Chapter 17

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 Providence, 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.'[212] However, the injured hero 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 will live[213] at least, though not awake; and in no worse condition than many an enchanted warrior 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 use to our hero. For that disastrous knight being sorely pressed or driven to make his answer by several persons of quality, only replied with a sigh--'Patience, and shuffle the cards.'[214]

But now, as nothing in this world, no, not the most sacred or perfect things either of religion or government, can escape the sting 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 Aeneis, that Achilles was brave enough to overturn one empire, or Aeneas 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,'[215]) 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?

To all this we have, as we conceive, a sufficient answer from the Roman historian, _Fabrum esse suae quemque fortunae_: That every man is the smith 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. 'Let him (saith he) but fancy himself capable of the highest things, and he will of course be able to achieve them.' From this principle it follows, 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;[216] to Henry IV of France for honest policy;[217] to the first Brutus, for love of liberty;[218] and to Sir Robert Walpole, for good government while in power.[219] At another time, to the godlike Socrates, for his diversions and amusements;[220] to Horace, Montaigne, and Sir William Temple for an elegant vanity that maketh them for ever read and admired;[221] to two Lord Chancellors, for law, from whom, when confederate against him at the bar, he carried away the prize of eloquence;[222] and, to say all in a word, to the right reverend the Lord Bishop of London himself, in the art of writing pastoral letters.[223]

Nor did his actions fall short of the sublimity of his conceit. In his early youth he met the Revolution[224] face to face in Nottingham, at a time when his betters contented themselves with following 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;[225] and was a gossip at her christening, with the bishop and the ladies.[226]

As to his birth, it is true he pretended no relation either to heathen god or goddess; but, what is as good, he was descended from a maker of both.[227] 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 he was nobody's son at all:[228] And what is that 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 had, even for this we have a remedy. 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 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, this species of men being far more subject than others to the caprices of fortune and humour.' But to this also we have an answer, that 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 part them. 'Nature (saith he) hath amply supplied me in vanity--a pleasure which neither the pertness of wit nor the gravity of wisdom will ever persuade me to part with.'[229] Our poet had charitably endeavoured to administer a cure to it: but he telleth us plainly, 'My superiors perhaps may be mended by him; but for my part I own myself incorrigible. I look upon my follies as the best part of my fortune.'[230] And with good reason: we see to what they have brought him!

Secondly, as to buffoonery, 'Is it (saith he) a time of day for me to leave off these fooleries, and set up a new character? I can no more put off my follies than my skin; I have often tried, but they stick too close to me; nor am I sure my friends are displeased with them, for in this light I afford them frequent matter of mirth, &c., &c.'[231] Having then so publicly declared himself incorrigible, he is become dead in law (I mean the law Epopoeian), and devolveth upon the poet as his property, who may take him and deal with him as if he had been dead as long as an old Egyptian hero; that is to say, embowel and embalm him for posterity.

Nothing therefore (we conceive) remaineth to hinder his own prophecy of himself from taking immediate effect. A rare felicity! and what few prophets have had the satisfaction to see alive! Nor can we conclude better than with that extraordinary one of his, which is conceived in these oraculous words, 'My dulness will find somebody to do it right.'[232]

'Tandem Phoebus adest, morsusque inferre parantem Congelat, et patulos, ut erant, indurat hiatus.'[233]

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, pseudo-poet, 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.

THE DUNCIAD:[234]

BOOK THE FIRST.

TO DR JONATHAN SWIFT.

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 Bayes 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 announcing the death of Eusden the poet laureate, anoints him, carries him to court, and proclaims him successor.

The mighty mother, and her son, who brings[235] The Smithfield Muses[236] to the ear of kings, I sing. Say you, her instruments, the great! Called to this work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate;[237] You by whose care, in vain decried and cursed, Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first: Say, how the goddess[238] bade Britannia sleep, And pour'd her spirit o'er the land and deep.

In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read, Ere Pallas issued from the Thunderer's head, 10 Dulness o'er all possess'd her ancient right, Daughter of Chaos[239] and Eternal Night: Fate in their dotage this fair idiot gave, Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave, Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind,[240] She ruled, in native anarchy, the mind.

Still her old empire[241] to restore she tries, For, born a goddess, Dulness never dies. O thou! whatever title please thine ear, Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver![242] 20 Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy-chair, Or praise the court, or magnify mankind,[243] Or thy grieved country's copper chains unbind; From thy Boeotia though her power retires, Mourn not, my Swift, at ought our realm acquires. Here pleased behold her mighty wings outspread To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead.

Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne, And laughs to think Monro would take her down, 30 Where o'er the gates, by his famed father's hand,[244] Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers stand, One cell there is, conceal'd from vulgar eye, The cave of Poverty and Poetry. Keen, hollow winds howl through the bleak recess, Emblem of music caused by emptiness. Hence bards, like Proteus long in vain tied down, Escape in monsters, and amaze the town. Hence Miscellanies spring, the weekly boast Of Curll's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post:[247] 40 Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines,[248] Hence Journals, Medleys, Merc'ries, Magazines: Sepulchral lies,[249] our holy walls to grace, And new-year odes,[250] and all the Grub Street race.

In clouded majesty here Dulness shone; Four guardian Virtues, round, support her throne: Fierce champion Fortitude, that knows no fears Of hisses, blows, or want, or loss of ears: Calm Temperance, whose blessings those partake Who hunger and who thirst for scribbling sake: 50 Prudence, whose glass presents the approaching jail: Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale, Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs, And solid pudding against empty praise.

Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep, Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep, 'Till genial Jacob,[251] or a warm third day, Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play; How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie, How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry, 60 Maggots half-form'd in rhyme exactly meet, And learn to crawl upon poetic feet. Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes, And ductile Dulness new meanders takes; There motley images her fancy strike, Figures ill pair'd, and similes unlike. She sees a mob of metaphors advance, Pleased with the madness of the mazy dance; How Tragedy and Comedy embrace; How Farce and Epic[252] get a jumbled race; 70 How Time himself stands still at her command, Realms shift their place, and ocean turns to land. Here gay Description Egypt glads with showers, Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flowers; Glittering with ice here hoary hills are seen, There painted valleys of eternal green; In cold December fragrant chaplets blow, And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.

All these, and more, the cloud-compelling queen Beholds through fogs that magnify the scene. 80 She, tinsell'd o'er in robes of varying hues, With self-applause her wild creation views; Sees momentary monsters rise and fall, And with her own fools-colours gilds them all.

'Twas on the day,[253] when Thorold rich and grave, Like Cimon, triumphed both on land and wave: (Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces, Glad chains,[254] warm furs, broad banners, and broad faces.) Now night descending, the proud scene was o'er, But lived, in Settle's numbers, one day more.[255] 90 Now mayors and shrieves all hushed and satiate lay, Yet eat, in dreams, the custard of the day; While pensive poets painful vigils keep, Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep. Much to the mindful queen the feast recalls What city swans once sung within the walls; Much she revolves their arts, their ancient praise, And sure succession down from Heywood's[256] days. She saw, with joy, the line immortal run, Each sire impress'd and glaring in his son: 100 So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care, Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear. She saw old Pryn in restless Daniel[257] shine, And Eusden[258] eke out Blackmore's endless line; She saw slow Philips creep like Tate's[259] poor page, And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.[260]

In each she marks her image full express'd, But chief in Bayes's monster-breeding breast; Bayes formed by nature stage and town to bless, And act, and be, a coxcomb with success. 110 Dulness with transport eyes the lively dunce, Remembering she herself was pertness once. Now (shame to Fortune![261]) an ill run at play Blank'd his bold visage, and a thin third day; Swearing and supperless the hero sate, Blasphemed his gods, the dice, and damn'd his fate. Then gnaw'd his pen, then dash'd it on the ground, Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound! Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there, Yet wrote and floundered on, in mere despair. 120 Round him much embryo, much abortion lay, Much future ode, and abdicated play; Nonsense precipitate, like running lead, That slipp'd through cracks and zig-zags of the head; All that on Folly Frenzy could beget, Fruits of dull heat, and sooterkins of wit. Next, o'er his books his eyes began to roll, In pleasing memory of all he stole, How here he sipp'd, how there he plunder'd snug, And suck'd all o'er, like an industrious bug. 130 Here lay poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes,[262] and here The frippery of crucified Moliere; There hapless Shakspeare, yet of Tibbald[263] sore, Wish'd he had blotted[264] for himself before. The rest on outside merit but presume, Or serve (like other fools) to fill a room; Such with their shelves as due proportion hold, Or their fond parents dress'd in red and gold; Or where the pictures for the page atone, And Quarles is saved by beauties not his own. 140 Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great;[265] There, stamp'd with arms, Newcastle shines complete:[266] Here all his suffering brotherhood retire, And 'scape the martyrdom of Jakes and fire: A Gothic library! of Greece and Rome Well purged, and worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.[267]

But, high above, more solid learning shone, The classics of an age that heard of none; There Caxton[268] slept, with Wynkyn at his side, One clasp'd in wood, and one in strong cow-hide; 150 There, saved by spice, like mummies, many a year, Dry bodies of divinity appear: De Lyra[269] there a dreadful front extends, And here the groaning shelves Philemon[270] bends.

Of these, twelve volumes, twelve of amplest size, Redeem'd from tapers and defrauded pies, Inspired he seizes: these an altar raise: An hecatomb of pure, unsullied lays That altar crowns: a folio common-place Founds the whole pile, of all his works the base: 160 Quartos, octavos, shape the lessening pyre: A twisted birth-day ode completes the spire.

