and college, the young Æneas burst glorious on the town: Intrepid then, o'er seas and lands he flew : To happy convents, bosomed deep in vines, Spoiled his own language, and acquired no more. The youth and his companions are made welcome by the goddess, who is next approached by a couple of antiquarians, Annius1 and Mummius,2 who quarrel about their collections, and by a band of naturalists who bring appropriate gifts: A nest, a toad, a fungus, or a flower. A florist describes the culture of a wonderful flower in a passage which throws a lurid light 1 Annius is supposed to be meant for Sir Andrew Fountaine. 'Mummius was probably Pope's old butt, Dr. Woodward. VOL. II 19 upon the methods of "fancy gardening" under George II. Fair from its humble bed I reared this flower, Suckled, and cheered, with air and sun and shower, Soft on the paper ruff its leaves I spread, Bright with the gilded button tipt its head; Then throned in glass, and named it Caroline : Each maid cried, Charming! and each youth, Divine ! Pope's curious indifference to the details of nature is shown by his omission to tell us what the flower was, though he suggests that it was either a rose or a carnation. Again, in the description of a butterfly hunt by a second naturalist, the insect is variously alluded to as "a beautiful bird," a specimen of "the enamelled race," and a "child of heat and air!" The goddess commends the zeal of both naturalists, and complacently remarks that— By some object ev'ry brain is stirred; May wander in a wilderness of moss; The head that turns at super-lunar things, Poised with a tail, may steer on Wilkins' wings. 1 She cautions her subjects, however, not to proceed beyond trifles to any useful or extensive views of nature or the Author of nature. She is secured 1 John Wilkins, afterwards Bishop of Chester, published in 1638 a work called "The Discovery of a New World; or, a Discourse tending to prove that 'tis possible there may be another habitable World in the Moon; with a Discourse concerning the possibility of a passage thither." Pope describes him as one of the first projectors of the Royal Society, who had set some volatile geniuses to work upon making wings to fly to the moon. against all apprehension on this score by an address from a body of freethinkers and "minute philosophers," with Tindal and "Silenus" at their head. The youth of the nation, instructed and principled by these, are presented to the goddess as the completest product of modern education. From priestcraft happily set free, Lo! every finished son returns to thee: The youths are admitted to drink the cup of Magus, the high-priest of the goddess, which causes oblivion of all obligations, divine, civil, moral, or rational. Dulness confers on these, her adepts, various orders and degrees, and dismisses them with a blessing which concludes with a yawn of extraordinary virtue, the progress and effects whereof complete the poem. In vain, in vain-the all-composing hour Resistless falls: the Muse obeys the Power. She comes! she comes! the sable throne behold 1 Silenus is meant for Thomas Gordon (died 1750), who helped to edit The Independent Whig, and wrote letters attacking the established religion. He was employed by Walpole, who made him Commissioner of the Wine Licences. He is best remembered as the translator of Sallust and Tacitus. 2 Pope pretended to allude to the queen or goddess of Dulness. But he certainly meant to have a hit at the memory of Caroline. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine; Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall, "The New Dunciad" was greatly admired by the poet's contemporaries. Gray remarks in a letter to his friend West: "The genii of operas and schools, with their attendants, the pleas of the virtuosi and the florists, and the yawn of Dulness at the end, are as fine as anything he has written. The metaphysicians' part is to me the worst; and here and there are a few ill-expressed lines, and some hardly intelligible.' Bolingbroke heard that the poem was "obscure," and refrained from reading it for some time on that 1 It is said that Pope could never recite this splendid passage without emotion. account. But when at length he took the trouble to examine the work for himself he declared that it was the best and most finished of all Pope's productions. Among the few discontented readers was Colley Cibber, and he had good reason for finding the poem offensive.1 In the first place there was the line Soft on her lap her Laureate son reclines, while the accomplished youth who had returned from the grand tour, is described as having— As much estate, and principle, and wit As Jansen, Fleetwood, Cibber shall think fit. Worse still, the satirist recounted how the goddess sent to every child Firm impudence, or stupefaction mild, And straight succeeded, leaving shame no room, 1 In his Apology for his Life, published in 1740, Cibber had presumed to say: When I find my name in the satirical works of this poet [Pope], I never look upon it as any malice meant to me, but profit to himself. For he considers that my face is more known than most in the nation, therefore a lick at the Laureate will be a sure bait ad captandum vulgus, to catch 'little readers.'" In a note Pope says: "Three very eminent persons, and all managers of plays; who, though not governors by profession, had, each in his way, concerned himself with the education of youth, and regulated their wit, their morals, or their finances, at that period of their age which is the most important, their entrance into the polite world." Fleetwood was the manager of the Haymarket (1734-1745). He lost his fortune at the gaming-table, and from a pigeon was transformed into a rook. Jansen was a card-sharping son of Sir Theodore Jansen, a South Sea Director, who was expelled from the House of Commons in 1721. The Duke of Bedford lost £5,000 to the son at White's. |