fad and sorry merchandise. The great power of thefe goddeffes acting in alliance (whereof as the one is the mother of industry, fo is the other of plodding) was to be exemplified in fome one great and remarkable action: (g) and none could be mare fo than that which our poet hath chosen, viz. the reftoration of the reign of Chaos and Night, by the miniftry of Dulness their daughter, in the removal of her inperial feat from the city to the polite world; as the action of the Æneid is the refloration of the empire of Troy, by the removal of the race from thence to Latium. But as Homer fingeth 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 fingle action the whole history of Dulness, and her children. A perfon muft next be fixed upon to fupport this action. This phantom in the poet's mind must have a name (b): he finds it to be -: 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 propofition; the machinery is a continued chain of allegories, fetting forth the whole power, miniftry, and empire of Dulness, extended through her fub ardinate instruments, in all her various operations. This is branched into episodes; each of which bath its moral apart, though all conducive to the main end. The crowd affembled in the fecond book, demonstrates the design to be more extenfive than to bad poets only; and that we may expect other episodes of the patrons, encouragers, or pay mafters of fuch authors, as occafion fhall bring them forth. And the third book, if well confidered, Leemeth to embrace the whole world. Each of the games relateth to fome or other vile clafs of writers: the first concerneth the plagiary, to whom be giveth the name of Moore; the fecond, the libellous novelift, whom he ftyleth Eliza; 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 Come proper name or other, fuch as he could find. As for the characters, the public hath already acknowledged how juftly they are drawn: the manners are fo depicted, and the fentiment fo pecaliar to thofe to whom applied, that furely to transfer them to any other or wifer perfonage, would be exceeding difficult and certain it is, that every perfon concerned, being confulted apart, hath readily owned the resemblance of every portrait, his own excepted. So Mr. Cibber calls (g) Ibid. chap vii. viii. : (6) Beffu, chap. viii. Fide Arift. Poet, cap, ix. them, "a parcel of poor wretches, so many filly "flies (i):" but adds, our author's wit is remark ably "more bare and barren, whenever it would "fall foul on Cibber, than upon any other person "whatever." The descriptions are fingular; the comparisons very quaint; the narration various, yet of one colour; the purity and chastity of diction is fo preserved, that in the places most fufpicious, not the words, but only the images have been cenfur ed; and yet are those images no 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 approv ed critics. As it beareth the name of epic, it is thereby fubject to fuch fevere indifpenfible 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 li mitation hath been in this piece, appeareth not only by its general structure, but by particular ill fions infinite, many whereof have escaped both the coinmentator and poet himself; yea divers, by his exceeding diligence, are fo 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 prøveth 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 Geor gics; and Sir Richard Blackmore at the like age compofing his Arthurs; declared the fame 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 publifhed his Alfred (4). True it is that the talents for criticifm, namely fmartness, quick cenfure, vivacity of remark, certainty of affeveration, indeed all but acerbity, seem rather the gifts of youth, than of riper age: but it is far otherwife in poetty; witnefs the works of Mr. Rymer and Mr. Dennis; who beginning with criticifm, became afterwards fuch poets as no age hath paralleled. With good reafon, therefore, did our author choofe to write his effay on that fub ject at twenty, and referve for his maturer years this great and wonderful work of the Dunciad. (i) Cibber's letter to Mr. P. p. 9, 12, 41. (4) See bis Effays. M iij RICARDUS ARISTARCHAS OF THE HERO OF THE POEM. Or the nature of Dunciad in general, whence de. "For contrary objects must either excite contrary rived, and on what authority founded, as well as "affections, or no affections at all. So that he who of the art and conduct of this our Poem in parti-" loveth good men, must at the fame time hate the cular, the learned and laborious Scriblerus hath, "bad; and he who hateth not bad men, cannot love according to his manner, and with tolerable thare" the good; because to love good men proceedeth of judgment, differtated. But when he cometh to "from an aversion to evil, and to hate evil men fpeak of the person of the hero fitted for fuch" from a tenderness to the good." From this depoem, in truth he miferably halts and hallucinates. licacy of the mufe arofe the little epic (more lively for, misled by one Monfieur Boffu, a Gallic critic, and choleric than her elder fifter, whose bulk and he prateth of I cannot tell what phantom of a he-complexion incline her to the phlegmatic): and ro, only raised up to fupport the fable. A putrid conceit! As if Homer and Virgil, like modern undertakers, who first build their houfe and then feek out for a tenant, had contrived the ftory of a war and a wandering, before they once