But whatever personal qualities a hero may have, the examples of Achilles and Æneas shew 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 portray or shadow out this noble imp of fame. But not the impatient reader will be apt to say, 'If so many and various graces go to the making up a hero, what mortal shall suffice to bear his character?' Ill hath he read who seeth not, in every trace of this picture, that individual, all-accomplished person, in whom these rare virtues and lucky circumstances have agreed to meet and concentre 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 error 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, 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 warrior before him. The famous Durandante, for instance, was, like him, cast into a long slumber by Merlin the British bard and necroInancer; and his example for submitting to it with a good grace, might be of use to our hero. For that disastrous knight being sorely pressed or driven to make his answer by several persons of quality, only replied with a sigh, Patience, and shuffle the cards.'t 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 a hero for the Iliad or Æneis, that Achilles was brave enough to overturn one empire, or Eneas 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 fortuna: that every man is the sinith 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, 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 XII. of Sweden, for the excess and delicacy of his ambition; to Henry IV. of France, for Letter to Mr. P. p. 53. + Letter, p. 1. Don Quixote, part ii. book ii. ch. 22. § See Life, p. 148. | P. 149. 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 away the prize of eloquence; and, to say all in a word, to the right reverend the lord bishop of London himself, in the art of writing pastoral letters.** Nor did his actions fall short of the sublimity of his conceit. In his early youth he met the Revolution++ face to face in Nottingham; at a time when his betters contented themselves with following her. It was here he got acquainted with Old Battle-array, of whom he hath made so honourable mention in one of his inmortal odes. But he shone in courts as well as in camps; he was called up when the nation fell in labour of this Revolution; and was a gossip at her christening, with the bishop and the ladies.§§ As to his birth, it is true he pretendeth no relation either to heathen god or goddess; but, what is as good, he was descended from a maker of both. And that he did not pass himself on the world for a hero, as well by birth as education, was his own fault: for his lineage he bringeth into his life as an anecdote, and is sensible he had it in his power to be thought nobody's son at all: TT and what is that but coming into the world a hero? But be it (the punctilious laws of epic poesy so requiring) that a hero of more than mortal birth must needs be had; even for this we have a remedy. We can easily derive our hero's pedigree from a goddess of no small power and authority amongst men; and legitimate and instal him after the right classical and authentic fashion: for, like as the ancient sages found a son of Mars in a mighty warrior; a son of Neptune in a skilful seaman; a son of Phoebus in a 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 ? There is, in truth, another objection of greater weight, namely, That this hero still existeth, and hath not yet finished his earthly course. For if Solon said well, 'ultima semper Expectanda dies homini: dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet! if no man be called happy till his death, surely much less can any one, till then, be pronounced 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 nothing shall ever part them. 'Nature,' said he, 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.'+++ And with good reason; we see to what they have brought him! Secondly; as to buffoonery. 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 ine: nor am I sure my friends are displeased with them, for in this light I afford them frequent matter of mirth, &c. &c. Having then so publicly declared himself incorrigible, he is become dead in law (I mean the law epopoeian) and devolveth upon the poet as his property; who may take hin, 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 con* P. 424. + P. 366. + P. 457. § P. 18. | P. 425. ¶ P. 436, 437. **P. 52. +See Life, p. 47. tt P. 57. SS P. 58, 59 A statuary. ¶¶ Life, p. 6. *** See Life, p. 424. ttt P. 19. #tt P. 17 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, pseudopoet, 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 crown of poesy: We have ordered the said pretender, pseudopoet, or phantom, utterly to vanish and evaporate out of this work; and do declare 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 same. TO THE DUNCIAD. OC. CH. R. JONATHAN SWIFT. ARGUMENT. The proposition, the invocation, and the inscription. 