Not so bold Arnall;' (3x) with a weight of skull, Furious he dives, precipitately dull. Whirlpools and storms his circling arm invest, With all the might of gravitation blest. No crab more active in the dirty dance, Downward to climb, and backward to advance. He brings up half the bottom on his head, And loudly claims the Journals and the Lead. The plunging Prelate, and his pond'rous Grace, (3 y) With holy envy gave one Layman place. When lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood; Slow rose a form, in majesty of Mud; Shaking the horrors of his sable brows, And each ferocious feature grim with ooze. shews the benevolence of one minister to have expended, for the current dulness of ten years in Britain, double the sum which gained Louis XIV. so much honour, in annual pensions to learned men all over Europe. In which, and in a much longer time, not a pension at Court, nor preferment in the Church or Universities, of any consideration, was bestowed on any man distinguished for his learning separately from party-merit, or pamphlet writing. It is worth a reflection, that of all the panegyrics bestowed by these writers on this great minister, not one is at this day extant or remembered; nor even so much credit done to his personal character by all they have witten, as by one short occasional compliment of our author : Seen him I have; but in his happier hour Of social pleasure, ill exchang'd for Pow'r ! Seen him, uncumber'd by the Venal Tribe, Smile without Art, and win without a Bribe. -POPE and WARBURTON [1743]. See Editor's note. 1 William Arnall, bred an attor ney, was a perfect genius in this sort of work. He began under twenty 3:5 820 325 with furious party-papers; then suc. ceeded Concanen in the British Journal. At the first publication of the Dunciad, he prevailed on the author not to give him his due place in it, by a letter professing his detestation of such practices as his predecessor's. But since, by the most unexampled insolence, and personal abuse of several great men, the poet's particular friends, he most amply deserved a niche in the Temple of Infamy : Witness a paper, called the Free Briton; a Dedication intituled, To the Genuine Blunderer, 1732, and many others. He writ for hire, and valued himself upon it; not indeed without cause, it appearing by the aforesaid Report, that he received "for Free Britons, and other writings, in the space of four years, no less than ten thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven pounds, six shillings and eight pence, out of the Treasury." But frequently, through his fury or folly, he exceeded all the bounds of his commission, and obliged his honourable Patron to disavow his scurrilities.-POPE [1736]. See Editor's note. 1 Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares; 1 First he relates, how sinking to the chin, As Hylas fair was ravished long ago, 2 Then sung, how shown him by the Nut-brown maids 1 Virg., En. vi., of the Sibyl: Nec mortale sonans.-POPE [1729]. 2 Who was ravished by the waternymphs and drawn into the river. The story is told at large by Valerius Flaccus, lib. iii. Argon. See Virgil, Ecl. vi.-POPE [1729]. 3 Οἵ τ ̓ ἀμφ' ἱμερτον Τιταρήσιον ἐργ ἐνέμοντο “Ως δ' ἐς Πηνειόν προΐει καλλίῤῥουν ὕδωρ, Οὐδ' ὅγε Πηνειῷ συμμίσγεται ἀργυροδίνη Αλλά τέ μιν καθύπερθεν ἐπιῤῥέει ηύτ' ἔλαιον. Ορκου γὰρ δεινου Στυγὸς ὕδατός ἐστιν anoppá-Homer, Il. ii. Catal. Of the land of Dreams in the same region, he makes mention, Odyss. xxiv. See also Lucian's True History. Lethe and the Land of Dreams allegorically represent the stupefaction and vi 330 $35 349 345 And Milbourn' (4 a) chief, deputed by the rest, Gave him the cassock, surcingle, (4 b) and vest. "Receive" (he said) "these robes which once were mine, "Dulness is sacred in a sound divine." (4 c) He ceas'd, and spread the robe; the crowd confess The rev'rend Flamen in his lengthen'd dress. Around him wide a sable Army stand, A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band, 350 355 Prompt or to guard or stab, to saint or damn, Heaven's Swiss, who fight for any God, or Man. (4 d) Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street; 'Till show'rs of Sermons, Characters, Essays, 'Ye Critics! in whose heads, as equal scales, "I weigh what author's heaviness prevails; 360 365 "Which most conduce to soothe the soul in slumbers, "My H-ley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers; (4ƒ) 379 "Attend the trial we propose to make: "If there be man, who o'er such works can wake, 1 Luke Milbourn, a clergyman, the fairest of critics; who, when he wrote against Mr. Dryden's Virgil, did him justice in printing at the same time his own translations of him, which were intolerable. His manner of writing has a great resemblance with that of the Gentlemen of the Dunciad against our author, as will be seen in the parallel of Mr. Dryden and him. -Append.