animofities; and can almoft fingly challenge this honour, not to have written a line of any man which, through guilt, through fhame, or through fear, through variety of fortune, or change of interefts, he was ever unwilling to own.

I fhall conclude with remarking, what a pleasure it must be to every reader of humanity to fee all along, that our Author, in his very laughter, is not indulging his own ill-nature, but only punishing that of others. As to his Poem, thofe alone are capable of doing it juftice who, to use the words of a great writer, know how hard it is (with regard both to his fubject and his manner) vetuftis dare novitatem, obfoletis nitorem, obfcuris lucem, faftiditis gratiam.

St. James's, Dec. 22, 1728.

I am your most humble fervant,

WILLIAM CLELAND.

This gentleman was of Scotland, and bred at the univerfity of Utrecht, with the Earl of Mar. He ferved in Spain under Earl Rivers. After the peace, he was made one of the commiflioners of the customs in Scotland, and then of taxes in England; in which having fhewn himfelf for twenty years diligent, punctual, and incorruptible, (though without any other affistance of fortune,) he was fuddenly displaced by the minister, in the fixty-eighth year of his age, and died two months after, in 1741. He was a perfon of univerfal learning, and an enlarged conver fation; no man had a warmer heart for his friend, or a fincerer attachment to the conftitution of his country. And yet, for all this, the Public would never believe him to be the Author of this Letter.

I

HIS PROLEGOMENA AND ILLUSTRATIONS

TO THE DUNCIAD.

WITH THE HYPERCRITICS OF ARISTARCHUS.

DENNIS, Remarks on Pr. Arthur.

CANNOT but think it the most reasonable thing in the world to diftinguifh good writers, by difcouraging the bad: nor is it an ill-natured thing, in relation even to the very perfons upon whom the reflections are made. It is true, it may deprive them a little the fooner of a fhort profit and a tranfitory reputation; but then it may have a good effect, and oblige them (before it be too late) to decline that for which they are fo very unfit, and to have recourse to fomething in which they may be more fuccefsful.

Character of Mr. P. 1716.

The Perfons whom Boileau has attacked in his writings, have been for the most part authors, and most of those authors poets: and the cenfures he hath paffed upon them have been confirmed by all Europe.

GILDON, Pref. to his New Rehearsal.

It is the common cry of the poetafters of the Town, and their fautors, that it is an ill-natured thing to expofe the pretenders to wit and poetry. The judges and magiftrates may with full as good reafon be reproached with ill-nature for putting the laws in execution against a thief or impoftor.-The fame will hold in the Republic of Letters, if the critics and judges will let every ignorant pretender to fcribbling pafs on

the world.

THEOBALD, Letter to MIST, June 22, 1728. Attacks may be levelled either againft failures in genius, or against the pretensions of writing without one. CONCANEN, Ded. to the Author of the Dunciad. A Satire upon dulnefs is a thing that has been used and allowed in all ages.

Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, wicked Scribbler!

CONCERNING OUR POET AND HIS WORKS. M. SCRIBLERUS LECTORI S.

BEFORE we prefent thee with our Exercitations on

this moft delectable Poem, (drawn from the many volumes of our adverfaria on modern Authors,) we fhali here, according to the laudable ufage of editors, collect the various judgments of the learned concerning our Poet; various, indeed, not only of different authors, but of the fame author at different feafons. Nor shall we gather only the Teftimonies of such eminent wits as would of courfe defcend to pofterity, and confequently be read without our collection; but we fhall likewife, with incredible labour, feek out for divers others which, but for this our diligence, could never, at the distance of a few months, appear to the eye of the moft curious. Hereby thou mayft not only receive the delectation of variety, but also arrive at a more certain judgment, by a grave and circumfpect comparison of the witneffes with each other, or of each with himself. Hence, alfo, thou wilt be enabled to draw reflections not only of a critical, but a moral nature, by being let into many particulars of the perfon as well as genius, and of the fortune as well as merit, of our Author: in which, if I relate fome things of little concern, peradventure, to thee, and fome of as little even to him, I intreat thee to confider how minutely all true critics and commentators are wont to infift upon fuch, and how material they feem to themselves, if to none other. Forgive me, gentle Reader, if (following learned example) I, ever and anon, become tedious; allow me to take the fame pains to find whether my Author were good or bad, well or ill-natur'd, modeft or arrogant, as another, whether his author was fair or brown, fhort or tall, or whether he wore a coat or a caffock.

