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Dulness with transport eyes the lively Dunce,
Remembering the herfelf was Pertness once.

REMARKS.

Now

❝tioned in their company. His applause is not the tri"bute of his Heart, but the facrifice of his Revenge," &c. Indeed his pieces against our poet are fomewhat of an angry character, and as they are now fcarce extant, a taste of his style may be fatisfactory to the curious. "A young, fquab, fhort gentleman, whose out"ward form, though it should be that of downright "monkey, would not differ fo much from human shape

as his unthinking immaterial part does from human "understanding. He is as ftupid and as venomous as a "hunch-back'd toad. A book through which Folly and

Ignorance, those brethren fo lame and impotent, do "ridiculously look big and very dull, and ftrut and "hobble, cheek by jowl, with their arms on kimbo, be"ing led and fupported, and bully-back'd by that "blind Hector, Impudence." Reflect. on the Essay on Criticifm, p. 26. 29, 30.

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It would be unjust not to add his reafons for this Fury, they are fo ftrong and fo coercive. "I regard "him (faith he) as an Enemy, not fo much to me, as to my King, to my Country, to my Religion, and to that Liberty which has been the fole felicity of my "life. A vagary of Fortune, who is fometimes pleafed "to be frolickfome, and the epidemic Madness of the "times have given him Reputation, and Reputation (as "Hobbes fays) is Power, and that has made him dangerous. Therefore I look on it as my duty to King "George, whofe faithful subject I am; to my Country, "of which I have appeared a conftant lover; to the "Laws, under whofe protection I have fo 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 conftant affertor, &c. I look upon it as my duty, “I'say, to do—you shall fee what to pull the lion's

Now (fhame to Fortune!) an ill Run at Play
Blank'd his bold vifage, and a thin Third day:

REMARKS.

Swearing

"fkin from this little Afs, which popular error has "thrown round him; and to fhow that this Author, "who has been lately fo much in vogue, has neither "fenfe in his thoughts, nor English in his expreffions." DENNIS, Rem. on Hom. Pref. p. 2. 91, &c.

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Befides thefe public-fpirited reafons, Mr. D. had a private one; which, by his manner of expreffing it in p. 92, appears to have been equally ftrong. He was even in bodily fear of his life from the machinations of the faid Mr. P. "The ftory (fays he) is too long to be "told, but who would be acquainted with it, may hear "it from Mr. Curll, my Bookfeller.-However, what my reafon has fuggefted to me, that I have with a "juft confidence faid, in defiance of his two clandeftine "weapons, his Slander and his Poifon." Which laft words of his book plainly discover Mr. D's fufpicion was that of being poisoned, in like manner as Mr. Curl had been before him: of which fact fee 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 thefe Remarks of Mr. Dennis were published. But what puts it beyond all queftion, is a paffage in a very warm treatife, in which Mr. D. was alfo 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 faid "to have infulted people on thofe calamities and difeafes which he himself gave "them, by adminiftering Poifon to them:" and is called (p. 4.) "a lurking waylaying coward, and a "ftabber in the dark." Which (with many other things most lively fet forth in that piece) must have rendered him a terror, not to Mr. Dennis only, but to all chri

Swearing and fupperlefs the Hero fate,

Blafphem'd his Gods, the Dice, and damn'd his Fate.

REMARKS.

115

Then

ftian people. This charitable warning only provoked
our incorrigible Poet to write the following Epigram :
Should Dennis publish, you had stabb'd your Brother,
Lampoon'd your Monarch,or debauch'd your Mother;
Say, what revenge on Dennis can be had?
Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad:
On one fo poor you cannot take the law;
On one fo old your fword you fcorn to draw :
Uncag'd then let the harmless monster rage,
Secure in dulnefs, madness, want, and age.

