After many editions of this poem, the author thought fit to omit the names of these two persons, whose injury to him was of so old a date. Ver. 184. That shines a consul, this commissioner.] Such places were given at this time to such sort of writers. Ver. 187. Myster wight.) Uncouth mortal. How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue! A decent priest, where monkeys were the gods! Yet oh, my sons, a father's words attend: That beams on earth, each virtue he inspires, REMARKS. 220 no mortal ever thought of; he had success against all opposition; challenged his adversaries to fair disputations, and none would dispute with him; writ, read, and studied twelve hours a day; composed three dissertations a week on all subjects; undertook to teach in one year what schools and universities teach in five; was not terrified by menaces, insults, or satires, but still proceeded, matured his bold scheme, and put the church, and all that, in danger.'-Welsted, Narrative in Orat. Transact. No. 1. After having stood some prosecutions, he turned his rhetoric to buffoonery upon all public and private occurrences. All this passed in the same room, where sometimes he broke jests, and sometimes that bread which he called the primitive eucharist. This wonderful person struck meVer. Ies. Wormius hight.] Let not this name, purely dals, which he dispersed as tickets to his subscribers; the fictitious, be conceited to mean the learned Olaus Wormius; device a star rising to the meridian, with this motto, much less (as it was unwarrantably foisted into the surrepti- AD SVMMA: and below, INVENIAM VIAM AVT tious editions) our own antiquary, Mr. Thomas Hearne, who FACIAM. This man had a hundred pounds a year given had no way aggrieved our poet, but on the contrary publish-him for the secret service of a weekly paper of unintelligible ed many curious tracts which he hath to his great content-nonsense, called the Hyp-Doctor. Ver. 204. Sherlock, Hare, Gibson,] Bishops of SalisVer. 192. Wits who, like owls, &c.] These few lines bury, Chichester, and London; whose sermons and pastoral exactly describe the right verbal critic: the darker his au-letters did honour to their country as well as stations. thor is, the better he is pleased; like the famous quack doc- Ver. 212. Of Toland, and Tindal, see Book ii. Tho. tor, who put up in his bills, he delighted in matters of diffi- Woolston was an impious madman, who wrote in a most culty. Somebody said well of these men, that their heads insolent style against the miracles of the Gospel, in the year 1726, &c. ment perused. were libraries out of order. Ver. 215. "Tis yours, a Bacon or a Locke to blame, A Newton's genius, or a Milton's flame :) Ver. 199. Lo! Henley stands, &c.] J. Henley the Ver. 213. Yet oh, my sons, &c.] The caution against orator; he preached on the Sundays upon theological matters, blasphemy here given by a departed son of Dulness to his yet and on the Wednesdays upon all other sciences. Each existing brethren, is, as the poet rightly intimates, not out auditor paid one shilling. He declaimed some years against of tenderness to the ears of others, but their own. And so the greatest persons, and occasionally did our author that we see that when that danger is removed, on the open estabhonour. Welsted, in Oratory Transactions, No. 1, publish-lishment of the goddess in the fourth book, she encourages ed by Henley himself, gives the following account of him her sons, and they beg assistance to poliute the source of 'He was born at Melton Mowbray, in Leicestershire. From light itself, with the same virulence they had before done his own parish school he went to St. John's College, in Cam- the purest emanations from it. bridge. He began there to be uneasy; for it shocked him to find he was commanded to believe against his own judgment in points of religion, philosophy, &c. for his genius leading him freely to dispute all propositions, and call all points to Thankfully received, and freely used, is this gracious licence account, he was impatient under those fetters of the free-by the beloved disciple of that prince of cabalistic dunces, born mind. Being admitted to priest's orders, he found the the tremendous Hutchinson. Hear with what honest plainexamination very short and superficial, and that it was not ness he treateth our great geometer. As to mathematical necessary to conform to the Christian religion, in order demonstrations,' saith he, founded upon the proportions of either to deaconship or priesthood. He came to town, and lines and circles to each other, and the ringing of changes after having for some years been a witer for booksellers, he upon figures, these have no more to do with the greatest part had an ambition to be so for ministers