We purposed to begin with his life, parentage, and education; but as to these even his contemporaries

do

One faith he was educated

do exceedingly differ. at home; another †, that he was bred at St. Omer's by Jefuits; a third, not at St. Omer's, but at Oxford; a fourth, that he had no univerfity education at all. Thofe who allow him to be bred at home differ as much concerning his tutor: one faith She was kept by his father on purpofe; a fecond **, that he was an itinerant priest; a third ††, that he was a parfon one ‡‡ calleth him a fecular clergyman of the Church of kome; another || ||, a monk. As little do they agree about his father, whom one fuppofeth, like the father of Hefiod, a tradefman or merchant; another †, a husbandman; another 1, a hatter, &c. Nor has an author been wanting to give our Poet fuch a father as Apuleius hath to Plato, Jamblicus to Pathagoras, and divers to Homer, namely, a dæmon: for thus Mr. Gildon ||; " Certain it is that his origi"nal is not from Adam, but the devil; and that he "wanteth nothing but horns and tail to be the exact "refemblance of his infernal father." Finding, therefore, fuch contrariety of opinions, and (whatever be ours of this fort of generation) not being fond to enter into controverfy, we shall defer writing the Life of our Poet till authors can determine among themselves what parents or education he had, or whether he had any education or parents at all.

Proceed we to what is more certain, his Works; though not less uncertain the judgments concerning them; beginning with his Effay on Criticism, of which hear firft the most ancient of critics, MR.

*Giles Jacob's Lives of the Poets, vol. II. in his life. + Dennis's Reflections on the Effay on Criticum, p. 4. Dunciad Diffected, p. 4. Guardian, No. 40. Jacob's Lives &c. vol. II. ** Dunciad Diffected, p. 4. tt Farmer P. and his fon. ‡‡ Dunciad Diffected. Il Cnarafters of the Times, p. 45. + Female Dunciad, p. ult. + Dunciad Diffected. Roome, Paraphrafe on the 4th of Genefis, printed 1729. Character of Mr. P. and his writings, in a letter to a friend, printed for S. Popping, 1716, p. 10. Curl, in his Key to the Dunciad, (fir edit. faid to be printed for A Dodd,) in the tenth page, declared Gridon to be the author of that libel; though in the fubfequent editions of his Kev he left out this affertion, and armed (in the Curliad, p. 4. and 8.) thất was written by Dennis only,

MR. JOHN DENNIS.

"His precepts are falfe or trivial, or both; his "thoughts are crude and abortive; his expreffions "abfurd, his numbers harth and unmufical, his

rhymes trivial and common.-Inftead of majesty, "we have fomething that is very mean; instead of "gravity, fomething that is very boyish; and instead "of perfpicuity and lucid order, we have but too of"ten obfcurity and confufion." And in another place; "What rare Numbers are here! Would not one swear that this youngster had efpoufed fome an"tiquated Mufe, who had fued out a divorce from "fome fuperannuated finner, upon account of impo“tence, and who being poxed by her former spouse, "has got the gout in her decrepit age, which makes "her hobble fo damnably * ?"

66

No lefs peremptory is the cenfure of our hypercritical historian,

MR. OLDMIXON.

"I dare not fay any thing of the Effay on Criti"cifm in verfe; but if any more curious reader has "difcovered in it fomething new, which is not in "Dryden's Prefaces, Dedications, and his Effay on "Dramatic Poetry, not to mention the French critics, "I should be very glad to have the benefit of the difcovery +."

He is followed (as in fame, fo in judgment) by the modest and fimple-minded

MR. LEONARD WELSTED,

who, out of great refpect to our Poet, not naming him, doth yet glance at his Effay, together with the Duke of Buckingham's, and the Criticisms of Dryden, and of Horace, which he more openly taxeth ‡: “As "to the numerous treatifes, effays, arts, &c. both in

Reflections Critical and Satirical on a Rhapfody called, An Effay on Criticifm, printed for Bernard Lintot, octavo.

+ Effay on Criticifm in profe, octavo, 1728, by the author of the Cri tical History of England.

Preface to his Poems, p. 18, 53.