And blunt the sense, and fit it for a skull Of solid proof, impenetrably dull: Instant, when dipt, away they wing their flight, Where Brown and Mears unbar the gates of Light, Demand new bodies, and in Calf's array Rush to the world, impatient for the day. Millions and millions on these banks he views, Thick as the stars of night, or morning dews, 25 30 Behold the wonders of th' oblivious Lake. "Oh born to see what none can see awake! Wond'ring he gaz'd: When lo! a Sage 3 appears, Thus the great Father to the greater Son. 35 40 Thou, yet unborn, hast touch'd this sacred shore; 45 50 How many Dutchmen she vouchsaf'd to thrid? Roll all their tides; then back their circles bring; Bays by our Author, though not in so christianlike a manner: For heathenishly it is declared by Virgil of Bavius, that he ought to be hated and detested for his evil works; Qui Bavium non odit; Whereas we have often had occasion to observe our Poet's great Good Nature and Mercifulness thro' the whole course of this Poem. SCRIBLERUS. Mr Dennis warmly contends, that Bavius was no inconsiderable author; nay, that "He and Mævius had (even in Augustus's days) a very formidable party at Rome, who thought them much superior to Virgil and Horace: For (saith he) I cannot believe they would have fixed that eternal brand upon them, if they had not been coxcombs in more than ordinary credit." Rem. on Pr. Arthur, part II. c. I. An argument which, if this poem should last, will conduce to the honour of the gentlemen of the Dunciad. P. 1 Brown and Mears] Booksellers, Printers for any body. P. [Part om.] 55 2 Ward in pillory.] John Ward of Hackney, Esq. Member of Parliament, being convicted of forgery, was first expelled the House, and then sentenced to the Pillory on the 17th of February 1727. P. [Part om.] [Cf. Moral Essays, Ep. III. 20, note.] 3 [Dante.] 4 Settle] Elkanah Settle was once a Writer in vogue as well as Cibber, both for Dramatic Poetry and Politics. He was author or publisher of many noted pamphlets in the time of King Charles II. He answered all Dryden's political poems; and, being caried up on one side, succeeded not a little in his Tragedy of the Empress of Morocco. P. [Part om.] [For an account of this extremely sensational play, against which strictures were indited by Dryden, Shadwell and Crown, see Geneste, u. s. Vol. I. p. 154.] Shall in thee centre, from thee circulate. "Ascend this hill, whose cloudy point commands бо 65 See, round the Poles where keener spangles shine, 70 "Far eastward cast thine eye, from whence the Sun 2 "Thence to the south extend thy gladden'd eyes; 1 See, round the Poles &c.] Almost the whole Southern and Northern Continent wrapt in ignorance. P. 2 Ver. 73; in the former Editions: mean library, on the gates of which was this inscription, YYXHEIATPEION, the Physic of the Soul. P. [A. D. 641. Gibbon was strongly inclined to dispute the fact, but fresh authorities 'Far eastward cast thine eye, from whence the corroborating it have been adduced by Milman.] Sun 5 I have been told that this was the couplet by which Pope declared his own ear to be most gratified; but the reason of this preference I cannot discover. Johnson. 6 [The Alemanni, who twice invaded Gaul.] 7 [Kings of the Goths, Vandals and Huns respectively.] 8 (The soil that arts and infant letters bore)] Phoenicia, Syria, &c. where Letters are said to have been invented. In these countries Mahomet began his conquests. P. And saving Ignorance enthrones by Laws. "Lo! Rome herself, proud mistress now no more Streets pav'd with Heroes, Tiber chok'd with Gods: See the Cirque falls, th' unpillar'd Temple nods, 'Till Peter's keys some christ'ned Jove adorn 4, And Pan to Moses lends his pagan horn; See, graceless Venus to a Virgin turn'd, "Behold yon' Isle, by Palmers, Pilgrims trod, Oh spread thy Influence, but restrain thy Rage! 6 Now look thro' Fate! behold the scene she draws! What aids, what armies to assert her cause! 115 120 125 130 1 [Pope has a long note attempting to bring home this charge against Pope Gregory I. (the Great). His hatred of classical learning is undoubted; his destruction of ancient buildings rests only on later evidence. See Gibbon, chap. XLV. Compare on this and the whole subject of the prejudices of the Church against profane learning the first chapter of Hallam's Lit. of Europe. The establishment of the Index Expurgatorius belongs to the century of the Reformation.] 2 [Roger Bacon lived in the 13th century; the earliest English cultivator of mathematical science. His 'brazen head' was a popular superstition connected with his experiments in magic; and is alluded to in Butler's Hudibras.] 3 [Livy is said to have been burnt among other authors by Gregory I.] 4'Till Peter's keys some christ'ned Jove adorn,] After the government of Rome devolved to the Popes, their zeal was for some time exerted in demolishing the Heathen Temples and Statues, so that the Goths scarce destroyed more monuments of Antiquity out of rage, than these out of devotion. At length they spared some of the temples, by converting them to Churches; and some of the Statues, by modifying them into images of Saints. In much later times, it was thought necessary to change the statues of Apollo and Pallas, on the tomb of Sannazarius, into David and Judith; the Lyre easily became a Harp, and the Gorgon's head turned to that of Holofernes. P. [Abundant instances of this will be found in any description of Rome.] 5 Happy!