Cast on the prostrate Nine a scornful look,
Then thus in quaint recitativo spoke:

60

O Cara! Cara! silence all that train: Joy to great Chaos! let division reign: Chromatic tortures soon shall drive them hence, Break all their nerves, and fritter all their sense; One trill shall harmonize joy, grief, and rage, Wake the dull church, and lull the ranting stage; To the same notes thy sons shall hum or snore, And all thy yawning daughters cry, encore. Another Phoebus, thy own Phœbus, reigns, Joys in my jiggs, and dances in my chains. But soon, ah soon! rebellion will commence, If music meanly borrows aid from sense: Strong in new arms, lo! giant Handel stands, Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands, To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes, And Jove's own thunders follow Mars's drums. Arrest him, empress, or you sleep no moreShe heard, and drove him to th' Hibernian shore. 70 And now had fame's posterior trumpet blown, And all the nations summon'd to the throne. The young, the old, who feel her inward sway, One instinct seizes, and transports away. None need a guide, by sure attraction led, And strong impulsive gravity of head:

REMARKS.

Ver. 54. Let division reign:] Alluding to the false taste of playing tricks in music with numberless divisions, to the neglect of that harmony which conforms to the sense, and applies to the passions. Mr. Handel had introduced a great number of hands, and more variety of instruments into the orchestra, and employed even drums and cannon to make a fuller chorus; which proved so much too manly for the fine gentlemen of his age, that he was obliged to remove his music into Ireland. After which they were reduced, for want of composers, to practise the patch-work above mentioned.

None want a place, for all their centre found,
Hung to the goddess, and coher'd around.
Not closer, orb in orb, conglob'd are seen
The buzzing bees about their dusky queen.

The gath'ring number, as it moves along,
Involves a vast involuntary throng,

Who, gently drawn, and struggling less and less,
Roll in her vortex, and her power confess.
Not those alone who passive own her laws,
But who, weak rebels, more advance her cause.
Whate'er of dunce in college or in town
Sneers at another, in toupee or gown;
Whate'er of mongrel no one class admits,
A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.

Nor absent they, no members of her state,
Who pay her homage in her sons, the great;
Who, false to Phaebus, bow the knee to Baal ;
Or impious, preach his word without a call,
Patrons, who sneak from living worth to dead,
Withhold the pension, and set up the head;
Or vest dull flattery in the sacred gown;
Or give from fool to fool the laurel crown.
And (last and worse) with all the cant of wit,
Without the soul, the inuse's hypocrite.

REMARKS.

80

90

100

Ver. 76 to 101. It ought to be observed that here are three classes in this assembly. The first, of men absolutely and unadvowedly dull, who naturally adhere to the goddess, and are imaged in the simile of the bees about their queen. The second involuntarily drawn to her, though not caring to own her influence; from ver. 81 to 90. The third of such as, though not members of her state, yet advance her service by flattering dulness, cultivating mistaken ta lents, patronizing vile scribblers, discouraging living merit, or setting up for wits, and men of taste in arts they understand not; from ver. 91 to 101.

There march'd the bard and blockhead side by side,
Who rhym'd for hire, and patroniz'd for pride.
Narcissus, prais'd with all a parson's power,
Look'd a white lily sunk beneath a shower.
There mov'd Montalto with superior air;
His stretch'd-out arm display'd a volume fair;
Courtiers and patriots in two ranks divide,
Through both he pass'd, and bow'd from side to side;
But as in graceful act, with awful eye,

Compos'd he stood, bold Benson thrust him by: 110
On two unequal crutches propt he came,
Milton's on this, on that one Johnston's name.
The decent knight retir'd with sober rage,
Withdrew his hand, and clos'd the pompous page.
But (happy for him as the times went then)
Appear'd Apollo's mayor and aldermen,

On whom three hundred gold-capt youths await,
To lug the pond'rous volume off in state.

REMARKS.

Ver. 108. bow'd from side to side:] As being of no one party.

Ver. 110. bold Benson] This man endeavoured to raise himself to fame by erecting monuments, striking coins, setting up heads, and procuring translations, of Milton; and afterwards by as great a passion for Arthur Johnston, a Scotch physician's Version of the Psalms, of which he printed many fine editions. See more of him, Book iii. ver. 325..

Ver. 113. The decent knight] An eminent person who was about to publish a very pompous edition of a great author at his own expense.

Ver. 115, &c.] These four lines were printed in a separate leaf by Mr. Pope in the last edition, which he himself gave, of the Dunciad, with directions to the printer, to put this leaf into its place as soon as sir T. H.'s Shakespeare should be published.

120

When Dulness smiling:- Thus revive the wits! But murder first, and mince them all to bits; As erst Medea (cruel, so to save!)

A new edition of old

son gave;

Let standard-authors, thus, like trophies borne, Appear more glorious, as more hack'd and torn. And you, my critics! in the chequer'd shade, Admire new light through holes yourselves have made.

Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone,

A page, a grave, that they can call their own;
But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick,
On passive paper, or on solid brick.

So by each bard, an alderman shall sit,
A heavy lord shall hang at ev'ry wit,

REMARKS.

130

Ver. 119. Thus revive', &c.] The goddess applauds the practice of tacking the obscure names of persons not eminent in any branch of learning, to those of the most distinguished writers; either by printing editions of their works with impertinent alterations of their text, as in the former instances; or by setting up monuments disgraced with their own vile names and inscriptions, as in the latter.

Ver. 128. A page, a grave,] For what less than a grave can be granted to a dead author! or what less than a page can be allowed a living one!

Ibid. A page,] Pagina, not pedissequus. A page of a book, not a servant, follower, or attendant, no poet having had a page since the death of Mr. Thomas Durfey. SCRIBL.

Ver. 131. So by each bard an alderman, &c.] Vide the Tombs of the Poets, editio Westmonasteriensis. Ibid.--an alderman shall sit,] Alluding to the monument erected for Butler by alderman Barber.

Ver. 132. A heavy lord shall hang at ev'ry wit,] "How unnatural an image, and how ill supported!' saith Aristarchus. Had it been,

And while on fame's triumphal car they ride,
Some slave of mine be pinion'd to their side.'

Now crowds on crowds around the goddess press, Each eager to present the first address.

Dunce scorning dunce beholds the next advance, But fop shows fop superior complaisance.

REMARKS.

A heavy wit shall hang at ev'ry lord, something might have been said, in an age so distinguished for well-judging patrons. Forlord, then, read load; that is, of debts here, and of commentaries hereafter. To this purpose, conspicuous is the case of the poor author of Hudibras, whose body, long since weighed down to the grave by a load of debts, has lately had a more unmerciful load of commentaries laid upon his spirit; wherein the editor has achieved more than Virgil himself, when he turned critic, could boast of, which was only, that he had picked gold out of another man's dung; whereas the editor has picked it out of his own. SCRIBL.

Aristarchus thinks the common reading right: and that the author himself had been struggling, and but just shaken off his load, when he wrote the following epigram:

My lord complains, that Pope, stark mad with gar. dens,

Has lopt three trees the value of three farthings:
But he's my neighbour, cries the peer polite,
And if he'll visit me, I'll wave my right.
What! on compulsion? and against my will,
A lord's acquaintance? Let him file his bill.
Ver. 137, 138.

Dunce scorning dunce beholds the next advance,
But fop shows fop superior complaisance.]

This is not to be ascribed so much to the different manners of a court and college, as to the different