of state. The only of philosophy, than they have with the man in the moon. reason he did not rise in the church, we are told, was the Indeed, the zeal for this sort of gibberish (mathematical envy of others, and a disrelish entertained of him, because principles) is greatly abated of late: and though it is now he was not qualified to be a complete spaniel. However upwards of twenty years that the Dagon of modern philosohe offered the service of his pen to two great men, of opinions phers, sir Isaac Newton, has lain with his face upon the and interests directly opposite; by both of whom being re-ground before the ark of God, Scripture philosophy; for so jected, he set up a new project, and styled himself the Restorer long Moses's Principia have been published; and the Treaof ancient Eloquence. He thought it as lawful to take a tise of Power Essential and Mechanical, in which sir Isaac licence from the king and parliament in one place as ano- Newton's philosophy is treated with the utmost contempt, ther; at Hickes's Hall, as at Doctors' Commons; so set up has been published a dozen years; yet is there not one of his oratory in Newport-market, Butcher-row. There,' says the whole society who hath had the courage to attempt to his friend, he had the assurance to form a plan, which raise him up. And so let him lie.' The Philosophical Prin Persist, by all divine in man unawed, Till one wide conflagration swallows all. 230 240 'Son; what thou seek'st is in thee! Look, and find REMARKS. 260 ciples of Moses asserted, &c. p. 2, by Julias Bate, A. M. chaplain to the right honourable the earl of Harrington. London, 1744, 8vo. Scribl. Ver. 224. But, Learn, ye Dunces! not to scorn your God. The hardest lesson a dunce can learn. For being bred to scorn what he does not understand, that which he understands least he will be apt to scorn most. Of which, to the disgrace of all government, and, in the poet's opinion, even of that of Dulness herself, we have had a late example, in a book entitled Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding. Ver. 224. Not to scorn your God.'] See this subject pursued in Book iv. Ver. 232. (Not half so pleased, when Goodman prophesied.)] Mr. Cibber tells us, in his Life, p. 149, that Goodman being at the rehearsal of a play, in which he had a part, clapp'd him on the shoulder, and cried, 'If he does not make a good actor, I'll be d-d.' And,' says Mr. Cibber, I make it a question, whether Alexander himself, or Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, when at the head of their first victorious armies, could feel a greater transport in their bosoms than I did in mine." Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease Here shouts all Drury, there all Lincoln's-inn; 270 Alike their labours, and alike their praise. 280 And are these wonders, son, to thee unknown? REMARKS. 290 Ver. 261. Immortal Rich!] Mr. J. Rich, master of the theatre-royal in Covent-garden, was the first that excelled this way. Ver. 266. I see my Cibber there!] The history of the foregoing absurdities is verified by himself, in these words, (Life, chap. xv.) Then sprung forth that succession of monstrous medleys that have so long infested the stage, which arose upon one another alternately at both houses, outvicing each other in expense." He then proceeds to excuse his own part in them, as follows:- If I am asked why I assented? I have no better excuse for my error than to confess I did it against my conscience, and had not virtue enough to starve. Had Henry IV. of France a better for changing his religion? I was still in my heart, as much as he could be, on the side of truth and sense: but with this difference, that I had their leave to quit them when they could not support me. But let the question go which way it will, Harry IVth has always been allowed a great man.' This must be confessed a full answer: only the question still seems to be, 1. How the doing a thing against one's conscience is an excuse for it? and, 2dly, It will be hard to prove how he got the leave of truth and sense to quit their service, unless he can produce a certificate that he ever was in it. Ver. 266, 267. Booth and Cibber were joint managers of the theatre in Drury-lane. Ver. 268. On grinning dragons thou shalt mount the wind.] In his letter to Mr. P. Mr. C. solemnly declares this not to be literally true. We hope, therefore, the reader will understand it allegorically only. Ver. 282. Annual trophies on the lord-mayor's day; and monthly wars in the artillery ground. Ver. 233. A sable sorcerer.] Dr. Faustus, the subject Ver. 283. Though long my party.] Settle, like most of a set of farces, which lasted in vogue two or three sea-party writers, was very uncertain in his political principles. sons, in