the persons he causes to pass in review before his eyes, describing each by his proper figure, character, and qualifications. On a sudden the Scene shifts, and a vast number of miracles and prodigies appear, utterly surprising and unknown to the King himself, till they are explained to be the wonders of his own reign now commencing. On this subject Settle breaks into a congratulation, yet not unmixed with concern, that his own times were but types of these. He prophesies how first the nation shall be over-run with Farces, Operas, and Shows; how the throne of Dulness shall be advanced over the Theatres, and set up even at Court; then how her Sons shall preside in the seats of Arts and Sciences: giving a glimpse or Pisgahsight of the future Fulness of her Glory, the accomplishment whereof is the subject of the fourth and last book.

BOOK III.

OUT in her Temple's last recess enclos'd,

BUT

On Dulness' lap th' Anointed head repos'd.

Him close she curtains round with Vapours blue,
And soft besprinkles with Cimmerian dew.

Then raptures high the seat of Sense o'erflow,
Which only heads refin'd from Reason know.

Hence, from the straw where Bedlam's Prophet nods,
He hears loud Oracles, and talks with Gods:
Hence the Fool's Paradise, the Statesman's Scheme,
The air-built Castle, and the golden Dream,
The Maid's romantic wish, the Chemist's flame,
And Poet's vision of eternal Fame.

And now, on Fancy's easy wing convey'd,
The King descending views th' Elysian Shade.
A slip-shod Sibyl led his steps along,
In lofty madness meditating song;

Her tresses staring from Poetic dreams,"

And never wash'd, but in Castalia's streams.

5

10

15

Taylor1, their better Charon, lends an oar,

(Once swan of Thames, tho' now he sings no more.)
Benlowes2, propitious still to blockheads, bows;

3

And Shadwell nods the Poppy on his brows.
Here, in a dusky vale where Lethe rolls,
Old Bavius sits, to dip poetic souls,

1 Taylor] John Taylor the Water-poet, an honest man, who owns he learned not so much as the Accidence: A rare example of modesty in a Poet!

I must confess I do want eloquence, And never scarce did learn my Accidence; For having got from possum to posset, I there was gravell'd, could no farther get. He wrote fourscore books in the reign of James I. and Charles I. and afterwards (like Edward Ward) kept an Ale-house in Long-Acre. He died in 1654. P. [Carruthers corrects this date to 1653; and refers for an account of the poetic waterman to Southey's Lives of Uneducated Poets. A splendid edition of Taylor's poems

22

has recently been published by the Spenser Society.]

Benlowes,] A country, gentleman, famous for his own bad poetry, and for patronizing bad poets, as may be seen from many Dedications of Quarles and others to him. Some of these anagram'd his name, Benlowes into Benevolus: to verify which he spent his whole estate upon them. P.

3 And Shadwell nods the Poppy &c.] Shadwell took Opium for many years, and died of too large a dose, in the year 1692. P. [The hero of MacFlecknoe.]

4 Old Bavius sits,] Bavius was an ancient Poet, celebrated by Virgil for the like cause as

And blunt the sense, and fit it for a skull

25

Of solid proof, impenetrably dull:

Instant, when dipt, away they wing their flight,

Where Brown and Mears1 unbar the gates of Light,

Demand new bodies, and in Calf's array

Rush to the world, impatient for the day.

30

Millions and millions on these banks he views,

Thick as the stars of night, or morning dews,
As thick as bees o'er vernal blossoms fly,
As thick as eggs at Ward in pillory2.

Wond'ring he gaz'd: When lo! a Sage appears,
By his broad shoulders known, and length of ears,
Known by the band and suit which Settle1 wore
(His only suit) for twice three years before:

3

35

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.

40

"Oh born to see what none can see awake!

Behold the wonders of th' 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?

45

50

How many Dutchmen she vouchsaf'd to thrid?
How many stages thro' old Monks she rid?
And all who since, in mild benighted days,
Mix'd the Owl's ivy with the Poet's bays?
As man's Mæanders to the vital spring

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

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

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. 1. p. 154.]

