1 of such Authors, namely Dulness and Poverty; the one born with them, the other contracted by neglect of their proper talents, through self-conceit of greater abilities. This truth he wrappeth in an Allegory (as the construction of Epic poesy requireth and feigns that one of these Goddesses had taken up her abode with the other, and that they jointly inspired all such writers and such works. He proceedeth 2 to shew the qualities they bestow on these authors, and the effects they produce: then the materials, or stock with which they furnish them; and (above all) that self-opinion which causeth it to seem to themselves vastly greater than it is, and is the prime motive of their setting up in this sad and sorry merchandise. The great power of these Goddesses acting in alliance (whereof as the one is the mother of Industry, so is the other of Plodding), was to be exemplified in some one, great and remarkable Action: and none could be more so than that which our poet hath chosen, viz. the restoration of the reign of Chaos and Night, by the ministry of Dulness their Daughter, in the removal of her imperial seat from the City to the polite World; as the Action of the Æneid is the restoration of the empire of Troy, by the removal of the race from thence to Latium. But as Homer singing only the Wrath of Achilles, yet includes in his poem the whole history of the Trojan war; in like manner our author hath drawn into this single Action the whole history of Dulness and her children. A Person must next be fixed upon to support this Action. This Phantom in the poet's mind must have a Name":"He finds it to be; and he becomes of course the Hero of the Poem. The Fable being thus, according to the best Example, one and entire, as contained in the Proposition; the Machinery is a continued chain of Allegories, setting forth the whole Power, Ministry, and Empire of Dulness, extended through her subordinate instruments, in all her various operations. This is branched into Episodes, each of which hath its Moral apart, though all conducive to the main end. The Crowd assembled in the second book demonstrates the design to be more extensive than to bad poets only, and that we may expect other Episodes of the Patrons, Encouragers, or Paymasters of such authors, as occasion shall bring them forth. And the third book, if well considered, seemeth to embrace the whole World. Each of the Games relateth to some or other vile class of writers: The first concerneth the Plagiary, to whom he giveth the name of Moore; the second, the libellous Novelist, whom he styleth Eliza; the third, the flattering Dedicator; the fourth, the bawling Critic, or noisy Poet; the fifth, the dark and dirty Party-writer; and so of the rest; assigning to each some proper name or other, such as he could find. As for the Characters, the public hath already acknowledged how justly they are drawn: the manners are so depicted, and the sentiments so peculiar to those to whom applied, that surely to transfer them to any other or wiser personages would be exceeding difficult: and certain it is that every person concerned, being consulted apart, hath readily owned the resemblance of every portrait, his own excepted. So Mr Cibber calls them, "a parcel of poor wretches, so many silly flies: but adds, our Author's Wit is remarkably more bare and barren, whenever it would fall foul on Cibber, than upon any other Person whatever." The Descriptions are singular, the Comparisons very quaint, the Narration various, yet of one colour: The purity and chastity of Diction is so preserved, that 1 Bossu, chap. VII. 2 Book 1. v. 32, &c. 3 Ver. 45 to 54. 4 Ver. 57 to 77. s Ver. 80. Bossu, chap. VII, VIII. 7 Ibid. chap. VIII. Vide Aristot. Poetic. cap. IX. 8 Cibber's Letter to Mr P. pp. 7, 9, &c. in the places most suspicious not the words but only the images have been censured, and yet are those images no other than have been sanctified by ancient and classical Authority (though, as was the manner of those good times, not so curiously wrapped up), yea, and commented upon by the most grave Doctors, and approved Critics. As it beareth the name of Epic, it is thereby subjected to such severe indispensable rules as are laid on all Neoterics, a strict imitation of the Ancients; insomuch that any deviation, accompanied with whatever poetic beauties, hath always been censured by the sound Critic. How exact that Imitation hath been in this piece, appeareth not only by its general structure, but by particular allusions infinite, many whereof have escaped both the commentator and poet himself; yea divers by his exceeding diligence are so altered and interwoven with the rest, that several have already been, and more will be, by the ignorant abused, as altogether and originally his own. In a word, the whole poem proveth itself to be the work of our Author, when his faculties were in full vigour and perfection; at that exact time when years have ripened the Judgment, without diminishing the Imagination: which, by good Critics, is