and can almost hold in the republic of letters, if the critics and judges singly challenge this honour, not to have written a will let every ignorant pretender to scribbling pass on line of any man, which, through guilt, through shame, the world. or through fear, through variety of fortune, or change of interests, he was ever unwilling to own. I shall conclude with remarking, what a pleasure Theobald, Letter to Mist, June 22, 1728. Attacks may be levelled, either against failures in one. Concanen, Dedication to the Author of the Dunciad. A satire upon dulness is a thing that has been used and allowed in all ages. it must be to every reader of humanity, to see all genius, or against the pretensions of writing without along, that our author, in his very laughter, is not indulging his own ill-nature, but only punishing that of others. As to his poem, those alone are capable of doing it justice, who, to use the words of a great writer, know how hard it is (with regard both to his subject and his manner) vetustis dare novitatem, obsoletis nitorem, obscuris lucem fastiditis gratiam. I am your most humble servant, WILLIAM CLELAND." St. James's, Dec. 22d, 1728. Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, wicked scribbler! MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS. HIS PROLEGOMENA AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE DUNCIAD: With the Hypercritics of Aristarchus Dennis's Remarks on Prince Arthur. TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS, Concerning our Poet and his Works. M. Scriblerus Lectori S. BEFORE we present thee with our exercitations on this most delectable poem (drawn from the many volumes of our adversaria on modern authors) we shall here, according to the laudable usage of editors, collect the various judgments of the learned concerning our poet; various indeed, not only of different I CANNOT but think it the most reasonable thing in authors, but of the same author at different seasons. the world, to distinguish good writers, by discouraging Nor shall we gather only the testimonies of such emithe bad. Nor is it an ill-natured thing, in relation nent wits as would of course descend to posterity, even to the very persons upon whom the reflections and consequently be read without our collection; but are made. It is true, it may deprive them a little the we shall likewise, with incredible labour, seek out sooner of a short profit and a transitory reputation; for divers others, which, but for this our diligence, but then it may have a good effect, and oblige them could never at the distance of a few months appear (before it be too late) to decline that for which they to the eye of the most curious. Hereby thou mayest are so very unfit, and to have recourse to something not only receive the delectation of variety, but also in which they may be more successful. arrive at a more certain judgment by a grave and circumspect comparison of the witnesses with each 1 As Mr. Wycherley, at the time the town declaimed other, or of each with himself. Hence also thou wilt against his book of poems; Mr. Walsh, after his death; be enabled to draw reflections, not only of a critical, Bir William Trumball, when he had resigned the office but a moral nature, by being let into many particulars of secretary of state; lord Bolingbroke, at his leaving England, after the queen's death; lord Oxford, in his last of the person as well as genius, and of fortune as well decline of life; Mr. Secretary Craggs, at the end of the as merit of our author: in which, if I relate some South-sea year, and after his death: others only in epi- things of little concern peradventure to thee, and some taphs. This gentleman was of Scotland, and bred at the uni- of as little even to him, I entreat thee to consider versity of Utrecht, with the earl of Mar. He served in how minutely all true critics and commentators are Spain under earl Rivers. After the peace, he was made one of the commissioners of the customs in Scotland, wont to insist upon such, and how material they seem and then of taxes in Eugland; in which, having shown to themselves, if to none other. Forgive me, gentle himself for twenty years diligent, punctual, and incor- reader, if (following learned example) I ever and anon raptible (though without any other assistance of for tune,) he was suddenly displaced by the minister, in the become tedious: allow me to take the same pains to sixty-eighth year of his age, and died two months after, find whether my author were good or bad, well or illin 1741. He was a person of universal learning, and an natured, modest or arrogant; as another, whether his enlarged conversation; no man had a warmer heart for his friend, or a sincerer attachment to the constitu- author was fair or brown, short or tall, or whether he tion of his country. wore a coat or a cassock. We proposed to begin with his life, parentage, and| education: but as to these, even his contemporaries Mr. Oldmixon. 