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cited character, p. 5.) do in concert confess, | this Essay meets with'.-I can safely affirm, “That some men of good understanding value him for his rhymes." And (p. 17.) "that he has got, like Mr. Bays in the Rehearsal (that is, like Mr. Dryden), a notable knack at rhyming, and writing smooth verse,"

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MR. LEONARD WELSTED

thus wrote to the unknown author, on the first publication of the said essay; "I must own, after the reception which the vilest and most inmoral ribaldry hath lately met with, I was surprised to see what I had long-despaired, a performance deserving the name of a poet, Such, sir, is your work. It is, indeed, above all commendation, and ought to have been published in an age and country more worthy of it. If my testimony be of weight any where, you are sure to have it in the amplest manner," &c. &c. &c.

Thus we see every one of his works hath been extolled by one or other of his most inveterate enemies; and to the success of them all they do unanimously give testimony. But it is sufficient, instar omnium, to behold the great critic, Mr. Dennis, sorely lamenting it, even from the Essay on Criticism to this day of the Dunciad ! "A most notorions instance (quoth he) of the depravity of genius and taste, the approbation

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that I never attacked any of these writings, unless they had success infinitely beyond their merit. This, though an empty, has been a popular scribbler. The epidemic madness of the times has given him reputation.-If, after the cruel treatment so many extraordinary men (Spenser, Lord Bacon, Ben Jonson, Milton, Butler, Otway, and others) have received from this country, for these last hundred years, I should shift the scene, and show all that penury changed at once to riot and profuseness; and more squandered away upon one object, than would have satisfied the greater part of those extraordinary men; the reader to whom this one creature should be unknown, would fancy him a prodigy of art and nature, would believe that all the great qualities of these persons were centered in him alone. But if I should venture to assure him, that the people of England had made such a choice the reader would either believe me a malicious enemy, and slanderer; or that the reign of the last (queen Anne's) ministry was designed by fate to encourage fools."

But it happens, that this our poet never had any place, pension, or gratuity, in any shape, from the said glorious queen, or any of her ministers. All he owed, in the whole course of his life, to any court, was a subscription for his Homer, of 2001, from king George I. and 1001. from the prince and princess.

However, lest we imagine our Author's success was constant and universal, they acquaint us of certain works in a less degree of repute, whereof, although owned by others, yet do they assure us he is the writer. Of this sort Mr. Dennis' ascribes to him two farces, whose names he does not tell, but assures us that there is not one jest in them: and an imitation of Horace, whose title he does not mention, but assures us it is much more execrable than all his works". The Daily Journal, "He is below Tom May 11, 1728, assures us, Durfey in the drama, because (as that writer thinks) the Marriage-hater matched, and the Boarding-school, are better than the What-d'yecall-it;" which is not Mr. P.'s, but Mr. Gay's. Mr. Gildon assures us, in his New Rehearsal, p, 48. "That he was writing a play of the lady Jane Grey;" but it afterwards proved to be Mr. Rowe's. We are assured by another, "He wrote a pamphlet called Dr. Andrew Tripe';" which proved to be one Dr. Wagstaff's. Mr. Theobald assures us, in Mist of the 27th of April, "That the treatise of the Profound is very dull, and that Mr. Pope is the author of it." The writer of Gulliveriana is of another opinion; and says, "The whole, or greatest part, of the merit of this treatise must and can only be ascribed to Gulliver'." [Here, gentle reader! cannot I but smile at the strange blindness and positiveness of men; knowing the said treatise to appertain none other but to me, Martinus Scriblcrus.].

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We are assured, in Mist of June 8, "That | so is it of the most grave and ancient kind. his own plays and farces would better have Homer (saith Aristotle) was the first who gave adorned the Dunciad, than those of Mr. Theobald; the form, and (saith Horace) who adapted the for he had neither genius for tragedy nor comedy." | measure, to heroic poesy. But even before this, Which whether true or not, it is not easy to may be rationally presumed from what the anjudge; in as much as he had attempted neither. cients have left written, was a piece by Homer Unless we will take it for granted, with Mr. composed, of like nature and matter with this of Cibber, that his being once very angry at hearing our poet. For of epic sort it appeareth to have a friend's play abused, was an infallible proof the been, yet of matter surely not unpleasant, witplay was his own; the said Mr. Cibber thinking ness what is reported of it by the learned archit impossible for a man to be much concerned for bishop Eustathius, in Odyss. x. And accordingly any but himself: "Now let any man judge (saith Aristotle, in his Poetics, chap. iv. doth further he) by his concern, who was the true mother of set forth, that as the Iliad and Odyssey gave exthe child'?" ample to tragedy, so did this poem to comedy its first idea.