thought either of Achilles or Eneas. We fhall therefore fet 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 subject meet for laud and celebration; not one whom he is to make, but one whom he may find, truly illustrious. This is the rimum mobile of his poetic world, whence every thing is to receive life and motion. For, this fubject being found, he is immediately ordained, or rather acknowledged, an hero, and put upon fuch action as befitteth the dignity of his character. for this, fome notorious vehicle of vice and folly was fought out, to make thereof an example. An early inftance of which (nor could it escape the accurate Scriblerus) the father of epic poem himself affordeth us. From him the practice defcended to the Greek dramatic poets, his offspring; who, in the compofition of their Tetralogy, or set of four pieces, were wont to make the last a fatiric tragedy. Happily, one of these 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 fuppofe may be the fubject thereof? Why in truth, and it is worthy observation, the unequal conteft of an old, dull, debauched buffoon Cyclops, with the heaven-directed favourite of Minerva; who, after having quietly borne all the monster's obfcene and impious ribaldry, endeth the farce in punishing him with the mark of an indelible brand in his forehead. May we not then be excufed, if, for the future, we confider the epics of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, together with this our poem, as a complete Tetralogy; in which the laft worthily holdeth the place or station of the fatiric piece?. But the mufe ceafeth not here her eagle-flight. For fometimes, fatiated with the contemplation of these tons of glory, the turneth downward on her wing, and darts with Jove's lightning on the goofe and ferpent kind. For we may apply to the muse in Proceed we therefore in our fubject. It hath her various moods, what an ancient master of wif- been long, and alas for pity! ftill remaineth a dom affirmeth of the Gods in general: "Si Dii.queftion, whether the hero of the greater epic "non irafcuntur impiis et injuftis, nec pios utique • juftofque diligunt. In rebus enim diverfis, aut in "in utramque 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 ma"los odiffe ex bonorum caritate defcendit." 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 juft. Į fhould be an honeft man; or as the French critics exprefs it, un honnête homme (a): 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 obferve, how much jufter the moral of that poem muit needs be, (a) Si un Heres Poëtique doit être un honnite homme. Boffu, du Poeme Epique, liv. v. ch. 5. 3 ed. and his language to confift of what we must allow to be the moft daring figure of speech, that which is taken from the name of God where so important a question is previously decidBut then it is not every knave, nor (let me add) every fool, that is a fit fabject for a Dunciad. Gentle love, the next ingredient in the true There must fill exift fome analogy, if not refem-, hero's compofition, is a mere bird of paffage, or blance of qualities between the heroes of the two (as Shakspeare calls it) fummer-teeming luft, poems; and this, to admit of what neoteric critics and evaporates in the heat of youth; doubtlefs by' call the parody, one of the livelieft graces of the that refinement it fuffers in paffing through thofe little epic. Thus it being agreed that the confti- certain ftrainers which our poet fomewhere fpeaktuent qualities of the greater epic hero, are wif- eth of. But when it is let alone to work upon the dom, bravery, and love, from whence fpringeth lees, it acquireth strength by old age; and becometh heroic virtue; it followeth, that those of the leffer a lafting ornament to the little epic. It is true, epic hero fhould be vanity, affurance, and de-indeed, there is one objection to its fitnefs for fuch bauchery, from which affemblage refulteth heroic dalnefs, the never-dying fubject of this our poem. This being fettled, come we now to particulars. It is the character of true wisdom, to feek its chief fupport and confidence within itself; and to place that fupport in the resources which proceed from a conscious rectitude of will.-And are the advantages of vanity, when arifing to the heroic ftandard, at all short of this felf-complacence? Nay, are they not, in the opinion of the enamoured owner, far beyond it? "Let the world (will such an one fay) impute to me what folly or weaknefs "they pleafe; but till wildom can give me fomething that will make me more heartily happy, "I am content to be GAZED AT (6)." This, we fee, is vanity according to the heroic gage or measure; Dot that low and ignoble fpecies 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 (fays he) why I make my follies public? Why "not? I have paffed my life very pleasantly with "them" In fhort, there is no fort of vanity fuch a hero would fcruple, but that which might go near to degrade him from his high ftation in this our Dunciad; namely," whether it would not be "vanity in him, to take shame to himself for not "being a wife man?” Bravery, the fecond attribute of the true hero, (b) Ded. to the Life of G. G. an use for not only the ignorant may think it 66 -Servetur ad IMUM Qualis ab incepto processerat————* But here, in juftice both to the poet and the hero, let us farther remark, that the calling her his whore, implied fhe was his own, and not his neighbour's. Truly a