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When reason doubtful, like the Samian letter,
Points him two ways, the narrower is the better.
Plac'd at the door of Learning, youth to guide,
We never suffer it to stand too wide.

To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence, 155
As Fancy opens the quick springs of Sense,
We ply the Memory, we load the brain,
Blind rebel Wit, and double chain on chain

REMARKS.

of virtue and integrity, most materials for conversation;" cannot be called confining youth to words alone, and keeping them out of the way of real knowledge. And as to plying the memory, and loading the brain, as in verse 157, it was the opinion of Milton, and is a practice in our great seminaries, "that if passages from the heroic poems, orations, and tragedies, of the ancients, were solemnly pronounced, with right accent and grace, they would endue the scholars even with the spirit and vigour of Demosthenes or Cicero, Euripides or Sophocles." The illustrious names of Wyndham, Talbot, Murray, and Pulteney, which our Author himself immediately adds, and which catalogue might be much enlarged with the names of many great statesmen, lawyers, and divines, past and present, are a strong confutation of this opprobrious and futile objection. Perhaps he adopted this false opinion from that idle book on education, which Locke disgraced himself by writing; who seems never to have read the second chapter of the first book of Quintilian on this subject; and which is as much superior in strength of reasoning, as it is in elegance of style, to the treatise of our great British philosopher.

Ver. 151. like the Samian letter,] The letter Y, used by Pythagoras as an emblem of the different roads of Virtue and Vice,

"Et tibi quæ Samios diduxit litera ramos.” Pers. P. Ver. 153. Plac'd at the door, &c.] This circumstance of the Genius Loci (with that of the Index-hand before) seems to be an allusion to the Table of Cebes, where the Genius of Human Nature points out the road to be pursued by those just entering into life. Ὁ δὲ γέρων ὁ ἄνω ἑστηκὼς, ἔχων χάρτην τινὰ ἐν τῇ χειρὶ, καὶ τῇ ἑτέρᾳ ὥσπερ δεικνύων τι, οὗτος Δαίμον καλεῖται, &c. P. *

165

Confine the thought, to exercise the breath;
And keep them in the pale of Words till death. 160
Whate'er the talents, or howe'er design'd,
We hang one jingling padlock on the mind :
A Poet the first day he dips his quill;
And what the last? a very Poet still.
Pity! the charm works only in our wall,
Lost, lost too soon in yonder House or Hall.
There truant WYNDHAM ev'ry Muse gave o'er,
There TALBOT sunk, and was a Wit no more!
How sweet an Ovid, MURRAY was our boast!
How many Martials were in PULT'NEY lost! 170
Else sure some Bard, to our eternal praise,
In twice ten thousand rhyming nights and days,
Had reach'd the Work, the All that mortal can;
And South beheld that Masterpiece of Man.

REMARKS.

Ver. 159. to exercise the breath :] By obliging them to get the classic poets by heart, which furnishes them with endless matter for Conversation and verbal amusement for their whole lives. P. *

Ver. 162. We hang one jingling padlock, &c.] For youth being used like Pack-horses, and beaten under a heavy load of words lest they should tire, their instructors contrive to make the words jingle in rhyme or metre.

*

This is a conceit equally false, frigid, and far-fetched.

Ver. 166. in yonder House or Hall.] Westminster-hall and the House of Commons.

Ver. 174. that Masterpiece of Man] Viz. an Epigram. The famous Dr. South used to declare, that a perfect Epigram was as difficult a performance as an Epic Poem. And the Critics say, an Epic Poem is the greatest work human nature is capable of." P. *

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Oh (cry'd the Goddess) for some pedant Reign! Some gentle JAMES, to bless the land again;

REMARKS.

176

Ver. 175. Oh (cry'd the Goddess), &c.] The matter under debate, is how to confine men to words, for life. The instructors of youth shew how well they do their parts; but complain that when men come into the world they are apt to forget their learning, and turn themselves to useful knowledge. This was an evil that wanted to be redressed. And this the Goddess assures them will need a more extensive Tyranny than that of Grammar-schools. She therefore points out to them the remedy, in her wishes for arbitrary Power; whose interest it being to keep men from the study of things, will encourage the propagation of words and sounds; and, to make all sure, she wishes for another Pedant Monarch. The sooner to obtain so great a blessing, she is willing even for once to violate the fundamental principle of her politics, in having her sons taught at least one thing; but that which comprises all, the Doctrine of Divine Right.

