are laid on all neoterics, a strict imitation of the ancients; insomuch, that any deviation, accompanied with whatever poetic beauties, hath always been censured by the sound critic. How exact that imitation hath been in this piece, appeareth not only by its general structure, but by particular allusions infinite, many whereof have escaped both the commentator and poet himself; yea, divers by his exceeding diligence are so altered and interwoven with the rest, that several have already been, and more will be, by the ignorant abused, as altogether and originally his own. In a word, the whole poem proveth itself to be the work of our Author, when his faculties were in full vigour and perfection; at that exact time when years have ripened the judgment, without diminishing the imagination: which, by good critics, is held to be punctually at forty. For at that season it was that Virgil finished his Georgics; and Sir Richard Blackmore at the like age composing his Arthurs, declared the same to be the very acme and pitch of life for epic poesy: though since he hath altered it to sixty, the year in which he published his Alfred1. True it is, that the talents for criticism, namely, smartness, quick censure, vivacity of remark, certainty of asseveration; indeed, all but acerbity, seem rather the gifts of youth than of riper age. But it is far otherwise in poetry; witness the works of Mr. Rymer and Mr. Dennis, who, beginning with criticism, became afterwards such poets as no age hath paralleled. With good reason, therefore, did our author choose to write his Essay on that subject at twenty, and reserve for his maturer years this great and wonderful work of the Dunciad. RICARDUS ARISTARCHUS OF THE HERO OF THE POEM. Or the nature of Dunciad in general, whence derived, and on what authority founded, as well as of the art and conduct of this our poem in particular, the learned and laborious Scriblerus hath, according to his manner, and with tolerable share of judgment, dissertated. But when he cometh to speak of the person of the hero fitted for such poem; 135 world, whence every thing is to receive life and mediately ordained, or rather acknowledged, a motion. For this subject being found, he is imhero, and put upon such action as befitteth the dignity of his character. Sometimes, satiated with the contemplation of But the muse ceases not here her eagle-flight. these suns of glory, she turneth downward on her wing, and darts like lightning on the goose and her various moods, what an ancient master of serpent kind. For we may apply to the muse in wisdom affirmeth of the gods in general: Si dii non irascuntur impiis et injustis, nec pios utique justosque diligunt. In rebus enim diversis, aut in utramque partem moveri necesse est, aut in neuqui malos non odit, nec bonos diligit. Quia et ditram. Itaque qui bonos diligit, et malos odit; et ligere bonos ex odio malorum venit; et malos odisse ex bonorum caritate descendit. Which in the vernacular idiom may be thus interpreted: "If they delighted with the good and just. For conthe gods be not provoked at evil men, neither are or no affections at all. So that he who loveth trary objects must either excite contrary affections, good men, must at the same time hate the bad; good; because to love good men proceedeth from and he who hateth not bad men, cannot love the an aversion to evil, and to hate evil men from a tenderness to the good From this delicacy of choleric than her elder sister, whose bulk and the muse arose the little epic, (more lively and complexion incline her to the flegmatic) and for this some notorious vehicle of vice and folly was sought out, to make thereof an example. An early instance of which, (nor could it escape the accurate Scriblerus) the father of epic poem himself affordeth us. From him the practice descended to the Greek dramatic poets, his offspring; who, in the composition of their tetralogy, or set of four pieces, were wont to make the last a satiric tragedy. Happily one of these ancient Dunciads (as we may well term it) is come down to us amongst the tragedies of Euripides. And what doth the reader think may be the subject? Why cops, with the heaven-directed favourite of Mitruly, and it is worth his observation, the unequal contention of an old, dull, debauched, buffoon Cynerva; who after having quietly borne all the monster's obscene and impious ribaldry, endeth the farce in punishing him with the mark of an indelible brand in his forehead. May we not then be excused, if for the future we consider the epics of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, together with this our poem, as a complete tetralogy, in which the last worthily holdeth the place or station of the satiric piece? in truth he miserably halts and hallucinates. For misled by one Monsieur Bossu, a Gallic critic, he prateth of I cannot tell what phantom of a hero, only raised up to support the fable. A putrid conceit! as if Homer and Virgil, like modern undertakers, who first build their house and then seek out for a tenant, had contrived the story of a war and a wandering, before they once thought either of Achilles or Æneas. We shall therefore set our good brother and the world also right in this particular, by giving our word, that in