which both playhouses strove to outdo each other He was employed to hold the pen in the character of a popish for some years. All the extravagances in the sixteen lines successor, but afterwards printed his narrative on the other following, were introduced on the stage, and frequented by side He had managed the ceremony of a famous popepersons of the first quality in England, to the twentieth and burning, on Nov. 17, 1680; then became a trooper in king thirtieth time. James's army, at Hounslow-heath. After the Revolution, Ver. 237. Hell rises, heaven descends, and dance on he kept a booth at Bartholomew-fair, where, in the droll earth: This monstrous absurdity was actually represented called St. George for England, he acted in his old age, in a in Tibbald's Rape of Proserpine. dragon of green leather of his own invention; he was at last Ver. 248. Lo! one vast egg.] In another of these farces taken into the Charter-house, and there died, aged sixty Harlequin is batched upon the stage, out of a large egg. years. 300 Happier thy fortunes! like a rolling stone, REMARKS. 310 320 See under Ripley rise a new Whitehall, While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall: And Pope's, ten years to comment and translate. REMARKS. the king against Benson, for such a misrepresentation; but the earl of Sunderland, then secretary, gave them an assurance that his majesty would remove him, which was done accordingly. In favour of this man, the famous sir Christopher Wren, who had been architect to the crown for above fifty years, who had built most of the churches in London, laid the first stone of St. Paul's, and lived to finish it, had been displaced from his employment at the age of near ninety years. Ver. 326. Ambrose Phillips.] He was,' saith Mr. Jacob one of the wits at Button's, and a justice of the peace:" but he hath since met with higher preferiment in Ireland: and a much greater character we have of him in Mr. Gildon's Complete Art of Poetry, vol. i. p. 157. 'Indeed he confesses, he dares not set him quite on the same foot with Virgil, lest it should seem flattery, but he is much mistaken if posterity does not afford him a greater esteem than he at present enjoys.' He endeavoured to create some misunderstanding between our author and Mr. Addison, whom also soon after he abused as much. His constant cry was, that Mr. P. was an enemy to the government; and in particular he was the avowed author of a report very industriously spread, that he had a hand in a party-paper called the Examiner: a falsehood well known to those yet living, who had the direction and publication of it. Ver. 328. While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall:] At the time when this poem was written, the banquetinghouse of Whitehall, the church and piazza of Covent-garden, and the palace and chapel of Somerset-house, the works of the famous Inigo Jones, had been for many years so neglected, as to be in danger of ruin. The portico of Covent-garden church had been just then restored and beautified, at the expense of the earl of Burlington; who, at the same time, by his publication of the designs of that great master and Palladio, as well as by many noble buildings of his own, revived the true taste of architecture in this kingdom. Ver. 330. Gay dies unpension'd, &c.] See Mr. Gay's Ver. 297. Thee shall the patriot thee the courtier taste,] fable of the Hare and many Friends. This gentleman was It stood in the first edition with blanks, ** and * *. Con- early in the friendship of our author, which continued to his tanen was sure they must needs mean nobody but King death. He wrote several works of humour with great sucGeorge and Queen Caroline; and said he would insist it was cess, the Shepherd's Week, Trivia, the What d'ye call it, so, till the poet cleared himself by filling up the blanks Fables, and lastly the celebrated Beggar's Opera; a piece otherwise, agreeably to the context, and consistent with his of satire which hit all tastes and degrees of men, from those allegiance. Pref. to a collection of verses, letters, &c. of the highest quality to the very rabble: that verse of against Mr. P. printed for A. Moore, p. 6. Horace, Ver 305. Polypheme.] He translated the Italian opera 'Primores populi arripuit, populumque tributim,' of Polifemo; but unfortunately lost the whole jest of the story. The Cyclop asks Ulysses his name, who tells him could never be so justly applied as to this. The vast snchis name is Noman: after his eye is put out, he roars and cess of it was unprecedented, and almost incredible: what is calls the brother Cyclops to his aid: they inquire who has related of the wonderful effects of the ancient music or hurt him? he answers Noman: whereupon they all go tragedy