Of darkness visible so much be lent,
As half to show, half veil the deep intent.
Ye powers! whose mysteries restor'd I sing,
To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing,
Suspend a while your force inertly strong,
Then take at once the poet and the song.

10

Now flam'd the dog-star's unpropitious ray, Smote every brain, and wither'd every bay; Sick was the Sun, the owl forsook his bower, The moon-struck prophet felt the madding hour: Then rose the seed of Chaos and of Night, To blot out order, and extinguish light, Of dull and venal a new world to mold, And bring Saturnian days of lead and gold.

She mounts the throne: her head a cloud con

In broad effulgence all below reveal'd,
('Tis thus aspiring Dulness ever shines)
Soft on her lap her laureate son reclines.

REMARKS.

[ceal'd,

20

Beneath her foot-stool, Science groans in chains,
And wit dreads exile, penalties, and pains.
There foam'd rebellious Logic, gagg'd and bound;
There, stript, fair Rhetoric languish'd on the ground;
His blunted arms by Sophistry are borne,

And shameless Billingsgate her robes adorn.
Morality, by her false guardians drawn,
Chicane in furs, and Casuistry in lawn,
Gasps, as they straiten at each end the cord,
And dies, when Dulness gives her Page the word. 50
Mad Mathesis alone was unconfin'd,

Too mad for mere material chains to bind,
Now to pure space lifts her extatic stare,
Now running round the circle, finds it square.

REMARKS.

verified his prophecy (p. 243. of his own Life, Svo. ch. ix.) where he says, "the reader will be as much pleased to find me a dunce in my old age, as he was to prove me a brisk blockhead in my youth." Wherever there was any room for briskness, or alacrity of any sort, even in sink

Ver. i, &c.] This is an invocation of much piety. The poet, willing to approve himself a genuine son, beginneth by showing (what is ever agreeable to Dulness) his high respect for antiquity and a great family, how dead or dark soever: next declareth his passion for explaining mysteries; and lastly his impatience to be reunited to her.—Scribl.

there is nothing for him to do but to take his natural rest, he must permit his historian to be silent. It is from their actions only that princes have their character, and poets from their works: and if in those he be as much asleep as any fool, the poet must leave him and them to sleep to all eternity.-Bentl.

Ver. 14. To blot out order, and extinguish light,] The two great ends of her mission; the one in quality of daughter of Chaos, the other as daughter of Night. Order here is to be understood extensively, both as civil and moral; the distinction between high and low in society, and true and false in individuals: light as intellectual only, wit, science, arts.

Ver. 15. Of dull and venal] The allegory continued; dull referring to the extinction of light or science; venal to the destruction of order, and the truth of things.

Ibid. A new world] In allusion to the Epicurean opinion, that from the dissolution of the natural world into Night and Chaos, a new one should arise; this the poet alluding to, in the production of a new moral world, makes it partake of its original principles.

Ver. 16. Lead and gold.] i. e. dull and venal. Ver. 20. her laureate son reclines.] With great judgment it is imagined by the poet, that such a colleague as Dulness had elected, should sleep on the throne, and have very little share in the action of the poem. Accordingly he hath done little or nothing from the day of his anointing; having past through the second book without taking part in any thing that was transacted about him; and through the third in profound sleep. Nor ought this, well considered, to seem strange in our days, when so many king-consorts bave done the like.-Scribl.

This verse our excellent laureate took so to

heart, that he appealed to all mankind. "if he was not as seldom asleep as any fool!" But it is hoped the poet hath not injured him, but rather

self. For he considers that my face is more known than most in the nation; and therefore a lick at the laureate will be a sure bait ad captandum vulgus, to catch little readers."-Life of Colley Cibber, ch. ii.

Now if it be certain, that the works of our poet have owed their success to this ingenious expedient, we hence derive an unanswerable argument, that this fourth Dunciad, as well as the former three, hath had the author's fast hand, and was by him intended for the press: or else to what purpose hath he crowned it, as we see, by this finishing stroke, the profitable lick at the laureate ?-Bentl.

Vcr. 21, 22. Beneath her foot-stool, &c.] We are next presented with the pictures of those whor the goddess leads in captivity. Science is only depressed and confined so as to be rendered useless; but wit or genius, as a more dangerous and active enemy, punished, or driven away: Dulness being often reconciled in some degree with learning, but never upon any terms with wit. And accordingly it will be seen that she admits something like each science, as casuistry, sophistry, &c. but nothing like wit, opera alone supplying its place.

