It is like introducing a crucifix into one of Teniers's burlesque converfation-pieces. Some of his moft fplendid and ftriking lines are indeed here to be found; but I must beg leave to infift, that they want propriety and decorum, and must wish they had adorned some separate work against irreligion, which would have been worthy the pen of our bitter and immortal fatirist.

But neither was this the only alteration the Dunciad was deftined to undergo. For in the year 1743, our Author enraged with Cibber (whom he had ufually treated with contempt ever fince the affair of Three Hours after Marriage) for publishing a ridiculous pamphlet against him, dethroned Tibbald, and made the laureate the hero of his poem. Cibber, with a great stock of levity, vanity, and affectation, had sense, and wit, and humour: And the author of the Careless Hufband, was by no means a proper king of the dunces." His treatise on the stage, (fays Mr. Walpole), is inimitable: where an author writes on his own profeffion, feels it profoundly, and is fenfible his readers do not, he is not only excufable, but meritorious, for illuminating the fubject by new metaphors, on bolder figures than ordinary. He is the coxcomb that fncers, not he that inftructs by appropriated diction." The confequence of this alteration was, that many lines, which exactly fuited the heavy character of Tibbald, loft all their grace and propriety when applied to Cibber. Such as,

Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound!

Such alfo is the defcription of his gothic library, for Cibber troubled not himself with Caxton, Wynkyn, and De Lyra. Tibbald, who was an antiquarian, had collected thofe curious old writers: And to flumber in the Goddefs's lap was adapted to his ftupidity, not to the vivacity of his fucceffor.

On the whole, the chief fault of the Dunciad, is the violence and vehemence of its satire, and the exceffive height to which it is carried; and which therefore I may compare to that marvellous column of boiling water, near Mount Hecla in Iceland, thrown upwards, above ninety feet, by the force of a fubterraneous fire. What are the impreffions left upon the mind after a perufal of this poem? Contempt, averfion, vexation, and anger. No fentiments that enlarge, ennoble, move, or mend the heart! Infomuch that I know a perfon, whose name would be an ornament to these papers, if I was fuffered to infert it, who, after reading a book of the Dunciad, always fooths himself, as he calls it, by turning to a canto in the Fairy Queen. This is not the cafe in that very delightful and beautiful poem, Mac Flecnoe, from which Pope

VOL. V.

has

has borrowed fo many hints, and images, and ideas. But Dry. den's poem was the offspring of contempt, and Pope's of indignation: one is full of mirth, and the other of malignity. A vein of pleasantry is uniformly preserved through the whole of Mac Flecnoe, and the piece begins and ends in the fame key. It is natural and obvious to borrow a metaphor from mufic, when we are speaking of a poem whofe verfification is particularly and exquifitely fweet and harmonious. The numbers of the Dunciad, by being much laboured, and encumbered with epithets, have fomething in them of stiffness and harfhnefs. Since the total decay of learning and genius was foretold in the Dunciad, how many very excellent pieces of Criticism, Poetry, History, Philosophy, and Divinity, have appeared in this country, and to what a degree of perfection has almost every art, either useful or elegant, been carried!

THE

DUNCIA D.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

ARGUMENT.

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 fome high and worthy matter is to be fung. He fhews the Goddess coming in her Majesty, to destroy Order and Science, and to fubftitute the Kingdom of the Dull upon earth. How fhe leads captive the Sciences, and filenceth the Muses; and what they be who fucceed in their flead. 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 refiftance, or difcouragement of Arts; fuch as Half-wits, tafteless Admirers, vain Pretenders, the Flatterers of Dunces, or the Patrons of them. All these crowd around her; one of them offering to approach her, is driven back by a Rival, but fhe commends and encourages both. The first who speak in form are the Genius's of the Schools, who affure her of their care to advance her Caufe by confining Youth to Words, and keeping them out of the way of real Knowledge. Their Address, and her gracious Anfwer; with her Charge to them and the Univerfities. The Universities appear by their proper Deputies, and affure her that the fame method is obferved in the progress of Education. The Speech of Ariftarchus on this fubject. They are driven off by a band of young Gentlemen returned from Travel with their Tutors; one of whom delivers to the Goddess,

22

Goddefs, in a polite oration, an account of the whole Conduct and Fruits of their Travels; prefenting to her at the fame time a young nobleman perfectly accomplished. She receives him graciously, and indues him with the happy quality of Want of Shame. She fees loitering about her a number of Indolent Persons abandoning all business and duty, and dying with laziness: To these approaches the Antiquary Annius, intreating her to make them Virtuofos, and affign 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 adorn'd, offering her frange and exotic prefents: Amongst them, one flands forth and demands juftice on another, who had deprived him of one of the greatest Curiofities in nature; but he justifies himself fo well, that the Goddess gives them both her approbation. She recommends to them to find proper employment for the Indolents before-mentioned, in the fludy of Butterflies, Shells, Birds-nefts, Mofs, &c. but with particular caution, not to proceed beyond Trifles, to any useful or extensive views of Nature, or of the Author of Nature. Againft the last of thefe apprehenfions, she is fecured by a hearty Addrefs from the Minute Philofophers and Free-thinkers, one of whom speaks in the name of the reft. The Youth thus inftructed and principled, are delivered to her in a body, by the hands of Silenus ; and then admitted to tafle the Cup of the Magus her High Prieft, which causes a total oblivion of all Obligations, divine, civil, moral, or rational. To thefe her Adepts fhe fends Priefts, Attendants, and Comforters, of various kinds; confers on them Orders and Degrees; and then difmissing them with a speech, confirming to each his Privileges, and telling what she expects from each, concludes with a Yawn of extraordinary virtue; The Progrefs and Effects whereof on all Orders of men, and the Confummation of all, in the Refloration of Night and Chaos, conclude the Poem.

BOOK IV.

ET, yet a moment, one dim Ray of Light

YET

Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night!

Of darkness visible so much be lent,

As half to fhew, half veil the deep Intent.

REMARKS.

Ye

The DUNCIAD, Book IV.] This Book may properly be dif tinguished from the former, by the name of the GREATER DUNCIAD, not fo indeed in fize, but in subject; and so far, contrary to the distinction anciently made of the Greater and Leffer Iliad. But much are they miftaken who imagine this Work to be in any wife inferior to the former, or of any other hand than of our Poet; of 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. P.

VER. 1, &c. This is an Invocation of much Piety. The Poet willing to approve himself a genuine Son, beginneth by fhewing (what is ever agreeable to Dulness) his high refpect for Antiquity and a Great Family, how dead or dark foever: Next declareth his paffion for explaining Myfteries; and laftly, his Impatience to be re-united to her. SCRIBL. P. *

It was thought improper to omit the many notes in this fourth book, marked P. * because they were the joint work of Pope and Warburton; and nothing of Mr. Pope's ought to be loft. The first fixteen lines are particularly elevated and ftrong. And yet the expreffion in the third line, "fo much be lent," is fomewhat harfh and forced.

VER. 2. dread Chaos, and eternal Night!] Invoked, as the Restoration of their Empire is the Action of the Poem. P. * VER. 4. half to fhew, half veil the deep Intent.] This is a great propriety, for a dull Poet can never express himself otherwise than by halves, or imperfectly. SCRIBL. P. *

I understand it very differently; the Author in this work had indeed a deeb Intent; there were in it Myfteries, or angla,