163

Character of Mr. P. 1716.

Gildon, Preface to his New Rehearsal.

him in his friends. As his satires were the more just | The persons whom Boileau has attacked in his for being delayed, so were his panegyrics; bestowed 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 It is the common ery of the poetasters of the town, writers so notorious for the contrary practice, became 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

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 in-one. dulging 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, ob soletis nitorem, obscuris lucem fastiditis gratiam. I am your most humble servant, WILLIAM CLELAND.2

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.

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 Dennis's Remarks on Prince Arthur. 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; butare 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 arrive at a more certain judgment by a grave and in which they may be more successful. 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, sir 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.

2 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 ander 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 England; 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 ruptible (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 fearning, 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 wore a coat or a cassock. tion of his country.

164

Mr. Leonard Welsted;

We proposed to begin with his life, parentage, and education: but as to these, even his contemporaries I dare not say any thing on the Essay on Criticism Mr. Oldmixon. 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 by his father on purpose; a second, that he was an modest and simple-minded He is followed (as in fame, so in judgment) by the itinerant priest; a third, that he was a parson; one calleth him a secular clergyman of the church of Rome; another, a monk. As little do they agree who, out of great respect to our poet, not naming about his father, whom one supposeth, like the father of Hesiod, a tradesman or merchant; another, a duke of Buckingham's, and the criticisms of Dryden him, doth yet glance at his Essay, together with the husbandman; another,12 a hatter, &c. Nor has an author been wanting to give our poet such a father as and of Horace, which he more openly taxeth:2 As Apuleius hath to Plato, Jamblichus to Pythagoras, to the numerous treatises, essays, arts, &c., both in and divers to Homer, viz. a demon: for thus Mr. Verse and prose, that have been written by the moGildon:-13 derns on this ground-work, they do but hackney the Certain it is, that his original is not from Adam, same thoughts over again, making them still more but the devil; and that he wanteth nothing but horns trite. Most of their pieces are nothing but a pert, inand tail to be the exact resemblance of his infernal sipid heap of common-place. Horace has, even in father.' Finding, therefore, such contrariety of opinhis Art of Poetry, thrown out several things which 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.' defer writing the life of our poet, till authors can determine 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.

To all which great authorities, we can only oppose that of

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 as the reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that ease and perspicuity in which they

are delivered. As for those which are the most

'His precepts are false or trivial, or both; his thoughts are crude and abortive, his expressions absurd, his numbers harsh and unmusical, his rhymes trivial and common;—instead of majesty, we have known and the most received, they are placed in so something that is very mean; instead of gravity, beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allu

something that is very boyish; and instead of perspisions, that they have in them all the graces of novelcuity and lucid order, we have but too often obscurity ty; and make the reader, who was before acquainted and confusion.' And in another place- What rare with them, still more convinced of their truth and numbers are here!. Would not one swear that this solidity. And here give me leave to mention what youngster had espoused some antiquated muse, who Monsieur Boileau has so well enlarged upon in the had sued out a divorce from some superannuated sin- preface to his works: that wit and fine writing doth ner, upon account of impotence, and who, being not consist so much in advancing things that are new poxed by the former spouse, has got the gout in her as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn. 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, No less peremptory is the censure of our hyper- or any art or science, which have not been touched

critical historian

9 Characters of the Times, p. 10 Female Dunciad, p. ult. 11 Dunciad Dissected. 12 Roome, Paraphrase on the 4th of Genesis, printed 1729.

upon by others; we have little else left us, but to re-
present 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
with in Aristotle, and which were not commonly
known by all the poets of the Augustan age. His
tion of them, is what we are chiefly to admire.
way of expressing, and applying them, not his inven-

'Longinus, in his Reflections, has given us the same

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.

14 Reflections critical and satirical on a rhapsody, call-author of the Critical History of England. 1 Essay on Criticism in prose, octavo, 1728, by the ed, an Essay on Criticism, printed for Bernard Lintot, 8vo. 2 Preface to his Poems, p. 18, 53.

very precepts themselves.' He then produces some should most admire the justness to the original, or instances of a particular beauty in the numbers, and the force and beauty of the language, or the sounding concludes with saying, that 'there are three poems in variety of the numbers: but when I find all these our tongue of the same nature, and each a master- meet, it puts me in mind of what the poet says of piece in its kind! the Essay on Translated Verse; the one of his heroes, 'That he alone raised and flung Essay on the Art of Poetry; and the Essay on Criti-with ease a weighty stone, that two common men cism.' could not lift from the ground; just so, one single Of Windsor Forest, positive is the judgment of the person has performed in this translation, what I once affirmative. despaired to have seen done by the force of several masterly hands.' Indeed the same gentleman appears

Mr. John Dennis,

That it is a wretched rhapsody, impudently writ in to have changed his sentiment in his Essay on the Art emulation of the Cooper's Hill of sir John Denham: of Sinking in Reputation, (printed in Mist's Journal, the author of it is obscure, is ambiguous, is affected, is temerarious, is barbarous !?

