Then raptures high the seat of sense o'erflow,
Which only heads refined from reason know.1
Hence, from the straw where Bedlam's prophet nods,
He hears loud oracles, and talks with gods:2

5

Hence the fool's Paradise, the statesman's scheme,
The air-built castle, and the golden dream,
The maid's romantic wish, the chemists flame,
And poet's vision of eternal fame.

10

1. Hereby is intimated, that the following vision is no more than the chimera of the dreamer's brain, and not a real or intended satire on the present age, doubtless more learned, more enlightened, and more abounding with great geniuses, in divinity, politics, and whatever arts and sciences, than all the preceding. For fear of any such mistake of our poet's honest meaning, he hath again, at the end of the vision, repeated this monition, saying that it all passed through the ivory gate, which (according to the ancients) denoteth falsity.-Scriblerus.

2 "Et varias audit voces, fruiturque deorum
Colloquio."-Virg. Eneid, viii.

["When wondrous shapes of fleeting forms appear,

He talks with gods, and doth strange language hear."-Ogilby.]

And now, on Fancy's easy wing convey'd, The king descending, views th' Elysian shade. A slip-shod sibyl led his steps along,3

In lofty madness meditating song;

Her tresses staring from poetic dreams,
And never wash'd, but in Castalia's streams.
Taylor, their better Charon, lends an oar,

(Once swan of Thames, though now he sings no more)
Benlowes, propitious still to blockheads, bows;4
And Shadwell nods the poppy on his brows.5
Here, in a dusky vale where Lethe rolls,6

Old Bavius sits, to dip poetic souls,7

And blunt the sense, and fit it for a skull
Of solid proof, impenetrably dull:

8 "Conclamet Vates

-furens antro se immisit aperto."-Virgil.

4 A country gentleman, famous for his own bad poetry, and for patronising bad poets, as may be seen from many dedications of Quarles, and others, to him. Some of these anagramed his name, Benlowes, into Benevolus; to verify which, he spent his whole estate upon them.

5 Shadwell took opium for many years, and died of too large a dose, in the year 1692.

Lethæumque domos placidas qui prænatat amnem, &c.

Hunc circum innumeræ gentes," &c.-Virg. Eneid, vi.

Alluding to the story of Thetis dipping Achilles, to render him impenetrable

"At pater Anchises penitus convalle virenti

Inclusas animas, superumque ad lumen ituras,
Lustrabat."-Virg. Æneid, vi.

"Bavius was an ancient poet, celebrated by Virgil for the like cause as Bayes by our author, though not in so Christian-like a manner; for heathenishly it 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, through 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.

Instant, when dipp'd, away they wing their flight,
Where Brown and Mears8 unbar the gates of light,9
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,10
As thick as bees o'er vernal blossoms fly,
As thick as eggs at Ward in pillory.

KING CIBBER MEETING SETTLE ON THE BANKS OF LETHE.

Wond'ring he gazed: when lo! a sage appears, 35, By his broad shoulders known, and length of ears,1

11

8 Booksellers, printers for anybody. The allegory of the souls of the dull coming forth in the form of books, dressed in calf's leather, and being let abroad in vast numbers by booksellers, is sufficiently intelligible. 9 An hemistich of Milton.

10 "Quam multa in silvis autumni frigore primo

Lapsa cadunt folia, aut ad terram gurgite ab alto

Quam multæ glomerantur aves," &c.-Virg. Eneid, vi.

11 This is a sophistical reading. I think I may venture to affirm, all the copyists are mistaken here. I believe I may say the same of the critics:

30

Known by his band and suit which Settle wore
(His only suit) for twice three years before:
All as the vest, appear'd the wearer's frame,
Old in new state, another yet the same.
Bland and familiar as in life, begun
Thus the great father to the greater son.

"Oh born to see what none can see, awake!

Behold the wonders of the oblivious lake.

Thou, yet unborn, hast touch'd this sacred shore;
The hand of Bavius drench'd thee o'er and o'er.
But blind to former as to future fate,
What mortal knows his pre-existent state?
Who knows how long thy transmigrating soul
Might from Boeotian to Boeotian roll?12

How many Dutchmen she vouchsafed to thrid?
How many stages through old monks she rid?
And all who since, in mild benighted days,
Mix'd the owl's ivy with the poet's bays.13
As man's meanders to the vital spring

Roll all their tides, then back their circles bring;14

Dennis, Oldmixon, Welsted, have passed it in silence.

40

45

50

55

I have also stumbled

at it, and wondered how an error so manifest could escape such accurate persons. I dare assert, it proceeded originally from the inadvertency of some transcriber, whose head ran on the pillory, mentioned two lines before; Yet that it is therefore amazing that Mr. Curll himself should overlook it! scholiast takes not the least notice hereof. That the learned Mist also reads it thus, is plain from his ranging this passage among those in which our author was blamed for personal satire on a man's face (whereof doubtless he might take the ear to be a part); so likewise Concanen, Ralph, the Flying Post, and all the herd of commentators.-Tota armenta sequuntur. A very little sagacity (which all these gentlemen therefore wanted) will restore us to the true sense of the poet; thus,—

"By his broad shoulders known, and length of years."

See how easy a change, of one single letter! That Mr. Settle was old, is most certain; but he was (happily) a stranger to the pillory. This note partly Mr. Theobald's, partly Scribl.

12 Boeotia lay under the ridicule of the wits formerly, as Ireland does now, though it produced one of the greatest poets, and one of the greatest generals of Greece:

"Bœotum crasso jurares aere natum."-Horat.

18 "Sine tempora circum

Inter victrices hederam tibi serpere lauros."-Virg. Ecl. viii. 14 [This couplet formed part of Pope's boyish Epic, which he burned.]

Or whirligigs, twirl'd round by skilful swain,
Suck the thread in, then yield it out again:
All nonsense thus, of old or modern date,
Shall in thee centre, from thee circulate.
From this our queen unfolds to vision true 15
Thy mental eye, for thou hast much to view:
Old scenes of glory, times long cast behind
Shall, first recall'd, rush forward to thy mind:
Then stretch thy sight o'er all her rising reign,
And let the past and future fire thy brain.
Ascend this hill,16 whose cloudy point commands
Her boundless empire over seas and lands.

See, round the poles 17 where keener spangles shine,
Where spices smoke beneath the burning line,
(Earth's wide extremes) her sable flag display'd,
And all the nations cover'd in her shade!

Far eastward cast thine eye,18 from whence the sun
And orient science their bright course begun :
One godlike monarch all that pride confounds,19
He, whose long wall the wandering Tartar bounds;
Heavens! what a pile! whole ages perish there,
And one bright blaze turns learning into air.

60

65

70

15 This has resemblance to that passage in Milton, book xi., where the angel

"To noble sights from Adam's eye removed
The film; then purged with euphrasie and rue
The visual nerve-For he had much to see.'

There is a general allusion, in what follows, to that whole episode.

16 The scenes of this vision are remarkable for the order of their appearance. First, from ver. 67 to 73, those places of the globe are shown where science never rose; then, from ver. 74 to 83, those where she was destroyed by tyranny; from ver. 85 to 95, by inundations of barbarians; from ver. 96 to 106, by superstition. Then Rome, the mistress of arts, is described in her degeneracy; and lastly Britain, the scene of the action of the poem; which furnishes the occasion of drawing out the progeny of Dulness in

review.

17 Almost the whole southern and northern continent wrapt in ignorance. 18 Cur author favours the opinion that all sciences came from the eastern nations.

19 Chi Ho-am-ti, Emperor of China, the same who built the great wall between China and Tartary, destroyed all the books and learned men of that empire.