P. See, now I keep the secret, and not you! The bribing statesman-F. Hold, too high you go. P. The bribed elector-F. There you stoop too low. P. I fain would please you, if I knew with what; Tell me which knave is lawful game, which not? Must great offenders, once escaped the crown, Like royal harts, be never more run down? Admit your law to spare the knight requires, As beasts of nature, may we hunt the squires? Suppose I censure-you know what I meanTo save a Bishop, may I name a Dean? F. A Dean, Sir? No: his fortune is not made, You hurt a man that's rising in the trade. P. If not the tradesman who set up to-day, Much less the 'prentice who to-morrow may. Down, down, proud Satire! though a realm be spoil'd, Arraign no mightier thief than wretched Wild1; But, Sir, I beg you, (for the love of vice !) Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe. To tax Directors, who (thank God) have plums; P. Must Satire, then, not rise nor fall? [ago: F. What always Peter? Peter thinks you mad, You make men desperate if they once are bad: Else might he take to virtue some years henceP. As S-k, if he lives, will love the PRINCE. F. Strange spleen to S-k! P. Do I wrong the man! God knows, I praise a courtier where I can. When I confess, there is who feels for fame, And melts to goodness, need I SCARB'ROW name 3? Pleased let me own, in Esher's peaceful grove', (Where Kent and nature vie for PELHAM'S love) The scene, the master, opening to my view, I sit and dream I see my CRAGGS anew! Even in a bishop I can spy desert; Secker is decent, Rundel has a heart: Manners with candour are to Benson given, To Berkley, every virtue under heaven. 3 Earl of, and Knight of the Garter, whose personal attachment to the King appeared from his steady adherence to the royal interest, after his resignation of his great employment of Master of the Horse, and whose known honour and virtue made him esteemed by all parties. 4 The house and gardens of Esher, in Surrey, belonging to the Honourable Mr. Pelham, brother of the Duke of Newcastle. The author could not have given a more amiable idea of his character than in comparing him to Mr. Cragga. But does the court a worthy man remove? Compared, and knew their gen'rous end the same: And if yet higher the proud list should end, Yet think not friendship only prompts my lays; To find an honest man I beat about, P. Not so fierce; 5 John Lord Somers died in 1716. He had been Lord Keeper in the reign of William III., who took from him the seals in 1700. The author had the honour of knowing him in 1706. A faithful, able, and incorrupt Minister, who, to qualities of a consummate statesman, added those of a man of learning and politeness. 6A peer no less distinguished by his love of letters than his abilities in parliament. He was disgraced in 1710, on the change of Q. Anne's ministry. 7 Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, had been Secre tary of State, Ambassador in France, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Chamberlain, and Lord Treasurer. He several times quitted his employments, and was often recalled. He died in 1718. 8 Hen. Boyle, Lord Carleton (nephew of the famous | Robert Boyle,) who was Secretary of State under William III. and President of the Council under Q. Anne. 9 James, Earl of Stanhope. A nobleman of equal courage, spirit, and learning, General in Spain, and Secretary of State. 10 Sir William Wyndham, Chancellor of the Exchequer under Queen Anne, made early a considerable figure; but since a much greater, both by his ability and eloquence, joined with the utmost judgment and temper. No power the muse's friendship can command; I think your friends are out, and would be in. But pray, when others praise him, do I blame? F. Hold, Sir! for God's sake, where's the affront to you? Against your worship when had Sherlock writ? From him the next receives it, thick or thin, As Look for him in his place, Dunc. B. ii. Ver. 315. 