weight by the addition of the Fourth Book. The error, for which Pope may justly be censured, is his omission to re-cast the whole of the First Book to suit the character of the new hero. Unwilling to sacrifice the excellent lines in which he had satirised the dulness of Theobald, he overlooked, or sought to disguise, the fact that, when applied to Cibber, they lost their dramatic propriety. The main motive for the hero's despondency, which prompts him to burn his books and to turn to -party writing, is poverty. In Theobald's case such a stroke of satire was perhaps cruel, but certainly effective. Cibber, however, was in easy circumstances; to represent him as sitting" supperless," was therefore idle; nor was there any more point in making him resolve to gain his living as a party hack. One of the best passages in the original satire, was the description of Theobald's antiquarian library; but this was entirely inapplicable to Cibber, who would certainly have committed the twelve volumes of Archæology to the flames without a single pang. It remains very briefly to examine the meaning of the attacks on classes of persons and things made by Pope in the 'Dunciad.' The whole of the Second Book, and a large part of the Third, are occupied with the satire upon Grub Street. By this infamous name, the poet intends to stigmatise three classes of persons, who gained their livelihood by literature. The first are the writers of secret and defamatory scandal. Used in this sense, the word "Grub Street," is first found in Andrew Marvel,' and owes its origin to the operation of the Licensing Laws. These Laws, though dating from the reign of Mary, were most severely enforced under a régime sometimes supposed to have been favourable to liberty, namely, that of the Long Parliament. They were renewed after the Restoration. In 18 Car. II. (1666), it is laid down, that "the King by the Common Law hath a general prerogative over the printing-press; so that none 1 In 'The Rehearsal Transprosed,' 1673. ✓ ought to print a public book without his license." The Act of 1662 prohibited every private person from printing any book or pamphlet, unless entered at the Stationers' Company, and licensed, if of a legal nature, by the Chancellor or one of the Chief Justices; if historical or political, by a Secretary of State; if heraldic, by the Kings-at-Arms; if theological, medi-` cal, or philosophical, by the Bishops of Canterbury or London; or, if printed at one of the Universities, by the Chancellor. This Act, which was passed for three years, was twice renewed, expired in 1679, and was revived in 1685 for seven years. In 1692, it was allowed to die a natural death, for the simple reason that it failed to answer the purposes for which it was introduced. "Even during the Censorship," says Hallam, "a host of unlicensed publications, by the negligence or connivance of the officers employed to seize them, bore witness to the inefficacy of its restrictions. The bitterest invectives of Jacobitism were circulated in the first four years after the Revolution." As the occupation of illicit printing was attended with danger, it was carried on in cellars and garrets, generally by men of bad reputation and broken fortunes, and from the chief haunt of these writers and printers came the name of Grub Street. It was used to distinguish the baser productions of the press, intended to satisfy the appetite of that always considerable portion of the public which craves for gossip and scandal, from the better class of newspaper, in which soon after the lapse of the Licensing Laws, public opinion began to find expression. Pope applies it to all who, in a libellous manner, had reflected on his moral or literary reputation, and, as we see in the Dedication to the Earl of Middlesex, he ascribes the increase in the number of such writers to the absence of any Licensing Law. By classing his enemies as "Grub Street," he implied that their criticisms were inspired not by a sense of justice, but by venality or mere malignity; and indeed, though in some instances, as in the case of Dennis, Pope was himself the first aggressor, it is evident that most of the attacks made on his conduct, in regard to his 'Translation of Homer,' and his edition of 'Shakespeare,' were, if not baseless, at least unprovoked. It may not have been worth his while to take notice of such assailants, but the punishment they received scarcely entitles them to any compassion. The second class of Dunces satirised under the name of "Grub Street," were the party writers. A great change had been effected in the relation of men of letters to politics since the days of Queen Anne. Under the reign of that monarch, swayed as she herself was by rival favourites, and in the absence of any great constitutional issues, the forces of the two great parties were pretty equally matched. To secure the assistance of those who could turn the balance of public opinion with their pens, became a matter of importance to rival statesmen, and preferment in Church or State was liberally bestowed by each party in payment for