hardly came up to it: Sophocles and Euripides away again. Our ingenious translator made Ulysses an- were less followed and famous. It was acted in London swer, I take no name; whereby all that followed became sixty-three days, uninterrupted; and renewed the next seaunintelligible. Hence it appears that Mr. Cibber (who son with equal applauses. It spread into all the great Values himself on subscribing to the English translation of towns of England, was played in many places to the thirtieth Homer's Iliad) had not that merit with respect to the and fortieth time, and at Bath and Bristol fifty, &c. It Odyssey, or he might have been better instructed in the made its progress into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland where Greek pannology. Ver, 308, 309. Faustus, Pluto, &c.] Names of miserable farces which it was the custom to act at the end of the best tragedies, to spoil the digestion of the audience. it was performed twenty-four days together; it was last acted in Minorca. The fame of it was not confined to the author only; the ladies carried about with them the favourite songs of it in fans; and houses were furnished with it in Ver. 312. Insure it but from fire.] In Tibbald's farce screens. The person who acted Polly, till then obscure, beof Proserpine, a corn field was set on fire; whereupon the came at once the favourite of the town: her pictures were other playhouse had a barn burnt down for the recreation engraved, and sold in great numbers, her life written, books of the spectators. They also rivalled each other in showing of letters and verses to her published; and pamphlets made the burnings of hell-fire, in Dr. Faustus. Ver. 313. Another Eschylus appears!] It is reported of Eschylus, that when his tragedy of the Furies was acted, that the audience were so terrified, that the children fell into fits, and the big-bellied women miscarried. even of her sayings and jests. Furthermore, it drove out of England, for that season, the Italian opera, which had carried all before it for ten years. That idol of the nobility and people, which the great critic Mr. Dennis by the labours and outcries of a whole life could Ver. 325. On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ!] not overthrow, was demolished by a single stroke of this W-m Benson (surveyor of the buildings to his majesty K. gentleman's pen. This happened in the year 1728. Yet so George L.) gave in a report to the lords, that their House and great was his modesty, that he constantly prefixed to all the Painted-chamber adjoining were in immediate danger of editious of it this motto: Nos hæc norimus esse nihil. failing. Whereupon the lords met in a committee to ap- Ver. 332. And Pope's, ten years to comment and transpoint some other place to sit in, while the house should be late.] The author here plainly laments, that he was so long taken down. But it being proposed to cause some other employed in translating and commenting. He began the builders first to inspect it, they found it in very good condi- Iliad in 1713, and finished it in 1719. The edition of Shaktion. The lords, upon this, were going upon an address to speare (which he undertook merely because nobody else Proceed, great days! till learning fly the shore, 'Enough! enough!'-the raptured monarch cries, And through the ivory gate the vision flies. BOOK THE FOURTH ARGUMENT. 340 tically adorned, offering her strange and exotic pre- The poet being, in this book, to declare the completion BOOK IV. Suspend a while your force inertly strong, 10 The universities appear by their proper deputies, and assure her that the same method is observed in the progress of education. The speech of Aristarchus on this subject. They are driven off by a band of young gentlemen returned from travel with their tutors; one of whom delivers to the goddess, in a polite oration, an account of the whole conduct and fruits of their travels; presenting to her at the same time a young nobleman perfectly accomplished. She receives him graciously, and endues him with the happy Of dull and venal a new world to mould, quality of want of shame. She sees loitering about And bring Saturnian days of lead and gold. her a number of indolent persons abandoning all business and duty, and dying with laziness: to these approaches the antiquary Annius, entreating her to make them virtuosos, and assign them over to him; but Mummius, another antiquary, complaining of his fraudulent proceeding, she finds a method to reconcile their difference. Then enter a troop of people fantas-rior to the former, or of any other hand than of our poet; of REMARKS. would) took up near two years more in the drudgery of comparing impressions, rectifying the scenery, &c. and the translation of the