-had Easter never been.] Wars in England anciently, about the right time of celebrating Easter. P. [It was not till the visit of St Augustine in 596 that the British Church conformed to the decision of the Council of Nice as to the day on which Easter should be kept.] 6 Dove-like she gathers] This is fulfilled in the fourth book. P. "Mark first that youth who takes the foremost place, And thrust his person full into your face. 140 With all thy Father's virtues blest, be born1! From the strong fate of drams if thou get free, 145 Thee shall each ale-house, thee each gill-house mourn, And answ'ring gin-shops sourer sights return. "Jacob, the scourge of Grammar, mark with awe3, 150 Nor less revere him, blunderbuss of Law. Each Cygnet sweet, of Bath and Tunbridge race, [As to Cibber's father see Pope's note to Bk. I. v. 30.] 2 [Durfey; v. Essay on Criticism, v. 618.] 3 Jacob, the scourge of Grammar, mark with awe,] "This Gentleman is son of a considerable Maltster of Romsey in Southamptonshire, and bred to the Law under a very eminent Attorney: Who, between his more laborious studies, has diverted himself with Poetry. He is a great admirer of poets and their works, which has occasioned him to try his genius that way.-He has written in prose the Lives of the Poets, Essays, and a great many Law-books, The Accomplished Conveyancer, Modern Justice, &c. GILES JACOB of himself, Lives of Poets, vol. 1. He very grossly, and unprovok'd, abused, in that book the Author's Friend, Mr Gay. P. Horneck and Roome] These two were virulent party-writers, worthily coupled together, and one would think prophetically, since, after the publishing of this piece, the former dying, the latter succeeded him in Honour and Employment. The first was Philip Horneck, author of a Billingsgate paper called The High German Doctor. Edward Roome was son of an Undertaker for Funerals in Fleet-street, and writ some of the papers called Pasquin, where by malicious innuendos he endeavoured to represent our Author guilty of malevolent practices with a great 155 Of man then under prosecution of Parliament. Yet if he writes, is dull as other folks? The jest is lost unless he prints his face." Popple was the author of some vile Plays and Pamphlets. He published abuses on our Author in a paper called the Prompter. P. 5 Goode,] An ill-natur'd Critic, who writ a satire on our Author, called The mock Æsop, and many anonymous Libels in News-papers for hire. P. 6 [Borrowed from two lines of Young's Universal Passion, Sat. 6.] Warton. Whose tuneful whistling makes the waters pass:] There were several successions of these sort of minor poets, at Tunbridge, Bath, &c. singing the praise of the Annuals flourishing for that season; whose names indeed would be nameless, and therefore the Poet slurs them over with others in general. P. 7 After Ver. 158 in the former Editions followed: 'How proud, how pale, how earnest all appear! How rhymes eternal jingle in their ear!' Warburton. Scream like the winding of ten thousand jacks; 160 "Silence, ye Wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls 3, 165 And makes night hideous-Answer him, ye Owls! "Sense, speech, and measure, living tongues and dead, 4 Let all give way, and Morris may be read. "Ah Dennis! Gildon ah! what ill-starr'd rage 66 "Behold yon Pair 6, in strict embraces join'd; How like in manners, and how like in mind! Equal in wit, and equally polite, Shall this a Pasquin, that a Grumbler write; [Priscian, the celebrated Roman grammarian, lived in the time of Justinian, who appointed him teacher of grammar at Constantinople.] Ralph] James Ralph, a name inserted after the first editions, not known to our Author till he writ a swearing-piece called Sawney, very abusive of Dr Swift, Mr Gay, and himself. These lines allude to a thing of his, intitled, Night, a Poem: This low writer attended his own works with panegyrics in the Journals, and once in particular praised himself highly above Mr Addison. He was wholly illiterate, and knew no language, not even French. Being advised to read the rules of dramatic poetry before he began a play, he smiled and replied, “Shakespear writ without rules." He ended at last in the common sink of all such writers, a political News-paper, to which he was recommended by his friend Arnal, and received a small pittance for pay. P. 3 [Shaksp. Jul. Cæs. Act iv. Sc. 3: 'I'd rather be a dog and bay the moon, &c.' But Wakefield has pointed out two lines by Ambrose Philips parodied in the above.] Morris,] Besaleel, See Book 11. [v. 126]. P. 5 Ah Dennis! &c.] The reader, who has seen thro' the course of these notes, what a constant attendance Mr Dennis paid to our Author and all his works, may perhaps wonder he should be 8 170 175 180 185 mentioned but twice, and so slightly touched, in this poem. But in truth he looked upon him with some esteem, for having (more generously than all the rest) set his Name to such writings. He was also a very old man at this time. By his own account of himself in Mr Jacob's Lives, he must have been above threescore, and happily lived many years after. So that he was senior to Mr Durfey, who hitherto of all our poets enjoyed the longest bodily life. P. 6 Behold yon Pair, &c.] One of these was author of a weekly paper called the Grumbler, as the other was concerned in another called Pasquin, in which Mr Pope was abused with the duke of Buckingham, and Bishop of Rochester. They also joined in a piece against his first undertaking to translate the Iliad, intituled Homerides, by Sir Iliad Doggrel, printed 1715. P. [Part om.] 7 That shines a Consul, this Commissioner.] Such places were given at this time to such sort of writers. P. 8 arede] Read, or peruse; though sometimes used for counsel. P. [Myster, like arede and besprent, is a word used by Spenser. But Pope explains it wrongly: it is equivalent to manner, craft or trade (French métier, probably from magister). The myster wight' is nonsense; |