For the reft; Mr. John Dennis was the fon of a Sadler in London, born in 1657. He paid court to Mr. Dryden; and having obtained fome correfpondence with Mr. Wycherley and Mr. Congreve, he immediately obliged the Public with their Letters. He made himself known to the Government by many admirable fchemes and projects; which the Ministry, for reasons best known to themfelves, conftantly kept private. For his character, as a writer, it is given us as follows: "Mr. Dennis is excellent at Pindaric writings, per"fectly regular in all his performances, and a perfon of "found Learning. That he is master of a great deal of "Penetration and Judgment, his criticifms (particu

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larly on Prince Arthur) do fufficiently demonftrate.” From the fame account 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 full juftice to his Hero's cha racter, which it were a great mistake to imagine was wholly funk in ftupidity: he is allowed to have fup

ported

Then gnaw'd his Pen, then dash'd it on the ground, Sinking from thought to thought, a vaft profound! Plung'd

REMARKS.

ported it with a wonderful mixture of Vivacity. This character is heightened according to his own defire, in a Letter he wrote to our author. "Pert and dull at leaft you might have allowed me. What! am I "only to be dull, and dull still, and again, and for "ever?" He then folemnly appealed to his own confcience, that he could not think himself so, nor be"lieve that our poet did; but that he fpake worse of "him than he could possibly think; and concluded it "must be merely to fhew his Wit, or for fome Profit

or Lucre to himself." Life of C. C. chap. vii. and Letter to Mr. P. page 15. 40. 53. And to fhew his claim to what the Poet was fo unwilling to allow him, of being pert as well as dull, he declares he will have the laft word; which occafioned the following Epigram:

Quoth Cibber to Pope, "Tho' in Verse you foreclofe, "I'll have the laft word: for, by G-, I'll write Profe."

Poor Colly, thy Reasoning is none of the strongeft, For know, the laft Word is the Word that lasts longeft, Ver. 115. fupperlefs the Hero fate.] It is amazing how the fenfe of this hath been miftaken by all the former commentators, who moft idly fuppofe it to imply that the Hero of the poem wanted a fupper. In truth a great abfurdity! Not that we are ignorant that the Hero of Homer's Odyffey is frequently in that circumftance, and therefore it can no way derogate from the grandeur of Epic Poem to reprefent fuch Hero under a calamity, to which the greatest not only of Critics and Poets, but of Kings and Warriors, have been fubject. But much more refined, I will venture to fay, is the meaning of

our

1

Plung'd for his fenfe, but found no bottom there,
Yet wrote and flounder'd on, in mere despair.
Round him much Embryo, much Abortion lay,
Much future Ode, and abdicated Play;
Nonsense precipitate, like running Lead,

120

That flip'd through Crags and Zig-zags of the Head;
All that on Folly Frenzy could beget,

Fruits of dull Heat, and Sooterkins of Wit.

VARIATION.

125

Next,

Ver. 121. Round him much Embryo, &c.] In the former Editions thus,

He roll'd his eyes that witness'd huge difmay,
Where yet unpawn'd much learned lumber lay;
Volumes, whofe fize the space exactly fill'd,
Or which fond authors were fo good to gild.
5. Or where, by sculpture made for ever known,
The page admires new beauties not its own.
Here fwells the shelf, &c.

REMARKS.

our author: It was to give us obliquely a curious precept, or what Boffu calls a difguifed fentence, that "Temperance is the life of Study." The language of poefy brings all into action; and to reprefent a Critic encompaffed with books but without a supper, is a picture which lively expreffeth how much the true Critic prefers the diet of the mind to that of the body, one of which he always caftigates, and often totally neglects for the greater improvement of the other. SCRIBL.

But fince the discovery of the true Hero of the poem, may we not add, that nothing was fo natural, after fo great a lofs of money at dice, or of Reputation by his Play, as that the Poet fhould have no great ftomach to eat a fupper? Befides, how well has the Poet confulted his Heroic Character, in adding that he fwore all the time? BENTL.

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