But from all that hath been said, the discerning reader will collect, that it little availed our author to have any candour, since, when he declared he did not write for others, it was not credited; as little to have any modesty, since, when he declined writing in any way himself, the presumption of others was imputed to him. If he singly enterprised one great work, he was taxed of boldness and madness to a prodigy if he took assistants in another, it was complained of, and represented as a great injury to the public'. The loftiest heroics, the lowest ballads, treatises against the state or church, satires on lords and ladies, raillery on wits and authors, squabbles with booksellers, or even full and true accounts of monsters, poisons, and murders; of any hereof was there nothing so good, nothing so bad, which hath not at one or other season been to him ascribed. If it bore no author's name, then lay he concealed; if it did, he fathered it upon that author to be yet better concealed: if it resembled any of his styles, then was it evident; if it did not, then disguised he it on set purpose. Yea, even direct oppositions in religion, principles, and politics, have equally been supposed in him inherent. Surely a most rare and singular character; of which let the reader make what he

can.

Doubtless most commentators would hence take occasion to turn all to their author's advantage, and from the testimony of his very enemies would affirm, that his capacity was boundless, as well as his imagination; that he was a perfect master of all styles, and all arguments; and that there was in those times no other writer, in any kind, of any degree of excellence, save he himself. But as this is not our own sentiment, we shall determine on nothing but leave thee, gentle reader, to steer thy judgment equally between various opinions, and to chuse whether thou wilt incline to the testimonies of authors avowed, or of authors concealed: of those who knew him, or of those who knew him not.

:

MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS

OF THE POEM.

P.

THIS poem, as it celebrateth the most grave and ancient of things, Chaos, Night, and Dulness:

'Cibber's Letter to Mr. P. p. 19.

2 Burnet's Homerides, p. 1. of his translation of the Iliad.

3 The London and Mist's Journals, on his undertaking the Odyssey,

From these authors also it should seem, that the hero, or chief personage of it was no less obscure, and his understanding and sentiments no less quaint and strange (if indeed not more so) than any of the actors of our poem. Margites was the name of this personage, whom antiquity recordeth to have been Dunce the first; and surely from what we hear of him, not unworthy to be the root of so spreading a tree, and so numerous a posterity. The poem therefore celebrating him was properly and absolutely a Dunciad; which though now unhappily lost, yet is its nature sufficiently known by the infallible tokens aforesaid. And thus it doth appear that the first Dunciad was the first epic poem, written by Homer him self, and anterior even to the Iliad or Odyssey.

Now, forasmuch as our poet hath translated those two famous works of Homer which are yet left, he did conceive it in some sort his duty to imitate that also which was lost and was therefore induced to bestow on it the same form which Homer's is reported to have had, namely, that of Epic Poem; with a title also framed after the ancient Greek manner, to wit, that of Dunciad.

Wonderful it is, that so few of the moderns have been stimulated to attempt some Dunciad !. since, in the opinion of the multitude, it might cost loss pain and toil than an imitation of the greater epic. But possible it is also, that, on due reflection, the maker might find it easier to paint a Charlemagne, a Brute, or a Godfrey, with just pomp and dignity heroic, than a Margites, a Codrus, or a Fleckno.

We shall next declare the occasion and the cause which moved our poet to this particular work.

He lived in those days, when (after Providence had permitted the invention of printing as a scourge for the sins of the learned) paper also became so cheap, and printers so numerous, that a deluge of authors covered the land: whereby not only the peace of the honest unwriting subject was daily molested, but unmerciful demands were made of his applause, yea of his money, by such as would neither earn the one, nor deserve the other. At the same time, the licence of the press was such, that it grew dangerous to refuse them either: for they would forthwith publish slanders unpunished, the authors being anolishers, a set of men who neither scrupled to vend nymous, and skulking under the wings of pubeither calumny or blasphemy, as long as the town would call for it.

Now our author, living in those times, did

! Vide Bossu, Du Poeme Epique, chap. viii,

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As for the characters, the public hath already acknowledged how justly they are drawn: the manners are so depicted, and the sentiment so peculiar to those to whom applied, that surely to transfer them to any other or wiser personages, would be exceeding difficult and certain it is, that every person concerned, being consulted apart, hath readily owned the resemblance of every portrait, his own excepted. So Mr. Cibber calls them, "a parcel of poor wretches, so many silly 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."

