and spirit than when dispersed, we generally find this kind of courage in so high and heroic a degree, that it insults not only men, but gods. Mezentius is, without doubt, the bravest character in all the Æneis. But how? His bravery, we know, was a high courage of blasphemy. And can we say less of this brave man's? who having told us that he placed "his summum bonum in those follies, which he was not content barely to possess but would likewise glory in," adds, "If I am misguided, 'tis nature's fault, and I follow her." 6 Nor can we be mistaken in making this happy quality a species of courage, when we consider those illustrious marks of it, which made his face " more known (as he justly boasteth) than most in the kingdom;" and his language to consist of what we must allow to be the most daring figure of speech, that which is taken from the name of God.

Gentle love, the next ingredient in the true hero's composition, is a mere bird of passage, or (as Shakspeare calls it) "summerteeming lust," and evaporates in the heat of youth; doubtless, by that refinement it suffers in passing through those certain strainers which our poet somewhere speaketh of. But when it is let alone to work upon the lees, it acquireth strength by old age, and becometh a lasting ornament to the little Epic. It is true, indeed, there is one objection to its fitness for such an use: for not only the ignorant may think it common, but it is admitted to be so, even by him who best knoweth its value. "Don't you think, (argueth he,) to say only a man has his whore, ought to go little or nothing? because defendit numerus. Take the first ten thousand men you meet, and I believe you would be no loser if you betted ten to one, that every single sinner of them, one with another, had been guilty of the same frailty."7 But here he

for

seemeth not to have done justice to himself; the man is sure enough a hero, who hath his lady at fourscore. How doth his modesty herein lessen the merit of a whole well-spent life: not taking to himself the commendation (which Horace accounted the greatest in a theatrical character) of continuing to the very dregs, the same he was from the beginning,—

"Servitur ad IMUM

Qualis ab incepto processerat."

But here, in justice both to the poet and the hero, let us farther remark, that the calling her his whore, implieth she was his own,

6 Life, p. 23, octavo.

7 C. Cibber's Letter to Mr. P. p. 46.

and not his neighbour's. Truly a commendable continence, and such as Scipio himself must have applauded. For how much self-denial was exerted, not to covet his neighbour's whore! and what disorders must the coveting her have occasioned in that society, where (according to this political calculator) nine in ten of all ages have their concubines!

We have now, as briefly as we could devise, gone through the three constituent qualities of either hero. But it is not in any, nor in all of these, that heroism properly or essentially resideth. It is a lucky result, rather, from the collision of these lively qualities against one another. Thus, as from wisdom, bravery, and love, ariseth magnanimity, the object of admiration, which is the aim of the greater Epic; so from vanity, impudence, and debauchery, springeth buffoonery, the source of ridicule, that laughing ornament," as the owner well termeth it,8 of the little Epic.

66

He is not ashamed (God forbid he ever should be ashamed!) of this character; who deemeth, that not reason but risibility distinguisheth the human species from the brutal. "As Nature (saith this profound philosopher) distinguished our species from the mute creation by our risibility, her design must have been by that faculty as evidently to raise our happiness, as by our os sublime, our erected faces, to lift the dignity of our form above them." 9 All this considered, how complete a hero must he be, as well as how happy a man, whose risibility lieth not barely in his muscles, as in the common sort, but (as himself informeth us) in his very spirits, and whose os sublime is not simply an erect face, but a brazen head; as should seem by his preferring it to one of iron, said to belong to the late king of Sweden.10

man.

But whatever personal qualities a hero may have, the examples of Achilles and Æneas show us, that all these 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 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,

8 Colley Cibber's Letter to Mr. P. p. 31.

9 Cibber's Life, pp. 23, 24.

10 Letter, p. 8

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 now 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, allaccomplished 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 recognised his own heroic acts: and when he came to the words,

"Soft on her lap her Laureate son reclines,"

(though Laureate 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 Jove, 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."11 However, the injured Laureate 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 will12 live at least, though not awake; and in no worse condition than many an enchanted hero before him. The famous Durandarte, for instance, was, like him, cast into a long slumber by Merlin, the British bard and necromancer; and his example, for submitting to it with a good grace, might be of service to our hero. For that disastrous knight being sorely pressed or driven

11 Colley Cibber's Letter to Mr. P., p. 53.
12 Ibid. p. 1.

to make his answer by several persons of quality,13 only replied with a sigh, Patience, and shuffle the cards.14

But now, as nothing in this world, no not the most sacred or perfect things either of religion or government, can escape the stings 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 an hero for the Iliad or Æneis, that Achilles was brave enough to overturn one empire, or Æneas 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,") 15 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.

66

To all this we have, as we conceive, a sufficient answer from the Roman historian, Fabrum esse suæ quemque fortunæ : "That every man is the carver 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 that ever breathed. "Let him (saith he) but fancy himself capable of high things, and he will of course be able to achieve the highest." From this principle it followeth, 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 honest policy,17 to the first Brutus, for love of liberty;18 to Sir Robert Walpole, for good government while in power. At another time, to the godlike Socrates, for his diversions and amusements;20 to Horace Montaigne, and Sir William Temple, for an elegant vanity that maketh them for ever read and admired;21 to two Lord Chancellors, for law, from whom, when confederate against him at the bar, he carried away the prize of eloquence; 22 and, to say all in a word, to the right reverend the Lord Bishop of London himself, in the art of writing pastoral letters.23

16

19

chap. 22.
16 Ibid. 149.
p.
19 Ibid. p. 457.

22 Ibid. p. 436, 437.

Nor did his actions fall short of the sublimity of his conceit. In his early youth, he met the Revolution 24 face to face in Nottingham; at a time when other patriots contented themselves to follow her. It was here he got acquainted with Old Battle-array, of whom he hath made so honourable mention in one of his immortal odes. But he shone in courts as well as camps: he was called up when the nation fell in labour of this revolution,25 and was a gossip at her christening, with the bishop and the ladies.26

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.27 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.28 And what is that, I pray you, 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 procured for this achievement: even for this we have a resource. We can easily derive our hero's pedigree from a goddess of no small power and authority amongst men; and legitimate and install 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, I pray you, 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, that no man could be called happy till his death, surely much less can any one, till then, be pronounced a hero; the species of men being far more subject than others to the caprices of fortune and humour." But to this also we have an answer, which 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

24 See Cibber's Life, p. 47. 27 A statuary.

25 Ibid. p. 57.

26 Ibid. 58, 59.

28 Cibber's Life, p. 6.