VARIATION. VARIATIONS. Yet lo! in ine what authors have to brag on! To aid our cause, if Heaven thou canst not bend, Peduc'd at last to hiss in my own dragon. Hell thou shalt move; for Faustus is our friend : Avert it, Heaven! that thou my Cibber, e'er Pluto with Cato thou for this shalt join, Shouldst wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield fair! And link the Mourning Bride to Proserpine. 310 Like the vile straw that's blown about the streets, Grubstreet! thy fall should men and gods conspire, The needy poet sticks to all he meets, 290 | Thy stage shall stand, ensure it but from fire. Coach'd, carted, trod upon, now loose, now fast, Another Æschylus appears ! prepare And carried off in some dog's tail at last. For new abortions, all ye pregnant fair! Happier thy fortunes ! like a rolling stone, In fames, like Semele's, be brought to bed, Thy giddy dulness still shall lumber on, While opening Hell spouts wild-fire at your head. Safe in its heaviness, shall never stray, Now, Bavius, take the poppy froin thy brow, But lick up every blockhead in the way. And place it here! here, all ye heroes, bow! Thee shall the patriot, thee the courtier taste, This, this is he, foretold by ancient rhymes : And every year be duller than the last, Th’ Augustus born to bring Saturnian times. 320 Till rais'd from booths, to theatre, to court, Signs following signs lead on the mighty year, Her seat imperial Dulness shall transport. 300 See! the dull stars roll round and re-appear. Already Opera prepares the way, See, see, our own true Phoebus wears thy bays ! The sure fore-runner of her gentle sway; Our Midas sits lord chancellor of plays ! Lo! Ambrose Phillips is preferr'd for wit! Ver. 323. See, see, our own, &c.] In the fore mer Ed. Ver. 290. In former edit. Beneath his reign, shall Eusden wear the bays, In the dog's tail his progress ends at last. Cibber preside lord chancellor of plays, Ver. 295. Safe in its heaviness, &c.] In the for Benson sole judge of architecture sit, And Namby Pamby be preferr'd for wit! mer edit. I see th' unfinish'd dormitory wall, Too safe in inborn heaviness to stray ; I see the Savoy totter to ber fall; And lick up every blockhead in the way. Hibernian politics, O Swift! thy doom, Thy dragons, magistrates and peers shall taste, And Pope's translating three whole years with And from each shew rise duller than the last, Proceed, great days! &c. [Broome. 'Till rais'd from booths, &c. Ver. 303-306. Added with the new Hero. subscribing to the English translation of Homer's Iliad) had not that merit with respect to the political principles. He was employed to hold the Odyssey, or he might have been better instructed pen in the character of a popish successor, but in the Greek Punnology. afterwards printed his narrative on the other side. Ver. 308, 309. Faustus, Pluto, &c.] Names of He had managed the ceremony of a famous pope-miserable farces, which it was the custom to act burning on Nov. 17, 1610; then became a troope: at the end of the best tragedies, to spoil the in king James's army, at Hounslow-heath. After | digestion of the andience. the Revolution he kept a booth at Bartholomew- Ver. 312. ensure it but from fire.] In Tibbald's fair, where, in the droll called St. George for farce of Proserpine, a corn-field was set on fire: England, he acted in his old age in a dragon of whereupon the other playhouse had a barn burnt green leather of his own invention ; be was at last | down for the recreation of the spectators. They taken into the Charter-house, and there died, also rivalled each other in showing the burnings of aged sixty years. hell-fire, in Dr. Faustus. Ver. 297. Thee shall the patriot, thee the cour- Ver. 313. Another Æschylus appears!) It is retier taste,] It stood in the first edition with blanks, ported of Eschylus, that when his tragedy of the * * and **. Concanen was sure " they must Furies was acted, the audience were so terrified needs mean no body but king George and queen that the children fell into fits, and the big-bellied Caroline; and said he would insist it was so, till women miscarried. the poet cleared himself by filling up the blanks Ver. 325. On poets tombs see Benson's titles otherwise, agrocably to the context, and con- writ!] W-m Benson (surveyor of the buildi: s sistent with his allegiance.” Pref. to a collection to his majesty K. George I.) gave in a report to of verses, essays, letters, &c. against Mr. P. the lords, that their house and the Painted-chamber printed for A. Moor, p. 6. adjoining were in immediate đanger of falling. Ver. 305. Polypheme] He translated the Italian Whereupon the lords met in a committee to opera of Polifemo; but unfortunately lost the appoint some other place to sit in, while the house whole jest of the story. The Cyclops asks Ulysses should be taken down. But it being proposed