the greater epic, the prime invention of the muse is to exalt heroic virtue, in order to propagate the love of it among the children of men; and consequently that the poet's first Proceed we therefore in our subject. It hath been long, and, alas for pity! still remaineth a question, whether the hero of the greater epic should be an honest man? or, as the French critics express it, un honnête homme 2; but it never admitted of any doubt but that the hero of the little epic should not be so. Hence, to the advantage of our Dunciad, we may observe how thought must needs be turned upon a real subject much juster the moral of that poem must needs is to make, but one whom he may find, truly ilmeet for laud and celebration; not one whom he lustrious. This is the primum mobile of his poetic 1 See his Essays. be, where so important a question is previously But then it is not every knave, nor (let me add) 2 Si un héros poëtique doit être un honnête homme. Bossu, du Poème Epique, liv. v. ch. 5. fool, that is a fit subject for a Dunciad. There must still exist some analogy, if not resemblance of qualities, between the heroes of the two poems; and this in order to admit what neoteric critics call the parody, one of the liveliest graces of the little epic. Thus it being agreed that the constituent qualities of the greater epic hero are wisdom, bravery, and love, from whence springeth heroic virtue; it followeth that those of the lesser epic hero should be vanity, impudence, and debauchery, from which happy assemblage resulteth heroic dulness, the never-dying subject of this our Poem. This being confessed, come we now to particulars. It is the character of true wisdom, to seek its chief support and confidence within itself; and to place that support in the resources which proceed from a conscious rectitude of will.-And are the advantages of vanity, when arising to the heroic standard, at all short of this self-complacence? Nay, are they not, in the opinion of the enamoured owner, far beyond it? "Let the world (will such a one say) impute to me what folly or weakness they please; but till wisdom can give me something that will make me more heartily happy, I am content to be GAZED at1." This we see is vanity according to the heroic gage or measure; not that low and ignoble species which pretendeth to virtues we have not, but the laudable ambition of being gazed at for glorying in those vices which all the world know we have. "The world may ask," says he, "why I make my follies public? Why not? I have passed my time very pleasantly with them "." In short, there is no sort of vanity such a hero would scruple, but that which might go near to degrade him from his high station in this our Dunciad; namely, "whether it would not be vanity in him, to take shame to himself for not being a wise man3?" Bravery, the second attribute of the true hero, is courage, manifesting itself in every limb; while, in its correspondent virtue in the mock hero, that courage is all collected into the face. And as power when drawn together, must needs be more strong than when dispersed, we generally find this kind of courage in so high and heroic a degree, that it insults not only men, but gods. Mezentius is without doubt the bravest character in all the Æneis; but how? His bravery, we know, was a high courage of blasphemy. And can we say less of this brave man's, who, having told us that he placed "his summum bonum in those follies, which he was not content barely to possess but would likewise glory in," adds, "If I am misguided, 'TIS NATURE'S FAULT, and I follow HER." Nor can we be mistaken in making this happy quality a species of courage, when we consider those illustrious marks of it, which made his face "more known (as he justly boasteth) than most in the kingdom," and his language to consist of what we must allow to be the most daring figure of speech, that which is taken from the name of God. Gentle love, the next ingredient in the true hero's composition, is a mere bird of passage, or, (as Shakspeare calls it) summer-teeming lust, and evaporates in the heat of youth; doubtless by Dedication to the Life of C. C. Life, p. 23, octavo ed. 3 Life, ibid. that refinement it suffers in passing through thes certain strainers which our poet somewhere speaketh of. But when it is let alone to work upon the lees, it acquireth strength by old age: and becometh a standing ornament to the little epic. It is true, indeed, there is one objection to its fitness for such a use: for not only the ignorant may think it common, but it is admitted to be so, even by him who best knoweth its nature. "Don't you think," saith he, "to say only a man has his whore ought to go for little or nothing! Because defendit numerus, take the first ten thousand men you meet, and I believe you would be no loser if you betted ten to one, that every single sinner of them, one with another, had been guilty of the same frailty"." But here he seemeth not to have done himself justice: the man is sure enough a hero who has his lady at fourscore. How doth his modesty herein lessen the merit of a whole well-spent life: not taking to himself the commendation (which Horace accounted the greatest in a theatrical character) of continuing to the very dregs the same