-POPE [1729]. See Editor's note. 2 King Lud repairing the city, called it, after his own name, Lud's Town; the strong gate which he built in the west part, he likewise, for his own honour, named Ludgate. In the year 1260, this gate was beautified with images of Lud and other kings. Those images in the reign of Edward VI. had their heads smitten off, and were otherwise defaced by unadvised folks. Queen Mary did set new heads upon their old bodies again. The 28th of Queen Elizabeth, the same gate was clean taken down, and newly and beautifully builded, with images of Lud and others, as afore."--Stow's Survey of London. — POPE [1729]. 'Sleep's all-subduing charms who dares defy, "And boasts Ulysses' ear with Argus' eye;' "To him we grant our amplest pow'rs to sit Judge of all present, past, and future wit; "To cavil, censure, dictate, right or wrong; "Full and eternal privilege of tongue." 375 Three College Sophs, and three pert Templars came, (4 g) The same their talents, and their tastes the same; Each prompt to query, answer, and debate,' And smit with love of Poesy and Prate,3 The pond'rous books two gentle readers bring; The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring. 380 The clam'rous crowd is hush'd with mugs of Mum, (4 h) 385 'Till all, tun'd equal, send a genʼral hum. Then mount the Clerks, and in one lazy tone Thro' the long, heavy, painful page drawl on;' 6 390 395 without perceiving the heaviness that lags in the verse, to imitate the action it describes. The simile of the Pines is very just and well adapted to the subject;" says an enemy, in his Essay on the Dunciad, p. 21.-POPE [1729]. 6 Famous for his speeches on many Occasions about the South Sea Scheme, &c. "He is a very ingenious gentleman, and hath written some excellent Epilogues to Plays, and one small piece on Love, which is very pretty." Toland and Tindal,' (4 k) prompt at priests to jeer, Then down are roll'd the books; stretch'd o'er 'em lies Jacob, Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 289. But this gentleman since made himself much more eminent, and personally well known to the greatest statesmen of all parties, as well as to all the courts of law in this nation.-POPE [1729]. Two persons, not so happy as to be obscure, who writ against the religion of their country. Toland, the author of the Atheist's Liturgy, called Pantheisticon, was a spy, in pay to Lord Oxford. Tindal was author of the Rights of the Christian Church, and Christianity as old as the Creation. He also wrote an abusive pamphlet against Earl S-, which was suppressed while yet in MS. by an eminent person, then out of the ministry, to whom he shewed it, expecting his approbation: this doctor afterwards published the same piece, mutatis mutandis, against that very person.-POPE [1729]. See Editor's note. 2 This is said by Curl, Key to Dunc. to allude to a sermon of a reverend bishop. POPE and WARBURTON [1743]. See Editor's note. 3 It is a common and foolish mistake, that a ludicrous parody of a grave and celebrated passage is a 400 405 410 ridicule of that passage. The reader therefore, if he will, may call this a parody of the author's own sublime Similitude, in the Essay on Man, p. iv. : : As the small pebble, &c. but will any body therefore suspect the one to be a ridicule of the other? A ridicule indeed there is in every parody but when the image is transferred from one subject to another, and the subject is not a poem burlesqued (which Scriblerus hopes the reader will distinguish from a burlesque poem), there the ridicule falls not on the thing imitated, but imitating. Thus, for instance, when Old Edward's armour beams on Cibber's breast, it is, without doubt, an object ridiculous enough. But I think it falls neither on old king Edward, nor his armour, but on his armour-bearer only. Let this be said to explain our author's Parodies (a figure that has always a good effect in a mock epic poem) either from profane or sacred writers.-WARBURTON [1743]. See Editor's ote. A waving sea of heads was round me spread, And still fresh streams the gazing deluge fed. Blackm., Job. -POPE [1729]. |