Wrapt up in Self, a God without a Thought, 485
Regardless of our merit or default.:

Or that bright Image to our fancy draw,
Which Theocles in raptur'd vision saw,

REMARKS.

"Omnis enim per se Divam natura necesse est
Immortali ævo summa cum pace fruatur,

Semota ab nostris rebus, summotaque longe—

Nec bene pro meritis capitur, nec tangitur ira;” from whence the two verses following are translated; and wonderfully agree with the character of our Goddess. Scribl. P.

Ver. 487. Or that bright Image] Bright Image was the title given by the later Platonists to that Vision of Nature, which they had formed out of their own fancy; so bright that they called it AUTOTTOV "Ayaλua, or the Self-seen Image, i. e. seen by its own light.

*

Ibid. Or that bright Image] i. e. Let it be either the ChanceGod of Epicurus, or the FATE of this Goddess.

Ver. 488. Which Theocles in raptur'd Vision saw,] Thus this Philosopher calls upon his Friend, to partake with him in these Visions:

"To-morrow, when the Eastern Sun

With his first Beams adorns the front
Of yonder Hill, if you're content

To wander with me in the Woods you see,

We will pursue those Loves of ours,

By favour of the Sylvan Nymphs :

:

and invoking first the Genius of the Place, we'll try to obtain at least some faint and distant view of the Sovereign Genius and first Beauty." Charact. Vol. ii. page 245.

This Genius is thus apostrophized (page 345) by the same Philosopher:

Supremely fair, and sovereignly good!
All-loving, and all-lovely! all-divine!
Wise Substitute of Providence! empower'd

Creatress! or empow'ring Deity,

Supreme Creator!

Thee I invoke, and thee alone adore."

While through Poetic scenes the GENIUS roves,
Or wanders wild in Academic Groves ;
That NATURE our Society adores,

Where Tindal dictates, and Silenus snores.

REMARKS.

490

Sir Isaac Newton distinguishes between these two in a very different manner. (Princ. Schol. gen. sub fin.)Hunc cognoscimus solummodo per proprietates suas et attributa, et per sapientissimas et optimas rerum structuras, et causas finales; veneramur autem et colimus ob dominium. Deum etenim sine dominio, providentia, et causis finalibus, nihil aliud est quam Fatum et Natura. P. *

The manifest injustice of introducing Shaftesbury, who was a rigid Deist, though not a Christian, and who wrote so strongly in favour of an intelligent first cause, has been before noticed in the remarks on the Essay on Man. Dr. Berkeley was the first author, who printed in his Alciphron some passages of Shaftesbury, which certainly border on the bombast, as blank verses. In the London Journal, May 18, 1732, there is a vindication of Shaftesbury against Alciphron, supposed by Bishop Hoadley.

Ver. 489. roves,-Or wanders wild in Academic Groves;] "Above all things I loved Ease, and of all Philosophers those who reasoned most at their Ease, and were never angry or disturbed, as those called Sceptics never were. I looked upon this kind of Philosophy as the prettiest, agreeablest, roving Exercise of the mind, possible to be imagined." Vol. ii. p. 206. P. *

Ver. 491. That Nature our Society adores,] See the Pantheisticon with its liturgy and rubrics, composed by Toland; which very lately, for the Edification of the Society, has been translated into English, and publicly sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster.

Ver. 492: Silenus] Mr. Thomas Gordon.-Silenus was an Epicurean Philosopher, as appears from Virgil, Eclog. vi. where he sings the principles of that Philosophy in his drink. P. *

By Silenus he means Gordon, the translator of Tacitus; which, translation he made in an affected, hard, abrupt, and inharmonious style, under the notion of imitating the pregnant brevity of the original, crowded as it is, with sense and matter. He also was the publisher of the Independent Whig, and obtained a lucrative place under government. Lord Monboddo has certainly

Rous'd at his name, up rose the bousy Sire, And shook from out his Pipe the seeds of fire;

Then snapt his box, and strok'd his belly down : 495
Rosy and Rev'rend, tho' without a gown.

Bland and familiar to the throne he came,
Led up the youth, and call'd the Goddess Dame.
Then thus. From Priestcraft happily set free,
Lo! every finish'd Son returns to thee:

First slave to Words, then vassal to a Name,
Then dupe to Party; child and man the same:
Bounded by Nature, narrow'd still by Art,
A trifling head, and a contracted heart.

500

Thus bred, thus taught, how many have I seen, 505
Smiling on all, and Smil'd on by a Queen!
Mark'd out for Honours, honour'd for their birth,
To thee the most rebellious things on earth:

REMARKS.

been too severe in his animadversions on Tacitus. Let us pardon his affected style, for his weighty matter.