But the author of the Dispensary,

Dr. Garth,

in the preface to his poem of Claremont, differs from this opinion: Those who have seen these two excellent poems of Cooper's Hill, and Windsor Forest, the one written by sir John Denham, the other by Mr. Pope, will show a great deal of candour if they approve of this.'

March 30, 1728,) where, he says thus: "In order to sink in reputation, let him take it into his head to descend into Homer (let the world wonder, as it will, how the devil he got there,) and pretend to do him into English, so his version denote his neglect of the manner how.' Strange variation! We are told in

Mist's Journal, (June 8,) ́

That this translation of the Iliad was not in all tespects conformable to the fine taste of his friend Mr. Addison; insomuch that he employed a younger muse Of the Epistle of Eloïsa, we are told by the obscure in an undertaking of this kind, which he supervised writer of a poem called Sawney, That because himself.' Whether Mr. Addison did find it conformPrior's Henry and Emma charmed the finest tastes, able to his taste, or not, best appears from his own our author writ his Eloïsa in opposition to it; but for- testimony the year following its publication, in these got innocence and virtue. If you take away her ten-words: der thoughts, and her fierce desires, all the rest is of no value.' In which, methinks, his judgment resembleth that of a French tailor on a villa and garden by the Thames: All this is very fine; but take away the river, and it is good for nothing.'

But very contrary hereunto was the opinion of

Mr. Prior,

himself, saying in his Alma.4,

'O Abelard! ill-fated youth,
Thy tale will justify this truth:
But well I weet, thy cruel wrong
Adorns a nobler poet's song:
Dan Pope, for thy misfortune grieved,
With kind concern and skill has weaved
A silken web; and ne'er shall fade

Its colours; gently has he laid.

The mantle o'er thy sad distress,

And Venus shall the texture bless,' &c.

Mr. Addison's Freeholder, No. 40.

'When I consider myself a British freeholder, I am in a particular manner pleased with the labours of those who have improved our language with the translations of old Greek and Latin authors.We have already most of their historians in our own tongue, and, what is more for the honour of our language, it has been taught to express with elegance the greatest of their poets in each nation. The illiterate among our own countrymen may learn to judge from Dryden's Virgil, of the most perfect epic performance. And those parts of Homer which have been published already by Mr. Pope, gives us reason to think that the Iliad will appear in English with as little disadvantage to that immortal poem.'

As to the rest, there is a slight mistake; for this younger muse was an elder; nor was the gentleman (who is a friend of our author) employed by Mr. Addison to translate it after him, since he saith himself Come we now to his translation of the Iliad, cele- that he did it before. Contrariwise, that Mr. Adbrated by numerous pens; yet shall it suffice to men-dison engaged our author in this work appeareth by tion the indefatigable

Sir Richard Blackmore, Knt.

who (though otherwise, a severe censurer of our author) yet styleth this a ‘laudable translation.'s That ready writer

Mr. Oldmixon,

declaration thereof in the preface to the Iliad, printed some time before his death, and by his own letters of October 26, and November 2, 1713, where he declares is his opinion that no other person was equal to it. Next comes his Shakspeare on the stage: 'Let him (quoth one, whom I take to be

it

Mr. Theobald, Mist's Journal, June 8, 1728,)

in his forementioned Essay, frequently commends the publish such an author as he has least studied, and same. And the painful

forget to discharge even the dull duty of an editor. In this project let him lend the bookseller his name (for a competent sum of money) to promote the credit of an exorbitant subscription.' Gentle reader, be pleased to cast thine eye on the proposal below quoted, and on what follows (some months after the former assertion) in the same Journalist of June 8: 'The book

1 Vid. Pref. to Mr. Tickell's translation of the first book of the Iliad, 4to.

seller proposed the book by subscription, and raised | hand to Mr. Addison himself, and never made public, some thousands of pounds for the same: I believe till after their own Journals, and Curll had printed the gentleman did not share in the profits of this ex- the same. One name alone, which I am here autravagant subscription.'

'After the Iliad, he undertook (saith

Mist's Journal, June 8, 1728,)

thorized to declare, will sufficiently evince this truth, that of the right honourable the earl of Burlington. Next is he taxed with a crime (in the opinion of some authors, I doubt, more heinous than any in mo

the sequel of that work, the Odyssey; and having se-rality,) to wit, plagiarism, from the inventive and cured the success by a numerous subscription, he em- quaint-conceited ployed some underlings to perform what, according to his proposals, should come from his own hands.' To which heavy charge we can in truth oppose nothing but the words of

James Moore Smith, Gent.