'I dare not say any thing on the Essay on Criticism do exceedingly differ. One saith, he was educated in verse; but if any more curious reader has discoverat home; another,2 that he was bred at St. Omer's by ed in it something new which is not in Dryden's preJesuits; a third,3 not at St. Omer's, but at Oxford! a faces, dedications, and his essay on dramatic poetry, fourth, that he had no university education at all. not to mention the French critics, I should be very Those who allow him to be bred at home, differ as glad to have the benefit of the discovery." much concerning his tutor. One saith, he was kept He is followed (as in fame, so in judgment) by the by his father on purpose; a second, that he was an modest and simple-minded itinerant priest; a third, that he was a parson; ones calleth him a secular clergyman of the church of Rome; another, a monk. As little do they agree about his father, whom one supposeth, like the father of Hesiod, a tradesman or merchant; another, a husbandman; another,12 a hatter, &c. Nor has an author been wanting to give our poet such a father as Apuleius hath to Plato, Jamblichus to Pythagoras, and divers to Homer, viz. a demon: for thus Mr. Gildon:-13 Mr. Leonard Welsted; who, out of great respect to our poet, not naming him, doth yet glance at his Essay, together with the duke of Buckingham's, and the criticisms of Dryden and of Horace, which he more openly taxeth:2 As to the numerous treatises, essays, arts, &c., both in verse and prose, that have been written by the moderns on this ground-work, they do but hackney the same thoughts over again, making them still more Certain it is, that his original is not from Adam, trite. Most of their pieces are nothing but a pert, inbut the devil; and that he wanteth nothing but horns and tail to be the exact resemblance of his infernal his Art of Poetry, thrown out several things which Horace has, even in sipid heap of common-place. father.' Finding, therefore, such contrariety of opin ions, and (whatever be ours of this sort of generation) plainly show, he thought an art of poetry was of no not being fond to enter into controversy, we shall use, even while he was writing one.' To all which great authorities, we can only oppose defer writing the life of our poet, till authors can dethat of termine among themselves what parents or education ne had, or whether he had any education or parents at all. Proceed we to what is more certain, his Works, though not less uncertain the judgments concerning them; beginning with his Essay on Criticism, of which hear first the most ancient of critics, Mr. John Dennis. Mr. Addison. "The Essay on Criticism,' saith he, which was kind. The observations follow one another like those published some months since, is a master-piece in its in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose writer. They are some of them uncommon, but such plained with that ease and perspicuity in which they are delivered. As for those which are the most known and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty; and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, still more convinced of their truth and His precepts are false or trivial, or both; his as the reader must assent to, when he sees them exthoughts are crude and abortive, his expressions absurd, his numbers harsh and unmusical, his rhymes trivial and common;—instead of majesty, we have something that is very mean; instead of gravity, something that is very boyish; and instead of perspicuity and lucid order, we have but too often obscurity and confusion.' And in another place- What rare numbers are here! Would not one swear that this solidity. And here give me leave to mention what Monsieur Boileau has so well enlarged upon in the youngster bad espoused some antiquated muse, who had sued out a divorce from some superannuated sin- preface to his works: that wit and fine writing doth not consist so much in advancing things that are new ner, upon account of impotence, and who, being as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn. poxed by the former spouse, has got the gout in her decrepid age, which makes her hobble so dam-It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of nably." 14 the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others; we have little else left us, but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights. If a reader examines Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find but few precepts in it which he may not meet 4 Guardian, No. 40. with in Aristotle, and which were not commonly 6 Dunciad Dissected, p. 4. His 8 Dunciad Dissected. known by all the poets of the Augustan age. way of expressing, and applying them, not his inven11 Dunciad Dissected. tion of them, is what we are chiefly to admire. 12 Roome, Paraphrase on the 4th of Genesis, printed 'Longinus, in his Reflections, has given us the same No less peremptory is the censure of our hypercritical historian 1 Giles Jacob's Lives of the Poets, vol. ii. in his Life. 5 Jacob's Lives, &c. vol. ii. 7 Farmer P. and his son. 9 Characters of the Times, p. 45 10 Female Dunciad, p. ult. 1729. 13 Character of Mr. P. and his Writings, in a Letter kind of sublime, which he observes in the several to a Friend, printed for S. Popping, 1716, p. 10. Curll, in his Key to the Dunciad, (first edition, said to be passages that occasioned them: I cannot but take printed for A. Dodd,) in the 10th page, declared Gildon notice that our English author has, after the same to be the author of that libel; though in the subsequent manner, exemplified several of the precepts in the editions of his Key he left out this assertion, and affirm ed (in the Curliad, p. 4 and 8) that it was written by Dennis only. 1 Essay on Criticism in prose, octavo, 1728, by the 14 Reflections critical and satirical on a rhapsody, call-author of the Critical History of England. ed, an Essay on Criticism, printed for Bernard Lantot, 8vo. 2 Preface to his Poems, p. 18, 53. |