held to be punctually at forty. For, at that season it was that Virgil finished his Georgics; and Sir Richard Blackmore, at the like age composing his Arthurs, declared the same to be the very Acme and pitch of life for Epic poesy: Though since he hath altered it to sixty, the year in which he published his Alfred1. True it is, that the talents for Criticism, namely, smartness, quick censure, vivacity of remark, certainty of asseveration, indeed all but acerbity, seem rather the gifts of Youth than of riper Age. But it is far otherwise in Poetry; witness the works of Mr Rymer and Mr Dennis, who, beginning with Criticism, became afterwards such Poets as no age hath paralleled. With good reason therefore did our author choose to write his Essay on that subject at twenty, and reserve for his maturer years this great and wonderful work of the Dunciad. P. By AUTHORITY. By virtue of the Authority in Us vested by the Act for subjecting Poets to the power of a Licenser, we have revised this Piece; where finding the style and appellation of KING to have been given to a certain Pretender, Pseudo-Poet, or Phantom, of the name of TIBBALD; and apprehending the same may be deemed in some sort a reflection on Majesty, or at least an insult on that Legal Authority which has bestowed on another Person the Crown of Poesy: We have ordered the said Pretender, PseudoPoet, or Phantom, utterly to vanish and evaporate out of this work: And do declare the said Throne of Poesy from henceforth to be abdicated and vacant, unless duly and lawfully supplied by the LaureaTE himself. And it is hereby enacted, that no other Person do presume to fill the same. OC. Ch. (1693), which contains some absurd cavils against 1 See his Essays. P. 2 [The author of a Short View of Tragedy Shakspere as well as against later authors.] THE DUNCIAD: To DR JONATHAN SWIFT1 BOOK THE FIRST. ARGUMENT. THE Proposition, the Invocation, and the Inscription. Then the Original of the great Empire of Dulness, and cause of the continuance thereof. The College of the Goddess in the City, with her private Academy for Poets in particular; the Governors of it, and the four Cardinal Virtues. Then the Poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting her, on the evening of a Lord Mayor's day, revolving the long succession of her Sons, and the glories past and to come. She fixes her eye on Bays to be the Instrument of that great Event which is the Subject of the Poem. He is described pensive among his Books, giving up the Cause, and apprehending the Period of her Empire: After debating whether to betake himself to the Church, or to Gaming, or to Party-writing, he raises an Altar of proper books, and (making first his solemn prayer and declaration) purposes thereon to sacrifice all his unsuccessful writings. As the pile is kindled, the Goddess, beholding the flame from her seat, flies and puts it out, by casting upon it the poem of Thule. She forthwith reveals herself to him, transports him to her Temple, unfolds her Arts, and initiates him into her Mysteries; then denouncing the death of Eusden the Poet Laureate, anoints him, carries him to Court, and proclaims him Successor. THE BOOK I, HE Mighty Mother, and her Son, who brings I sing. Say you, her instruments the Great! [In considering the relations between Pope and Swift, concerning which see Introductory Memoir, it should never be left out of sight that their acquaintance commenced at a time (1713) when Swift was at the height of his influence as a political adviser as well as literary champion of the Tory party, while Pope had hardly secured the first step on the ladder of fame. The composition of the Dunciad was as it were cradled by the friendship of Swift; and the dedication by which it was accompanied when first published in a complete form in April 1729, was therefore a tribute in every sense merited by the person to whom it was addressed. It must have reached him at the most miserable period of his life, after his return from his last visit to England and after the death of Stella.] 2 The Mighty Mother, &c.] in the first Edd. it was thus, 'Books and the Man I sing, the first who brings The Smithfield Muses to the ear of Kings,' &c. P. 3 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, Lincolns-inn-fields, and the Haymarket, to be the reigning pleasures of the Court and Town. This happened in the reigns of King George I. and II. See Book III. P. 4 By Dulness, fove, and Fate:] i. e. by their Judgments, their Interests, and their Inclina tions. P. In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read, O Thou! whatever title please thine ear, Mourn not, my SWIFT, at aught our Realm acquires". Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne, Conformably to Milton's doctrine, Par. Lost, 11. 894 and 960. Wakefield. 2 Still her old Empire to restore] This Restoration makes the Completion of the Poem. Vide Book IV. P. [In the Satire on John Partridge the Almanac-maker and subsequent publications. Steele borrowed the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff from Swift, who was a contributor to a few of the earlier papers of the Tatler.] 