Upon reading the third volume of Pope's Miscel lanies, I found five lines which I thought excellent; and happening to praise them, a gentleman produced Mr. Pope's Proposal for the Odyssey, (printed by J. a modern comedy (the Rival Modes) published last Watts, Jan. 10, 1724 :) year, where were the same verses to a tittle. I take this occasion to declare that the subscrip- 'These gentlemen are undoubtedly the first plagiation for Shakspeare belongs wholly to Mr. Tonson: ries, that pretend to make a reputation by stealing and that the benefit of this proposal is not solely for from a man's works in his own life-time, and out of a my own use, but for that of two of my friends, who publie print." Let us join to this what is written by have assisted me in this work.' But these very gen- the author of the Rival Modes, the said Mr. James tlemen are extolled above our poet himself in another Moore Smith, in a letter to our author himself, who of Mist's Journals, March 30, 1728, saying, 'That he had informed him a month before that play was would not advise Mr. Pope to try the experiment acted, Jan. 27, 1726-7, that, 'These verses, which he again of getting a great part of a book done by as- had before given him leave to insert in it, would be sistants, lest those extraneous parts should unhappily known for his, some copies being got abroad. He ascend to the sublime, and retard the declension of desires, nevertheless, that since the lines had been the whole. Behold! these underlings are become read in his comedy to several, Mr. P. would not degood writers! prive it of them,' &c. Surely, if we add the testimo

If any say, that before the said Proposals were nies of the lord Bolingbroke, of the lady to whom printed, the subscription was begun without declara- the said verses were originally addressed, of Hugh tion of such assistance; verily those who set it on Bethel, esq. and others, who knew them as our aufoot, or (as the term is) secured it, to wit, the right thor's long before the said gentleman composed his honourable the lord viscount Harcourt, were he living, play, it is hoped, the ingenuous, that affect not error, would testify, and the right honourable the lord Ba- will rectify their opinion by the suffrage of so hothurst, now living, doth testify, the same is a falsehood. nourable personages.

Sorry I am, that persons professing to be learned, And yet followeth another charge, insinuating no or of whatever rank of authors, should either falsely less than his enmity both to church and state, which tax, or be falsely taxed. Yet let us, who are only re- could come from no other informer than the said porters, be impartial in our citations, and proceed.

Mist's Journal, June 8, 1728.

Mr. James Moore Smith.

"The Memoirs of a Parish Clerk was a very dull

'Mr. Addison raised this author from obscurity, ob- and unjust abuse of a person who wrote in defence tained him the acquaintance and friendship of the of our religion and constitution, and who has been whole body of our nobility, and transferred his pow-dead many years.'2 This seemeth also most untrue; erful interests with those great men to this rising it being known to divers that these memoirs were bard, who frequently levied by that means unusual written at the seat of the lord Harcourt, in Oxfordcontributions on the public. Which surely cannot shire, before that excellent person (bishop Burnet's) be, if, as the author of the Dunciad Dissected report- death, and many years before the appearance of that eth, Mr. Wycherley had before 'introduced him into history, of which they are pretended to be an abuse. a familiar acquaintance with the greatest peers and Most true it is, that Mr. Moore had such a design, brightest wits then living. and was himself the man who pressed Dr. Arbuthnot

'No sooner (saith the same journalist) was his body and Mr. Pope to assist him therein; and that he borlifeless, but this author, reviving his resentment, libel-rowed those memoirs of our author, when that history led the memory of his departed friend; and what was came forth, with intent to turn them to such abuse. still more heinous, made the scandal public.' Griev-But being able to obtain from our author but one sinous the accusation! unknown the accuser! the per-gle hint, and either changing his mind, or having more son accused no witness in his own cause; the person, mind than ability, he contented himself to keep the in whose regard accused, dead! But if there be liv- said memoirs, and read them as his own to all his acing any one nobleman whose friendship, yea any one quaintance. A noble person there is, into whose gentleman whose subscription Mr. Addison procured company Mr. Pope once chanced to introduce him, to our author, let him stand forth, that truth may ap- who well remembereth the conversation of Mr. pear! Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis Moore to have turned upon the 'contempt he had for amica veritas. In verity, the whole story of the libel the work of that reverend prelate, and how full he is a lie; witness those persons of integrity, who se- was of a design he declared himself to have, of exveral years before Mr. Addison's decease, did see and approve of the said verses, in no wise a libel, but a friendly rebuke sent privately in our author's ownl

1 Daily Journal, March 18, 1728. ·

2 Daily Journal, April 3, 1723.

posing it.' This noble person is the earl of Petérborough.