Ver. 494. seeds of fire;] The Epicurean language, Semina rerum, or Atoms. Virg. Eclog. vi. Semina ignis-semina flammæ. P. * Ver. 501. First slave to Words, &c.] A recapitulation of the whole Course of modern Education described in this book, which confines Youth to the study of Words only in Schools; subjects them to the authority of Systems in the Universities; and deludes them with the names of Party-distinctions in the World. All equally concurring to narrow the Understanding, and establish Slavery and Error in Literature, Philosophy, and Politics. The whole finished in modern Free-thinking; the completion of whatever is vain, wrong, and destructive to the happiness of mankind, as it establishes Self-love for the sole Principle of Action. P.* Ver. 506- smil'd on by a Queen?] i. e. This Queen or Goddess of Dulness. W.

But it certainly was intended as a sly and satirical stroke on Queen Caroline, and did not relate to the Goddess of Dulness.

510

Now to thy gentle shadow all are shrunk,
All melted down, in Pension, or in Punk!
So K*, so B**, sneak'd into the grave,
A Monarch's half, and half a Harlot's slave.
Poor W** nipt in Folly's broadest bloom,
Who praises now? his Chaplain on his Tomb.
Then take them all, oh take them to thy breast!
Thy Magus, Goddess! shall perform the rest. 516
With that, a WIZARD OLD his Cup extends ;

1

Which whoso tastes, forgets his former friends,

REMARKS.

Ver. 511. So K, so B* *, poor W.] It is vain to inquire the names that belong to these initial letters. Some of the finest passages in Absalom and Achitophel, one of Dryden's capital poems, though concerning persons of far more consequence and importance, are now already unknown; and the satire has lost all its force and poignancy.

Ver. 517. his Cup—Which whoso tastes, &c.] The Cup of Selflove, which causes a total oblivion of the obligations of Friendship or Honour; and of the Service of God or our Country; all sacrificed to Vain-glory, Court-worship, or the yet meaner considerations of Lucre and brutal pleasures. From ver. 520 to 528. P. *

Ibid. With that, a Wizard] The greater mysteries, mentioned in a remark of Warburton on this passage, have no more to do with the Dunciad, than they have with the sixth book of the Eneid. All that can be collected about the mysteries is to be found in Meursius's Collections on this subject, in the 27th vol. Folio, of Grævius' and Gronovius's Thesaur. From which collections Warburton borrowed largely in his famous dissertation on this subject, which has been so completely refuted by, Gibbon.

IMITATIONS.

Ver. 517. Which whoso tastes, forgets his former friends,-Sire, &c.] Homer of the Nepenthe, Odyss. iv. [v. 220.]

Αὐτίκ ̓ ἄρ ̓ εἰς οἶνον βάλε φάρμακον, ἔνθεν ἔπινον,
Νηπενθές τ' ἄχολόν τε κακῶν ἐπίληθον ἁπάντων.

37 36

Sire, Ancestors, himself. One casts his eyes
Up to a Star, and like Endymion dies:
A Feather, shooting from another's head,
Extracts his brain; and Principle is fled;
Lost is his God, his country, ev'ry thing ;
And nothing left but Homage to a King!
The vulgar herd turn off to roll with Hogs,
To run with Horses, or to hunt with Dogs;
But, sad example! never to escape
Their infamy, still keep the human shape.

REMARKS.

520

525

Ver. 523, 524. Lost is his God, his Country-And nothing left but Homage to a King?] So strange as this must seem to a mere English reader, the famous Mons. de la Bruyere declares it to be the character of every good subject in a Monarchy: "Where (says he) there is no such thing as Love of our Country, the Interest, the Glory, and the Service, of the Prince, supply its place." De la Republique, chap. x.

Of this duty another celebrated French Author speaks, indeed, a little more disrespectfully; which, for that reason, we shall not translate, but give in his own words, "L'Amour de la Patrie, le grand motif des prémiers Heros, n'est plus regardé que comme une Chimêre ; l'idée du Service du Roi, etendüe jusqu'a l'oubli de tout autre Principe, tient lieu de ce qu'on appelloit autrefois Grandeur d'Ame & Fidelité." Boulainvilliers Hist. des Anciens Parlements de France, &c.—And a much greater man than either of them, the Cardinal de Retz, speaking of a conversation he had with the Regente, Anne of Austria, makes this observation on the Court," Je connus en cet endroit, qu'il est impossible que la Cour conçoive ce que ce'st LE PUBLIC. La flatterie, qui en est la peste, l'infecte toujours à un tel point, qu'elle lui cause un delire incurable sur cet article."

Ver. 528. keep the human shape.] Few pieces of satire are more finely imagined, than the Circe of Gelli (copied from Plutarch), in which the men, transformed into beasts, refuse to return again into the human shape, and be again subject to the follies and miseries of that species of animals. The 526th line contains a most severe invective on horse-racing and hunting; and perhaps an invective too severe.