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." 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. 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 Eliza; the third, the flattering dedicator; the fourth, the bawling critic, or noisy poct; the 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 Alfred 2. 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. 2 See his Essays. F RICARDUS ARISTARCHUS OF THE HERO OF THE POEM. 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 sup 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? Or the nature of Dunciad in general, whence de-pose may be the subject thereof? Why in truth, rived, 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, he 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 there of an example. An early instance of which (nor could it escape the accurate Scriblerus) the father of epic poem himself atfordeth us. From him the practice descended to the Greek dramatic poets, his offspring; 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 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 should be an honest man; or as the French 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 poeins; 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 resulteth 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 pro- . ceed from a conscious rectitude of will.-And are the advantages of vanity, when arising to the heroic 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 In short, scruple, but that which might go near to degrade Si un heros poëtique doit être un honnête homme. Bossu, du Poème Epique, liv. v. ch. 5. 2 Ded. to the Life of C. C. 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 ”ܕ man1 bines! 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. 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 Æneis: 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 "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. 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 hero, let us farther remark, that the calling her his whore, implied she was his own, and not his 1 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 epic; 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 deemeth, 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, bow 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 Eneas 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 hath he read, who seeth not, in every trace of 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, 1 Letter to Mr. P. p. 31. 2 ? Life, p. 25, 24. this picture, that individual, all-accomplished person, in whom these rare virtues and lucky circumstances have agreed to meet and concenter with the strongest lustre and fullest harmony. The good Scriblerus indeed, nay the world itself, might be imposed on, in the late spurious editions, by I can't tell what sham hero or phantom: but it was not so easy to impose on him whom this egregious errour most of all concerned. For no sooner had the fourth book laid open the high and swelling scene, but he recognized his own heroic acts: and when he came to the words, that nothing can exceed our hero's prowess; as nothing ever equalled the greatness of his conceptions. Hear how he constantly paragons himself; at one time to Alexander the Great and Charles the XII. of Sweden for the excess and delicacy of his ambition'; to Henry the IV. of France, for honest policy; to the first 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 diversions and amusements: 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 in a word, to the right reverend the lord bishop away the prize of eloquence'; and, to say all of London himself, in the art of writing pastoral letters ". following her. Nor did his actions fall short of the sublimity of his conceit. Revolution 'face to face in Nottingham; at a In his early youth he met the time when his betters contented themselves with Old Battle-array, of whom he hath made so hoIt was here he got acquainted with nourable mention in one of his immortal odes. But he shone in courts as well as in camps: he this Revolution 10; and was was called up when the nation fell in labour of christening, with the bishop and the ladies". a gossip at her Soft on her lap her laureat son reclines, (though laureat imply no more than one crowned with laurel, as befitteth any associate or consort in empire), he loudly resented this indignity to violated Majesty. Indeed, not without cause, he being there represented as fast asleep; so misbeseeming the eye of empire, which, like that of Providence, should never doze nor slumber. "Hah!" (saith he)" fast asleep, it seems! that's a little too strong. Pert and dull at least you might have allowed me, but as seldom asleep as any fool'." However, the injured Hero may comfort himself with this reflection, that though it be a sleep, yet it is not the sleep of death, but of immortality. Here he will live at least, though not awake; and in no worse condition than many an enchanted warriour before him. The famous relation either to heathen god or goddess; but, As to his birth, it is true he pretendeth no Durandante, for instance, was, like him, cast into a long slumber by Merlin, the British bard of both12 what is as good, he was descended from a maker and necromancer; and his example for sub-the world for a hero, as well by birth as educaAnd that he did not pass himself on mitting to it with a good grace, might be of use to our hero. For that disastrous knight being into his life as an anecdote, and is sensible he tion, was his own fault: for his lineage he bringeth sorely pressed or driven to make his answer by had it in his power to be thought nobody's son several persons of quality, only replied with a at all and what is that but coming into the sigh, patience, and shuffle the cards. world a hero? But now, as nothing in this world, no not the most sacred and perfect things, either of religion or government, can escape the sting of envy, methinks I already hear these carpers objecting to the clearness of our hero's title. "It would never" (say they)" have been esteemed sufficient to make an hero for the Iliad or Eneis, that Achilles was brave enough to overturn one empire, or Æneas pious enough to