he was from the beginning bines ? We have now, as briefly as we could devise, gone through the three constituent qualities of either hero. But it is not in any, or all of these, that heroism properly or essentially resideth. It is a lucky result rather from the collision of these lively qualities against one another. Thus, as from wisdom, bravery, and love, ariseth magnanimity, the object of admiration, which is the aim of the greater epic; so from vanity, impudence, and debauchery, springeth buffoonery, the source of ridicule, that "laughing ornament," as he well termeth it, of the little epic. He is not ashamed (God forbid he ever should be ashamed!) of this character; who deemeth, that not reason but risibility distinguisheth the human species from the brutal. "As nature (saith this profound philosopher) distinguished our species from the mute creation by our risibility, her design MUST have been by that faculty as evidently to raise our HAPPINESS, as by OUR os sublime (OUR ERECTED FACES) to lift the dignity of our FORM above them"." All this considered, how complete a hero must he be, as well as how happy a man, whose risibility lieth not barely in his muscles as in the common sort, but (as himself informeth us) in his very spirits? And whose os sublime is not simply an erect face, but a brazen head, as should seem by his comparing it with one of iron, said to belong to the late king of Sweden R! But whatever personal qualities a hero may have, the examples of Achilles and Eneas show us, that all those are of small avail, without the constant assistance of the GODS: for the subversion and erection of empires have never been judged the work of man. How greatly soever then we may esteem of his high talents, we can hardly conceive his personal prowess alone sufficient to restore the decayed empire of Dulness. So weighty an achievement must require the particular favour and protection of the GREAT; who being the natural patrons and supporters of letters, as the ancient gods were of Troy, must first be drawn off and engaged in another interest, before the total subversion of them can be accomplished. To surmount, therefore, this last and greatest difficulty, we have in this excellent man a professed favourite and intimado of the great. And look of what force ancient piety was to draw the gods into the party of Æneas, that, and much stronger is modern incense, to engage the great in the party to Dulness. Thus have we essayed to portray or shadow out this noble imp of fame. But now the impatient reader will be apt to say, if so many and various graces go to the making up a hero, what mortal shall suffice to bear this character? Ill hath he read, who sees not in every trace of this picture, that individual, ALL-ACCOMPLISHED PERSON, in whom these rare virtues and lucky circumstances have agreed to meet and concentre with the strongest lustre and fullest harmony. The good Scriblerus indeed, nay, the world itself, might be imposed on in the late spurious editions, by I can't tell what sham-hero, or phantom: But it was not so easy to impose on HIM whom this egregious error most of all concerned. For no sooner had the fourth book laid open the high and swelling scene, but he recognized his own heroic acts: And when he came to the words, Soft on her lap her Laureat son reclines, (though laureat imply no more than one crowned with laurel, as befitteth any associate or consort in empire) he ROARED (like a lion) and VINDICATED HIS RIGHT OF FAME. Indeed not without cause, he being there represented as fast asleep; so unbeseeming the eye of empire, which, like that of Providence, should never slumber. "Hah!" saith he, "fast asleep it seems! that's a little too strong. Pert and dull at least you might have allowed me, but as seldom asleep as any fool'." However, the injured hero may comfort himself with this reflection, that though it be sleep, yet it is not the sleep of death, but of immortality. Here he will live at least, though not awake; and in no worse condition than many an enchanted warrior before him. The famous Durandarte, for instance, was, like hin, cast into a long slumber by Merlin, the British bard and necromancer; and his example for submitting to it with so good a grace might be of use to our hero. For this disastrous knight being sorely pressed or driven to make his answer by several persons of quality, only replied with a sigh, Patience, and shuffle the cards. But now, as nothing in this world, no not the most sacred or perfect things either of religion or government, can escape the teeth or tongue of envy, methinks I already hear these carpers objecting to the clear title of our hero. "It would never," say they, "have been esteemed sufficient to make a hero for the Iliad or Æneis, that Achilles was brave enough to overturn one empire, or Æneas pious enough to raise another, had they not been goddess-born and princes bred. What then did this author mean by erecting a player instead of one of his patrons, (a person 'never a hero even on the stage') to this dignity of colleague in the empire of Dulness, and achiever of a work that neither old Omar, Attila, nor John of Leyden could entirely compass." To all this we have, as we conceive, a sufficient answer from the Roman