4-Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!] The several names and characters he assumed in his ludicrous, his splenetic, or his party-writings; which take in all his works. P. 5 [In the Travels of Gulliver, as Warburton interprets the passage. But Mr Booth, in Fielding's Amelia, is beyond a doubt right in his observation that he does not remember to have ever seen in Swift's works the least attempt in the manner of Cervantes,' and that the name of Lucian might have been appropriately introduced among those of the authors whom Swift studied above all others.] 6 After Ver. 22 in the MS. 'Or in the graver Gown instruct mankind, P. 7 Or praise the Court, or magnify Mankind,] 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 recal. P. 8 Boeotia of old lay under the raillery of the neighbouring wits, as Ireland does now; though each of those nations produced one of the greatest wits and greatest generals of their age. P. 9 Mourn not, my Swift, at aught our Realm acquires.] Ironice iterum. The Politics of England and Ireland were at this time by some thought to be opposite, or interfering with each other: Dr Swift of course was in the interest of the latter, our Author of the former. P. 10 To hatch a new Saturnian age of Lead.] The ancient Golden Age is by Poets styled Saturnian, as being under the reign of Saturn; but in the Chemical language Saturn is Lead. She is said here only to be spreading her wings to hatch this age; which is not produced completely till the fourth book. P. 11 [Physician to Bedlam Hospital.] 12 Mr Caius Gabriel Cibber, father of the Poet Laureate. The two Statues of the Lunatics over the gates of Bedlam Hospital were done by him, and (as the son justly says of them) are no ill monuments of his fame as an artist. P. 13 Poverty and Poetry] I cannot here omit a remark that will greatly endear our Author to every one, who shall attentively observe that Humanity and Candour, which every where appear in him towards those unhappy objects of the ridicule of all mankind, the bad Poets. He Keen, hollow winds howl thro' the bleak recess, Hence Bards, like Proteus long in vain tied down1, Of Curl's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post: Hence Journals, Medleys, Merc'ries, MAGAZINES'; And New-year Odes, and all the Grub-street race. Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs, Here she beholds the Chaos dark and deep", How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie, here imputes all scandalous rhymes, scurrilous weekly papers, base flatteries, wretched elegies, songs, and verses (even from those sung at Court to ballads in the streets), not so much to malice or servility as to Dulness; and not so much to Dulness as to Necessity. And thus, at the very commencement of his Satire, makes an apology for all that are to be satirized. P. 1Ov. Metam. XIII. [v. 918]. Warburton. A very close resemblance to the lines of Young in his first epistle on the authors of the age, addressed to Mr Pope. Warton. 2 Curl's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post:] Two Booksellers, of whom see Book II. The former was fined by the Court of King's Bench for publishing obscene books; the latter usually adorned his shop with titles in red letters. P. 3 Ver. 41 in the former Editions, Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines,] It is an ancient English custom for the Malefactors to sing a Psalm at their execution at Tyburn; and no less customary to print Elegies on their deaths, at the same time, or before. P. 4 MAGAZINES.] The common name of those upstart collections in prose and verse; in which, at some times, -new born nonsense first is taught to cry: at others, dead-born Scandal has its monthly funeral, where Dulness assumes all the various shapes of Folly to draw in and cajole the Rabble. The eruption of every miserable Scribbler; the scum of every dirty News-paper; or Fragments of Fragments, picked up from every Dunghill, under the title of Papers, Essays, Reflections, Confutations, Queries, Verses, Songs, Epigrams, Riddles, &c. equally the disgrace of human Wit Morality, Decency, and Common Sense. P. and Warburton. 5 Sepulchral Lies,] Is a just satire on the Flatteries and Falsehoods admitted to be inscribed on the walls of Churches, in Epitaphs. P. 6 New-year Odes,] Made by the Poet Lau reate for the time being, to be sung at Court on every New-year's day, the words of which are happily drowned in the voices and instruments The New-year Odes of the Hero of this work were of a cast distinguished from all that precede. him, and made a conspicuous part of his chararter as a writer, which doubtless induced a Author to mention them here so particularly. F 7 Compare Milton, Par. Lost, Bk. III. v. Wakefield. 9 [Jacob Tonson the bookseller: 'left-legged Jacob, as he was afterwards called, who publis ed for both Dryden and Pope.] |