2 The Hon. Hugh Hume, son of Alexander, Earl of Marchmont, grandson of Patrick, Earl of Marchmont, and distinguished, like them, in the cause of liberty. ? A verse taken out of a poem to Sir R. W. Spoken not of any particular priest, but of many priests. This seems to allude to a complaint made ver. 71 of the preceding dialogue. The blessed benefit, not there confined, P. So does flattery mine; Ask you what provocation I have had ? And mine as man, who feel for all mankind 7. P. So proud, I am no slave: O sacred weapon! left for truth's defence, Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence! To all but Heaven-directed hands denied, The muse may give thee, but the gods must guide: Reverent I touch thee! but with honest zeal; To rouse the watchmen of the public weal, To virtue's work provoke the tardy Hall, And goad the prelate slumbering in his stall. Ye tinsel insects! whom a court maintains, That counts your beauties only by your stains, Spin all your cobwebs o'er the eye of day! The MUSE's wing shall brush you all away: All his grace preaches, all his lordship sings, All that makes saints of queens, and gods of kings; All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the press, Like the last gazette, or the last address. When black ambition stains a public cause", A monarch's sword when mad vain-glory draws, Not Waller's wreath can hide the nation's scar, Nor Boileau turn the feather to a star 10. See the Epistle to Lord Bathurst. 7 From Terence: "Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto." • Weak and slight sophistry against virtue and honour. Thin colours over vice, as unable to hide the light of truth as cobwebs to shade the sun. The case of Cromwell in the civil war of England, and of Louis XIV. in his conquest of the Low Countries. 10 Sce his Ode on Namur, where (to use his own words) "Il a fait un astre de la plume blanche que le roy porte ordinairement à son chapeau, et qui est en effet une espèce de comète, fatale à nos ennemis." Not so, when diadem'd with rays divine, Touch'd with the flame that breaks from Virtue's shrine, Her priestess Muse forbids the good to die, And opes the temple of Eternity. ** There, other trophies deck the truly brave, Yes, the last pen for freedom let me draw, When Truth stands trembling on the edge of law; Here, last of Britons! let your names be read; Are none, none living? let me praise the dead, And for that cause which made your fathers shine, Fall by the votes of their degenerate line. F. Alas! alas! pray end what you began, And write next winter more Essays on Man1. ON RECEIVING FROM THE RT. HON. THE LADY FRANCES SHIRLEY A STANDISH AND TWO PENS. YES, I beheld the Athenian queen Descend in all her sober charms; "And take" (she said, and smiled serene) "Take at this hand celestial arms : "Secure the radiant weapons wield; This golden lance shall guard desert, And if a vice dares keep the field, This steel shall stab it to the heart." Awed, on my bended knees I fell, Received the weapons of the sky; And dipt them in the sable well, The fount of fame or infamy. The chief herald at arms. It is the custom, at the funeral of great peers, to cast into the grave the broken staves and ensigns of honour. 2 John Dalrymple, Earl of Stair, Knight of the Thistle, served in all the wars under the Duke of Marlborough, and afterwards as ambassador in France. 3 Dr. John Hough, Bishop of Worcester, and the Lord Digby: the one an assertor of the church of England, in opposition to the false measures of King James II.; the other as firmly attached to the cause of that king: both acting out of principle, and equally men of honour and virtue. 4 This was the last poem of the kind printed by our author, with a resolution to publish no more, but to enter thus, in the most plain and solemn manner he could, a sort of PROTEST against that insuperable corruption and depravity of manners which he had been so unhappy as to live to see. Could he have hoped to have amended any, he had continued those attacks; but bad men were grown so shameless and so powerful, that ridicule was become as unsafe as it was ineffectual. The poem raised him, as he knew it would, some enemies: but he had reason to be satisfied with the approbation of good men, and the testimony ofhis own conscience. “What well? what weapon ?" (Flavia cries) "You'd write as smooth again on glass, That dares tell neither truth nor lies, TO THE AUTHOR OF A POEM ENTITLED "SUCCESSIO," [ELKANAH SETTLE.] BEGONE, ye critics! and restrain your spite, 1740. A FRAGMENT OF A POEM. O WRETCHED B! jealous now of all, Thro' clouds of passion P's views are clear, He foams a patriot to subside a peer ;' Impatient sees his country bought and sold, To purge and let thee blood, with fire and sword, wrong To lie in bed, but sure they lay too long. with wit that must And Cd, who speaks so well and writes, Whom (saving W.) every S. harper bites. must needs Whose wit and Rise, rise, great W, fated to appear, At length to B kind, as to thy Espouse the nation, you What can thy H Dress in Dutch Though still he travels on no bad pretence, To show. -y, II Or those foul copies of thy face and tongue, Veracious W- and