to hix name, who tells him his name is Noman : cause some other builders first to inspect it, they After his eye is put out, he roars and calls the found it in very good condition. The lords, upon brother Cyclops to his aid: they inquire who this, were going upon an address to the king has hurt him he answers Noman: whereupon against Benson, for such a misrepresentation ; but they all go away again. Our ingenious transla- the earl of Sunderland, then secretary, gave them tor made Ulysses answer, I take no name; whereby an assurance that his majesty would remove him, all that followed became unintelligible. Hence it which was done accordingly. In favour of this appears that Mr. Cibber (who values himself on I man, the famous sir Christopher Wren, who had REMARKS. REMARKS REMARKS. See under Ripley rise a new White-hall, Hibernian politics, O Swift! thy fate; While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall : And Pope's, ten years to comment and translate. While Wren with sorrow to the grave descends, Proceed, great days ! till learning fly the shore, Gay dies unpension'd with a hundred friends; 330 Till birch shall blush with noble blood no more, Till Thames see Eton's sons for ever play, Vill Westminster's whole year be holiday, been architect to the crown for above fifty years, Till Isis' elders reel, their pupils sport, who built most of the churches in London, laid And Alina Mater lie dissolv'd in port? the first stone of St. Paul's, and lived to finish it, bad been displaced from his employment at the FARIATION. age of near ninety years. Ver. S31. in the former edition thus : Ver. 326. Ainbrose Philips) “ He was” (saith -O Swift ! thy doom, (Broome. Mr. Jacob) “ one of the wits at Button's, and a And Pope's translating ten whole years with justice of the peace:" but be hath since met with On which was the following Note : “ He concludes higher preferment in Ireland : and a much greater his irony with a stroke upon himself: for whoever character we have of himn in Mr. Gildon's Cour. imagines this a sarcasm on the other ingenions plete Art of Poetry, vol. i. p. 157. “ Indeed be person, is surely mistaken. The opinion our anthor coutesses, he clares not set him quite on the same had of hin was sufficiently shown by bis joining foot with Virgil, lest it should seem tlattery, but him in the undertakirg of the Odyssey ; in which he is much mistaken if posterity does not afford Mr. Broome, having engaged without any prebim a greater esteem than he at present enjoys." xious agreement, discharged his part so much to He endeavoured to create soine misunderstanding Nir. Pope's satisfaction, that he gratified him with between our author and Mr. Addison, whoun als) the full sum of five hundred pounds, and a present soon after he abused as much. His constant cry of all those bonks for which his own interest could was, that Mr. P. was an enemy to the government; procure him subscribers, to the value of one hunand in particular he was the avowed author of a dred more. The author only seems to larnent, report very, indlustriously spread, that he had a that he was employed in translation at all." hand in a party paper called the Examiner: a falsehood well known to those yet living, who had the direction and publication of it Ver. 328. While Jones' and Boyle's united fined to the author only ; the ladies carried about labours fall:] At the time when this poein was with them the favourite songs of in fans; and The written, the banquetting-house of Whitehall, the houses were furnished with it in sereens. church and piazza of Covent-garden, and the person who acted Polly, till then obscure, became all at once the favourite of the town; her pictures palace and chapel of Somerset-house, the works of the famous Inigo Jones, had been for many years life written, books of letters and verses to her, were engraved, and sold in great numbers, her so neglected, as to be in danger of ruin. The portico of Covent-gardlen church had been just published!; and paniphlets made even of her saythen restored and beautified at the expense of the ings and jests. earl of Burlington ; who, at the same time, by Furtherinore, it drore out of England, for that his publication of the designs of that great master season, the Italian opera, which had carried all and Palladio, as well as by many noble buildings before it for ten years. That idol of the nobility of his own, revived the true taste of architecture and people, wbich the great critic Mr. Dennis by the labours and outcries of a whole life could in this kingdom. Ver. 330. Gay dies unpension'd, &c.] See Mr. not overthrow, was demolished by a single stroke Gay's fable of the Hare and many Friends. This of this gentleman's pen. This happened in the year 1728. Yet so great was his modesty, that he congentleman was early in the friendship