commendable continence! and fuch as Scipio himself must have applauded. For how much felf-denial was neceffary not to covet his neighbour's whore? and what disorders muft the coveting her have occafioned in that fociety, where (according to this political calculator) nine in ten of all ages have their concubines! We have now, as briefly as we could advise, gone through the three conftituent qualities of either hero. But it is not in any, or in all of thefe that heroifm properly or effentially refideth. It is a lucky refult rather from the collifion of thefe lively qualities against one another. Thus, as from wifdom, bravery, and love, arifeth magnanimity, the object of admiration, which is the aim of the greater epic; fo from vanity, affurance, and debauchery, fpringeth buffoonry, the fource of ridicule, that laughing ornament," as he well termeth it (f), of the little epic. (d) Alluding to thefe lines in the Epift. to Dr. Arbuthnot: "And has not Colly fill his lord and whore, He is not ashamed (God forbid he ever should ing there reprefented as faft affeep; fo mifbefeembe ashamed!) of this character; who deemeth, that ing the eye of empire, which, like that of Provinot reafon but rifibility distinguisheth the human dence, fhould never doze nor flumber. "Hah! fpecies from the brutal. "As nature (faith this "(faith he), fast asleep, it feems! that's a little profound philofopher) distinguisheth our fpecies" too ftrong. Pert and dull at least you might "from the mute creation by our rifibility, her "have allowed me, but as feldom afleep as any "defign MUST have been by that faculty as evi- "fool (1)." However, the injured hero may "dently to raise our HAPPINESS, as by our Os comfort himself with this reflection, that though "fublime (OUR ERECTED FACES) to lift the dignity it be a fleep, yet it is not the fleep of death, but "of OUR FORM above them (i)." All this confi- of immortality. Here he will () live at least, dered, how complete a hero muft he be, as well as though not awake; and in no worfe condition how happy a man, whofe rifibility lieth, not than many an enchanted warrior before him. barely in his muscles, as in the common fort, but The famous Durandante, for inftance, was, like (as himself informeth us) in his very spirits? and him, caft into a long flumber by Merlin the British whofe es fublime is not fimply an erect face, but a bard and necromancer; and his example for fubbrazen head; as fhould feem by his preferring it mitting to it with a good grace, might be of ufe to one of iron, faid to belong to the late king of to our hero. For that difaftrous knight being forely Sweden ? preffed or driven to make his anfwer by feveral perfons of quality, only replied with a figh, Patience, and fhuffle the cards ("). But now, as nothing in this world, no not the moft facred and perfe things, either of religion or government, can escape the fting of envy, methinks I already hear these carpers objecting to the clearness of our hero's title. But whatever perfonal qualities a hero may have, the examples of Achilles and Æneas fhow us, that all thofe are of fmall avail, without the conftant affiftance of the Cops: for the fubverfion and erection of empires have never been adjudged the work of man. How greatly foever then we may efteem of his high talents, we can hardly conceive his perfonal prowess alone fufficient to restore the It would never (fay they) have been efteemed decayed empire of Dulness. So weighty an at- fufficient to make an hero for the Iliad or Eneis, chievement must require the particular favour and that Achilles was brave enough to overturn one protection of the GREAT; who being the natural empire, or Æneas pious enough to raise another, patrons and fupporters of letters, as the ancient had they not been goddefs-born, and princes bred. Gods were of Troy, muft firft be drawn off and What then did this author mean, by erecting a engaged in another intereft, before the total fub- player instead of one of his patrons (a person, verfion of them can be accomplished. To fur- "never a hero even on the ftage," to this digmount, therefore, this last and greatest difficulty,nity of colleague in the empire of dulness, and atwe have, in this excellent man, a professed favour-chiever of a work that neither old Omar, Attila, ite and intimado of the great. And look, of what nor John of Leyden, could entirely bring to pafs. force ancient piety was to draw the gods into the To all this we have, as we conceive, a fufficient party of Æneas, that, and much stronger is mo- anfwer from the Roman historian, “ Fabrum effe dern incenfe, to engage the great in the party of" fuæ quemque fortunæ :" that every man is the dulnefs. fmith of his own fortune. The politic Florentine, Thus have we effayed to pourtray or fhadow Nicholas Machiavel, goeth ftill further, and affirmout, this noble imp of fame. But now the impa- eth that a man needeth but to believe himself a tient reader will be apt to fay, If fo many and va- hero to be one of the worthieft. "Let him (faith tious graces go to the making up a hero, what "he) but fancy himself capable of the highest mortal fhall fuffice to bear his character? Ill hath "things, and he will of courfe be able to atchieve he read, who feeth not, in every trace of this pic-" them." From this principle it follows, that noture, that individual, ALL-ACCOMPLISHED PERSON, in whom thefe rare virtues and lucky circumftances have agreed to meet and concentre with the ftrongest luftre and fullest harmony. The good Scriblerus indeed, nay the world itfelf, might be imposed on, in the late fpurious editions, by I can't tell what fham hero or phantom: but it was not fo eafy, to impofe on HIM whom this egregious error most of all concerned. For no fooner had the fourth book laid open the high and fwelling fcene, but he recognized his own heroic acts and when he came to the words, "Soft on her lap her laureat fon reclines," (though laureat imply no more than one crowned with laurel, as befitteth any affociate or confort in empire), he loudly refenteth this dignity to vioJated majefty. Indeed, not without caufe, he be (i) Letter, p.