Odyssey employed him from that time to 1725. Ver. 333. Proceed, great days! &c.] It may, perhaps, seem incredible, that so great a revolution in learning as is here prophesied, should be brought about by such weak instruments as have been [hitherto] described in our poem: but do not thou, gentle reader, rest too secure in thy contempt of these instruments. Remember what the Dutch stories somewhere relate, that a great part of their provinces was once overflowed, by a small opening made in one of their dykes by a single water-rat. REMARKS. This book may properly be distinguished from the former, by the name of the Greater Dunciad, not so indeed in size, but in subject; and so far contrary to the distinction anciently made of the Greater and Lesser Iliad. But much are they mistaken who imagine this work in any wise infe which I am much more certain than that the Iliad itself was the work of Solomon, or the Batrachomuomachia of Homer, as Barnes hath affirmed. Bentl. Ver. 1, &c. This is an invocation of much piety. The poet, willing to approve himself a genuine son, beginneth by showing (what is ever agreeable to Dulness) his high respect for antiquity and a great family, how dead or dark soever: next declareth his passion for explaining mysteries; and lastly his impatience to be re-united to her. Scribl Ver. 2. Dread Chaos, and eternal Night!] Invoked, as the restoration of their empire is the action of the poem. Ver. 14. To blot out order, and extinguish light.] The two great ends of her mission; the one in quality of daughter of Chaos, the other as daughter of Night. Order here is to be understood extensively, both as civil and moral; the distinction between high and low in society, and true and false in individuals: light as intellectual only, wit, science, arts. Ver. 15. Of dull and venal.] The allegory continued; dull referring to the extinction of light or science: venal to the destruction of order, and the truth of things. However, that such is not seriously the judgment of our poet, but that he conceiveth better hopes from the diligence of our schools, from the regularity of our universities, the discernment of our great men, the accomplishments of our nobility, the encouragement of our patrons, and the genius of our writers of all kinds (notwithstanding some few ex- Ibid. A new world. In allusion to the Epicurean ceptions in each,) may plainly be seen from his conclusion; opinion, that from the dissolution of the natural world into where, causing all this vision to pass through the ivory gate, Night and Chaos, a new one should arise; this the poet alhe expressly, in the language of poesy, declares all such im-luding to, in the production of a new moral world, makes it aginations to be wild, ungrounded, and fictitious. Scribl. partake of its original principles. She mounts the throne: her head a cloud con-But sober History restrain'd her rage, ceal'd, In broad effulgence all below reveal'd: 40 And promised vengeance on a barbarous age. Beneath her footstool, science groans in chains, Gasps, as they straighten at each end the cord, She tripp'd and laugh'd, too pretty much to stand, 50 'O Cara! Cara! silence all that train: 60 REMARKS.. Scribl. REMARKS. Ver. 39. But sober History.] History attends on tragedy, Ver. 20. Her laureate son reclines.] With great judg-satire on comedy, as their substitutes in the discharge of ment it is imagined by the poet, that such a colleague as their distinct functions; the one in high life, recording the Dulness bad elected, should sleep on the throne, and have crimes and punishments of the great; the other in low, exvery little share in the action of the poem. Accordingly he posing the vices or follies of the common people. But it hath done little or nothing from the day of his anointing; may be asked, how came history and satire to be admitted having passed through the second book without taking part with impunity to administer comfort to the Muses, even in in any thing that was transacted about him; and through the presence of the goddess, and in the midst of all her trithe third in profound sleep. Nor ought this, well consider- umphs? A question,' says Scriblerus, which we thus reed, to seem strange in our days, when so many king-consorts solve: History was brought up in her infancy by Dulness have done the like. herself; but being afterwards espoused into a noble house, This verse our excellent laureate took so to heart, that he she forgot (as is usual) the humility of her birth, and the appealed to all mankind, if he was not as seldom asleep as cares of her early friends. This occasioned a long estrangeany fool! But it is hoped the poet hath not injured him, ment between her and Dulness. At length, in process of but rather verified his