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 glory 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 amonghisbooks, 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 Thulé. She forthwith reveals herself to him, transports him to her temple, unfolds her arts, and initiates him into her mysteries; then announcing the death of Eusden, the poet laureate, anoints him, carries him to court, and proclaims him successor. BOOK I. THE mighty mother, and her son, who brings REMARKS. The Dunciad, sic MS.] It may well be disputed whether this be a right reading: Ought it not rather to be spelled Dunceiad, as the etymology evidently demands? Dunce with an e, therefore Dunceiad with an e. That accurate and punctual man of letters, the restorer of Shakespear, constantly observes the preservation of this very letter e, in spelling the name of his beloved author, and not like his common careless editors, See Life, p. 243, 8vo. edit. Ovid, of the serpent biting at Orpheus's head. You, by whose care, in vain decried and cursed, REMARKS. 10 with the omission of one, nay, sometimes of two ee's (as Theobald. This is surely a slip in the learned author of the foregoing note; there having been since produced by an accurate antiquary, an autograph of Shakespeare himself, whereby it appears that he spelled his own name without the first e. And upon this authority it was, that those most critical curators of his monument in Westminster Abbey erased the former wrong reading, and restored the true spelling on a new piece of old Ægyptian granite. Nor for this only do they deserve our thanks, but for exhibiting on the same monument the first specimen of an edition of an author in marble; where (as may be seen on comparing the tomb with the book) in the space of five lines, two words and a whole verse are changed, and it is to be hoped will there stand, and outlast whatever hath been hitherto done in paper; as for the future, our learned sister university (the other eye of England) is taking care to perpetuate a total new Shakespeare at the Clarendon press. Bentl It is to be noted that this great critic also has omitted one circumstance; which is, that the inscription with the name of Shakespeare was intended to be placed on the marble scroll to which he 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 Anon. Shakespeare hath great reason to point at. Though I have as just a value for the letter E, as any grammarian living, and the same affection for the name of this poem as any critie for that of his author; yet cannot it induce me to agree with those who would add yet another e 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 case is right, and two ee's wrong. Yet, upon the whole, I shall follow the manuscript, and print it without any e at all; moved thereto by authority (at all times, with critics, equal, if not superior to reason). In which method of proceeding, I can never enough praise my good friend the exact Mr. Thomas 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, Sic. MS. In like manner we shall not amend this error in the title itself, but only note it obiter, to evince to the learned that it was not our fault, nor any effect of our ignorance Scribl. or inattention. 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 octavo; and three others in twelves the same 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 presented 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 expressly confessed 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 blunderers filled them up at their pleasure. The very hero of the poem hath been mistaken to this hour; so that we are obliged to open our notes with a discovery who he really was. We learn from the former editor, that this piece was presented by the hands of sir Robert Walpole to King George II. Now the author directly tells us, his hero is the man Fate in their dotage this fair idiot gave, Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave, Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind, She ruled, in native anarchy, the mind. Still her old empire to restore she tries, For, born a goddess, Dulness never dies. Oh thou! whatever title please thine ear Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver! Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair, Or praise the court, or magnify mankind, Or thy grieved country's copper chains unbind From thy Boeotia though her power retires, Mourn not, my Swift, at aught our realm acquires. Here pleased behold her mighty wings outspread To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead. REMARKS. Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne, Keen, hollow winds howl through the bleak recess, 20 Emblem of music caused by emptiness. And it is notorious who was the person on whom this prince conferred the honour of the laurel. It appears as plainly from the apostrophe to the great in the third verse, that Tibbald could not be the person, who was never an author in fashion, or caressed by the great; whereas this single characteristic is sufficient 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 desire of persons of quality. Lastly, the sixth verse affords full proof; this poet being the only one who was universally known to have had a son so exactly like him, in his poetical, theatrical, political, and moral capacities, that it could justly be said of him, Bentl. 