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conceive it an endeavour well worthy an honest | fifth, the dark and dirty party-writer: and so of satirist, to dissuade the dull, and punish the the rest: assigning to each some proper name wicked, the only way that was left. In that pub- or other, such as he could find. lic spirited view he laid the plan of this poem, as the greatest service he was capable (without much hurt, or being slain) to render his dear country. First, taking things from their original, he considereth the causes creative of such authors, namely Dulness and Poverty; the one born with them, the other contracted by neglect of their proper talents, through self-conceit of greater abilities. This truth he wrappeth in an allegory! (as the construction of epic poesy requireth), and feigns that one of these goddesses had taken up her abode with the other, and that they jointly inspired all such writers and such works. He proceedeth to show the qualities they bestow on these authors, and the effects they produce 3: then the materials, or stock, with which they furnish them; and (above all) that self-opinion which causeth it to seem to themselves vastly greater than it is, and is the prime motive of their setting up in this sad and sorry merchandise. The great power of these goddesses acting in alliance (whereof as the one is the mother of industry, so is the other of plodding) was to be exemplified in some one great and remarkable action: and none could be more so than which our poet hath chosen, viz. the restoration of the reign of Chaos and Night, by the ministry of Dulness their daughter, in the removal of her imperial seat from the city to the polite world; as the action of the Eneid is the restoration of the empire of Troy, by the removal of the race from thence to Latium. But as Homer singeth only the wrath of Achilles, yet includes in his poem the whole history of the Trojan war, in like manner our author hath drawn into this single action the whole history of Dulness and her children.

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and he becomes of course the hero of the poem. The fable being thus, according to the best example, one and entire, as contained in the proposition; the machinery is a continued chain of allegories, setting forth the whole power, ministry, and empire of Dulness, extended through her subordinate instruments, in all her various operations.

This is branched into episodes, each of which hath its moral apart, though all conducive to the main end. The crowd assembled in the second book, demonstrates the design to be more extensive than to bad poets only, and that we may expect other episodes of the patrons, encouragers, or paymasters of such authors, as occasion shall bring them forth. And the third book, if well considered, seemeth to embrace the whole world. Each of the games relateth to some or other vile class of writers: the first concerneth the plagiary, to whom he giveth the name of Moore; the second, the libellous novelist, whom he stileth Fliza; the third, the flattering dedicator; the fourth, the bawling critic, or noisy post; the

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The descriptions are singular, 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 censured, and yet are those images no other than have been sanctified by ancient and classical authority (though, as was the manner of those good times, not so 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 subject to such severe indispensable rules as are laid on all neoterics, a strict imitation of the ancients; insomuch that any deviation, accompanied with whatever poetic beauties, hath always been censured by the sound critic. How exact that limitation hath been in this piece, appeareth not only by its general structure, but by particular illusions infinite, many whereof have escaped both the commentator and poet himself; yea, divers by his exceeding diligence are so altered and interwoven with the rest, 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 season it was that Virgil finished his Georgics; and sir Richard Blackmore, at the like age, composing his Arthurs, declared the same to be the very acme and pitch of life for epic poesy though since he hath altered it to sixty, the year in which he published his Alfred2. True it is, that the talents for criticism, namely, smartness, quick censure, vivacity of remark, certainty of asseveration, indeed all but acerbity, seem 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 such poets as no age hath paralleled. With good reason therefore did our author chuse to write his essay on that subject at twenty, and reserve for his maturer years this great and wonderful work of the Dunciad.

1 Cibber's Letter to Mr. P. page 9. 12. 41. ? See his Essays.

RICARDUS ARISTARCHUS

OF THE HERO OF THE POEM.

Or 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 particular, the learned and laborious Scriblerus hath, according to his manner, and with tolerable share of judgment, dissertated. But when he cometh to speak of the person of the hero fitted for such poem, in truth he miserably halts and hallucinates: for, misled by one Monsieur Bossu, a Gallic critic, be prateth of I cannot tell what phantom of a hero, only raised up to support the fable. A putid conceit! As if Homer and Virgil, like modern undertakers, who first build their house and then seek out for a tenant, had contrived the story of a war and a wandering, before they once thought either of Achilles or Æneas. We shall therefore set our good brother and the world also right in this particular, by assuring them, that, in the greater epic, the prime intention of the Muse is to exalt heroic virtue, in order to propagate the love of it among the children of men; and consequently that the poet's first thought must needs be turned upon a real subject meet for laud and celebration; not one whom he is to make, but one whom he may find, truly illustrious. 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 such action as befitteth the dignity of his character.