Ver. 30. gives her Page the word.] There was a judge of this name, always ready to hang any man that came before him, of which he was suffered to give a hundred miserable examples, during a long life, even to his dotage.-Though the candid Scriblerus imagined page here to mean no more than a page or mute, and to allude to the custom of strangling state criminals in Turkey by mutes or pages. A practice more decent than that of our Page, who, before he hanged any one, loaded him with reproachful language, Scribl.

40

But held in tenfold bonds the Muses lie,
Watch'd both by Envy's and by Flattery's eye,
There to her heart sad Tragedy addrest
The dagger wont to pierce the tyrant's breast;
But sober History restrain'd her rage,
And promis'd vengeance on a barbarous age.
There sunk Thalia, nerveless, cold, and dead,
Had not her sister Satire held her head :
Nor could'st thou, Chesterfield! a tear refuse,
Thou wep'st, and with thee wept each gentle Muse.
When lo! a harlot form soft sliding by,
With mincing step, small voice, and languid eye:

REMARKS.

Ver. 39. But sober History] History attends on tragedy, satire on comedy, as their substitutes in the discharge of their distinct functions; the one in high life, recording the crimes and punishments of the great; the other in low, exposing the vices or follies of the common people. But it may be asked, How came history and satire to be admitted with impunity to minister comfort to the Muses, even in the presence of the goddess, and in the midst of all her triumphs? "A question," says Scriblerus, "which we thms resolve: History was brought up in her infancy by Dulness herself; but being afterwards espoused into a noble house, she forgot (as is usual) the humility of her birth, and the cares of her early friends. This occasioned a long estrangement between her and Dulness. At length, in process of time, they met together in a monk's cell, were reconciled, and became better friends than ever. After this they had a second quarrel, but it held not long, and are now again on reasonable terms, and so are likely to continue." This accounts for the connivance shown to history on this occasion, But the boldness of satire springs from a very different cause; for the reader ought to know, that she alone of all the sisters is unconquerable never to be silenced, when truly inspired and animated (as should seein) from above, for this very purpose, to oppose the kingdom of Dulness to her last breath.

"with a

Ver. 43. Nor could'st thou, &c.] This noble person in the year 1737, when the act aforesaid was brought into the house of lords, opposed it in an excellent speech (says Mr. Cibber) lively spirit, and uncommon eloquence." This speech had the honour to be answered by the said Mr. Cibber, with a lively spirit also, and in a manner very uncommon, in the cighth chapter of of his Life and Manners. And here, gentle reader, would I gladly insert the other speech, whereby thou mightest judge between them; but I must defer it on account of some differences not yet adjusted between the noble author, and myself, concerning the true reading of certain passages. Bentl.

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. 60 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 Briarcus, with a hundred hands; To stir, to rouze, to shake the soul he comes, And Jove's own thunders follow Mars's drums. Arrest him, empress, or you sleep no more—‹ She heard, and drove him to th' Hibernian shore. 70 And now had Fame's posterior trumpet blown, And all the nations suminon'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: 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.

80

The gathering 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;

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.

The

Already Opera prepares the way,

The sure forerunner of her gentle sway.

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 talents, patronizing vile scribblers, discouraging living merit, or setting up for wits, and men of taste in arts they understand from ver. 91. to 101. not;

Whate'er of mungril 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 Phoebus, bow the knee to Baal;
Or impious, preach his word without a call,
Patrons, who sneak from living worth to dead,
With-hold 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 Muses' hypocrite.

100

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
But as in graceful act, with awful eye, [side;
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 ponderous volume off in state. [wits!
When Dulness smiling: :-" Thus revive the
But murder first, and mince them all to bits; 120
As erst Medea (cruel, so to save!)

A new edition of old son gave;

Ver. 114.

VARIATION.

"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. 130

So by each bard, an alderman shall sit,
A heavy lord shall hang at every wit,
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 top superior complaisance.

REMARKS.

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!

Ver. 128. 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 every wit.] How unnatural an image, and how ill-supported! saith Aristarchus. Had it been,

A heavy wit shall hang at every lord, something might have been said, in an age so dis

REMARKS.

Ver. 108-bow'd from side to side:] As being of

no one party.

then, read load; that is, of debts here, and of commentaries hereafter. To this purpose, conSpicuous is the case of the poor author of Hud:bras, 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

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.

Ver. 119. Thus revive, &c.] The goddess applands the practice of tacking the obscure nanics 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 mounments disgraced with their own vile names and inscriptions, as in the latter.