'Now fired by Pope and virtue, leave the age
In low pursuit of self-undoing wrong,
And trace the author through his moral page,
Whose blameless life still answers to his song
Mr. Thomson,

Here in truth should we crave pardon of all the foresaid right honourable and worthy personages, for having mentioned them in the same page with such weekly riff-raff railers and rhymers; but that we had their ever-honoured commands for the same; and in his elegant and philosophical poem the Seasons: that they are introduced not as witnesses in the controversy, but as witnesses that cannot be controverted; not to disputé, but to decide.

Certain it is, that dividing our writers into two classes, of such who were acquaintance, and of such who were strangers to our author; the former are those who speak well, and the other those who speak evil of him. Of the first class, the most noble

John Duke of Buckingham sums up his character in these lines:

And yet so wondrous, so sublime a thing,
As the great Iliad, scarce could make me sing,
Unless I justly could at once commend
A good companion, and as firm a friend;
One moral, or a mere well-natured deed,
Can all desert in sciences exceed."

So also is he deciphered by

The Hon. Simon Harcourt.

Say, wondrous youth, what column wilt thou choose,
What laurell'd arch, for thy triumphant muse?
Though each great ancient court thee to his shrine,
Though every laurel through the dome be thine,
Go to the good and just, an awful train!
Thy soul's delight.2

Recorded in like manner for his virtuous tion, and gentle bearing, by the ingenious

Mr. Walter Hart,

in this apostrophe:

'Although not sweeter his own Homer sings,
Yet is his life the more endearing song.'

To the same tune also singeth that learned clerk, of
Suffolk,

Mr. William Broome:

'Thus, nobly rising in fair virtue's cause,
From thy own life transcribe the unerring laws."
And, to close all, hear the reverend dean of St.
Patrick's:

'A soul with every virtue fraught,

By patriots, priests, and poets taught:
Whose filial piety excels

Whatever Grecian story tells.

A genius for each business fit;

Whose meanest talent is his wit,' &c.

Let us now recreate thee by turning to the other side, and showing his character drawn by those with whom he never conversed, and whose countenances he could not know, though turned against him: First again commencing with the high-voiced and neverenough quoted

Mr. John Dennis,

who, in his Reflections on the Essay on Criticism, thus describeth him: 'A little affected hypocrite, who has nothing in his mouth but candour, truth, frienddisposi-ship, good-nature, humanity, and magnanimity. He is so great a lover of falsehood, that whenever he has a mind to calumniate his contemporaries, he brands them with some defect which was just contrary to some good quality for which all their friends and acquaintance commend them. He seems to have a particular pique to people of quality, and authors of that rank.-He must derive his religion from St. Omer's.-But in the character of Mr. P. and his writings (printed by S. Popping, 1716) he saith, "Though he is a professor of the worst religion, yet he laughs at it;" but that 'nevertheless he is a virulent papist; and yet a pillar of the church of England.'

'Oh! ever worthy, ever crown'd with praise!
Bless'd in thy life, and bless'd in all thy lays,
Add, that the Sisters every thought refine,
And e'en thy life be faultless as thy line,
Yet envy still with fiercer rage pursues,
Obscures the yirtue, and defames the muse.
A soul like thine, in pain, in grief, resign'd,
Views with just scorn the malice of mankind."
The witty and moral satirist,

Dr. Edward Young,

wishing some check to the corruption and evil man

Of both which opinions

Mr. Lewis Theobald

ners of the times, calleth out upon our poet to under-seems also to be; declaring in Mist's Journal of June take a task so worthy of his virtue :

'Why slumbers Pope, who leads the Muses' train, Nor hears that virtue, which he loves, complain ?'4

Mr. Mallet,

in his epistle on Verbal Criticism:

'Whose life, severely scann'd, transcenas his lays; For wit supreme, is but his second praise.'

Mr. Hammond,

22, 1718, 'That if he is not shrewdly abused, he made it his practice to cackle to both parties in their own sentiments.' But as to his pique against people of quality, the same journalist doth not agree, but saith (May 8, 1728,) He had by some means or other, the acquaintance and friendship of the whole body of our nobility.'

However contradictory this may appear, Mr. Dennis and Gildon, in the character last cited, make it all plain, by assuring us, "That he is a creature that

that delicate and correct imitator of Tibullus, in his reconciles all contradictions: he is a beast, and a Love Elegies, Elegy xiv.

1 Verses to Mr. P. on his translation of Homer,

2 Poem prefixed to his works.

3 In his poems, printed for B. Lintot.

4 Universal Passion, sat. 1.

man; a Whig and a Tory; a writer (at one and the
same time) of Guardians and Examiners;2 an asser-
tor of liberty, and of the dispensing power of kings; a

'I' In his poems at the end of the Odyssey.
2 The names of two weekly papers.