prophecy (p. 243 of his own Life, 8vo. time, they met together in a monk's cell, were reconciled, ch. ix.) where he says, 'the reader will be as much pleased and became better friends than ever. After this they had a to find me a dunce in my old age, as he was to prove me a second quarrel, but it held not long, and are now again on brisk blockhead in my youth. Wherever there was any reasonable terms, and so are likely to continue.' This acroom for briskness, or alacrity of any sort, even in sinking, counts for the connivance shown to history on this occasion. be bath had it allowed; but here, where there is nothing for But the boldness of satire springs from a very different him to do but to take his natural rest, he must permit his cause; for the reader ought to know, that she alone of all historian to be silent. It is from their actions only that the sisters is unconquerable, never to be silenced, when truly princes have their character, and poets from their works; inspired and animated (as should seem) from above, for this and if in those be be as much asleep as any fool, the poet very purpose, to oppose the kingdom of Dulness to her last must leave him and them to sleep to all eternity.' Bentl. breath. Ibid. Her laureate.] When I find my name in the sa- Ver. 43. Nor couldst thou, &c.] This noble person in tirical works of this poet, I never look upon it as any malice the year 1737, when the act aforesaid was brought into the meant to me, but profit to himself. For he considers that house of Lords, opposed it in an excellent speech,' says Mr. my face is more known than most in the nation; and there-Cibber, with a lively spirit, and uncommon eloquence.' fore a lick at the laureate will be a sure bait ad captandum This speech had the honour to be answered by the said Mr. vulgus, to catch little readers.' Life of Colley Cibber, ch. ii. Cibber, with a lively spirit also, and in a manner very unNow if it be certain, that the works of our poet have common, in the eighth chapter of his Life and Manners. owed their success to this ingenious expedient, we hence de- And here, gentle reader, would I gladly insert the other rive en unanswerable argument, that this fourth Dunciad, speech, whereby thou mightest judge between them; but I as well as the former three, hath had the author's last hand, must defer it on account of some differences not yet adjusted and was by him intended for the press: or else to what pur-between the noble author and myself, concerning the true pose hath he crowned it, as we see, by this finishing stroke, reading of certain passages. the profitable lick at the laureate? Ver. 45. When lo! a harlot form] The attitude given Ver. 21, 22. Beneath her footstool, &c.] We are next to this phantom represents the nature and genius of the presented with the picture of those whom the goddess leads Italian opera; its affected airs, effeminate sounds, and the into captivity. Science is only depressed and confined so as practice of patching up these operas with favourite songs, to be rendered useless; but wit or genius, as a more danger-incoherently put together. These things were supported by ous and active enemy, punished, or driven away: Duluess the subscriptions of the nobility. This circumstance, that being often reconciled in some degree with learning, but opera should prepare for the opening of the grand sessions, never upon any terms with wit. And accordingly it will be was prophesied of in Book iii. ver. 305. Been that she admits something like each science, as casuistry, sophistry, &c. but nothing like wit; opera alone supplying its place. Bentl. 'Already Opera prepares the way, Bentl. Ver. 30. Gives her Page the word.] There was a judge Ver. 54. Let division reign:] Alluding to the false taste of of this name, always ready to hang any man that came be-playing tricks in music with numberless divisions, to the nefore him, of which he was suffered to give a hundred mise-glect of that harmony which conforms to the sense, and aprable examples, during a long life, even to his dotage.-plies to the passions. Mr. Handel had introduced a great Though the candid Seriblerus imagined Page here to mean number of hands, and more variety of instruments into the no more than a page or mute, and to allude to the custom orchestra, and employed even drums and cannon to make a of strangling state criminals in Turkey by mutes or pages. fuller chorus; which proved so much too manly for the fine A practice more decent than that of our Page, who before gentlemen of his age, that he was obliged to remove his mu he hanged any one, loaded him with reproachful language. sic into Ireland. After which they were reduced, for want Scribl. of composers, to practice the patch-work above-mentioned. |