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I fing. Say you, her inftruments the great!
Call'd to this work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate;

You

learned fifter university (the other eye of England) is taking care to perpetuate a Total new Shakespear, at the Clarendon prefs.

BENTL.

It is to be noted, that this great critic also has omitted one circumstance; which is, that the infcription with the name of Shakespear was intended to be placed on the marble fcroll to which ke points with his hand; instead of which it is now placed behind his back, and that specimen of an edition is put on the scroll, which indeed Shakespeare hath great reason to point at.

ANON.

Though I have as just a value for the letter e, as any grammarian living, and the fame affection for the name of this Poem as any critic for that of his author; yet cannot it induce me to agree with those who would add yet anothere to it, and call it the Dunceiade; which being a French and foreign termination, is no way proper to a word entirely English, and vernacular. One e therefore in this cafe is right, and two ee's wrong. Yet upon the whole, İ shall follow the manufcript, and print it without any eat all; moved thereto by authority (at all times, with critics, equal, if not fuperior to reafon.) In which method of proceeding, I can never enough praise my good friend, the exact Mr. Tho. Hearne; who, if any word occur, which to him and all mankind is evidently wrong, yet keeps he it in the text with due reverence, and only remarks in the margin fic MS. mend this error in the title itself, but learned that it was not our fault, nor any tion.

In like manner, we shall not aonly note it obiter, to evince to the effect of our ignorance or inattenSCRIBL.

This Poem was written in the year 1726. In the next year an imperfect edition was published at Dublin, and reprinted at London in twelves; another at Dublin, and another at London in octayo; and three others in twelves the fame year, but there was no perfect edition before that of London in quarto, which was attended with notes. We are willing to acquaint posterity, that this poem was prefented to King George the Second and his Queen by the hands of Sir Robert Walpole, on the 12th of March, 1728-9. SCHOL. VET.

It was exprefsly confeffed in the Preface to the first Edition, that this Poem was not published by the author himself. It was printed originally in a foreign country. And what foreign country? Why, one notorious for blunders; where finding blanks only instead of proper names, these blun derers filled them up at their pleasure.

The very bero of the Poem hath been mistaken to this hour; fo that we are obliged to open our notes with a difcovery who he really was. We learn from the former editor, that this piece was prefented by the hands of Sir Robert Walpole to king George II. Now our author directly tells us, his hero is

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"The Smithfield mufes to the ear of kings."

And it is notorious who was the perfon on whom this prince conferred the honour of the laurel.

You by whofe care, in vain decry'd and curft,
Still Dunce the fecond reigns like Dunce the firft;

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It appears as plainly from the apostrophe to the great in the third verse, that Tibbald could not be the perfon, who was never an author in fashion, or careffed by the great: whereas this fingle characteristic is fufficient to point out the true hero; who, above all other poets of his time, was the peculiar delight and chosen companion of the nobility of England; and wrote, as he himself tells us, certain of his works at the earnest defire of persons of quality.

Lastly, The fixth verfe affords full proof; this poet being the only one who was univerfally known to have had a sun so exactly like him, in his poetical, theatrical, political, and moral capacities, that it could justly be faid of him

"Still Dunce the fecond reigns like Dunce the first.”

BENTL.

* The reader ought here to be cautioned, that the mother, and not the fon, is the principal agent of this Poem: the latter of them is only chofen as her colleague (as was antiently the cuftom in Rome before some great expedition) the main action of the Poem being by no means the coronation of the laureate, which is performed in the very first book, but the reftoration of the empire of Dulness in Britain, which is not accomplished till the last.

Ibid. Wonderful is the ftupidity of all the former critics and commentators on this work! It breaks forth at the very first line. The author of the Critique prefixed to Sawney, a Roem, p. 5. hath been fo dull as to explain the man who brings, &c. not of the hero of the piece, but of our poet himself, as if he vaunted that kings were to be his readers; an honour, which though this Poem hath had, yet knoweth he how to receive it with more modesty. We remit this Ignorant to the first lines of the Æneid, affuring him that Virgil there fpeaketh not of himself, but of Æneas:

"Arma virumque cano, Trojæ qui primus ab oris
"Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venit

"Littora: multum ille et terris jactatus et alto, &c.

