all the monster's obfcene and impious ribaldry, endeth the farce, in punishing him with the mark of an indelible brand in his forehead. May we not then be excufed if, for the future, we confider the epics of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, together with this our Poem, as a complete tetralogy, in which the laft worthily holdeth the place or ftation of the fatiric piece? Proceed we therefore in our fubject. It hath been long, and, alas for pity! ftill remaineth a queftion, whether the Hero of the Greater Epic fhould be an honeft man; or, as the French critics exprefs it, un bonnête homme* ; but it never admitted of any doubt but that the Hero of the Little Epic should be his very oppofite. Hence, to the advantage of our Dunciad, we may obferve how much jufter the moral of that poem muft needs be where fo important a question is previously decided. But then it is not every knave, nor (let me add) every fool, that is a fit fubject for a Dunciad. There muft ftill exift fome analogy, if not refemblance, of qualities between the heroes of the two poems; and this, in order to admit what Neoteric critics call the Parody, one of the livelieft graces of the Little Epic. Thus it being agreed that the conftituent qualities of the Greater Epic Hero are wisdom, bravery, and love, from whence fpringeth heroic virtue; it followeth that thofe of the Leffer Epic Hero fhould be vanity, affurance, and debauchery: from which happy affemblage refulteth Heroic Dulnefs, the never-dying fubject of this our Poem. This being fettled, come we now to particulars. It is the character of true wifdom to feek its chief fupport and confidence within itself, and to place that fupport in the refources which proceed from a confcious rectitude of will.-And are the advantages of vanity, when arifing to the heroic standard, at all short of this felf-complacence? nay, are they not, in the opinion of the enamoured owner, far beyond it?"Let the world (will *Si un heros poetique doit etre un honnete homme, Boffu, Du Poeme Epique, liv, v. ch. 5、 "(will fuch a one fay) impute to me what folly or "weakness they pleafe; but till wifdom can give me "fomething that will make me more heartily happy, "I am contented to be gazed at*.' This, we fee, is vanity, according to the heroic gage or measure : not that low and ignoble fpecies which pretendeth to virtues we have not; but the laudable ambition of being gazed at for glorying in thofe vices which every body knows we have. "The world may ask (fays he) "why I make my follies public? Why not? I have "paffed my time very pleasantly with them t." In fhort, there is no fort of vanity fuch a Hero would fcruple to exult in, but that which might go near to degrade him from his high station in this our Dunciad, namely, "Whether it would not be vanity in him to "take shame to himself for not being a wife man?” Bravery, the fecond attribute of the true hero, is courage manifefting itself in every limb; while its correspondent virtue in the mock hero is that fame courage all collected into the face. And as power, when drawn together, muft needs have more force and fpirit than when difperfed, we generally find this kind of courage in fo high and heroic a degree, that it infults not only men, but gods. Mezentius is, without doubt, the braveft character in all the Aneis: but how? His bravery, we know, was an high courage of blafphemy. And can we fay lefs of this brave man's? who having told us that he placed "His fummum bonum in those "follies which he was not content barely to poffefs, "but would likewife glory in," adds, " If I am . mifguided, 'tis Nature's fault, and I follow her. Nor can we be mistaken in making this happy quality a fpecies of courage, when we confider thofe illuftrious marks of it which made his face "more known (as "he juftly boafteth) than most in the kingdom;” and his language to confift of what we muft allow to be the moit daring figure of fpeech, that which is taken from the name of God. Ded. to the Life of C. Cibber. Gentle Love, the next ingredient in the true hero's compofition, is a mere bird of paffage, or (as Shakefpeare calls it) Summer-teeming luft, and evaporates in the heat of youth; doubtless by that refinement it fuffers in paffing through thofe certain ftrainers which our Poet fomewhere fpeaketh of*; but when it is let alone to work upon the lees, it acquireth ftrength by old age, and becometh a lasting ornament to the Little Epic. It is true, indeed, there is one objection to its fitnefs for fuch an ufe; for not only the ignorant may think it common, but it is admitted to be fo even by him who beft knoweth its value. "Don't you think "(argueth he) to fay only a man has his whore +, "ought to go for little or nothing? Because, defen dit numerus, take the firft ten thousand men you meet, and, I believe, you would be no lofer if you "betted ten to one that every fingle finner of them, "one with another, had