167 NOTES TO THE DUNCIAD. TITLE, SUBJECT, AND HERO OF THE POEM. 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, with the omission of one, nay sometimes of two ee's (as Shakspear) which is utterly unpardonable. "Nor is the neglect of a single letter so trivial as to some it may appear; the alteration whereof in a learned language is an achievement that brings honour to the critic who advances it; and Dr. Bentley will be remembered to posterity for his performances of this sort, as long as the world shall have any esteem for the remains of Menander and Philemon."-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 Shakspeare 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 Egyptian 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 Shakespear 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 Shakspeare 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 Shakspeare hath great reason to point at. ANON. 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 critic 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 e'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 or inattention.-Scriblerus. 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.-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 who brings The Smithfield muses to the ear of kings. 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, Still Dunce the second reign'd like Dunce the first.-BENT.1 1 Alluding to a verse of Mr. Dryden, not in Mac Fleckno (as is ignorantly said in the Key to the Dunciad, p. 1, [Curll's satirical work] but in his verses to Mr. Congreve, "And Tom the second reigns like Tom the first."-POPE. [Wakefield conjectured that this allusion to Dunce the Second was a "satirical dash" at the reigning sovereign, George the Second. Pope was always making satirical dashes at the court, yet he seems to have been pleased at Walpole's presenting the Dunciad to George the Second, who was as unable to enter into the spirit of the poem as Pope's own gardener, John Serle.] 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. Wonderful is the stupidity of all the former critics and commentators on this work! It breaks forth at the very first line. The author of the critique prefixed to Sawney, a poem, p. 5, hath been so dull as to explain the man who brings, &c., not of the hero of the piece, but of our poet himself, as if he vaunted that kings were to be his readers; an honour which though this poem hath had, yet knoweth he how to receive it with more modesty. We remit this ignorant to the first lines of the Æneid, assuring him that Virgil there speaketh not of himself, but of Æneas: Arma virumque cano, Trojæ qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venit Littora multum ille et terris jactatus et alto, &c. I cite the whole three verses, that I may by the way offer a conjectural emendation, purely my own, upon each: first oris should be read aris, it being, as we see Æn. ii. 513, from the altar of Jupiter Hercæus that Æneas fled as soon as he saw Priam slain. In the second line I would read flatu for fato, since it is most clear it was by winds that he arrived at the shore of Italy. Jactatus, in the third, is surely as improperly applied to terris, as proper to alto; to say a man is tossed on land, is much at one with saying he walks at sea: Risum teneatis, amici? Correct it, as I doubt not it ought to be, vexatus.-SCRIBL. 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. 12. Daughter of Chaos and eternal Night.] The beauty of this whole allegory being purely of the poetical kind, we think it not our proper business, as a scholiast, to meddle with it; but leave it (as we shall in general all such) to the reader, remarking only, that Chaos (according to Hesiod's Deoyovía) was the progenitor of all the gods.-SCRIBLERUS. [The allegory is more directly taken from Milton, Par. Lost, b. 2. "There eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold Ver. 15. Laborious, heavy, busy, bold and blind.] 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 topsy-turvy 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. 16. She ruled in native anarchy the mind.] The native anarchy of the mind is that state which precedes the time of reason's assuming the rule of the passions. But in that state, the uncontrolled violence of the passions would soon bring things to confusion, were it not for the intervention of Dulness, in this absence of reason; who, though she cannot regulate them like reason, yet blunts and deadens their vigour, and, indeed, produces some of the good effects of it: hence it is that Dulness has often the appearance reason. This is the only good she ever did; and the poet takes particular care to tell it in the very introduction of his poem. It is to be observed, indeed, that this is spoken of the universal rule of Dulness in ancient days, but we may form an idea of it from her partial government in later times. of DEAN SWIFT. Ver. 21. Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air 1 In the MS. it followed thus: "Or in the graver gown instruct mankind, Or silent let thy morals tell thy mind." 2 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 graciously pleased to recall. 3 Boeotia of old lay under the raillery of the neighbouring wits, as Ireland |