Shall in thee centre, from thee circulate.
For this our Queen unfolds to vision true
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, whose cloudy point commands
Her boundless empire over seas and lands.

See, round the Poles1 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, from whence the Sun
And orient Science their bright course begun:
One god-like Monarch 3 all that pride confounds,
He, whose long wall the wand'ring Tartar bounds;
Heav'ns! what a pile! whole ages perish there,
And one bright blaze turns Learning into air.

"Thence to the south extend thy gladden'd eyes;
There rival flames with equal glory rise,
From shelves to shelves see greedy Vulcan roll 4,
And lick up all the Physic of the Soul.
How little, mark! that portion of the ball,
Where, faint at best, the beams of Science fall:
Soon as they dawn, from Hyperborean skies
Embody'd dark, what clouds of Vandals rise!
Lo! where Mæotis sleeps, and hardly flows
The freezing Tanais thro' a waste of snows 5,
The North by myriads pours her mighty sons,
Great nurse of Goths, of Alans, and of Huns!
See Alaric's stern port! the martial frame
Of Genseric! and Attila's' dread name!
See the bold Ostrogoths on Latium fall;
See the fierce Visigoths on Spain and Gaul!
See, where the morning gilds the palmy shore
(The soil that arts and infant letters bore 8)
His conqu❜ring tribes th' Arabian prophet draws,

1 See, round the Poles &c.] Almost the whole Southern and Northern Continent wrapt in ignorance. P.

2 Ver. 73; in the former Editions:

mæan library, on the gates of which was this inscription, YXHEIATPEION, 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.]

(The soil that arts and infant letters bore Phoenicia, Syria, &c. where Letters are said t have been invented. In these countries Mahomet began his conquests. P.

And saving Ignorance enthrones by Laws.
See Christians, Jews, one heavy sabbath keep,
And all the western world believe and sleep.

"Lo! Rome herself, proud mistress now no more
Of arts, but thund'ring against heathen lore';
Her grey-hair'd Synods damning books unread,
And Bacon trembling for his brazen head2.
Padua, with sighs, beholds her Livy burn3,
And ev'n th' Antipodes Virgilius mourn.

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,
Or Phidias broken, and Apelles burn'd.
"Behold yon' Isle, by Palmers, Pilgrims trod,
Men bearded, bald, cowl'd, uncowl'd, shod, unshod,
Peel'd, patch'd, and pyebald, linsey-wolsey brothers,
Grave Mummers! sleeveless some, and shirtless others.
That once was Britain-Happy! had she seen
No fiercer sons, had Easter never been 5.
In peace, great Goddess, ever be ador'd;
How keen the war, if Dulness draw the sword!
Thus visit not thy own! on this blest age
Oh spread thy Influence, but restrain thy Rage!
"And see, my son! the hour is on its way,
That lifts our Goddess to imperial sway:
This fav'rite Isle, long sever'd from her reign,
Dove-like, she gathers to her wings again.

6

Now look thro' Fate! behold the scene she draws!

What aids, what armies to assert her cause!
See all her progeny, illustrious sight!
Behold, and count them, as they rise to light.
As Berecynthia, while her offspring vie

115

120

125

130

[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.]

'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.

In homage to the mother of the sky,
Surveys around her, in the blest abode,
An hundred sons, and ev'ry son a God:

Not with less glory mighty Dulness crown'd

Shall take thro' Grubstreet her triumphant round;

And her Parnassus glancing o'er at once,

Behold an hundred sons, and each a Dunce.

"Mark first that youth who takes the foremost place,

And thrust his person full into your face.

From the strong fate of drams if thou get free,
Another Durfey, Ward! shall sing in thee.

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,
Nor less revere him, blunderbuss of Law.
Lo P-p-le's brow, tremendous to the town,
Horneck's fierce eye, and Roome's funereal frown.
Lo sneering Goode, half malice and half whim,
A friend in glee, ridiculously grim.

Each Cygnet sweet, of Bath and Tunbridge race,
Whose tuneful whistling makes the waters pass;
Each Songster, Riddler, ev'ry nameless name,

All crowd, who foremost shall be damn'd to Fame 7.
Some strain in rhyme; the Muses, on their racks,