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What Dulness dropp'd among her sons imprest
Like motion from one circle to the rest:
So from the mid-most the nutation spreads
Round and more round o'er all the sea of heads.
At last Centlivre felt her voice to fail,
Motteux himself unfinish'd left his tale,
Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o'er,
Morgan and Mandevil could prate no more;

REMARKS.

410

always a good effect in a mock-epic poem) either from profane or sacred writers.-W.†

Ver. 411. Centlivre] Mrs. Susannah Centlivre, wife to Mr. Centlivre, Yeoman of the Mouth to his Majesty. She writ many Plays, and a Song, (says Mr. Jacob, vol. i. p. 32) before she was seven years old. She also writ a Ballad against Mr. Pope's Homer, before he began it.-P.

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Ver. 413. Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o'er,] A. Boyer, a voluminous compiler of Annals, Political Collections, &c.-William Law, A.M. wrote with great zeal against the stage; Mr. Dennis answered with as great their books were printed in 1726. Mr. Law affirmed, "The playhouse is the temple of the devil; the peculiar pleasure of the devil; where all they who go, yield to the devil; where all the laughter is a laughter among devils; and all who are there are hearing music in the very porch of hell." To which Mr. Dennis replied, that " There is every jot as much difference between a true Play, and one made by a Poetaster, as between two religious Books, the Bible and the Alcoran." Then he demonstrates, that “ All those who had written against the stage were Jacobites and Non-jurors; and did it always at a time when something was to be done for the Pretender. Mr. Collier published his Short View, when France declared for the Chevalier; and his Dissuasive, just at the great storm, when the devastation which that hurricane wrought, had amazed and astonished the minds of men, and made them obnoxious to melancholy and desponding thoughts. Mr. Law took the opportunity to attack the stage upon the great preparations he heard were making abroad, and which the Jacobites flattered themselves were designed in their favour. And as for Mr. Bedford's Serious Remonstrance, though I know nothing of the time of publishing, yet I dare to lay odds it was either upon the Duke d'Aumont's being at Somerset-house, or upon the late Rebellion." DENNIS, Stage defended against Mr. Law, p. ult.—P.

How Boyer, who was indeed a dull but useful writer, offended our author, I have never heard. But indeed most of the scribblers here proscribed, were of a rank much inferior to the writers whom Boileau thought proper

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Norton, from Daniel and Ostroa sprung,

Bless'd with his father's front, and mother's tongue,
Hung silent down his never-blushing head;

And all was hush'd, as Folly's self lay dead.

REMARKS.

415

to attack; particularly Quinault, whom he so unjustly and impotently censured. It was said of Boileau, that though he made vice odious, he never made virtue amiable. Law was a melancholy enthusiast, who disguised and misrepresented true religion by dressing it up in dark, gloomy colours.-Warton.

Ver. 414. Morgan] A writer against religion, distinguished no otherwise from the rabble of his tribe, than by the pompousness of his title, of a Moral Philosopher.-W.

He

Ver. 414. Morgan] Morgan was bred a dissenting minister; he afterwards turned physician, and settled in Bristol, but never could get much practice, owing, it is said, to his ungraceful form and uncouth manner. was a man of some learning, and uncommon acuteness, with a strong disposition to satire, which very often degenerated into scurrility. His most celebrated work is the Moral Philosopher, first published in the year 1737. It is written with great art; and the author endeavours to conceal the mischievous tendency of his principles, till he thinks he has brought the reader over to his opinion: he then displays his malice without disguise. He is remarkable for the indecency and impiety of his expressions, and the indulgence of a coarse strain of humour, or rather buffoonery. He was answered by Leland, Lowman, and Chandler, and treated by the latter with great severity. He died in the year 1742. BANNISTER.— Bowles.

Ver. 414. Mandevil] Author of a famous book called the Fable of the Bees; written to prove, that moral virtue is the invention of knaves, and Christian virtue the imposition of fools; and that vice is necessary, and alone sufficient to render society flourishing and happy.-P.†

Ver. 415. Norton,] Norton De Foe, said to be the natural offspring of the famous Daniel De Foe. "Fortes creantur fortibus." One of the authors of the Flying Post, in which well-bred work Mr. P. had sometime the honour to be abused with his betters, and of many hired scurrilities and daily papers to which he never set his name.-P.