historian, Fabrum esse suæ quemque fortune: Every man is the Smith of his own fortune. The politic Florentine Nicholas Machiavel goeth still farther, and affirms that a man needs but to believe himself a hero to be one of the best. "Let him," saith he, "but fancy himself capable of the highest things, and he will of course be able to achieve them." Laying this down as a principle, it will certainly and incontestably follow, that, if ever hero was such a character, OURS is: for if ever man thought himself such, OURS doth. Hear how he constantly paragons himself, at one time to ALEXANDER THE GREAT and CHARLES XII. of Sweden, for the excess and delicacy of his ambition; to HENRY IV. of France, for honest policy; to the first BRUTUS for love of liberty; and to SIR ROBERT WALPOLE, for good government while in powers. At another time, to the godlike SOCRATES, for his diversions and amusements; to HORACE, MONTAIGNE, and SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, for an elegant vanity that makes them for ever read and admired 10; to Two LORD CHANCELLORS, for law, from whom, when confederate against him at the bar, he carried away the prize of eloquence"; and, to say all in a word, to the right reverend the LORD BISHOP OF LONDON himself, in the art of writing pastoral letters 12. Nor did his actions fall short of the sublimity of his conceptions. In his early youth he met the revolution at Nottingham 13 face to face, at a time when his betters contented themselves with follou ing her. But he shone in courts as well as camps. He was called up when the nation fell in labour of this revolution, and was a gossip at her christening with the bishop and the ladies is. As to his birth, it is true he pretendeth no relation either to heathen god or goddess; but, what is as good, he was descended from a maker of both 16. And that he did not pass himself on the world for a hero, as well by birth as education, was his own fault; for his lineage he bringeth into his life as an anecdote, and is sensible he had it in his power to be thought nobody's son at all 7: and what is that but coming into the world a hero? one, For There is in truth another objection of greater weight, namely, "That this hero still existeth, and hath not yet finished his earthly course. happy till his death,' surely much less can any if Solon said well, that no man could be called till then, be pronounced a hero; this species of men being far more subject than others to the 5 Ibid. p. 149. 6 Ibid. p. 424. • Ibid. p. 457. 9 Ibid. p. 18. 11 Ibid. p. 426, 437. 14 Ibid. p. 57. 4 See Life, p. 148. 12 Ibid. p. 52. 15 Ibid. 17 Life, p. 6. 59. caprices of fortune and humour." But to this also we have an answer, that will be deemed (we hope) decisive. It cometh from himself, who, to cut this dispute short, hath solemnly protested that he will never change or amend. off my follies than my skin; I have often tried, but they stick too close to me; nor am I sure my friends are displeased with them, for in this light I afford them frequent matter of mirth3," &c. &c. Having then so publicly declared himself incorrigible, he is become dead in law, (I mean the law Epope'an) and descendeth to the poet as his as if he had been dead as long as an old Egyptian hero; that is to say, embowel and embalm him for posterity. With regard to his vanity, he declareth that nothing shall ever part them. "Nature," saith he, "hath amply supplied me in vanity; a plea-property, who may take him, and deal with him, sure which neither the pertness of wit nor the gravity of wisdom will ever persuade me to part with." Our poet had charitably endeavoured to administer a cure to it, but he telleth us plainly, "My superiors perhaps may be mended by him, but for my part I own myself incorrigible. I look upon my follies as the best part of my fortune?" And with good reason.-We see to what they have brought him! Secondly, as to buffoonery. "Is it," saith he, "a time of day for me to leave off these fooleries, and set up a new character? I can no more put Nothing therefore, we conceive, remains to hinder his own prophecy of himself from taking immediate effect. A rare felicity! and what few prophets have had the satisfaction to see alive! Nor can we conclude better than with that extraordinary one of his, which is conceived in these oraculous words, MY DULNESS WILL FIND SOMEBODY TO DO IT RIGHT'. THE DUNCIAD3. TO DOCTOR JONATHAN SWIFT. BOOK THE FIRST. ARGUMENT. The Proposition, the Invocation, and the Inscription. Then the original of the great empire of Dulness, and cause of the continuance thereof. The College of the Goddess in the City, with her private Academy for Poets 1 Life, p. 424. 3 Ibid. p. 17. 2 Ibid. p. 19. 4 Ibid. p. 243, octavo edition. The DUNCIAD, sic MS. It may well be disputed whether this be a right reading. Ought it not rather to be spelled Dunceiad, as the etymology evidently demands? Dunce with an e, therefore Dunceiad with an e. That accurate and punctual man of letters, the restorer of Shakespeare, constantly observes the preservation of this very letter e, in spelling the name of his beloved author, and not like his common careless editors, with the omission of one, nay sometimes of two ees, (as Shakspear) which is utterly unpardonable." Nor is the neglect of a single letter so trivial as to some it may appear; the alteration whereof in a learned language is an achievement that brings honour to the critic who advances it; and Dr. Bentley will be remembered to posterity for his performances of this sort as long as the world shall have any esteem for the remains of Menander and Philemon."