of our author, which continued to his death. He wrote stantly prefixed to all the editions of it this inotto, Nos hæc novimus esse nihil. several works of humour with great success, the Shepherd's Week, Trivia, the What d’ye call it, and translate.) The author here plainly laments Ver. 339. Ind Pope's, ten years to comment Fables; and lastly, the celebrated Beggar's Opera; a piece of satire which hit all tastes and degrees that he was so long employed in translating and of men, froin those of the highest quality to the commenting. He began the Iliad in 1713, and finished it in 1719. The edition of Shakespeare 'very rabble : that verse of Horace: (which he undertook merely because nobody else Primores populi arripuit, populumque tributim, would) took up near two years more in the drud. could never be so justly applied as to this. The gery of comparing impressions, rectifying the vast success of it was unprecedented, and almost scenery, &e, and the translation of half the Odysincredible : what is related of the wonderful effects sey employed him from that time to 1725. of the ancient music or tragedy hardily came up Ver. 333. Proceed, great days ! &c.] It may to it: Sophocles and Euripides were less followed perhaps seem incredible, that so great a revolution and famous. It was acted in London sixty-three in learning as is here prophesied, should be brought days, uninterrupted ; and renewed the next season about by such weak instruments as bave been with equal applauses. It spread into all the great (hithertoj described in our poem: but do not thon, towns of England, was played in many places to gentle reader, rest to secure in thy contempt of the thirtieth and fortieth time, and at Bath and these instruments. Remember what the Dutch Bristol fisty, &c. It marle its progress into stories somewhere relate, that a great part of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, where it was per- their provinces was once overflowed, by a small formed twenty-four days together it was last opening made in one vf their dykes by a single peted in Minordin Tbe fame of it was not con water-rat. Enough! enough! the raptur'd inonarch crics ! to words, and keeping them ont of the way of And thro' the ivory gate the vision flies. real knowledge. Their address, and her gra cious answer; with her charge to them and the REMARKS. universities. The universities appear by their However, that such is not seriously the judg- proper deputies, and assure her that the same ment of our Puet, but that he conceiveth better inethod is observed in the progress of educahopes from the diligence of our schools, from the tion. The speech of Aristarchus on this subregularity of our universities, the discernment of ject. They are driven off by a band of young our great mén, the accomplishinents of our gentlemen returned from travel with their tu. nobility, the encouragement of our patrons, and tors; one of whom delivers to the goddess, in the genius of our writers of all kinds (notwith- a polite oration, an account of the whole constanding some few exceptions in each), may duct and fruits of their travels: presenting to plainly be seen from his conclusion; where, causing her at the same time a young nobleman perall this vision to pass through the ivory gate, he fectly accomplished. She receives him graciexpressly, in the language of poesy, declares all ously, and endues him with the harry quality such imaginations to be wild, ungrounded, and of want of shame. She sees loitering about her fictitious.-Scribl. a number of indolent persons abandoning all business and Juty, and dying with laziness : to VARIATIONS. these apprvaches the antiquary Annius, cnAfter ver. 338. in a foriner edit. were the fol- treating her to make thein virtuosos, and assign lowing lines : thein over to him: but Mummins, another anSigns following signs lead on the mighty year; tiquary, complaining of bis fraudulent proceed." See, the dull stars roll round and re-appear. ing, she finds a method to reconcile their difShe comes! the cloud-compelling power, behold! ference. Then enter a troop of people fantasWith Night prineval, and with Chaos old. tically adorned, offering her strange and exotic Lo! the great Anarch's ancient reign restored, presents: amongst them, one stands forth and Light dies before her uncreating word. demands justice on another, who had deprived As one by one, at dread Medea's strain, him of one of the greatest curiosities in nature : The sickening stars fade off th' etherial plain: but he justifies himself so well, that the goddess As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand opprest, gives them both her approbation. She recomClos'l one by one to everlasting rest; mends to them to find proper employment for Thus at her felt approach, and secret inight, the indolents before mentioned, in the