But the Muse ceaseth not here her eagle-flight. For sometimes, satiated with the contemplation of these suns of glory, she 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 master of wisdom affirmeth of the gods in general: Si Dii non irascuntur impiis et injustis, nec pios utique justosque diligunt. In rebus enim diversis, aut in utramque partem moveri necesse est 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 odisse ex bonorum caritate descendit. Which in our vernacular idiom may be thus interpreted: "If the gods be not provoked at evil men, neither are they delighted with the good and just. For contrary objects must either excite contrary affections, or no affections at all. So that he who loveth good men, must at the same time hate the bad; and he who hateth not bad men, cannot love the good; because to love good men proceedeth from an aversion to evil, and to hate evil men from a tenderness to the good." From this delicacy of the Muse arose the little epic (more lively and choleric than her elder sister, whose bulk and complexion incline her to the phlegmatic): and for this, some notorious vehicle of vice and folly was sought out, to make thereof an example. early instance of which (nor could it escape the accurate Scriblerus) the father of epic poem himself affordeth us. From him the practice descended to the Greek dramatic poets, his off spring; who, in the composition of their tetralogy, or set of four pieces, were wont to make the last a satiric tragedy. Happily, one of these

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ancient Dunciads (as we may well term it) is come down unto us, amongst the tragedies of the poet Euripides. And what doth the reader suppose may be the subject thereof? Why in truth, and it is worthy observation, the unequal contest of an old, dull, debauched buffoon Cyclops, with the heaven-directed favourite of Minerva; who, after having quietly borne all the monster's obscene and impious ribaldry, endeth the farce in punishing him with the mark of an indelible brand in his forehead. May we not then be excused, if, for the future, we consider the epics of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, together with this our poem, as a complete tetralogy; in which the last worthily holdeth the place or station of the satiric piece?

Proceed we therefore in our subject. It hath been long, and alas for pity! still remaineth a question, whether the hero of the greater epic or as the French should be an honest man; critics express it, un honnête homme1 but it never admitted of a doubt, but that the hero of the little epic should be just the contrary. Hence, to the advantage of our Dunciad, we may observe, how much juster the moral of that poem must needs be, where so important a question is previously decided.

But then it is not every knave, nor (let me add) every fool, that is a fit subject for a Dunciad. There must still exist some analogy, if not resemblance of qualities between the heroes of the two poems; and this in order to admit what neoteric critics call the parody, one of the liveliest graces of the little epic. Thus it being agreed that the constituent qualities of the greater epic hero, are wisdom, bravery, and love, from whence springeth heroic virtue; it followeth, that those of the lesser epic hero should be vanity, assurance, and debauchery, from which assemblage resulfeth heroic dulness, the neverdying subject of this our poem.

This being settled, come we now to particulars. It is the character of true wisdom, to seek its chief support and confidence within itself; and to place that support in the resources which proceed from a conscious rectitude of will.-And are the advantages of vanity, when arising to the beroic standard, at all short of this self-complacence? nay, are they not, in the opinion of the enamoured owner, far beyond it? "Let the world" (will such an one say) "impute to me what folly or weakness they please; but till wisdom can give me something that will make me more heartily happy, I am content to be gazed at"," This, we see, is vanity according to the heroic gage or measure; not that low and ignoble species which pretendeth to virtues we have not; but the laudable ambition of being gazed at for glorying in those vices, which every body knows we have. "The world may ask" (says he) why I make my follies public? Why not? I have passed my life very pleasantly with them.” there is no sort of vanity such a hero would scruple, but that which might go near to degrade

In short,

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him from his high station in this our Dunciad; | neighbour's. Truly a commendable continence!

namely, "whether it would not be vanity in him, to take shame to himself for not being a wise man1?"

and such as Scipio himself must have applauded. For how much self-denial was necessary not to covet his neighbour's whore? and what disorders Bravery, the second attribute of the true hero, must the coveting her have occasioned in that is courage manifesting itself in every limb; while society, where (according to this political calcuits correspondent virtue, in the mock hero, islator) nine in ten of all ages have their concuthat same courage all collected into the face. bines! And as power, when drawn together, must needs have more force and spirit than when dispersed, we generally find this kind of courage in so high and heroic a degree, that it insults not only men, but gods. Mezentius is, without doubt, the bravest character in all the Eneis: but how? His bravery, we know, was an high courage of blasphemy. And can we say less of this brave man's, who having told us that he placed his 66 summum bonum in those follies, which he was not content barely to possess, but would likewise glory in," adds, If I am misguided, 'tis nature's fault, and I follow her." Nor can we be mistaken in making this happy quality a species of courage, when we consider those illustrious marks of it, which made his face "more known (as he justly boasteth) than most in the kingdom;" and his language to consist of what we must allow to be the most daring figure of speech, that which is taken from the name of God.

