REMARKS. VER. 340. And thro' the Iv'ry Gate] See what the truly learned Jortin has faid in his Sixth Differtation on the subject of this Iv'ry Gate. This Sixth Differtation very unfortunately produced a Seventh, on the Delicacy of Friendship, which it must be lamented was ever published. WARTON. IMITATIONS. VER. 340. And thro' the Iv'ry Gate, &c.] "Sunt geminæ Somni portæ ; quarum altera fertur WHEN the first complete and correct edition of the Dunciad was published in quarto, 1729, it confifted of three books; and had for its hero Tibbald; a cold, plodding, and tasteless writer and critic, who, with great propriety, was chofen, on the death of Settle, by the Goddefs of Dulnefs, to be the chief instrument of that great work which was the fubject of the poem; namely, "the introduction (as our Author expreffes it) of the lowest diverfions of the rabble of Smithfield, to be the entertainment of the court and town; the action of the Dunciad being, the removal of the imperial feat of Dulness from the city to the polite world; as that of the Æneid is the removal of the empire of Troy to Latium." This was the primary fubject of the piece. Our author adds, "as Homer, finging only the wrath of Achilles, yet includes in his poem the whole hiftory of the Trojan war, in like manner our Poet hath drawn into this fingle action the whole history of Dulnefs and her children. To this end, fhe is reprefented, at the very opening of the Poem, taking a view of her forces, which are diftinguished into thefe three kinds, partywriters, dull poets, and wild critics. A perfon must be fixed upon to fupport this action, who (to agree with the defign) muft be fuch an one as is capable of being all three. This phantom in the poet's mind must have a name. He feeks for one who hath been concerned in the journals, written bad plays or poems, and published low criticifms. He finds his name to be Tibbald, and he becomes of course the hero of the poem." This defign is carried on, in the first book, by a defcription of the Goddess fixing her eye on Tibbald; who, on the evening of a Lord-mayor's day, is reprefented as fitting penfively in his study, and apprehending the period of her empire, from the old age of the present monarch Settle; and alfo by an account of a facrifice he makes of his unfuccefsful works; of the Goddefs's revealing herself to him, announcing the death of Settle that night, anointing and proclaiming him fucceffor. It is carried on in the fecond book, by a defcription of the various games inftituted in honour honour of the new king, in which booksellers, poets, and critics contend. This defign is, laftly, completed in the third book, by the Goddess's transporting the new king to her temple, laying him in a deep flumber on her lap, and conveying him in a vifion to the banks of Lethe, where he meets with the ghost of his predeceffor Settle; who, in a fpeech that begins at line 35, to almoft the end of the book, fhews him the paft triumphs of the empire of Dulnefs, then the prefent, and laftly the future: enumerating particularly by what aids, and by what perfons, Great Britain fhall be forthwith brought to her empire, and prophefying how first the nation fhall be over-run with farces, operas, fhows; and the throne of Dulness advanced over both the theatres : then, how her fons fhall prefide in the feats of arts and sciences; till in conclufion, all fhall return to their original chaos. On hearing which, Enough! enough! the raptur'd Monarch cries; And thro' the Iv'ry Gate the Vision flies. With which words, the defign above recited being perfected, the poem concludes. Thus far all was clear, confiftent, and of a piece; and was delivered in such nervous and spirited versification, that the delighted reader had only to lament that fo many poetical beauties were thrown away on fuch dirty and defpicable fubjects, as were the fcribblers here profcribed; who appear like monsters preferved in the moft cofly fpirits. But in the year 1742, our Poet was perfuaded by Dr. Warburton, unhappily enough, to add a fourth book to his finished piece, of fuch a very different caft and colour, as to render it at last one of the moft motley compofitions, that perhaps is any where to be found in the works of fo exact a writer as Pope. For one, great purpose of this fourth book (where, by the way, the hero does nothing at all) was to fatirize and profcríbe infidels and free-thinkers, to leave the ludicrous for the serious, Grub-street for theology, the mock-heroic for metaphyfics: which occafioned a marvellous mixture and jumble of images and fentiments, pantomime and philofophy, journals and moral evidence, Fleet-ditch and the High Priori road, Curl and Clarke.-To ridicule our petulant libertines, and affected minute philofophers, was doubtless a most laudable intention; but speaking of the Dunciad as a work of art, in a critical not a religious light, I mult venture to affirm, that the fubject of this fourth book was foreign and heterogeneous, and the addition of it as injudicious, ill-placed, and incongruous, as of those diffimilar images we meet with in Pulci or Ariosto. any It It is like introducing a crucifix into one of Teniers's burlesque conversation-pieces. Some of his most splendid and striking lines are indeed here to be found; but I muft beg leave to infift, that they want propriety and decorum, and muft wish they had adorned fome separate work against irreligion, which would have been worthy the pen of our bitter and immortal satirift. But neither was this the only alteration the Dunciad was deftined to undergo. For in the year 1743, our Author, enraged with Cibber (whom he had usually treated with contempt ever fince the affair of Three Hours after Marriage) for publishing a ridiculous pamphlet against him, dethroned Tibbald, and made the laureate the hero of his poem. Cibber, with a great stock of levity, vanity, and affectation, had fenfe, and wit, and humour: And the author of the Carclefs Hufband was by no means a proper king of the dunces. "His treatise on the ftage (fays Mr. Walpole) is inimitable: where an author writes on his own profeffion, feels it profoundly, and is fenfible his readers do not, he is not only excufable, but meritorious, for illuminating the fubject by new metaphors, on bolder figures than ordinary. He is the coxcomb that fneers, not he that inftructs by appropriated diction." The confequence of this alteration was, that many lines, which exactly fuited the heavy character of Tibbald, loft all their grace and propriety when applied to Cibber. Such as, Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound ! Such alfo is the defeription of his gothic library, for Cibber troubled not himself with Caxton, Wynkyn, and De Lyra. Tibbald, who was an antiquarian, had collected those curious old writers: And to flumber in the Goddefs's lap, was adapted to his ftupidity, not to the vivacity of his fucceffor. On the whole, the chief fault of the Dunciad, is the violence and vehemence of its fatire, and the exceffive height to which it is carried; and which therefore I may compare to that marvellous column of boiling water, near Mount Hecla in Iceland, thrown up. wards, above ninety feet, by the force of a fubterraneous fire. What are the impreffions left upon the mind after a perufal of this poem? Contempt, averfion, vexation, and anger. No fentiments that enlarge, ennoble, move, or mend the heart! Infomuch that I know a perfon, whofe name would be an ornament to these papers, if I were fuffered to infert it, who, after reading a book of the Dunciad, always fooths himself, as he calls it, by turning to a canto in the Fairy Queen. This is not the cafe in that very delightful and beautiful poem, Mac Flecnoe, from which Pope VOL. V. $ has |