study of Art after art goes out, and all is nizht. butterfl'es, shells, birds-nests, moss, &c. but See sculking Truth in her old raveru lie, with particular caution, not to proceed beyond Secur'd by inountains of heap'd casnistry: trifles, to any useful or extensive views of NaPhilosophy, that touch'd the heavens before, ture, or of the Author of Nature. Against the Shrinks to her hidden cause, and is no more : last of these apprehensions, she is secured by See Physic beg the Stagyrite's defence ! a hearty address from the minute philosophers See Metaphysic call for aid on Sense ! and free-thinkers, one of whom speaks in the name of the rest. See Mystery to Mathematies fly! The youth, thus instructed In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. and principled, are delivered to her in a boly, Thy hand, great Dulness ! lets the curtain fall, by the hands of Silemus ; and then admitted to And universal darkness buries all. taste the cup of the Magus her high priest,' which causes a total oblivion of all obligations, divine, civil, moral, or rational. To these her BOOK IV. adepts she sends priests, attendants, and comforters, of various kinds ; confers on thein orders anvi degrees ; and then disinissing them The poet being, in this book, to declare the com with a speech, contirming to each bis privipletion of the prophecies mer tioned at the end leges, and telling what she expects from each, of the former, makes a new invocation ; as the concludes with a yawn of extraordinary virtue : greater poets are wont, when some high and the protress and efforts whereof on all orders worthy inatter is to be sung. He shows the of men, and the consummation of all, in the goddess coming in her majasty, to destroy restoration of Night and Chaos, conclude the order and science, and to substitute the king- poem. dom of the dull upon Earth. How' she leads captive the Sciences, and silences the Muses ; BOOK IV. and what they be who succeed in their stead. All her chililren, by a wonderful attraction, are Yer, yet a moment, one dim ray of light drawn about her; and bear along with thein divers | Indulgt, dread Chaos, and eterual Night! others, who promote her empire by connivance, wcak resistance, or discouragement of arts; REMARKS. such as half wits, tasteless adinirers, vain pre. The Dunciad, Book 11.] This book may prove tenders, the flatterers of dunces, or the patrins perly be distinguished from the former, by the of them All these crowd round hec; one of nuine of the Crater Dunciad, not so indeed in them, offering to approach irer, is driven bak sice, but in subject; and so far contrary to the by a rival, but she commends and encourages istinction antiintly made of the Greater and both. The first who speak in forın are the Lesser Iliad. But much are they mistaken who geniuses of the schools, who assure her of their inagine this work in any wise inferior to the for. care to advance her cause by confining youth 'mer, or of any other hand than of our poet; of VOL. XII. Z ARGUMENT. REMARKS. Of darkness visible so much be lent, Bencath her foot-stool, Science groans in chains, As half to show, half veil the deep intent. And wit dreads exile, penalties, and pains. Ye powers ! whose mysteries restor'd I sing, There foam'd rebellious Logic, gagg'd and bound; To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing, There, stript, fair Rhetoric languish'd on the ground; Suspend a while your force inertly strong, His blunted arms by Soplistry are borne, Then take at once the poet and the song. And shameless Billingsgate her robes adorn. Now flam'd the dog-star's unpropitious ray, Morality, by her false guardians drawn, Smote every brain, and wither'd every bay; 10 Chicane in furs, and Casuistry in lawn, Sick was the Sun, the owl forsook his bower, Gasps, as they straiten at each end the cord, The moon-struck prophet felt the madding hour : And dies, when Dulness gives her Page the word. 30 Then rose the seed of Chaos and of Night, Mad Mathesis alone was unconfin'd, To blot out order, and extinguish light, Too mad for mere material chains to bind, Of dull and veual a new world to mold, Now to pure space lifts her extatic stare, And bring Saturnian days of lead and gold. Now running round the circle, finds it square. She mounts the throne : her head a cloud conIn broad effulgence all below reveald, (ceal'd, ('Tis thus aspiring Dulness ever shines) verified his prophecy (p. 213. of his own Life, Soft on her lap her laureate son reclines. 20 | 8vo. ch. ix.) where he says, " the reader will be as much pleased to find me a dunce in my old REMARKS. age, as he was to prove me a brisk blockhead in which I am much more certain than that the Iliad my youth.” Wherever there was any room for : Itself was the work of Solomon, or the Batrachom- briskness, or alacrity of any sort, even in sinknomachia of Homer, as Barnes hath affirmed.