'Still Dunce the second reigns like Dance the first' Ver. 1. The mighty mother, and her son, &c.] The reader ought here to be cautioned, that the mother, and not the son, is the principal agent of this poem, the latter of them is only chosen as her colleague (as was anciently the custom 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 restoration of the empire of Dulness in Britain, which is not accomplished till the last. Ver. 2. The Smithfield Muses.] Smithfield is the place where Bartholomew fair was kept, whose shows, 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 King George I. and II. See Book iii. Ver. 4. By Dulness, Jove, and Fate:] i. e. by their judgments, their interests, and their inclinations. Ver. 15. Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, &c.] 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 stupidity, but in the enlarged sense of the word, for all slowness of apprehension, shortness of sight, or imperfect sense of things. It includes (as we see by the poet's own words) labour, industry, and some degrees of activity and boldness; a ruling principle not inert, but turning topsyturvy the understanding, 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 design of the poet. Hence it is that some have complained he chooses too mean a subject, and imagined he employs himself like Domitian, in killing flies; whereas those who have the true key will find he sports with nobler quarry, and embraces a larger compass; or (as one saith on a like occasion). Will see his work, like Jacob's ladder rise, Its foot in dirt, its head amid the skies.' Bentl. Ver. 17. Still her old empire to restore.] This restoration makes the completion of the poem. Vide Book Iv. Ver 22.-laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair.] The imagery is exquisite; and the equivoque in the last words, gives a peculiar elegance to the whole expression. The easy chair suits his age: Rabelais' easy chair marks his character; and he filled and possessed it as the right heir and successor of that original genius. Hence bards, like Proteus, long in vain tied down. REMARKS. 30 40 50 Ver. 23. Or praise the court, or magnify mankind.] Ironicè, alluding to Gulliver's representations 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 discontent of the people, his majesty was most graciously pleased to recall. Ver. 26. Mourn not, my Swift, at aught our realm acquires.] Ironice iterum. The politics of England and Ireland were at this time by some thought to be opposite, or interfering with each other. Dr. Swift of course was in the interest of the latter, our author of the former. Ver. 31. By his famed father's hand.] Mr. Caius Gabriel Cibber, father of the poct-laureate. The two statues of the lunatics over the gates of Bedlam-hospital were done by him, and (as the son justly says of them) are no ill monuments of his fame as an artist. Ver. 34. Poverty and poetry.] I cannot here omit a remark that will greatly endear our author to every one, who shall attentively observe that humanity and candour, which every where appears in him towards those unhappy objects of the ridicule of all mankind, the bad poets. He there imputes all scandalous rhymes, scurrilous weekly papers, base flatteries, wretched elegies, songs, and verses (even from those sung at court, to ballads in the street), not so much to malice or servility as to dulness, and not so much to dulness as to necessity. And thus, at the very commencement of his satire, makes an apology for all that are to be satirized. The Ver. 40. Curll's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post:] Two booksellers, of whom see Book ii. former was fined by the Court of King's Bench for publishing obscene books; the latter usually adorned his shop with titles in red letters. Ver. 41. Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines.] It is an ancient English custom for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution at Tyburn; and no less customary to print elegies on their deaths, at the same time, or before. Ver. 43. Sepulchral lies,] is a just satire on the flatteries and falsehoods admitted to be inscribed on the walls of churches, in epitaphs; which occasioned the following epigram: Friend in your epitaphs, I'm grieved, The other never read.' Ver. 44.