been guilty of the fame frailty ." But here he feemeth not to have done juftice to himfelf: the man is fure enough a hero who hath his lady at fourfcore. How doth his modesty herein leffen the merit of a whole well-fpent life? not taking to himfelf the commendation (which Horace accounted the greatest in a theatrical character) of continuing to the very dregs the fame he was from the beginning 4. -Servetur ad imum But here, in juftice both to the Poet and the Hero, let us farther remark, that the calling her his whore, implieth fhe was his own, and not his neighbour's. Truly a commendable continence! and fuch as Scipio himself must have applauded: for how much felf-denial was exerted not to covet his neighbour's whore ! and what disorders must the coveting her have occa fioned in that fociety, where (according to this po VOL. III. K litical 6 Luft, through fome certain ftrainers well refin'd, + Alluding to thefe lines in the Epit. to Dr. Arbuthnot: litical calculator) nine in ten of all ages have their concubines! We have now, as briefly as we could devife, gone thro' the three conftituent qualities of either Hero; but it is not in any, nor in all thefe, that heroifm properly or effentially refideth. It is a lucky refult rather from the collifion of thefe lively qualities against one another. Thus, as from wifdom, bravery, and love, arifeth magnanimity, the object of admiration, which is the aim of the Greater Epic; fo from vanity, impudence, and debauchery, fpringeth buffoonry, the fource of ridicule, that "laughing ornament," as the owner well termeth it* of the Little Epic. He is not afhamed (God forbid he ever should be afhamed!) of this character, who deemeth that not reafon, but rifibility, diftinguished the human fpecies from the brutal. "As Nature (faith this profound "philosopher) diftinguished our species from the mute "creation by our rifibility, her defign muft have been, "by that faculty, as evidently to raise our happiness, "as by our os fublime (our erected faces) to lift the "dignity of our form above them." All this confidered, how complete a hero muft he be, as well as how happy a man, whofe rifibility lieth not barely in his muscles, as in the common fort, but (as himself informeth us) in his very fpirits! and whofe os fublime is not fimply an erect face, but a brazen head; as should feem by his preferring it to one of iron, faid to belong to the late King of Sweden 1. How But whatever perfonal qualities a hero may have, the examples of Achilles and Æneas fhew us that all thefe are of fmall avail without the conftant affistance of the gods; for the fubverfion and erection of empires have never been adjudged the work of man. greatly foever then we may efteem his high talents, we can hardly conceive his perfonal prowefs alone fufficient to reitore the decayed empire of Dulnefs. So weighty an achievement must require the particular fa vour C. Cibber's Letter to Mr. P. p. 31. † C. Cibber's Life, p. 23, 24. Letter, p. 8. vour and protection of the great, who being the natural patrons and fupporters of letters, as the ancient gods were of Troy, muft first be drawn off, and engaged in another intereft, before the total fubverfion of them can be accomplished. To furmount, therefore, this laft and greateft difficulty, we have, in this excellent man, a profeffed favourite and intimado of the great. And look of what force ancient piety was to draw the gods into the party of Æneas, that, and much ftronger, is modern incenfe to engage the great in the party of Dulness. Thus have we effayed to pourtray or fhadow out this noble imp of Fame. But now the impatient reader will be apt to fay, if fo many and various graces go to the making up a Hero, what mortal fhall fuffice to bear his character? Ill hath he read who feeth not, in every trace of this picture, that individual, all-accomplished perfon, in whom thefe rare virtues and lucky circumftances have agreed to meet and concentre, with the ftrongeft luftre and fulleft har mony. The good Scriblerus, indeed, nay the world itself, might be impofed on in the late fpurious editions, by I cannot tell what Sham-Hero or Phantom; but it was not so easy to impofe on him whom this egregious error most of all concerned: for no fooner had the Fourth Book laid open the high and fwelling scene, but he recognized his own heroic acts; and when he came to the words, "Soft on her lap her Laureat fon.reclines," (though laureat imply no more than one crowned with laurel, as befitteth any affociate or confort in empire) he loudly refented this dignity to violated majesty. Indeed not without caufe, he being there reprefented as faft afleep; fo mifbefeeming the eye of Empire, which, like that of Jove, fhould never doze nor flumber, "Ha! (faith he) faft afleep it seems! that is a "little too ftrong. Pert and dull at leaft you might "have allowed me, but as feldom afleep as any fool*." However, K 2 C. Cibber's Letter, p. 53. |