-THEOBALD. This is surely a slip in the learned author of the foregoing note, there having been since produced by an accurate antiquary, an autograph of Shakspeare himself, whereby it appears that he spelled his own name without the first e. And upon this authority it was that those most critical curators of his monument in Westminster Abbey erased the former wrong reading, and restored the true spelling on a new piece of old Egyptian granite. Nor for this only do they deserve our thanks, but for exhibiting on the same monument the first specimen of an edition of an author in marble; where (as may be seen on comparing the tomb with the book) in the space of five lines, two words and a whole verse are changed, and it is to be hoped will there stand, and outlast whatever hath been hitherto done in paper; as for the future, our learned sister university (the other eye of England) is taking care to perpetuate a total new Shakespear at the Clarendon press.-BENTL. It is to be noted that this great critic also has omitted one circumstance, which is, that the inscription with the name of Shakspeare was intended to be placed on the in particular; the governors of it, and the four Cardinal Virtues. Then the Poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting her, on the evening of a Lord Mayor's day, revolving the long succession of her sons, and the glories past and to come. She fixes her eye on Bays to be the instrument of that great event which is the subject of the poem. He is described pensive among his books, giving up the cause, and apprehending the period of her marble scroll to which he points with his hand; instead of which it is now placed behind his back, and that specimen of an edition is put on the scroll, which indeed Shakspeare hath great reason to point at.-ANON. Though I have as just a value for the letter E as any grammarian living, and the same affection for the name of this poem as any critic for that of his author, yet cannot it induce me to agree with those who would add yet another e to it, and call it the Duncciade; which being a French and foreign termination, is no way proper to a word entirely English and vernacular. One e therefore in this case is right, and two e's wrong. Yet upon the whole I shall follow the manuscript, and print it without any e at all; moved thereto by authority (at all times, with critics, equal, if not superior, to reason). In which method of proceeding I can never enough praise my good friend, the exact Mr. Tho. Hearne, who, if any word occur which to him and all mankind is evidently wrong, yet keeps he it in the text with due reverence, and only remarks in the margin sic MS. In like manner we shall not amend this error in the title itself, but only note it obiter, to evince to the learned that it was not our fault, nor any effect of our ignorance or inattention.-SCRIBLERUS. This poem was written in the year 1726. In the next year an imperfect edition was published at Dublin, and reprinted at London in twelves; another at Dublin, and another at London in octavo; and three others in twelves the same year. But there was no perfect edition before that of London in quarto, which was attended with notes. -SCHOL. VET. It was expressly confessed in the preface to the first edition that this poem was not published by the author himself. It was printed originally in a foreign country: and what foreign country? Why, one notorious for blun ders: where finding blanks only instead of proper names, these blunderers filled them up at their pleasure. The very hero of the poem hath been mistaken to this hour, so that we are obliged to open our notes with a discovery who he really was. We learn from the former empire: after debating whether to betake himself to the Church, or to Gaming, or to Party-writing, he raises an altar of proper books, and (making first his solemn prayer and declaration) purposes thereon to sacrifice all his unsuccessful writings. As the pile is kindled, the Goddess beholding the flame from her seat, flies and puts it out by casting upon it the poem of Thule. She forthwith reveals herself to him, transports him to her temple, unfolds her arts, and initiates him into her mysteries; then announcing the death of Eusden, the Poet Laureate, anoints him, carries him to court, and proclaims him successor, THE mighty mother1, and her son who brings 2 The Smithfield muses to the ear of kings, editor, that this piece was presented by the hands of Sir Robert Walpole to King George II. Now the author directly tells us, his hero is the man who brings The Smithfield muses to the ear of kings. And it is notorious who was the person on whom this prince conferred the honour of the laurel. It appears as plainly from the apostrophe to the great in the third verse, that Tibbald could not be the person, who was never an author in fashion, or caressed by the great ; whereas this single characteristic is sufficient to point out the true hero; who, above all other poets of his time, was the peculiar delight and chosen companion of the nobility of England; and wrote, as he himself tells us, certain of his works at the earnest desire of persons of quality. Lastly, the sixth verse affords full proof; this poet being the only one who was universally known to have had a son so exactly like him in his poetical, theatrical, political, and moral capacities, that it could justly be said of him Still Dunce the second reign'd like Dunce the first. -BENT. 1 In the first edition it was thus, Books and the man I sing, the first who brings Say, great Patricians! since yourselves inspire "Dii coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas)."