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Gentle love, the next ingredient in the true hero's composition, is a mere bird of passage, or (as Shakespeare calls it) summer-teeming lust, and evaporates in the heat of youth; doubtless by that refinement it suffers in passing through those certain strainers which our poet somewhere speaketh of. But when it is let alone to work upon the lees, it acquireth strength by old age; and becometh a lasting ornament to the little epic. It is true, indeed, there is one objection to its fitness for such an use: for not only the ignorant may think it common, but it is admitted to be so, even by him who best knoweth its value. "Don't you think" (argueth he)" to say only a man has his whore',' ought to go for little or nothing Because defendit numerus ; take the first ten thousand men you meet, and, I believe, you would be no loser if you betted ten to one, that every single sinner of them, one with another, had been guilty of the same frailty." But here he seemeth not to have done justice to himself: the man is sure enough a hero, who hath his lady at fourscore. How doth his modesty herein lessen the merit of a whole well-spent life: not taking to himself the commendation (which Horace accounted the greatest in a theatrical character) of continuing to the very dregs the same he was from the beginning,

Servetur ad imum

Qualis ab incepto processerat.——— But here, in justice both to the poet and the bero, let us farther remark, that the calling her his whore, implied she was his own, and not his

'Life, p. 2. oct. edit.

* Life of C. C. p. 23. oct. edit.

We have now, as briefly as we could advise, gone through the three constituent qualities of either hero. But it is not in any, or in all of these that heroism properly or essentially resideth. It is a lucky result rather from the collision of these lively qualities against one another. Thus, as from wisdom, bravery, and love, ariseth magnanimity, the object of admiration, which is the aim of the greater cpic; so from vanity, assurance, and debauchery, springeth buffoonry, the source of ridicule, that "laughing ornament," as he well termeth it', of the little epic.

He is not ashamed (God forbid he ever should be ashamed!) of this character; who decmeth, that not reason but risibility distinguisheth the human species from the brutal."As Nature" (saith this profound philosopher) "distinguished our species from the mute creation by our risibility, her design must have been by that faculty as evidently to raise our happiness, as by our os sublime (our erected faces) to lift the dignity of our form above them." All this considered, how complete a hero must he be, as well as how happy a man, whose risibility lieth, not barely in his muscles, as in the common sort, but (as himself informeth us) in his very spirits? and whose os sublime is not simply an erect face, but a brazen head; as should seem by his preferring it to one of iron, said to belong to the late king of Sweden ??

But whatever personal qualities a hero may have, the examples of Achilles and Encas show us, that all those are of small avail, without the constant assistance of the gods: for the subversion and erection of empires have never been adjudged the work of man. How greatly soever then we may esteem of his high talents, we can hardly conceive his personal prowess alone sufficient to restore the decayed empire of Dulness. So weighty an achievement must require the particular favour and protection of the great; who being the natural patrons and supporters of letters, as the ancient gods were of Troy, must first be drawn off and engaged in another interest, before the total subversion of them can be accomplished. To surmount, therefore, this last and greatest difficulty, we have, in this excellent man, a professed favourite and intimado of the great. And look, of what force ancient piety was to draw the gods into the party of Æneas, that, and much stronger, is modern incense, to engage the great in the party of Dulness.

Thus have we essayed to pourtray or shadow out this noble imp of fame. But now the impatient, reader will be apt to say, "If so many and various graces go to the making up a hero, what

3 Alluding to these lines in the Epist. to Dr. mortal shall suffice to bear his character?" Ill

Arbuthnot:

And has not Colly still his lord and whore,
Wis butchers Henley, his free-masons Moore?
Letter to Mr. P. p. 46,

hath he read, who seeth not, in every trace of 2 Life, p. 23, 24

Letter to Mr. P. p. 31. 3 Letter, p. 8.

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