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Ver. 418. And all was hush'd,] Alluding to the first line of Dryden's description of night in the Indian Emperor; a description which Rhymer produces as a specimen of the superiority of English poetry to that of other nations after quoting the descriptions of Apollonius, Virgil, Ariosto, Tasso, Marino, Chapelain, and Le Moyne; as if, by one description, such a question could be determined! Rhymer introduces this criticism in the preface to his translation of Rapin's Reflexions on Aristotle's Poetics; and Rhymer, at that time, gave the law to all writers, and was appealed to as a supreme judge of all works of taste and genius. How well he was qualified for this character, will appear by observing, that after making remarks on what he calls our three Epic Poets, Spenser, Davenant, and Cowley, he mentions not one syllable of Milton. But Milton was not relished and comprehended either by Rapin or Rhymer.-Warton. Ver. 418. And all was hush'd, as Folly's self lay dead.] Creech in his translation of the story of Lucretia, from Ovid, Fast. ii.

"And all was hush'd, as Nature's self lay dead."

[And

Thus the soft gifts of Sleep conclude the day,
And stretch'd on bulks, as usual, poets lay.
Why should I sing, what bards the nightly Muse
Did slumb❜ring visit, and convey to stews;
Who prouder march'd, with magistrates in state,
To some fam'd round-house, ever open gate!
How Henley lay inspir'd beside a sink,
And to mere mortals seem'd a priest in drink;
While others, timely, to the neighb'ring Fleet,
Haunt of the Muses, make their safe retreat.

REMARKS.

And Hughes, in his Morning Apparition;

"All things were hush'd, as Noise itself were dead."

Ver. 421. Why should I sing, what bards the nightly Muse
Did slumb'ring visit, and convey to stews ;]

A parody on Paradise Lost, ix. 20.

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If answerable style I can obtain

Of my celestial patroness, who deigns

Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,

And dictates to me slumb'ring.-Wakefield.

420

425

Wakefield.

Ver. 426. And to mere mortals seem'd a priest in drink ;] This line presents us with an excellent moral, that we are never to pass judgment merely by appearance; a lesson to all men, who may happen to see a reverend person in a like situation, not to determine too rashly: since not only the poets frequently describe a bard inspired in this posture,

"On Cam's fair bank, where Chaucer lay inspir'd,"

and the like, but an eminent Casuist tells us, that "if a priest be seen in any indecent action, we ought to account it a deception of sight, or illusion of the devil, who sometimes takes upon him the shape of holy men on purpose to cause scandal." SCRIBLERUS.-P.

Ver. 427. Fleet,] A prison for insolvent debtors on the bank of the Ditch.-P.t

THE

DUNCIA D.

BOOK THE THIRD.

BOOK THE THIRD.

ARGUMENT.

After the other persons are disposed in their proper places of rest, the Goddess transports the King to her Temple, and there lays him to slumber with his head on her lap a position of marvellous virtue, which causes all the Visions of wild enthusiasts, projectors, politicians, inamoratos, castle-builders, chemists, and poets. He is immediately carried on the wings of Fancy, and led by a mad poetical Sibyl to the Elysian shade; where, on the banks of Lethe, the souls of the dull are dipped by Bavius, before their entrance into this world. There he is met by the ghost of Settle, and by him made acquainted with the wonders of the place, and with those which he himself is destined to perform. He takes him to a Mount of Vision, from whence he shows him the past triumphs of the empire of Dulness, then the present, and lastly the future: how small a part of the world was ever conquered by Science; how soon those conquests were stopped, and those very nations again reduced to her dominion. Then, distinguishing the Island of Great Britain, he shows by what aids, by what persons, and by what degrees, it shall be brought to her Empire. Some of the persons he causes to pass in review before his eyes, describing each by his proper figure, character, and qualifications. On a sudden the scene shifts, and a vast number of miracles and prodigies appear, utterly surprising and unknown to the King himself, till they are explained to be the wonders of his own reign now commencing. On this subject, Settle breaks into a congratulation, yet not unmixed with concern, that his own times were but the types of these. He prophesies how first the nation shall be overrun with Farces, Operas, and Shows; how the throne of Dulness shall be advanced over the Theatres, and set up even at Court: then, how her Sons shall preside in the seats of Arts and Sciences: giving a glimpse, or Pisgah-sight, of the future fulness of her glory, the accomplishment whereof is the subject of the fourth and last book.

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