And again, writing to Sir C. Wogan in September, 1732, the Dean says: "I had reason to put Mr. P. on writing the poem called 'The Dunciad."" His letter and his poem alike must refer to one of the two visits which he paid to Pope at Twickenham, in 1726, and in the early part of 1727; so that, by the concurrent evidence of Swift and Pope, the design of theDunciad' must have been formed some time before the appearance of the Bathos;' for the Miscellanies,' in which that piece was first printed, were not published till the latter part of 1727. And this evidence is further confirmed by Pope's statement in his note to Book I. ver. 1: "This poem was written in 1726." But the idea of the satire had doubtless a yet earlier date. Pope tells us, in the preface to the first authorised edition of the 'Dunciad' (1729), "that the first sketch of the poem was snatched from the fire by Dr. Swift, who persuaded his friend to proceed in it, and to him therefore it was inscribed." Hence it would appear that, when Swift says he "put Mr. P. on writing the Dunciad,'" he only meant that he encouraged him to proceed with a design which was already partly executed. Now the Dean had not always been so eager for a poetical war with the Dunces. In October, 1725, Pope had written to him: "I am sorry poor Philips is not promoted in this age, for certainly if his reward be of the next, he is of all poets the most miserable. I am also sorry for another reason; if they do not promote him, they will spoil a very good conclusion of one of my satires, where, having endeavoured to correct the taste of the town in wit and criticism, I end thus: But what avails to lay down rules for sense? In [George's] reign these fruitless lines were writ, When Ambrose Philips was preferred for wit. Swift wrote back warning Pope against attaching too much importance to bad writers by mentioning them in his verse, and Pope answered in a way that showed he acquiesced in the justice of his friend's opinions. "Let Gildon and Philips," said he, "sleep in peace." Nevertheless the third of the lines quoted above is preserved towards the end of the Third Book of the Dunciad.' It is possible, therefore, that Pope, when he affected to burn "the sketch" of the Dunciad,' was making a show of executing the sentence which Swift and he had previously pronounced against the "satire" containing the allusion to Ambrose Philips; while Swift, on the other hand, by "snatching it from the fire," practically reversed his former judgment. However this may be, the 'Dunciad' was commonly said ' to be a metamorphosis of an earlier satire, entitled 'The Progress of Dulness,' and many circumstances in the poem itself seem to confirm the truth of the rumour. In the first edition the Publisher says, in an Advertisement to the Reader: "I have been well informed that this labour was the work of full six years of his (the author's) life." This sentence the Dunces laid hold of, and ridiculed the pains which had been spent for so trivial a result, whereupon Pope reproached them for their dulness in not perceiving that the Advertisement was ironical. One or two circumstances, however, point to the conclusion that the statement in question may have been at first seriously intended. The action of the poem begins when Thorold was Lord Mayor, that is to say in 1720, two years after Eusden had been made Poet Laureate; and many, indeed most, of the libels recited in the Testimonies of Authors,' date from before the year 1720. Again, in a note to the line in the first authorised edition, "But chief in Tibbald's monster-breeding breast," Pope hints that the idea at least of the Dunciad' had been conceived before Theobald made his attack upon him in the pamphlet called 'Shakespeare Restored.' "Probably," he says, "that proceeding elevated Tibbald to the dignity he holds in this poem, which he seems to deserve no other way better than his brethren." The line in Book I. (first edition), "But what can I my Flaccus cast aside," though applied to Theobald, raises a suspicion that some other person, 1 Preface to "One Epistle," by Welsted and Smyth. perhaps Welsted, was originally aimed at, since Theobald never published any Translation of Horace. And as to the author's practice, which he continued till his death, of changing the names at his pleasure, the publisher is made to say in the first edition (1728): "Whoever will consider the unity of the whole design, will be sensible that the poem was not made for these authors, but these authors for the poem. And I should judge that they were clapped in as they rose, fresh and fresh, and changed from day to day, in like manner as when the old boughs wither