-ing, he hath had it allowed; but here, where Bentl. there is nothing for him to do but to take his Ver. 1, &c.] This is an invocation of much natural rest, he must permit bis historian to be piety. The poet, willing to approve himself a silent. It is from their actions only that princes genuine son, beginneth by showing (what is ever have their character, and poets from their works : agreeable to Dulness) his high respect for anti- and if in those he be as much asleep as any fool, quity and a great family, how dead or dark the poet must leave him and them to sleep to all soever: next declareth his passion for explaining eternity.---- Bentl. mysteries; and lastly his impatience to be re- Ibid. her laureate] “ When I find my name in united to her --Scribl. the satirical works of this poet, I never look upon Ver. 2. dread Chaos, and eternal Night !] In- it as any malice meant to me, but profit to himvoked, as the restoration of their empire is the self. For he considers that my face is more known action of the poem. than most in the nation; and therefore a lick at Ver. 14. To blot out order, and extinguish the laureate will be a sure bait ad captandum light,] The two great ends of her mission; the vulgas, to catch little readers.”—Life of Colley one in quality of daughter of Chaos, the other as Cibber, ch. ii. daughter of Night. Order here is to be under- Now if it be certain, that the works of our poet stood extensively, both as civil and moral; the I have owed their success to this ingenious expedistinction between high and low in society, and dient, we hence derive an unanswerabie argutrue and false in individuals : light as intellectualment, that this fourth Dunciad, as well as the only, wit, science, arts. former tbrie, hath had the author's last band, Ver. 15. Of dull and venal] The allegory con- and was by him intended for the press : or else to tinuerl ; dull referring to the extinction of light what purpose hath he crowned it, as we see, by or science; venal to the destruction of order, and this finishing stroke, the profitable lick at the the truth of things. laureate ? Bentl. Ibid. A new world ) In allusion to the Epicurean Ver. 21, 22. Beneath her foot-stool, &c.] We opinion, that from the dissolution of the natural are next presented with the pictures of those whom world into Night and Chaos, a new one should the goddess leads in captivity. Science is only arise; this the poet alluing to, in the proxiuc-depressed and confined so as to be rendered usetion of a new moral world, makes it partake less; but wit or genius, as a more dangerous and of its original principles. active enemy, punished, or driven away: DulVer. 16. Lead and gold.) i. e. dull and venal. ness being often reconciled in some degree with Ver. 20. her laureate son reclines.] With learning, but never upon any terms with wit. great judgment it is imagined by the poct, that And accordingly. it will be seen that she adınits such a colleagle as Duluess had elected, should something like each science, as casuistry, sosleep on the throne, and have very little share in plistry, &c. but nothing like wit, opera alone the action of the poem. Accordingly he hath supplying its place. done liitle or nothing from the day of his anoint- Ver. 30. gives hier Page the word.] There ing; having past through the second book with- was a judge of this name, always ready to hang out taking part in any thing that was transactel any man that camne before him, of which he was about him; and through the third in profound suffered to give a hundred iniserable examples, sleep. Nor ought this, well considered, to scem during a long life, even to his dotage.--Though strange in our days, whin so many king-consorts the candid Scriblerus imagined page here to mean have done the like.Scribl. no more than a page or mute, and to allude to This verse our excellent laureate took so to the custom of strangling state criminals in Turkey heart, that he appealed to all mankind,“ if he by mutes or pages. A practice more decent than was not as seldom asleep as any fool!” But it is that of our Page, who, before he hanged any one, koped the poet hath not injured him, but rather I loaded him with reproachful language.