Nothing can be juster than the observation here insinuated, that no branch of Learning thrives well under arbitrary Government but the verbal. The reasons are evident. It is unsafe under such Governments to cultivate the study of things, especially things of importance. Besides, when men have lost their public virtue, they naturally delight in trifles, if their private morals secure them from vice. Hence so great a cloud of Scholiasts and Grammarians so soon overspread Greece and Italy, when once those famous lights of the World had lost their Liberties. Another reason is, the encouragement which arbitrary Governments give to the study of words, in order to busy and amuse active Genuises, who might otherwise prove troublesome and inquisitive. Thus when Cardinal Richelieu had destroyed the poor remains of Gallic liberty, and made the supreme Court of Parliament merely ministerial, he instituted the French Academy, for the perfecting their language. What was said upon that occasion, by a brave Magistrate, when the letters patent of its erection came to be verified in the Parliament of Paris, deserves to be remembered: he told the assembly, that it put him in mind how an Emperor of Rome once treated his Senate; who when he had deprived them of the direction of Public matters, sent a message to them in form, for their opinion about the best Sauce for a Turbot.

Ver. 176. Some gentle JAMES, &c.] Wilson tells us that this

To stick the Doctor's Chair into the throne,
Give law to Words, or war with Words alone,
Senates and Courts with Greek and Latin rule,
And turn the Council to a Grammar School!
For sure, if Dulness sees a grateful Day,
'Tis in the shade of Arbitrary Sway.

REMARKS.

180

King, James the First, took upon himself to teach the Latin tongue to Car, Earl of Somerset; and that Gondomar the Spanish Ambassador would speak false Latin to him, on purpose to give him the pleasure of correcting it, whereby he wrought himself into his good graces.

This great prince was the first who assumed the title of Sacred Majesty, which his loyal Clergy transferred from God to Him. "The principles of Passive Obedience and Nonresistance (says the Author of the Dissertation on Parties, Letter 8), which before his time had skulked perhaps in some old Homily, were talked, written, and preached, into vogue in that inglorious reign." P. *

King James prevailed on Camden to alter somepassages in the first part of his history, for which Thuanus reproached him.

Ver. 181, 182. if Dulness sees a grateful Day,—'Tis in the shade of Arbitrary Sway.] And grateful it is in Dulness to make this confession. I will not say she alludes to that celebrated verse of Claudian,

66 nunquam Libertas gratior exstat Quam sub Rege pio;"

But this I will say, that the words Liberty and Monarchy have been frequently confounded and mistaken one for the other, by the gravest authors. I should therefore conjecture, that the genuine reading of the forecited verse was thus,

66 nunquam Libertas gratior exstat Quam sub Lege pia,"

and that Rege was the reading therefore she might allude to it.

only of Dulness herself: and Scribl.

I judge quite otherwise of this passage: the genuine reading is Libertas and Rege: so Claudian gave it. But the error lies in the verb it should be exit, not exstat, and then the meaning will

O! if my sons may learn one earthly thing,
Teach but that one, sufficient for a King;
That which my Priests, and mine alone, maintain,
Which, as it dies, or lives, we fall, or reign:
May you, my Cam, and Isis, preach it long!
"The RIGHT DIVINE of Kings to govern wrong."

186

Prompt at the call, around the goddess roll Broad hats, and hoods, and caps, a sable shoal : Thick and more thick the black blockade extends, A hundred head of Aristotle's friends.

192

REMARKS.

be, that Liberty was never lost, or went away with so good a grace, as under a good King: it being without doubt a tenfold shame to lose it under a bad one.

This farther leads me to animadvert upon a most grievous piece of nonsense to be found in all the Editions of the Author of the Dunciad himself. A most capital one it is, and owing to the confusion mentioned above by Scriblerus, of the two words Liberty and Monarchy. Essay on Crit.

"Nature, like Monarchy, is but restrain'd

By the same Laws herself at first ordain'd."

Who sees not, it should be, Nature, like Liberty? Correct it therefore repugnantibus omnibus (even though the Author himself should oppugn) in all the impressions which have been, or shall be, made of his works. Bentl. P. *

Ver. 183. O! if my sons may learn] The doctrines of true Whiggism, as it is called, were never placed in a stronger light, or set off with more forcible language, than in this and the five following lines. What will the disciples of Hobbes or Filmer say to this passage?

Ver 189. Prompt at the call,-Aristotle's friends.] The Author, with great propriety, hath made these, who were so prompt, at the call of Dulness, to become preachers of the Divine Right of Kings, to be the friends of Aristotle: for this philosopher, in his Politics, hath laid it down as a principle, that some men were by nature made to serve, and others to command. *

Ver. 192. of Aristotle's friends.] Let those who wantonly and

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