-Ovid. Met. 1. The reader ought here to be cautioned, that the mother and not the son is the principal agent of this poem: the latter of them is only chosen as her colleague (as was anciently the custom in Rome before some great expedition), the main action of the poem being by no means the Coronation of the Laureate, which is performed in the very first book, but the restoration of the empire of Dulness in Britain, which is not accomplished till the last. 2 Wonderful is the stupidity of all the former critics and commentators on this work! It breaks forth at the very first line. The author of the critique prefixed to Sawney, a poem, p. 5, hath been so dull as to explain the man who brings, &c., not of the hero of the piece, but of our poet himself, as if he vaunted that kings were to be his readers; an honour which though this poem hath had, yet knoweth he how to receive it with more modesty. We remit this ignorant to the first lines of the Eneid, assuring him that Virgil there speaketh not of himself, but of Encas: Arma virumque cano, Troja qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venit Littora: multum ille et terris jactatus et alto, &c. I cite the whole three verses, that I may by the way offer a conjectural emendation, purely my own, upon each: first, oris should be read aris, it being, as we see Æn. ii. 513, from the altar of Jupiter Hercæus that Eneas fled as soon as he saw Priam slain. In the second line I would read flatu for fato, since it is most clear it was by winds that he arrived at the shore of Italy. Jactatus, in the I sing. In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read, Still her old empire to restore she tries, O thou! whatever title please thine ear, third, is surely as improperly applied to terris, as proper 3 Smithfield is the place where Bartholomew Fair was kept, whose shows, machines, and dramatical entertainments, formerly agreeable only to the taste of the rabble, were, by the hero of this poem and others of equal genius, brought to the theatres of Covent-Garden, Lincoln's Innfields, and the Haymarket, to be the reigning pleasures of the court and town. This happened in the reigns of King George I. and II.-See book iii. i. e. By their judgments, their interests, and their incli nations. 5 The beauty of this whole allegory being purely of the poetical kind, we think it not our proper business, as a scholiast, to meddle with it; but leave it as we shall in general all such) to the reader, remarking only, that Chaos (according to Hesiod's ©coyovía) was the progenitor of all the gods.-SCRIBLERUS. 6 I wonder the learned Scriblerus has omitted to adver tise the reader, at the opening of this poem, that Dulness here is not to be taken contractedly for mere stupidity, but in the enlarged sense of the word, for all slowness of apprehension, shortness of sight, or imperfect sense of things. It includes (as we see by the poet's own words) labour, industry, and some degree of activity and boldness: a ruling principle not inert, but turning topsy-turvy the understanding, and inducing an anarchy or confused state of mind. This remark ought to be carried along with the reader throughout the work, and without this caution he will be apt to mistake the importance of many of the characters, as well as of the design of the poet. Hence it is that some have complained he chooses too mean a subject, and imagined he employs himself, like Domitian, in killing flies; whereas those who have the true key will find he sports with nobler quarry, and embraces a larger compass, or (as one saith, on a like occasion) Will see his work, like Jacob's ladder, rise, 7 The native anarchy of the mind is that state which precedes the time of reason's assuming the rule of the passions. But in that state, the uncontrolled violence of the passions would soon bring things to confusion, were it not for the intervention of Dulness in this absence of reason; who, though she cannot regulate them like reason, yet blunts and deadens their vigour, and, indeed, produces some of the good effects of it: hence it is that Duiness has often the appearance of reason. This is the only good she ever did; and the poet takes particular care to tell it in the very introduction of his poem. It is to be observed, indeed, that this is spoken of the universal rule of Dulness in ancient days, but we may form an idea of it from her partial government in later times. s This restoration makes the completion of the poem.Vide book iv. |