we thrust new ones into the chimney." If it be legitimate to form a conjecture in the matter, I should infer from all these circumstances, that the part of the poem first written was the Third Book, which seems to answer to the description of the 'Satire' mentioned in Pope's letter to Swift of October, 1725. The Vision of Dulness forms a separate episode in itself; it has satirical references both to Gildon and Philips; and it "corrects the taste of the town" for pantomime. At all events it is evident that the 'Dunciad' was not, as Pope would have us believe, the product of a sudden inspiration, prompted by the desire of "doing good by detecting and dragging into light the common enemies of mankind;" but a plan of vengeance, long meditated, carefully matured, and skilfully executed by the poet, in repayment of the bitter attacks which his enemies for years past had been making upon his reputation. Not more consistent with the actual facts of the case is the account which Pope, or his spokesman, Savage, gives of the first appearance of the poem. When Pope brought out his first authorised edition of the Dunciad' in 1729, he included in it a preface which had already appeared in what he called "the five first imperfect editions of the Dunciad' in three books, printed at Dublin and London in octavo and duodecimo," and, in the edition of 1736, he added as the date of these imperfect editions, '1727.' This was a mere blind, intended to carry on the mystification originally started in what was doubtless the first edition of the 'Dunciad,' viz., the one published in London on the 28th May, 1728, with the following title-page: THE DUNCIAD. AN HEROIC POEM IN THREE BOOKS. DUBLIN Printed, LONDON Re- Now it is true that (including the edition just mentioned) five "imperfect" editions of the 'Dunciad' (i.e., editions wanting the Notes Variorum and the Prolegomena), were published between the 28th May, 1728 and 12th March, 1729, when the first complete edition was presented to the King by Walpole; but no editions are known to exist bearing the date 1727, and, even reckoning the year to begin with the 25th of March, it appears from Pope's correspondence that, for some time after that date, the poem was safe in his own keeping. Swift writes to him, on the 10th of May, 1728, “You tell me of this Dunciad,' but I am impatient to have it, volitare per ora; there is now a vacancy for fame; the 'Beggar's Opera' has done its work; discedat uti conviva satur." As the correspondence between Pope and Swift affords a key to the secret history of the 'Dunciad,' and explains the transformations through which it passed, it will be advisable to give in full those passages in it which bear on the question. The first reference to the progress of the satire is made on the 22nd of October, 1727: "My poem," writes Pope to Swift, "(which it grieves me that I dare not send you a copy of for fear of the Curlls and Dennises of Ireland, and still more for fear of the worst of traitors, our friends and admirers), my poem, I say, will show you what a distinguishing age we live in. Your name is in it, with some others, under a mask of such ignominy as you will not much grieve to wear in that company. Adieu, and God bless you and give you health and spirits. Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, These two verses are over and above what I have said of you in the poem." In January, 1727-8, he sends another letter to the Dean, from which it appears that the satire was originally meant to bear another title, and that the inscription was somewhat differently drafted. "It grieves me to the soul," he says, "that I cannot send you my chef-d'œuvre the poem on 'Dulness,' which after I am dead and gone will be printed with a large commentary, and lettered on the back, 'Pope's Dulness.' I send you, however, what most nearly relates to yourself, the inscription to it, which you must consider, and re-consider, criticise, hypercriticise, and consult about with Sheridan, Delany, and all the literati of the kingdom,-I mean to render it less unworthy of you. Incipit propositio : Books and the man I sing, &c. And thou, whose sense, whose humour, and whose rage, Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, Or laugh and shake in Rab'lais' easy chair, Yet grieve not thou at what our isle acquires ; In the following month Bolingbroke still further raised the Dean's expectations by writing to him: "In the meantime Pope's Dulness grows and flourishes as if he was there (in Dublin) already.” Still, however, the satire did not appear. and on Feb. 26, 1727-8, Swift writes to Gay: "Why does not Mr. Pope publish his Dulness? The rogues he mawls |