Then he: Great tamer of all human art! First in my care, and ever at my heart; Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend, With whom my Muse began, with whom shall end, E'er since Sir Fopling's periwig[271] was praise, To the last honours of the butt and bays: O thou! of business the directing soul; To this our head, like bias to the bowl, 170 Which, as more ponderous, made its aim more true, Obliquely waddling to the mark in view; Oh, ever gracious to perplexed mankind, Still spread a healing mist before the mind; And, lest we err by wit's wild dancing light, Secure us kindly in our native night. Or, if to wit a coxcomb make pretence, Guard the sure barrier between that and sense; Or quite unravel all the reasoning thread, And hang some curious cobweb in its stead! 180 As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly, And ponderous slugs cut swiftly through the sky; As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe, The wheels above urged by the load below: Me Emptiness and Dulness could inspire, And were my elasticity and fire. Some demon stole my pen (forgive the offence) And once betrayed me into common sense: Else all my prose and verse were much the same; This, prose on stilts; that, poetry fallen lame. 190 Did on the stage my fops appear confined? My life gave ampler lessons to mankind. Did the dead letter unsuccessful prove? The brisk example never fail'd to move. Yet sure, had Heaven decreed to save the state, Heaven had decreed these works a longer date. Could Troy be saved by any single hand, This gray-goose weapon must have made her stand. What can I now my Fletcher cast aside, Take up the Bible, once my better guide? 200 Or tread the path by venturous heroes trod, This box my thunder, this right hand my god? Or chair'd at White's amidst the doctors sit, Teach oaths to gamesters, and to nobles wit? Or bidst thou rather party to embrace? (A friend to party thou, and all her race; 'Tis the same rope at different ends they twist; To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist.[272]) Shall I, like Curtins, desperate in my zeal, O'er head and ears plunge for the common weal? 210 Or rob Rome's ancient geese[273] of all their glories, And, cackling, save the monarchy of Tories? Hold--to the minister I more incline; To serve his cause, O queen! is serving thine. And see! thy very gazetteers give o'er, Ev'n Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more. What then remains? Ourself. Still, still remain Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain. This brazen brightness, to the squire so dear; This polish'd hardness, that reflects the peer: 220 This arch absurd, that wit and fool delights; This mess, tossed up of Hockley-hole and White's; Where dukes and butchers join to wreathe my crown, At once the bear and fiddle[274] of the town.

O born in sin, and forth in folly brought! Works damn'd, or to be damn'd (your father's fault)! Go, purified by flames, ascend the sky, My better and more Christian progeny! Unstain'd, untouch'd, and yet in maiden sheets; While all your smutty sisters walk the streets. 230 Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland,[275] Sent with a pass, and vagrant through the land; Nor sail with Ward[276] to ape-and-monkey climes, Where vile Mundungus trucks for viler rhymes: Not sulphur-tipp'd, emblaze an ale-house fire; Not wrap up oranges, to pelt your sire! Oh, pass more innocent, in infant state, To the mild limbo of our father Tate:[277] Or peaceably forgot, at once be blest In Shadwell's bosom with eternal rest! 240 Soon to that mass of nonsense to return, Where things destroyed are swept to things unborn.

With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace!) Stole from the master of the sevenfold face: And thrice he lifted high the birth-day brand, And thrice he dropp'd it from his quivering hand; Then lights the structure with averted eyes: The rolling smoke involves the sacrifice. The opening clouds disclose each work by turns, Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns; 250 Great Caesar roars, and hisses in the fires; King John in silence modestly expires: No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims, Moliere's[278] old stubble in a moment flames. Tears gush'd again, as from pale Priam's eyes When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies.

Roused by the light, old Dulness heaved the head, Then snatch'd a sheet of Thule[279] from her bed, Sudden she flies, and whelms it o'er the pyre; Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire. 260

Her ample presence fills up all the place; A veil of fogs dilates her awful face: Great in her charms! as when on shrieves and mayors She looks, and breathes herself into their airs. She bids him wait her to her sacred dome: Well pleased he enter'd, and confessed his home. So, spirits ending their terrestrial race, Ascend, and recognise their native place. This the great mother dearer held than all The clubs of quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall: 270 Here stood her opium, here she nursed her owls, And here she plann'd the imperial seat of fools.

Here to her chosen all her works she shows; Prose swell'd to verse, verse loitering into prose: How random thoughts now meaning chance to find, Now leave all memory of sense behind: How prologues into prefaces decay, And these to notes are fritter'd quite away: How index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of science by the tail: 280 How, with less reading than makes felons 'scape, Less human genius than God gives an ape, Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece, A past, vamp'd, future, old, revived, new piece, 'Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakspeare, and Corneille, Can make a Cibber, Tibbald,[280] or Ozell.[281]