--Scribl. REMARKS. a 339 But held in tenfold bonds the Muses lie, Foreign her air, her robe's discordant pride By singing peers upheld on either hand, Cast on the prostrate Nine a scornful look, 51 Joy to great Chaos! let division reign : One trill shall harmonize joy, grief, and rage, To the same notes thy sons shall hum, or snore, 60 Ver. 39. But sober History] History attends on Another Phæbus, thy own Phæbus, reigns, tragedy, satire on comedy, as their substitutes Joys in my jiggs, and dances in my chains. in the discharge of their distinct functions; the But soon, ah soon, rebellion will commence, one in high life, recording the crimes and punish- If Music meanly borrows aid from Sense: mients of the great; the other in low, exposing Strong in new arms, lo! Giant Handel stands, the vices or follies of the common people. But it Like bold Briarcus, with a hundred hands; may be asked, How came history and satiré to To stir, to rouze, to shake the soul he comes, be admitted with impunity to minister comfort to And Jove's own tbunders follow Mars's drums. the Muses, even in the resence of the goddess, Arrest him, empress, or you sleep no more-and in the midst of all her triumphs ? A ques. She heard, and drove him to th' Hibernian shore. 70 tion,” says Scriblerus, “which we thus resolve: And now had Fame's posterior trumpet blown, History was brought up in her infancy by Dulness And all the nations summond to the throne. herself; but being afterwards espoused into a The young, the old, who feel her inward sway, noble house, she forgot (as is usual) the humi- One instinct seizes, and transports away. lity of her birth, and the cares of her early friends. None need a guide, by sure attraction led, This occasioned a long estrangement between her and strong impulsive gravity of head: and Dulness. At length, in process of time, they None want a place, for all their centre found, met together in a monk's cell, were reconciled, Hung to the goddess, and coher'd around. and became better friends than ever. After this Not closer orb, in orb, conglob’d are seen they had a second quarrel, but it held not long, | The buzzing bees about their dusky queen. 80 and are now again on reasonable terins, and so The gathering number, as it moves along, are likely to continue.” This accounts for the co- Involves a vast involuntary throng, nivance shown to history on this occasion. But Who, gently drawn, and struggling less and less, the boldness of satire springs from a very different Roll in her vortex, and her power confess. cause ; for the reader onght to know, that she Not those alone who passive own her laws, alone of all the sisters is unconqnerable, never to But who, weak rebels, more advance her cause. be silenced, when truly inspired and animated (as Whate'er of dunce in college or in town shoull secm) from above, for this very purpose, to Sneers at another, in toupee or gown; oppose the kingdom of Dulness to her last breath. Ver. 13. Nor could'st thou, &c.] This noble REMARKS. person in the year 1737, when the act aforesaid Ver. 54. Let division reign :] Alluding to the was brought into the house of lords, opposed it in false taste of playing tricks in music with nuniberan excellent speech (says Mr. Cibber) less divisions, to the neglect of that harmony lively spirit, and uncommon eloquence.” This which conforins to the sense, and applies to the speech had the honour to be answered by the said passions. Mr. Handel had introduced a great Mr. Cimber, with a lively spirit also, and in a uomber of hands, and more variety of instruiner is manner very uncommon, in the eighth chapter of into the orchestra, and employed even druns and of his Life and Manners. And here, gentle reader, canaon to make a fuller chorus: which proved so would I gladly insert the other speech, thereby much too manly for the fine gentlemen of his thou mightest judge between them ; but I must age, that he was obliged to remove his music defer it on account of some differences not yet into Ireland. After which they were reduced, for adjusted between the noble author, and myself, want of composers, to practise the patch-work concerning the true reading of certain passages.-- above-mentioned. Bentl. Ver. 76. to 101. It ought to be observed that l'er. 45. When lo! a harlot formn] The attitude | here are three classes in this assembly. 'The given to this phantom represents the nature and first, of men absolutely and avowedly dull, who genius of the Italian opera ; its affected airs, its naturally adhere to the goddess, and are imaged effeminate sounds, and the practice of patebing in the simile of the becs about their quecn. The up thesc operas with favourite songs, incoherently se ond involuntarily drawn to her, though not put together. These things were supported by caring to own her influence; from ver. 81. to the subscriptions of the nobility. This circum- | 90. The third of such as, though not members Stance, that opera should prepare for the opening of her state, yet advance her service by fiatiering of the grand sessions, was prophesied of in Book Dulness, cultivating mistaken talents, patronizing iii. ver. 304 vile scribblers, discouraging living merit, or setting Already Opera prepares the way, up for wits, and inen of taste in arts tbey underThe sure furerunner of ber gentle sway. stand not; from ver. 91. to 101. ** with a |
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