raise another, had they not been goddess-born, and Princes bred. What then did this author mean, by erecting a player instead of one of his patrons (a person, never a hero even on the stage"), to this dignity of colleague in the empire of dulness, and achiever of a work that neither old Omar, Attila, nor John of Leyden, could entirely bring to pass." To all this we have, as we conceive, a sufficient answer from the Roman historian, fabrum esse suæ quemque fortunæ: that every man is the smith of his own fortune. The politic Florentine, Nicholas Machiavel, goeth still further, and affirmeth that a man needeth but to believe himself a hero to be one of the worthiest. "Let him" (saith he) "but fancy himself capable of the highest things, and he will of course be able to achieve them." From this principle it follows, 'Letter, p. 53. : But be it (the punctilious laws of epic poesy so requiring) that a hero of mortal birth must needs be had: even for this more than we have a remedy. We can easily derive our and authority amongst men; and legitimate and hero's pedigree from a goddess of no small power instal him after the right classical and authentic fashion: for, like as the ancient sages found a in a skilful seaman; a son of Phoebus in a son of Mars in a mighty warrior; a son of Neptune harmonious poet; so have we here, if need be, a son of Fortune in an artful gamester. And who fitter than the offspring of Chance, to assist in restoring the empire of Night and Chaos? nounced a hero: this species of men being far more subject than others to the caprices of fortune and humour." But to this also we have an answer, that will (we hope) be deemed decisive. It cometh from himself; who, to cut this matter short, hath solemnly protested that he will never change or amend. With regard to his vanity, he declareth that THE DUNCIAD. TO DR. JONATHAN SWIFT. BOOK THE FIRST. ARGUMENT. nothing shall ever part them. "Nature" (said THE proposition, the invocation, and the inscriphe)" hath amply supplied me in vanity; a pleasure which neither the pertness of wit, nor the gravity of wisdom, will ever persuade me to part with." Our poet had charitably endeavoured to administer a cure to it but he telleth us plainly, "My superiors perhaps may be mended by him; but for my part I own myself incorrigible. I look upon my follies as the best part of my fortune 2." And with good reason; we see to what they have brought him! Secondly, as to buffoonry, "Is it" (saith he) "a time of day for me to leave off these fooleries, and set up a new character? I can no more put off my follies than my skin; I have often tried, but they stick too close to me: nor am I sure my friends are displeased with them, for in this light I afford them frequent matter of mirth, &c. &c 3" Having then so publicly declared himself incorrigible, he is become dead in law (I mean the law Epopeian), and devolveth upon the poet as his property; who may take him, and deal with him as if he had been dead as long as an old Egyptian hero; that is to say, embowel and embalm him for posterity. 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 satisfaction to see, 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 Phoebus adest, morsusque inferre parantem Congelat, et patulos, ut erant, induat hia tus". BY AUTHORITY. tion. Then the original of the great empire of Dulness, and cause of the continuance thereof. The college of the goddess in the city, with her private academy for poets in particular; the governors of it, and the four cardinal virtues. Then the poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting her, on the evening of a lord mayor's day, revolving the long succession of her sons, and the glories past and to come. She fixes her eyes on Bays' to be the instrument of that great event which is the subject of the poem. He is described pensive among his books, giving up the cause, and apprehending the period of her empire: After debating whether to betake himself to the church, or to gaming, or to party-writing, he raises an altar of proper books, and (making first his solemn prayer and declaration) purposes thereon to sacrifice all his unsuccessful writings. As the pile is kindled, the goddess, beholding the flame from her seat, flies and puts it out by casting upon it the poem of Thule. She forthwith reveals herself to him, transports him to her temple, unfolds her arts, and initiates him into her mysteries; then anouncing the death of Eusden, the poet laureat, anoints him, carries him to court, and proclaims him successor. BOOK I. THE mighty mother, and her son, who brings, 1 In the first editions Tibbald was the hero of the poem, which will account for most of the subsequent variations. VARIATION. Ver. 1. The mighty mother, &c.] In the first edit. it was thus, Books and the man I sing, the first who brings, REMARKS. By virtue of the authority in us vested by the act for subjecting poets to the power of a licenser, we have revised this piece; where finding the style and appellation of king to have been given to a certain pretender, pseudo-poet, or phantom, of the name of Tibbald; and apprehending the same may be deemed in some sort a reflection on majesty, or at least an insult on that legal authority which has bestowed on another person the The Dunciad, sic MS. It may well be discrown of poesy: We have ordered the said pre-puted whether this be a right reading: Ought it tender, pseudo-poet, or phantom, utterly to not rather to be spelled Dunceiad, as the etimovanish and evaporate out of this work: And dology evidently demands? Dunce with an e, theredeclare the said throne of poesy from henceforth to be abdicated and vacant, unless duly and lawfully supplied by the laureate himself. And it is hereby enacted, that no other person do presume to fill the samne. OC. CH. fore Dunceiad with an e. That accurate and punctual man of letters, the restorer of Shakespeare, constantly observes the preservation of this very letter e, in spelling the name of his beloved author, and not like his common careless, editors, with the omission of one, nay sometimes of two ee's (as Shakspear), which is utterly unpardonable. "Nor. is the neglect of a single letter so trivial as to some it may appear; the al |