-new year odes,] Made by the poet-laureate for the time being, to be sung at court on every newyear's day, the words of which are happily drowned in the voices and instruments. The new-year odes of the hero of this work were of a cast distinguished from all that preceeded him, and made a conspicuous part of his character as a writer, which doubtless induced our author to mention them here so particularly. Ver. 45. In clouded majesty here Dulness shone.] See this cloud removed or rolled back, or gathered up to her head, Book iv. ver. 17, 18. It is worth while to compare this description of the majesty of Dulness in a state of peace and tranquillity, with that more busy scene where she mounts the throne in triumph, and is not so much supported by her own virtues, as by the princely consciousness of having destroyed all other. Where in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs, And solid pudding against empty praise. Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep, Here one poor word a hundred clenches makes, 60 She saw old Pryn in restless Daniel shine, Ver. 104. REMARKS. Laurence And Eusden eke out, &c.] Eusden, a laurel'd bard by fortune rais'd, By very few was read, by fewer praised.' Mr. Oldmixon, in his Arts of Logic and Rhetoric, p. 413, 414, affirms, That of all the Galimatias he ever met with, none comes up to some verses of this poet which 70 have as much of the ridiculum and the fustian in them as can well be jumbled together, and are of that sort of nonsense, which so perfectly confounds all ideas, that there is no distinct one left in the mind.' Farther he says of him, That he hath prophesied his own poetry shall be sweeter than Catullus, Ovid, and Tibullus: but we have little hope of the accomplishment of it, from what he hath lately published.' Upon which Mr. Oldmixon has not spared a reflection, That the putting the laurel on the head of one who writ such verses, will give 80 futurity a very lively idea of the judgement and justice of those who bestowed it Ibid. p. 417. But the well known learning of that noble person, who was then lord chamberlain, might have screened him from this unmannerly reflection. Nor ought Mr. Oldmixon to complain, so long after, that the laurel would have better become his own brows, or any other's: it were more decent to acquiesce in the opinion of the duke of Buckingham upon this matter: 90 All these, and more, the cloud compelling queen Beholds through fogs, that magnify the scene. She, tinsel'd o'er in robes of varying hues, With self-applause her wild creation views; Sees momentary monsters rise and fall, And with her own fools-colours gilds them all. "Twas on the day, when ** rich and grave, Like Cimon triumph'd both on land and wave: (Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces, Glad chains, warm furs, broad banners, and broad faces) Now night descending, the proud scene was o'er, But lived in Settle's numbers, one day more. Now mayors and shrieves all hush'd and satiate lay, Yet eat, in dreams, the custard of the day; While pensive poets painful vigils keep, Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep. Much to the mindful queen the feast recalls What city swans once sung within the walls; Much she revolves their arts, their ancient praise, And sure succession down from Heywood's days, She saw with joy, the line immortal run, Each sire imprest and glaring in his son: So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care, Bach growing lump, and brings it to a bear. REMARKS. In rush'd Eusden, and cried who shall have it, The same plea might also serve for his successor, Mr. In merry Old England it once was a rule, But now we're so frugal, I'd have you to know it, 100 That Cibber can serve both for fool and for poet.' Ver. 57. genial Jacob] Ton. The famous race of booksellers of that name. Ver. 85, 86. "Twas on the day, when rich and grave-Like Cimon triumph'd] Viz. a lord mayor's day; his name the author had left in blanks, but most certainly could never be that which the editor foisted in formerly, and which no way agrees with the chronology of the poem. Bentl. The procession of a lord-mayor is made partly by land and partly by water-Cimon, the famous Athenian general, obtained a victory by sea, and another by land on the same day, over the Persians and Barbarians. Ver. 90. But lived, in Settle's numbers, one day more.] A beautiful manner of speaking, usual with poets, in praise of poetry. Ibid. But lived, in Settle's numbers, one day more ] Settle was poet to the city of London. His office was to compose yearly panegyrics upon the lord mayors, and verses to be spoken in the pageants: but that part of the shows being at length frugally abolished, the employment of City-poet ceased; so that upon Settle's demise, there was no successor to that place. Ver. 98. John Heywood, whose interludes were printed in the time of Henry VIII. Ver. 103. Old Pryn in restless Daniel] The first edition had it, 'She saw in Norton all his father shine:' a great mistake! for Daniel de Foe had parts, but Norton de Foe was a wretched writer, and never attempted poetry. Much more justly is Daniel himself, made successor to W. Pryn, both of whom wrote verses as well as Politics; as appears by the poem de Jure Divino, &c. of De Foe, and by some lines in Cowley's Miscellanies on the other. And