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RICARDUS ARISTARCHUS

Of the Hero of the Poem.

Of the nature of Dunciad in general, whence de

rived, 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 share of judgement, dissertated. But when he cometh to speak of the person of the hero fitted for such poem, in truth he miserably halts and hallucinates: for, misled by one Monsieur Bossu, a Gallic critic, he prateth of I cannot tell what phantom of a hero, only raised up to support the fable. A putid conceit ! as if Homer and Virgil, like modern undertakers, who first build their house and then seek out for a tenant, had contrived the story of a war and a wandering, before they once thought either of Achilles or Eneas. We shall, therefore, set our good brother and the world also right in this parti. cular, by assuring them, that, in the greater epic, the prime intention of the muse is to exalt heroic virtue, in order to propagate the love of it among the child ren of men; and consequently that the poet's first thought must needs be turned upon a real subject meet for laud and celebration; not one whom he is to make, but one whom he may find, truly illustri ous. This is the primum mobile of his poetic world, whence every thing is to receive life and motion. For, this subject being found, he is immediately ordained, or rather acknowledged, a hero, and put upon such action as befitteth the dignity

of his character.

But the muse ceaseth not here her eagle flight. For sometimes, satiated with the contemplation of these suns of glory, she turneth downward on her wing, and darts with Jove's lightning on the goose and serpent kind. For we may apply to the muse in her various moods, what an ancient master of wis dom affirmeth of the gods in general: St Dii non irascuntur impiís et injustis, nee pios utique jus» tosque diligunt. In rebus enim diversis, aut in utramque partem moveri necesse est, aut in neu tram. 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 odisse ex bonorum caritate descendit. Which in our ver nacular idiom may be thus interpreted: If the gods be not provoked at evil men, neither are they de lighted with the good and just. For contrary objects must either excite contrary affections, or no affections at all. So that he who loveth good men, must at the same time hate the bad; and he who hateth not bad men, cannot love the good; because to love good men proceedeth from an aversion to evil, and to hate evil men from a tenderness to the good.' From this delicacy of the muse arose the little epic (more lively and choleric than her elder sister, whose bulk and complexion incline her to the phlegmatic); and for this, some notorious vehicle of vice and folly was sought out, to make thereof an example. An early instance of which (nor could it escape the accurate Scriblerus) the father of epic poem himself affordeth us. From him the practice descended 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 suppose may be the subject thereof? Why in truth, and it is worthy observation, the unequal contest of an old, dull, debauched buffoon,

Cyclops, with the heaven-directed favourite of M nerva; who, after having quietly borne all the mon ster's obscene and impious ribaldry, endeth the farce in punishing him with the mark of an indeli ble brand in his forehead. May we not then be ex cused, if, for the future, we consider the epics of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, together with this our poem, as a complete tetralogy; in which the last worthily holdeth the place or station of the satiric piece?

Proceed we, therefore, in our subject. It hath been long, and, alas for pity! still remaineth a question, whether the hero of the greater epic should be an honest man; or as the French critics express it, un honnete homme*: but it never admitted of a doubt, but that the hero of the little should be just the contrary. Hence, to the advantage of our Dunciad, we may observe, how much juster the moral of that poem must needs be, where so important a question is previously decided.

But then it is not every knave, nor (let me add) every fool, that is a fit subject 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 liveliest graces of the little epic. Thus it being agreed that the constituent qualities of the greater epic hero, are wisdom, bravery, and love, from whence springeth heroic virtue; it followeth, that those of the lesser epic hero should be vanity, assurance, and debauchery, from which assemblage resulteth heroic dulness, the never-dying subject of this our poem.

This being settled, come we now to particulars. It is the character of true wisdom to seek its chief support and confidence within itself; and to place that support in the resources which proceed from a

* Si un heros poëtique doit être un honnête homme. Bossu, du Poême Epique, liv. v. ch. 5.

conscious rectitude of will.-And are the advantages of vanity, when arising to the heroic standard, at all short of this self-complacence? nay, are they not, in the opinion of the enamoured owner, far be. yond it? Let the world,' will such an one say, ⚫ impute to me what folly or weakness they please; but till wisdom can give me, something that will make me more heartily happy, I am content to be gazed at*.' This, we see, is vanity according to the heroic gage or measure; not that low and ignoble species 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 ask,' says he, 'why I make my follies public? Why not? I have passed my life very pleasantly with themt.' In short, there is no sort of vanity such a hero would scruple, but that which might go near to degrade him from his high station in this our Dunciad; namely, whether it would not be vanity in him, to take shame to him. self for not being a wise man?

Bravery, the second attribute of the true hero, is courage manifesting itself in every limb; while its correspondeut virtue, in the mock hero, is that same courage all collected into the face. And as power, when drawn together, must needs have more force and spirit than when dispersed, we generally find this kind of courage in so high and heroic a degree, that it insults not only men, but gods. Mezentius is, without doubt, the bravest character in all the Æneis; but how? His bravery, we know, was a high courage of blasphemy. And can we say less of this brave man's? who having told us that he placed his summum bonum in those follies which he was not content barely to possess, but would likewise glory in,' adds, If I am misguided, 'tis

Ded. to the Life of C. C. + Life, p. 2, oct. edit.

Ibid.

nature's fault, and I follow her. Nor can we be mistaken in making this happy quality a species of courage, when we consider those illustrious marks of it, which made his face more known (as he justly boasteth) than most in the kingdom;' and his language to consist 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 composition, is a mere bird of passage, or (as Shake speare calls it)' summer-teeming lust,' and evaporates in the heat of youth; doubtless by that refinement it suffers in passing through those certain strainers which our poet somewhere speaketh of. But when it is let alone to work upon the lees, it acquireth strength by old age; and becometh a lasting ornament to the little epic. It is true, indeed, there is one objection to its fitness for such an use: for not only the ignorant may think it common, but it is admitted to be so, even by him who best knoweth its value. Don't you think,' argueth he, to say only a man has his whoret,' 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 loser if you betted ten to one, that every single sinner of them, one with another, had been guilty of the same frailty.' But here he seemeth not to have done justice to himself: the man is sure enough a hero, who hath his lady at fourscore. How doth his modesty herein lessen the merit of a whole well-spent life? not taking to himself the commendation (which Horace accounted the greatest in a theatrical character) of continuing

Life of C. C. p. 23. oct. edit.

Alluding to these lines in the Epist. to Dr. Ar. buthnot:

And has not Colly still his lord and whore,
His butchers Henley, his free-masons Moore?
Letter to Mr. P. p. 46.

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