frontless Young; Sagacious Bub, so late a friend, and there So late a foe, yet more sagacious H-? Hervey and Hervey's school, F-, HYea, moral Ebor, or religious Winton. How! what can O-w, what can D The wisdom of the one and other chair, N- laugh, or D's sager, -n, Or thy dread truncheon, M.'s mighty peer? What help from J's opiates canst thou draw, Or H -k's quibbles voted into law? C., that Roman in his nose alone, Who hears all causes, B—, but thy own, Or those proud fools whom nature, rank, and fate Made fit companions for the sword of state. Can the light packhorse, or the heavy steer, The sowzing prelate, or the sweating peer, Drag out with all its dirt and all its weight, The lumbering carriage of thy broken state? Alas! the people curse, the carman swears, The drivers quarrel, and the master stares. The plague is on thee, Britain, and who tries To save thee in the infectious office dies. The first firm P-y soon resign'd his breath, Brave S- -w loved thee, and was lied to death. Good M-m-t's fate tore P -th from thy side, And thy last sigh was heard when W. Thy nobles sl s, thy se-s bought with gold, Thy clergy perjured, thy whole people sold. An atheista ""'s ad Blotch thee all o'er, and sink Alas! on one alone our all relies, Let him be honest, and he must be wise Nor like his . . . still a -m died. school, THE DUNCIAD', IN FOUR BOOKS. PRINTED ACCORDING TO THE COMPLETE COPY FOUND IN THE YEAR 1742; WITH THE PROLEGOMENA OF SCRIBLERUS, AND NOTES VARIORUM. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, SEVERAL NOTES NOW FIRST PUBLISHED, THE HYPER-CRITICS OF ARISTARCHUS, AND HIS DISSERTATION ON THE HERO OF THE POEM, Tandem Phobus adest, morsusque inferre parantem ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER. I HAVE long had a design of giving some sort of notes on the works of this poet. Before I had the happiness of his acquaintance, I had written a commentary on his Essay on Man, and have since finished another on the Essay on Criticism. There was one already on the Dunciad, which had met with general approbation: but I still thought some additions were wanting (of a more serious kind) to the humorous notes of Scriblerus, and even to those written by Mr. Cleland, Dr. Arbuthnot, and others. I had lately the pleasure to pass some months with the anthor in the country, where I prevailed upon him to do what I had long desired, and favour me with his explana tion of several passages in his works. It happened, that just at that juncture was published a ridiculous book against him, full of personal reflections, which furnished him with a lucky opportunity of improving this poem, by giving it the only thing it wanted, a more considerable hero. He was always sensible of its defect in that particular, and owned he had let it pass with the hero it had, purely for want of a better; not entertaining the 1 The Dunciad is here reprinted from the last and the only complete edition issued during the life of the author, and approved by him; with the sole addition of the variations in the poem noticed by Warburton in his edition published after the death of Pope. least expectation that such an one was reserved for this post, as has since obtained the laurel: but since that had happened, he could no longer deny this justice either to him or the Dunciad. And yet I will venture to say, there was another motive which had still more weight with our author: this person was one, who from every folly (not to say vice) of which another would be ashamed, has constantly derived a vanity and therefore was the man in the world who would least be hurt by it. BY AUTHORITY. W. W. BY VIRTUE OF THE AUTHORITY IN US VESTED BY THE ACT FOR SUBJECTING POETS TO THE POWER OF A LICENSER, WE HAVE REVISED THIS PIECE; WHERE, FINDING THE STYLE AND APPELLATION OF KING TO HAVE BEEN GIVEN TO A CERTAIN PRETENDER, Pseudo-POET, OR PHANTOM, OF THE NAME OF TIBBALD; AND APPREHENDING THE SAME MAY BE DEEMED IN SOME SORT A REFLECTION ON MAJESTY, OR AT LEAST AN INSULT ON THAT LEGAL AUTHORITY WHICH HAS BESTOWED ON ANOTHER PERSON THE CROWN OF POESY: WE HAVE ORDERED THE SAID PRETENDER, PSEUDO-POET, OR PHANTOM, UTTERLY TO VANISH AND EVAFORATE OUT OF THIS WORK AND DO DECLARE THE SAID THRONE OF POESY FROM HENCEFORTH TO BE ABDICATED AND VACANT, UNLESS DULY AND LAWFULLY SUPPLIED BY THE LAUREATE HIMSELF. AND IT IS HEREBY ENACTED, THAT NO OTHER PERSON DO PRESUME TO FILL THE SAME. MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS ж. сч. HIS PROLEGOMENA AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE DUNCIAD: WITH THE