both these authors had a resemblance in their fates as well as their writings having been alike sentenced to the pillory. Of Blackmore, see Book ii Of Philips, Book i. ver. 262, and Book iii, prope fin. Nahum Tate was poet laureate, a cold writer of no invention; but sometimes translated tolerably when befriended by Mr. Dryden. In his second part of Absolom and Achitophel are above two hundred admirable lines together of that great hand which strongly shine through the insipidity of the rest. Something parallel may be observed of another author here mentioned. Ver. 106. And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.] Mr. Theobald, in the Censor, vol. ii. No. 33, calls Mr. Dennis by the name of Furius. The modern Furius is to be looked upon more as an object of pity, than of that which he daily provokes, laughter and contempt. Did we realy know how much this poor man' [1 wish that reflection on poverty had been spared] suffers by being contradicted, or, which is the same thing in effect, by hearing another praised; we should, in compassion sometimes attend to him with a silent nod, and let him go away with the triumphs of his ill-nature.-Poor Furius, (again) when any of his contemporaries are spoken well of, quitting the ground of the present dispute, steps back a thousand years to call in the succour of the ancients. His very panegyric is spiteful, and he uses it for the same reason as some ladies do their commendation of a dead beauty, who would never have their good word, but that a living one happened to be mentioned in their company. His applause is not the tribute of his heart, but the sacrifice of his revenge,' &c. Indeed, his pieces against our poet are somewhat of an angry character, and as they are now scarce extant, a taste of this style may be satisfactory to the curious. A young, squab, short gentleman, whose outward form, though it should be that of downright monkey, would not differ so much from the human shape as his unthinking immaterial part does from human understanding. He is as stupid and as venomous as a hunch-back'd toad. A book through which folly and ignorance, those bretheren so lame and impotent, do ridiculously look big and very dull, and strut and hobble, cheek by jowl, with their arms on kimbo, being led and supported, and bully-hack'd by that blind Hector, Impudence. Reflect, on the Essay on Criticism, p. 26, 29, 30, In each she marks her image full exprest, But chief in Bays's monster-bleeding breast: Bays, form'd by nature, stage and town to bless, And act, and be, a coxcomb with success REMARKS Duiness with transport eyes the lively dunec. It would be unjust not to add his reasons for this fury, they are so strong and so coercive. I regard him,' saith he, as an enemy, not so much to me, as to my king, to my country, to my religion, and to that liberty which has been the sole felicity of my life. A vagary of fortune, who is sometimes pleased to be frolicsome, and the epidemic madness of the times, have given him reputation, and "reputation," as Hobbes says, "is power," and that has made him dangerous. Therefore I look on it as my duty to King George, whose faithful subject I am; to my country, of which I have appeared a constant lover; to the laws, under whose protection I have so long lived; and to the liberty of my country, more dear to me than life, of which I have now for forty years been a constant assertor, &c. I look upon it as my duty, I say, to do-you shall see whatto pull the lion's skin from this little ass, which popular error has thrown around him; and to shew that this author, who has been lately so much in vogue, has neither sense in his thoughts, nor English in his expression.' Dennis, Rem. on Hom. Pref. p. 2, 91, &c. Besides these public-spirited reasons, Mr. D. had a private one; which, by his manner of expressing it in p. 92, appears to have been equally strong. He was even in bodily fear of his life, from the machinations of the said Mr. P. The story,' says he, is too long to be told, but who would be acquainted with it, may hear it from Mr. Curll, my bookseller. However, what my reason has suggested to me, that I have with a just confidence said, in defiance of his two clandestine weapons, his slander and his poison.' Which last words of his book plainly discover Mr. D.'s suspicion was that of being poisoned, in like manner as Mr. Curll had been before him: of which fact, see a full and true account of the horrid and barbarous revenge, by poison, on the body of Edmund Curll, printed in 1716, the year antecedent to that wherein these remarks of Mr. Dennis were published. But what puts it beyond all question, is a passage in a very warm treatise, in which Mr. D. was also concerned, price two-pence, called, A true character of Mr. Pope and his Writings, printed for S. Popping, 1716; in the tenth page whereof he is said to have insulted people on those calamities and diseases which he himself gave them, by administering poison to them;' and is called (p. 4.) a lurking waylaying coward, and a stabber in the dark. Which (with many other things most lively set forth in that piece) must have rendered him a terror, not to Mr. Dennis only, but to all Christian people. This charitable warning only provoked our incorrigible poet to write the following epigram: 'Should Dennis publish you had stabb'd your brother, For the rest; Mr. John Dennis was the son of a saddler, in London, born in 1657. He paid court to Mr. Dryden; and having obtained some correspondence with Mr. Wycherley and Mr. Congreve, he immediately obliged the public with their letters. He made himself known to the government by many admirable schemes and projects, which the ministry, for reasons best known to themselves, constantly kept private. For his character as a writer, it is given us as follows: Mr. Dennis is excellent at Pindaric writings, perfectly regular in all his performances, and a person of sound learning. That he is master of a great deal of penetration and judgement, his criticisms (particularly on Prince Artaur) do sufficiently demonstrate. From the same aecount it also appears that he writ plays more to get reputation than money.' Dennis of himself. See Giles Jacob's Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 68, 69, compared with p. 286. Ver. 109. Bays, form'd by nature, &c.] It is hoped the poet here hath done tull justice to his hero's character, which it were a great mistake to imagine was wholly sunk in stupidity: he is allowed to have supported it with a wonderful mixture of vivacity. This character! REMARKS. 120 130 is heightened according to his own desire, in a letter he wrote to our author: Pert and dull at least you might have allowed me. What! am I only to be dull, and dull still, and again, and for ever?' He then solemnly appealed to his own conscience, that he could not think himself so, nor believe that our poet did; but that he spake worse of him than he could possibly think; and concluded it must be merely to show his wit, or for some profit or lucre to himself.' Life of C. C. chap. vii. and Letter to Mr. P. page 15, 40, 53. And to show his claim to what the poet was so unwilling to allow him, of being pert as well as dull, he declares he will have the last word; which occasioned the following epigram: 'Quoth Cibber to Pope, "Though in verse you foreclose, I'll have the last word, for, by &-, I'll write prose." Poor Colly, thy reasoning is none of the strongest, For know, the last word is the word that lasts longest. Ver. 115. supperless the hero sat.] It is amazing how the sense of this hath been mistaken by all the former commentators, who most idly suppose it to imply, that the hero of the poem wanted a supper. In truth, a great absurdity. Not that we are ignorant that the hero of Homer's Odyssey is frequently in that circumstance, and, therefore, it can no way derogate from the grandeur of epic poem to represent such hero under a calamity, to which the greatest, not only of critics and poets, but of kings and warriors, have been subject., But much more refined, I will venture to say, is the meaning of our author: it was to give us obliquely a curious precept, or what Bossu calls a disguised sentence, that Temperance is the life of study.' The language of poesy brings all into action; and to represent a critic encompassed with books but without a supper, is a picture which lively expresseth how much the true critic prefers the diet of the mind to that of the body, one of which he always castigates, and often totally neglects, for the greater improvement of the other. Scribl. But since the discovery of the true hero of the poem, may we not add, that nothing was so natural, after so great a loss of money at dice, or of reputation by his play, as that the poet should have no great stomach to eat a supper? Besides, how well has the poet consulted his heroic character, in adding that he has swore all the time? Bentl. Ver. 131. Poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes,] A great number of them taken out to patch up his plays. Ver. 132. The frippery] When I fitted up an old play it was as a good housewife will mend old linen, when she has not better employment.' Life, p. 217, 8vo. Ver. 133. hapless Shakspeare, &c.] It is not to be doubted but Bays was a subscriber to Tibbald's Shak. speare. He was frequently liberal in this way; and, as he tells us, subscribed to Mr. Pope's Homer, out of pure generosity and civility; but when Mr. Pope did so to his Non-juror, he concluded it could be nothing but a joke.' Letter to Mr. P. p. 24. This Tibbald, or Theobald, published an edition of Shakspeare, of which he was so proud himself as to say, in one of Mist's Journals, June 8, "That to expose any errors in it was impracticable.' And to another, April 27, That whatever care might for the future be taken by any other editor, he would still give about five hun dred emendations, that shall escape them all." Ver. 134. Wish'd he had blotted] It was a ridiculous P |