ş. thing can exceed our hero's prowefs; as nothing ever equalled the greatnefs of his conceptions. Hear how he conftantly paragons himself; at one time to Alexander the Great, and Charles the XII. of Sweden for the excefs and delicacy of his ambition; to Henry the IV. of France, for honeft policy; to the firft Brutus, for love of liberty; and to Sir Robert Walpole, for good government while in power: at another time, to the godlike Socrates for his diverfions and amufements: to Horace, Montaigne, and Sir William Temple, for an elegant vanity that maketh them for ever read and admired; to two Lord Chancellors, for law, from whom, when confederate against him at the bar, he carried away the prize of elo quence; and, to fay all in a word, to the right" furely much leis can any one, till then, be proreverend the Lord Bishop of London himself, in "nounced a hero: this fpecies of men being far the art of writing paftoral letters. more fubject than others to the caprices of fortune and humour." But to this alfo we have an answer, that will (we hope) be deemed decifive. It cometh from himfelf; who, to cut this matter fhort, hath folemnly protefted that he will never change or amend. Nor did his actions fall fhort of the fublimity of" his conceit. In his early youth he met the revolution face to face in Nottingham; at a time when his betters contented themselves with following her. It was here he got acquainted with old battle-array, of whom he hath made so ho- With regard to his vanity, he declareth that nourable mention in one of his immertal odes. nothing fhall ever part them. "Nature (faith But he fhone in courts as well as in camps: he was he) "hath amply supplied me in vanity; a pleacalled up when the nation fell in labour of this" fure which neither the pertnefs of wit, nor the revolution; and was a goffip at her christening," gravity of wisdom, will ever perfuade me to with the bishop and the ladies. "part with." Our poet had charitably endea fee to what they have brought him! As to his birth, it is true he pretendeth no re-voured to administer a cure to it: but he telleth lation either to Heathen god or goddess; but, what us plainly, " My fuperiors perhaps may be mendis as good, he was defcended from a maker of" ed by him; but for my part I own myself inboth (p). And that he did not pass himself on the" corrigible. I look upon my follies as the best world for a hero, as well by birth as education," part of my fortune." And with good reason; was his own fault: for his lineage he bringeth we into his life as an anecdote, and is fenfible he had Secondly, as to buffoonry, "Is it (faith he) a it in his power to be thought nobody's fon at all;" time of day for me to leave off thefe fooleries and what is that but coming into the world a" and fet up a new character? I can no more hero? put off my follies than my fkin; I have often But be it, (the punctilious laws of epic poefy" tried, but they flick too close to me: nor fo requiring) that a hero of more than mortal" am I fure my friends are displeased with them, birth must needs be had: even for this we have a "for in this light I afford them frequent matter remedy. We can easily derive our hero's pedi-“ of mirth, &c." Having then fo publicly degree from a goddess of no small power and autho-clared himself incorrigible, he is become dead in ority among men; and legitimate and instal him | law (I mean the law Epopœian) and devolveth after the right claffical and authentic fashion: upon the poet as his property; who may take him, for, like as the ancient fages found a fon of and deal with him as if he had been dead as long Mars in a mighty warrior; a fon of Neptune as an old Egyptian hero; that is to fay, embowel in a skilful feamen; a fon of Phoebus in a har-and embalm him for pofterity." monious poet; fo have we here, if need be, a fon of Fortune in an artful gamester. And who fitter than the offspring of Chance, to affift in restoring the empire of Night and Chaos ? There is in truth another objection of greater weight, namely, "That this hero ftill exifteth, and hath not yet finished his earthly courfe *For if Solon faid well, -ultima femper Expectanda dies homini: dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo fupremaque funera debet! if no man can be called happy till his death, 4) 4 Statuary. Nothing therefore (we conceive) remaineth to hinder his own prophecy of himself from taking immediate effect. A rare felicity! and what few prophets have had the fatisfaction to fee, alive! Nor can we conclude better than with that extraordinary one of his, which is conceived in these oraculous words, My dulness will find somebody to do it right. "Tandem Phœbus adeft, morsusque inferre pa |