Around him wide a sable army stand, A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band, Prompt or to guard or stab, or saint or damn, Through Lud's famed gates, along the well-known Fleet, Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street, 'Ye critics! in whose heads, as equal scales, I weigh what author's heaviness prevails; Which most conduce to soothe the soul in slumbers, 280 My H-ley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers; 290 If there be man who o'er such works can wake, Three college sophs, and three pert Templars came; The same their talents, and their tastes the same! 300 Each prompt to query, answer, and debate, And smit with love of poesy and prate. The ponderous books two gentle readers bring; The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring : The clamorous crowd is hush'd with mugs of mum, Then mount the clerks, and in one lazy tone Through the long, heavy, painful page drawl on; 310 Soft creeping words on words the sense compose, Each gentle clerk, and muttering seals his eyes. So from the midmost the nutation spreads, 320 330 Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o'er; Bless'd with his father's front and mother's tongue, 340 How Henley lay inspired beside a sink, 91 BOOK III. THE DESCENT TO THE SHADES. After the other persons are disposed in their proper places of rest, the goddess transports the king to her temple, and there lays him to slumber with his head on her lap; a position of marvellous virtue, which causes all the visions of wild enthusiasts, projectors, politicians, inamoratos, castle builders, chymists, and poets-He is immediately carried on the wings of fancy, and led by a mad poetical sibyl to the Elysian shade; where, on the banks of Lethe, the souls of the dull are dipped by Bavius, before their entrance into this world-There he is met by the ghost of Settle, and by him made acquainted with the wonders of the place, and with those which he himself is destined to perform-He takes him to a mount of vision, from whence he shows him the past triumphs of the empire of Dulness; then, the present; and, lastly, the future: how small a part of the world was ever conquered by science, how soon those conquests were stopped, and those very nations again reduced to her dominion-Then distinguishing the island of Great Britain, shows by what aids, by what persons, and by what degrees, it shall be brought to her empire-Some of 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 the types of theseHe prophesies how first the nation shall be overrun 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 Pisgah-sight, of the future fulness of her glory, the accomplishment whereof is the subject of the fourth and last book. BUT in her temple's last recess inclosed, On Dulness' lap th' anointed head reposed. And now, on Fancy's easy wing convey'd, And never wash'd but in Castalia's streams. IO (Once swan of Thames, though now he sings no more ;) 20 Benlowes, propitious still to blockheads, bows; And Shadwell nods, the poppy on his brows. Here in a dusky vale, where Lethé rolls, Old Bavius sits to dip poetic souls, And blunt the sense, and fit it for a skull Of solid proof, impenetrably dull : Instant, when dipt, away they wing their flight, Where Browne and Mears unbar the gates of light, Demand new bodies, and in calf's array Rush to the world, impatient for the day. 30 |