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 gardens,

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 complaisauce.] This is not to be ascribed so much to the different manners of a court and college, as to the different effects which a pretence to learning, and a pretence to wit, have on blockheads. For as judgment consists in finding out the differences in things, and wit in finding out their likenesses, so the dunce

140

When lo! a spectre rose, whose index-hand
Held forth by virtue of the dreadful wand;
His beaver'd brow a birchen garland wears,
Dropping with infant's blood, and mother's tears.
O'er every vein a shuddering horrour runs ;
Eaton and Winton shake through all their sons.
All flesh is humbled, Westminster's bold race
Shrink, and confess the Genius of the place:
The pale boy-senator yet tingling stands,
And holds his breeches close with both his hands.
Then thus, since man from beast by words is
known,

Words are man's province, words we teach alone.
When Reason doubtful, like the Samian letter, 151
Points him two ways, the narrower is the better.
Plac'd at the door of Learning, youth to guide,
We never suffer it to stand too wide.

To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence,
As fancy opens the quick springs of sense,
We ply the memory, we load the brain,
Bind rebel Wit, and double chain on chain,
Confine the thought, to exercise the breath;

And keep them in the pale of words till death. 160
Whate'er the talents, or howe'er design'd,
We hang one jingling padlock on the mind:
A poet the first day, he dips his quill;
And what the last? a very poet still.
Pity! the charm works only in our wall,
Lost, lost too soon in yonder house or hall.
There truant Windham every Muse gave o'er,
There Talbot sunk, and was a wit no more!
How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast!
How many Martials were in Pulteney lost!
Else sure some bard, to our eternal praise,
In twice ten thousand rhyming nights and days,
Had reach'd the work, the all that mortal can;
And South beheld that master-piece of man.
"Ob" (cry'd the goddess)" for some pedant reign!
Some gentle James, to bless the land again;
To stick the doctor's chair into the throne,
Give law to words, or war with words alone,

REMARKS.

170

is all discord and dissension, and constantly busied in reproving, examining, confuting, &c. while the fop flourishes in peace, with songs and hymns of praise, addresses, characters, epithalamiums,

&c.

Ver. 140. the dreadful wand;] A cane usually borne by schoolmasters, which drives the poor souls about like the wand of Mercury.-Scribl.

Ver. 151. like the Samian letter,j The letter Y used by Pythagoras as an emblem of the different roads of virtue and vice.

Et tibi quæ Samios diduxit litera ramos.-Pers. Ver. 174. that master-piece of man.] Viz. an epigram. The famous Dr. South declared a perfect epigram to be as difficult a performance as an

epic poem. And the critics say, "An epic poem is the greatest work human nature is capable

of."

O! if my sons may learn one earthly thing,
Teach but that one, sufficient for a king;
That which my priests, and mine alone, maintain,
Which, as it dies, or lives, we fall, or reign:
May you, my Cam, and Isis, preach it long,
"The right divine of kings to govern wrong."

Prompt at the call, around the goddess roll
Broad hats, and hoods, and caps, a sable shoal: 190
Thick and more thick the black blockade extends,
A hundred head of Aristotle's friends.
Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day,
[Though Christ-church long kept prudishly away.]
Each staunch polemic, stubborn as a rock,
Each fierce logician, still expelling Locke, [thick
Came whip and spur, and dash'd through thin and
On German Crouzaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck.

REMARKS.

This great prince was the first who assumed the title of Sacred Majesty, which his loyal clergy transferred from God to him. The principles of passive obedience and on resistance (says the author of the Dissertation on Parties, Letter 8), which before his time had skulked perhaps in some old homily, were talked, written, and preached into vogue in that inglorious reign."

Ver. 194. Though Christ-church, &c.] This line is doubtless spurious, and foisted in by the impertinence of the editor; and accordingly we have put it in between hooks. For I affirm this college came as early as any other, by its proper deputies; nor did any college pay homage to Dulness in its whole body.-Bentl.

Ver. 196. still expelling Locke,] In the year 1703 there was a meeting of the heads of the University of Oxford to censure Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, and to forbid the reading of it. See his Letters in the last Edit.

Ver. 198. On German Crouzaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck ] There seems to be an improbability that the doctors and heads of houses should ride on horseback, who of late days, being gouty or unwieldy, have kept their coaches. But these are horses of great strength, and fit to carry any weight, as their German and Dutch extraction may manifest; and very famous we may conclude, being honour'd with names, as were the horses Pegasus and Bucephalus-Scribl.

Though I have the greatest deference to the penetration of this eminent scholiast, and must own that nothing can be more natural than his interpretation, or juster than that rule of criticism, which directs us to keep to the literal sense, when no apparent absurdity accompanies it (and sure there is no absurdity in supposing a logician on horseback), yet still I must needs think the hackneys here celebrated were not real horses, nor even Centaurs, which, for the sake of the learned Chiron, I should rather be inclined to think. if t were forced to find them four legs, but downright plain men, though logicians: and only thus me tamorphosel by a rule of rhetoric, of which cardiClavius, "Un esprit pesant, lourd, sans subnal Perron gives us an example, where he calls tilits. ni gentillesse, un gros cheval d'Alie

magne."