I cite the whole three verfes, that I may by the way offer a conjectural emendation, purely my own, upon each: first, oris fhould be read aris, it being, as we fee, En. ii. 513. from the altar of Jupiter Hercæus that Æneas filed as foon as he faw Priam flain. In the fecond line I would read flatu for fato, fince it is most clear it was by winds that he arrived at the bore of Italy. Factatus, in the third, is as furely as improperly applied to terris, as proper to alto; to fay a man is toft on land, is much at one with faying he walks at fea: Rifum teneatis amici ? Correct it, as I doubt not it ought to be, vexatus. SCRIBL Smithfield is the place where Bartholomew fair was kept, whose fnews, machines, and dramatical entertainments, formerly agreeable only to the taste of the rabble, were, by the hero of this Poem, and others of equal genius, brought to the theatres of Covent-Garden, Lincoln's inn fields, and the Hay-market, to be the reigning pleasures of the court and town. This happened in the reigns of K. George I. and II. See Book iii. I. e. by their judgments, their interefts, and their inclinations.

Say,

Say, how the Goddess * bade Britannia fleep,
And pour'd her spirit o'er the land and deep.
In eldest time, 'ere mortals writ or read,
Ere Pallas iffus'd from the Thund'rer's head,
Dulnefs o'er all poffefs'd her antient right,
Daughter of Chaos § and eternal Night :
Fate in their dotage this fair ideot gave,
Grofs as her fire, and as her mother grave,
Laborious, heavy, bufy, bold, and blind †,
She rul'd, in native anarchy, the mind.

ΟΙ

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The poet ventureth to fing the Action of the Goddefs; but the Paffion fhe imprefleth on her illustrious votaries, he thinketh can be only told by themselves. SCRIBL.

The beauty of the whole allegory being purely of the poetical kind, we think it not our proper bufinefs, as a fcholiaft, to meddle with it; but leave it (as we hall in general all fuch) to the reader; remarking only that Chaos (according to Heliod's royonia) was the progenitor of all the gods. SCRIBL.

I wonder the learned Scriblerus has omitted to advertise the reader, at the opening of this Poem, that Dulness here is not to be taken contractedly for mere ftupidity, but in the enlarged fenfe of the word, for all flowness of apprehenfion, shortness of fight, or imperfect sense of things. It includes (as we fee by the poet's own words) labour, induftry, and fome degree of activity and boldnefs; a ruling principle not inert, but turning topsy-turvy the underftanding, and inducing an anarchy or confused state of mind. This remark ought to be carried along with the reader throughout the work; and without this caution he will be apt to mistake the importance of many of the characters, as well as of the defign of the poet. Hence it is, that fome have complained he chufes too mean a fubject, and imagined he employs himself, like Domitian, in killing flies; whereas thofe who have the true key will find he fports with nobler quarry, and embraces a larger compafs; or, (as one faith, on a like occafion)

We'll fee his work, like Jacob's ladder, rife, "Its foot in dirt, its head amid the fkies."

BENTL.

The native anarchy of the mind is that state which precedes the time of Reafon's affuming the rule of the Paffions. But in that ftate, the uncontrolled violence of the paffions would foon bring things to confufion, were it not for the intervention of DULNESS, in this abfence of reafon; who, though he cannot regulate them like reafon, yet blunts and deadens their vigour, and indeed produces fome of the good effects of it: hence it is that Dulnefs has often the appearance of reafon. This is the only good she ever did; and the candid post is careful to tell it in the very introduction of his Poem. It is to be observed indeed, that this is fpoken of the universal rule of Dulnefs in antient days; but we may form an idea of it from her partial government in latter times.

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Still her old empire to reftore* fhe tries,
For, born a goddefs, Dulnefs never dies.

Oh Thou! whatever title please thine ear,
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver §!
Whether thou chufe Cervantes' ferious air,
Or laugh and shake in Rab'lais' easy chair †,
Or praise the court, or magnify mankind †,
Or thy griev'd country's copper chains unbind ;
From thy Boeotia tho' her power retires,

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Mourn not, my SWIFT, at ought our realm acquires .
Here pleas'd behold her mighty wings out-spread
To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead **.

Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne,
And laughs to think Monroe would take her down,
Where o'er the gates, by his fam'd father's hand §§,
Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers ftand;

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* This restoration makes the completion of the Poem. Vide book iv. The feveral names and characters he affumed in his ludicrous, his splenetic, or his party-writings; which take in all his works.

The imagery is exquifite; and the equivoque in the last words, gives a peculiar elegance to the whole expreffion. The esfy chair fuits his age; Rab'lais' eafy chair marks his character; and he fills and poffeffes it as the right heir and fucceffor of that original genius.

Ironicè, alluding to Gulliver's reprefentations of both.-The next line relates to the papers of the Drapier against the currency of Wood's copper coin in Ireland, which, upon the great difcontent of the people, his majesty was graciously pleased to recall.

Ironicè iterum. The politics of England and Ireland were at this time by fome thought to be oppofite, or interfering with each other; Dr. Swift of courfe was in the intereft of the latter, our author of the former.

** The antient golden age is by poets stiled Saturnian, as being under the reign of Saturn: but in the chemical language Saturn is lead. She is here faid only to be spreading her wings to hatch this age; which is not produced completely till the fourth book.

$$ Mr. Caius-Gabriel Cibber, father of the poet-laureate. The two flatues of the lunatics over the gates of Bedlam-hofpital were done by him, and (as the fon justly says of them) are no ill monuments of his fame as an artist.

One

One cell there is, conceal'd from vulgar eye,
The cave of Poverty and Poetry §.

Keen, hollow winds howl thro' the bleak recefs,
Emblem of Mufic caus'd by emptiness.
Hence bards, like Proteus long in vain ty'd down,
Escape in monfters, and amaze the town †.

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Hence

and

The cell of poor Poetry is here very properly reprefented as a little uxendowed ball in the neighbourhood of the magnific college of Bedlam; as the fureft feminary to fupply thofe learned walls with profeffors. For there cannot be a plainer fymptom of madness than for men to chufe poverty and contempt; to ftarve themselves and offend the public by fcribbling,

"Escape in monsters, and amaze the town,'

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when they might have benefited themselves and others in profitable and honeft employments. The qualities and productions of the students of this private academy are afterwards defcribed in this first book; as are also their' actions throughout the fecond; by which it appears, how near allied Dulness is to Madness. This naturally prepares us for the subject of the third book, where we find them in union, and acting in conjunction to produce the catastrophe of the fourth; a mad poetical fibyl leading our hero through the regions of Vision, to animate him in the present undertaking, by a view of the past triumphs of Barbarism over Science.

§ I cannot here omit a remark that will greatly endear our author to every one, who shall attentively obferve that humanity and candor, which every where appear in him towards thofe unhappy objects of the ridicule of all mankind, the bad poets. He here imputes all fcandalous rhymes, fcurrilous weekly papers, bafe Batteries, wretched elegies, fongs, and verses (even from thofe fung at court, to ballads in the streets) not fo much to malice or fervility as to Dulness; and not fo much to Dulness as to Neceffity. And thus, at the very commencement of his Satire, makes an apology for all that are to be fatirized,

Ovid has given us a very orderly account of these escapes.
"Sunt quibus in plures jus eft tranfire figuras:

"Ut tibi, complexi terram maris incola, Proteu;

"Nunc violentus Aper; nunc, quem tetigiffe timerent,
"Anguis eras; modo te facicbant cornua Taurum :
"Sæpe Lapis poteras."

Met. viii.

Neither Palæphatus, Phurnutus, nor Heraclides give us any steady light into the mythology of this mysterious fable. If I be not deceived in a part of learning which has fo long exercised my pen, by Proteus must certainly be meant a hacknied town-fcribbler; and by his transformations, the various difguifes fuch a one affumes, to elude the purfuit of his irreconcileable enemy, the bailiff. And in this light, doubtless Horace underflood the fable, where, fpeaking of Proteus, he fays,

"Quum rapies in jus malis ridentem alienis,
"Fict aper," &c.

Proteus

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