The Dunciad, in four books

Front Cover
A. Millar, 1757

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Page 31 - Round him much embryo, much abortion lay, Much future ode, and abdicated play ; Nonsense precipitate, like running lead, That slipp'd through cracks and zig-zags of the head ; All that on Folly Frenzy could beget, Fruits of dull heat, and sooterkins of wit.
Page 200 - We only furnish what he cannot use, Or wed to what he must divorce, a muse: Full in the midst of Euclid dip at once, And petrify a genius to a dunce: Or set on metaphysic ground to prance, Show all his paces, not a step advance.
Page xxi - ... or science, which have not been touched upon by others; we have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights. If a reader examines Horace's Art of Poetry...
Page 24 - In merry old England it once was a rule, The King had his Poet, and also his Fool : But now we're so frugal, I'd have you to know it, That Cibber can serve both for Fool and for Poet.
Page 198 - For thee we dim the eyes, and stuff the head With all such reading as was never read : For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it, And write about it, goddess, and about it : So spins the silkworm small its slender store, And labours till it clouds itself all o'er.
Page 185 - As Fancy opens the quick springs of Sense, We ply the Memory, we load the brain, Bind rebel Wit, and double chain on chain; Confine the thought, to exercise the breath; And keep them in the pale of Words till death.
Page 170 - The moon-struck prophet felt the madding hour : Then rose the seed of Chaos, and of Night, To blot out order, and extinguish light, Of dull and venal a new world to mould, And bring Saturnian days of lead and gold.
Page 194 - Scholiast, whose unweary'd pains Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton's strains. Turn what they will to Verse, their toil is vain, Critics like me shall make it Prose again. Roman and Greek Grammarians! know your Better: Author of something yet more great than Letter; While tow'ring o'er your Alphabet, like Saul, Stands our Digamma, and o'er-tops them all.
Page 134 - Silence, ye wolves ! while Ralph to Cynthia howls And makes night hideous — Answer him, ye owls ! " Sense, speech, and measure, living tongues and dead, Let all give way, and Morris may be read.
Page 166 - YET, yet a moment, one dim Ray of Light Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night ! Of darkness visible so much be lent, As half to shew, half veil, the deep Intent.