the defign to be more extensive than to bad poets only, and that we may expect other Episodes of the Patrons, Encouragers, or Paymasters of fuch authors, as occafion shall bring them forth. And the third book,

embrace the whole

if well confidered, feemneth to World. Each of the Games relateth to some or other vile clafs of writers: The first concerneth the plagiary, to whom he giveth the name of More; the fe cond the libellous Novelift, whom he stileth Elizá; the third, the flattering Dedicator; the fourth, the Bawling Critic, or noify Poet; the fifth, the dark and dirty Party-writer; and fo of the reft: affigning to each - some proper name or other, such as he could find.

As for the Characters, the public hath already acknowledged how justly they are drawn: The man. ners are so depicted, and the sentiments so peculiar to those to whom applied, that surely to transfer them to any other or wifer perfonages, would be exceeding dif'ficult: And certain it is, that every person concerned, -being confulted apart, hath readily owned the refem'blance of every portrait, his own excepted. So Mr Cibber calls them, "a parcel of poor wretches, fo many filly flies : but adds, our Author's wit is remarkably more bare and barren, whenever it would fall foul on Cibber, than upon any other Person whatever." The Defcriptions are fingular, the Comparisons very quaint, the Narration various, yet of one colour: The purity and chastity of Diction is so preserved, that in the places most suspicious, not the words but only the images have been cenfured, and yet are those images no

i Cibber's Letter to Mr P, pag. 9, 12. 41.

other than have been fanctified by ancient and claffical Authority (though, as was the manner of those good times, not fo curiously wrapped up) yea, and commented upon by the most grave Doctors, and approved Critics.

As it beareth the name of Epic, it is thereby fubjected to fuch fevere indifpenfable rules as are laid on all Neoterics, a ftrict imitation of the Ancients; infomuch that any deviation, accompanied with whatever poetic beauties, hath always been cenfured by the found Critic. How exact that Imitataion hath been in this piece, appeareth not only by its general structure, but by particular allufions infinite, many whereof have escaped both the commentator and poet himfelf; yea divers by his exceeding diligence are so altered and interwoven with the reft, that several have already been, and more will be, by the ignorant abused, as altogether and originally his own.

In a word, the whole poem proveth itself to be the work of our author when his faculties were in full vigour and perfection; at that exact time when years have ripened the Judgment, without diminishing the Imagination which, by good Critics, is held to be punctually at forty. For, at that feafon it was that Virgil finished his Georgics; and Sir Richard Blackmore at the like age compofing his Arthurs, declared, the same to be the very Acme and pitch of life for Epic poefy: Though fince he hath altered it to fixty, the year in which he published his Alfred *. True it is, that the talents for Criticism, namely smartness,

k See his Effays.

quick cenfure, vivacity of remark, certainty of affeveration, indeed all but acerbity, feem rather the gifts of Youth than of riper age: But it is far otherwise in Poetry; witness the works of Mr Rymer and Mr Dennis, who beginning with Criticism, became afterwards fuch Poets as no age hath paralleled. With good reafon therefore did our author chufe to write his Effay on that subject at twenty, and reserve for his maturer years this great and wonderful work of the Dunciad.

RICARDUS ARISTARCHUS

OF THE

HERO of the POE M.

OF

F the Nature of Dunciad in general, whence derived, and on what authority founded as well as of the art and conduct of this our poem in particu lar, the learned and laborious Scriblerus hath, according to his manner, and with tolerable share of judgment, differtated. But when he cometh to speak of the Person of the Hero fitted for fuch poem, in truth he miferably halts and hallucinates. For, misled by one Monfieur Boffu a Gallic critic, he prateth of I cannot tell what Phantom of a Hero, only raised up to fupport the Fable. A putid conceit! As if Homer and Virgil, like modern Undertakers, who firft build their house, and then feek out for a tenant, had contrived the story of a War and a Wandering, before they once thought either of Achilles or Æneas. We fhall therefore set our good brother and the world also right in this particular, by affuring them, that, in the greater Epic, the prime intention of the Mufe is to exalt Heroic Virtue, in order to propagate the love of it among the children of men; and confequently, that the Poet's first thought muft needs be turned upon a

real fubject meet for laud and celebration; not one whom he is to make, but one whom he may find, tru ly illuftrious. This is the primum mobile of his poetic world, whence every thing is to receive life and motion. For, this subject being found, he is immediately ordained, or rather acknowledged, an Hero, and put upon fuch action as befitteth the dignity of his character.

But the Mufe ceaseth not here her Eagle-flight. For fometimes, fatiated with the contemplation of thefe Suns of glory, fhe turneth downward on her wing, and darts with Jove's lightning on the Goose and Serpent kind. For we may apply to the Muse in her various moods, what an ancient mafter of Wisdom affirmeth of the Gods in general: "Si Dii non iras"cuntur impiis et injuftis, nec pios utique juftofque di"ligunt. In rebus enim diverfis, aut in utramquè

partem moveri neceffe eft, aut in neutram. Itaque "qui bonos diligit, et malos odit; et qui malos non "odit, nec bonos diligit. Quia et diligere bonos ex "odio malorum venit; et malos odife ex bonorum "caritate defcendit." Which in our vernacular idiom may be thus interpreted: "If the Gods be not pro“voked at evil men, neither are they delighted with "the good and juft. For contrary objects muft ei❝ther excite contrary affections, or no affections at "all. So that he who loveth good men; must at the "fame time hate the bad; and he who hateth not bad "men, cannot love the good; because to love good "men proceedeth from an averfion to evil, and to "hate evil men from a tenderness to the good." From this deli cacy of the Mufe arofe the little Epic, (more