200

As many quit the streams that murmuring fall
To lull the sons of Margaret and Clare-hall,
Where Bentley late tempestuous wont to sport
In troubled waters, but now sleeps in port.
Before them march'd that awful Aristarch;
Plow'd was his front with many a deep remark:
His bat, which never vail'd to human pride,
Walker with reverence took, and laid aside.
Low bow'd the rest: he, kingly, did but nod:
So upright quakers please both man and God.
"Mistress! dismiss that rabble from your throne:
Avaunt-
is Aristarchus yet unknown! 210
The mighty scholiast, whose unweary'd pains
Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton's strains.
Turn what they will to verse, their toil is vain,
Critics like me shall make it prose again.
Roman and Greek graminarians! know your better:
Author of something yet more great than letter;

REMARKS.

Here I profess to go opposite to the whole stream of commentators. I think the poet only aimed, though awkwardly, at an elegant Græcism in this representation; for in that language the word

Os horse] was often prefixed to others, to denote greatness of strength; as izzóházatov, ἵππόγλωσσον ἱππεομάραθρον and particularly ΙπποFNOMON, a great connoisseur, which comes nearest to the case in hand.-Scip. Maff.

Ver. 199. the streams] The river Cam, running by the walls of these colleges, which are particularly famous for their skill in disputation.

single letters. But Aristarchus, who had found out a double one, was therefore worthy of double honour.-Scribl.

Ver. 217, 218. While towering o'er your alphabet, like Saul,-Stands our digamma,] Álludes to the boasted restoration of the Eolic digamma, in his long projected edition of Homer. He calls it something more than letter, from the enormous figure it would make among the other letters, being one gamma set upon the shoulders of another.

Ver. 220. of Me or Te,] It was a serious dispute, about which the learned were much divided, and some treatises written: had it been about meum and tuum it could not be more contested, than whether at the end of the first Ode of Horace, to read, Me doctarum hederæ præmia frontium, or, Te doctarum hederæ.-By this the learned

to

Ver. 210. Aristarchus.] A famous commentator and corrector of Homer, whose name has been frequently used to signify a complete critic. The compliment paid by our author to this eminent professor, in applying to him so great a name, was the reason that he hath omitted to comment

on this part which contains his own praises. We shall therefore supply that loss to our best ability.--Scribl.

Ver. 214. Critics like me-] Alluding to two famous editions of Horace and Milton; whose richest veins of poetry he had prodigally reduced to the poorest and most beggarly prose.-Verily the learned scholiast is grievously mistaken. Aristarchus is not boasting here of the wonders of his art in annihilating the sublime; but of the usefulness of it, in reducing the turgid to its proper class; the words "make it prose again," plainly showing that prose it was, though ashamed of its original, and therefore to prose it should return. Indeed, much it is to be lamented that Dulness doth not confine her critics to this useful task; and commission them to dismount what Aristophanes calls Ρημαδ' ἱπποβάμονα, all prose on horse-back.-Scribl.

Ver. 216. Author of something yet more great than letter;] Alluding to those grammarians, such as Palamedes and Simonides, who invented

was not about meum and tuum, which is a mistake: for, as a venerable sage observeth, words are the counters of wisemen, but the money of fools; so that we see their property was indeed concerned.-Scribl.

Ver. 222. Or give up Cicero to C or K.] Grammatical disputes about the manner of pronouncing Cicero's name in Greek. It is a dispute whether in Latin the name of Hermagoras should end in as or a. Quintilian quotes Cicero as writing it Hermagora, which Bently rejects, and says Quintilian must be mistaken, Cicero could not write it so, and that in this case he would not believe Cicero himself. These are his very words: Ego vero Ciceronem ita scripsisse ne Ciceroni quidem affirmanti crediderim.-Epist. ad Mill. in fin. Frag. Menand. et Phil.

* Ver. 223, 224. Freind-Alsop] Dr. Robert Freind, master of Westminster-school, and canon of Christ-church, Dr. Anthony Alsop, a happy imitator of the Horatian style.

Ver. 226. Manilius and Solinus] Some critics having had it in their choice to comment either on Virgil or Manilius, Pliny or Solinus, have chosen the worse author, the more freely to display their critical capacity.

Ver. 228, &c. Suidas, Gellius, Stobrus] The first a dictionary-writer, a collector of impertinent facts and barbarous words; the second a minute critic; the third an author, who gave his commonplace book to the public, where we happen to find much mince-meat of old books,