Some strain in rhyme: the Muses, on their racks, Scream like the winding of ten thousand jacks: 160 Some free from rhyme or reason, rule or check, Break Priscian's head, and Pegasus's neck; Down, down they larum, with impetuous whirl, The Pindars and the Miltons of a Curll. 'Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls, And makes night hideous - Answer him, ye owls! 'Sense, speech, and measure, living tongues and dead, Let all give way - and Morris may be read. Flow, Welsted, flow! like thine inspirer, beer, Tho' stale, not ripe, tho' thin, yet never clear; 170 So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull; Heady, not strong; o'erflowing, tho' not full. Ah, Dennis! Gildon, ah! what ill-starr'd Reduced at last to hiss in my own dragon. Avert it, Heav'n! that thou, my Cibber, e'er Shouldst wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield fair! Like the vile straw that 's blown about the streets, 290 The needy poet sticks to all he meets, Coach'd, carted, trod upon, now loose, now fast, And carried off in some dog's tail at last. And ev'ry year be duller than the last; bend, Hell thou shalt move; for Faustus is our friend: Pluto with Cato thou for this shalt join, And link the Mourning Bride to Proserpine, 310 Grub-street! thy fall should men and Gods conspire, Thy stage shall stand, insure it but from fire. Another Eschylus appears! prepare 'Now, Bavius, take the poppy from thy brow, And place it here! here, all ye heroes, bow! This, this is he foretold by ancient rhymes, Th' Augustus born to bring Saturnian times. 320 Signs foll'wing signs lead on the mighty year! See the dull stars roll round and reappear! See, see, our own true Phoebus wears the bays! Our Midas sits Lord Chancellor of plays! On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ! Lo! Ambrose Philips is preferr'd for wit! See under Ripley rise a new Whitehall, While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall; While Wren with sorrow to the grave descends, Gay dies unpension'd with a hundred friends, 330 The poet being, in this book, to declare the Completion of the Prophecies mentioned at the end of the former, makes a new Invocation; as the greater poets are wont, when some high and worthy matter is to be sung. He shows the Goddess coming in her majesty to destroy Order and Science, and to substitute the Kingdom of the Dull upon earth: how she leads captive the Sciences, and silences the Muses; and what they be who succeed in their stead. All her children, by a wonderful attraction, are drawn about her; and bear along with them divers others, who promote her empire by connivance, weak resistance, or discouragement of Arts; such as Half-wits, tasteless Admirers, vain Pretenders, the Flatterers of Dunces, or the Patrons of them. All these crowd round her; one of them offering to approach her, is driven back by a rival, but she commends and encourages both. The first who speak in form are the Geniuses of the Schools, who assure her of their care to advance her cause by confining youth to words, and keeping them out of the way of real knowledge. Their address, and her gracious answer; with her charge to them and the Universities. 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 quality of Want of Shame. She sees loitering about 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 fantastically adorned, offering her strange and exotic Presents: among them, one stands forth, and demands justice on another who had deprived him of one of the greatest curiosities in Nature; but he justifies himself so well, that the Goddess gives them both her approbation. She recommends to them to find proper employment for the Indolents before mentioned, in the study of Butterflies, Shells, Birds-nests, Moss, &c., but with particular caution not to proceed beyond trifles, to any useful or extensive views of Nature, or of the Author of Nature. Against the last of these apprehensions, she is secured by a hearty address from the Minute Philosophers and Freethinkers,✔ one of whom speaks in the name of the rest. The Youth thus instructed and principled, are delivered to her in a body, by the hands of Silenus; and then admitted to taste the cup of the Magus, her high priest, which causes a total oblivion of all Obligations, di-r vine, civil, moral, or rational. To these her adepts she sends Priests, Attendants, and Comforters, of various kinds; confers on' them Orders and Degrees; and then dismissing them with a speech, confirming to each his privileges, and telling what she expects from each, concludes with a Yawn of extra-Y ordinary virtue: the Progress and Effects whereof on all orders of men, and the Consummation of all, in the restoration of Night and Chaos, conclude the Poem. |