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How I came poffest of it, is of no concern to the reader; but it would have been a wrong to him had I detain'd the publication: fince those names which are its chief ornaments die off daily fo fast, as must render it too foon unintelligible. If it provoke the author to give us a more perfect edition have my end.

Who he is, I cannot fay, and (which is a great pity) there * is certainly nothing in his ftyle and manner of writing, which can distinguish or discover him: For if it bears any resemblance to that of Mr. Pope, 'tis not improbable but it might be done on purpose, with a view to have it pafs for his. But by the frequency of his allufions to Virgil, and a laboured (not to fay affected) fhortness in imitation of him, I should think him more an admirer of the Roman Poet than of the Grecian, and in that not of the fame taste with his Friend.

I have been well informed, that this work was the

far; but it is certain, whatever names the reader finds that are unknown to him, are of fuch; and the exception is only of two or three, whose dulness impudent fcurrility, or self conceit, all mankind agree to have justly entitled them to a place in the Dunciad.

*There is certainly nothing in his ftyle. &c.] This Irony had small effect in concealing the author. The Dunciad, imperfect as it was, had not been published two days, but the whole town gave it to Mr. Pope. VOL, IV.

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labour of full fix * years of his life, and that he whol ly retired himself from all the avocations and pleafures of the world, to attend diligently to its correction and perfection; and fix years more he intended to bestow on it, as should seem by this verfe of Statius, which was cited at the head of his manufcript.

O mihi biffenos múltum vigilata per annos,
Duncia! +

Hence alfo we learn the true title of the poem; which

* The labour of full fix years, &c.] This also was ho neftly and feriously believed by divers gentlemen of the Dunciad. J. Ralph, pref. to Sawney. "We are "told it was the labour of fix years, with the utmost "affiduity and application : it is no great compliment

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to the author's fenfe to have employed fo large a part of his life," &c. So alfo Ward, pref. to Dar. .. gen, The Dunciad, as the publisher very wifely "confeffes, coft the author fix years retirement from "all the pleasures of life; though it is somewhat diffi. ""cult to conceive, from either its bulk or beauty, that

it could be fo long a hatching." &c. But the length of time and clofeness of application were mentioned to prepoffefs the reader with a good opinion of it.

They just as well understood what Scriblerus faid of the poem.

The prefacer to Curl's key, p. 3. took this word to be really in Statius: "By a quibble on the word "Dancia, the Dunciad is formed." Mr. Ward also follows him in the fame opinion.

with the fame certainty as we call that of Homer the Iliad, of Virgil the Æneid, of Camoens the Lufiad, we may pronounce, could have been, and can be no other than

The DUNCIAD.

It is styled Heroic, as being doubly fo; not only with respect to its nature, which according to the best rules of the ancients, and strictest ideas of the moderns, is critically fuch; but also with regard to the heroical disposition and high courage of the writer, who dar'd to ftir up fuch a formidable, irritable, and implacable race of mortals.

There may arise some obscurity in chronology from the Names in the poem, by the inevitable removal of fome authors, and insertion of others, in their niches. For whoever will confider the unity of the whole defign, will be fenfible, that the poem was not made for thefe authors, but these authors for the poem.

I fhould judge that they were clapp'd in as they rofe, fresh and fresh, and chang'd from day to day; in like manner as when the old boughs wither, we thrust new ones into a chimney.

I would not have the reader too much troubled or anxious, if he cannot decypher them; fince when he fhall have found them out, he will probably know no more of the persons than before.

Yet we judg'd it better to preserve them as they are, than to change them for fictitious names; by which the fatire would only be multiplied, and applied to many instead of one. Had the hero, for instance.

been called Codrus, how many would have affirmed him to have been Mr. T. Mr. E. Sir R. B. &c. But now all that unjust scandal is saved by calling him by a name, which by good luck happens to be that of a real perfon.

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To the FIRST EDITION with notes, in Quarto, 1729.

IT will be fufficient to fay of this edition, that the reader has here a much more correct and complete copy of the DUNCIAD, than has hitherto appeared. I cannot answer but some mistakes may have flipt into it, but a vaft number of others will be prevented by the names being now not only fet at length, but justified by the authorities and reafons given. I make no doubt, the author's own motive to use real rather than feign'd names, was his care to preferve the innocent from any false application; whereas in the former editions, which had no more than the initial letters, he was made, by keys printed here, to hurt the inoffenfive; and (what was worse) to abuse his friends, by an impreffion at Dublin.

The commentary which attends this poem was fent me from feveral hands, and confequently must be unequally written; yet will have one advantage over most commentaries, that it is not made upon conjectures, or at a remote distance of time: And the reader cannot but derive one pleasure from the very Obfcurity of the perfons it treats of, that it partakes of the nature of a Secret, which most people love to be let into, tho”

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