good service of this kind. Some of the best prose writing in our literature is, therefore, to be found in the party newspapers of this period. But after the accession of George I., the Tories, who had identified themselves with the Jacobite cause, were virtually annihilated as a party. The Whigs, on the other hand, now undisputed masters of the patronage of the State, had much less need of literary advocacy, while Walpole, who based his political system upon his arts of parliamentary management, wanted service which was naturally distasteful to men of independent spirit. Hence, party writers of the class of Addison and Swift are replaced under the Georges by venal hacks like Arnall, Ralph, and Gordon. The 'Examiner' is succeeded by Mist's Journal;' the 'Guardian' by the 'Flying Post.' These prints freely opened their columns to discussions of a personal nature, and it was in consequence of a letter against Pope, published in 'Mist's Journal,' that Theobald was represented in the original Dunciad' as resolving to betake himself to party writing. It is interesting to observe the rapid development of Pope's own party spirit, as displayed in the alterations made in the later editions of the poem. When his satire first appeared, he was not actively engaged on the side of the Opposition, and his attacks on the Whig pamphleteers are prompted simply by personal resentment. Walpole himself, as Pope says, presented the first authorised edition of the 'Dunciad' to the King. The references to the King at the end of the First Book, in the edition of 1742; the appearance of Arnall-Walpole's chief tool-in the divingmatch; the added lines on the Gazetteers in the same episode; the bitter attack on the clergy, which immediately follows; the frequent references to Walpole, the King, the Queen, and all the Court circle, throughout the Fourth Book these are strokes that bear witness to the growth of party spirit in Pope's mind under the inspiring influence of Bolingbroke. Lastly, there are the booksellers. The appearance of the bookseller, stationer, or publisher, among the Dunces is an interesting sign of the new phase into which English literature was then passing. Throughout the seventeenth century, readers were comparatively few, and were almost confined to the nobility. Books were generally published by subscription, and the bookseller made his profit merely from the commission on the sale. But the rapid rise of the moneyed classes after the Revolution of 1688, largely increased the demand for intellectual amusement. As Pope himself says, in his 'Epistle to Augustus': Now times are changed, and one poetic itch Men of business began to perceive that property in books was valuable, and that there was room for a middle-man between the author and the public. Jacob Tonson, who purchased the copyright of Paradise Lost,' of Dryden's 'Miscellanies,' and of Pope's 'Pastorals,' seems to have been the first English publisher in the modern sense of the word. His example was followed and, indeed, surpassed by Bernard Lintot, whose bargain with Pope for the property of the Translation of the Iliad' strikes us, even at this day, as an extraordinary piece of commercial enterprise. Yet Lintot appears in the 'Dunciad.' Pope put him there because he was dissatisfied with his conduct about the Translation of the Odyssey,' but such retaliation would have been ineffective, if the poet had not been afforded an opportunity of reflecting on the booksellers as a class in the person of Edmund Curll. This man was the genuine product of Grub Street. He had been sentenced to stand in the pillory for publishing obscene and blasphemous pamphlets. He made his profits from the publication of pirated letters and poems, and from the translations of literary hacks, whom he maintained in a state of semi-starvation. He boasted of his shameful exploits with brazen impudence. Nothing can be more significant of Pope's rancour, and of the intellectual condition of the times, than the fact that such a scoundrel as Curll should be classed in the 'Dunciad' with respectable tradesmen like Tonson and Lintot, as the type of the bookseller, whom Johnson afterwards asserted to be "the only Mæcenas of modern times." A few words are required in explanation of the attack which Pope makes at the end of the Third Book and throughout the Fourth Book on the taste of the age, notably in respect of the stage, the opera, and the amusements of the Virtuosi. Though the motive of his satire on the stage is mainly personal, and is to be ascribed to the failure of Three Hours after Marriage,' the state of the theatre was such as to invite his strictures. The drama had been thoroughly purified since the accession of Queen Anne, but in becoming moral it had also become dull. The public sought for some more stimulating amusement than the authors of the day could provide; and, in default of good plays, they turned to raree-shows. Cibber, it is true, ascribes the rise of pantomime to the competition between the playhouses, and cites in support of his argument, the similar VOL. IV. POETRY. D |