HYPER-CRITICS OF ARISTARCHUS. A LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER, OCCASIONED BY THE FIRST CORRECT EDITION OF THE DUNCIAD. Ir is with pleasure I hear, that you have procured a correct copy of the DUNCIAD, which the many surreptitious ones have rendered so necessary and it is yet with more, that I am informed it will be attended with a COMMENTARY: a work so requisite, that I cannot think the author himself would have omitted it, had he approved of the first appearance of this poem. Such notes as have occurred to me I herewith send you: you will oblige me by inserting them amongst those which are, or will be, transmitted to you by others; since not only the author's friends, but even strangers, appear engaged by humanity, to take some care of an orphan of so much genius and spirit, which its parent seems to have abandoned from the very beginning, and suffered to step into the world naked, unguarded, and unattended. It was upon reading some of the abusive papers lately published, that my great regard to a person, whose friendship I esteem as one of the chief honours of my life, and a much greater respect to truth, than to him or any man living, engaged me in inquiries, of which the inclosed notes are the truit. I perceived, that most of these authors had been (doubtless very wisely) the first aggressors. They had tried, 'till they were weary, what was to be got by railing at each other: nobody was either concerned or surprised, if this or that scribbler was proved a dunce. But every one was curious to read what could be said to prove Mr. POPE one, and was ready to pay something for such a discovery: a stratagem, which would they fairly own, it might not only reconcile them to me, but screen them from the resentment of their lawful superiors, whom they daily abuse, only (as I charitably hope) to get that by them, which they cannot get from them. I found this was not all: ill success in that had transported them to personal abuse, either of himself, or (what I think he could less forgive) of his friends. They had called men of virtue and honour bad men, long before he had either leisure or inclination to call them bad writers: and some had been such old offenders, that he had quite forgotten their persons as well as their slanders, 'till they were pleased to revive them. Now what had Mr. POPE done before, to incense them? He had published those works which are in the hands of every body, in which not the least | mention is made of any of them. And what has he done since? He has laughed, and written the DUNCIAD. What has that said of them? A very serious truth, which the public had said before, that they were dull: and what it had no sooner said, but they themselves were at great pains to procure or even purchase room in the prints, to testify under their hands to the truth of it. I should still have been silent, if either I had seen any inclination in my friend to be serious with such accusers, or if they had only meddled with his writings; since whoever publishes, puts himself on his trial by his country. But when his moral character was attacked, and in a manner from which neither truth nor virtue can secure the most innocent, in a manner, which, though it annihilates the credit of the accusation with the just and impartial, yet aggravates very much the guilt of the accusers; I mean by authors without names: then I thought, since the danger was common to all, the concern ought to be so; and that it was an act of justice to detect the authors, not only on this account, but as many of them are the same who for several years past have made free with the greatest names in church and state, exposed to the world the private misfortunes of families, abused all, even to women, and whose prostituted papers (for one or other party, in the unhappy divisions of their country) have insulted the fallen, the friendless, the exiled, and the dead. Besides this, which I take to be a public concern, I have already confessed I had a private one. I am one of that number who have long loved and esteemed Mr. POPE; and had often declared it was not his capacity or writings (which we ever thought the least valuable part of his character) but the honest, open, and beneficent man, that we most esteemed, and loved in him. Now, these people say were believed, I must appear to all my friends either a fool, or a knave; either imposed on myself, or imposing on them; so that I am as much interested in the confutation of these calumnies, as he is himself. what I am no author, and consequently not to be |