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'Till Ifis' Elders reel, their pupils fport,

And Alma mater lie diffolv'd in Port?

Enough! enough! the raptur'd Monarch cries;
And thro' the Iv'ry Gate the Vifion flies.

The END of the THIRD Book.

340

THE

DUN CIA D.

BOOK the FOURTH.

TH

ARGUMENT.

HE Poet being, in this Book, to declare the Comples tion of the Prophecies mentioned at the end of the former, makes a new Invocation; as the greater Poets are wont, when fome high and worthy matter is to be fung. He fhews the Goddess coming in her Majefty, to deftroy Order and Science, and to fubftitute the Kingdom of the Dull upon earth. How fhe leads captive the Sciences, and filences the Mufes; and what they be who fucceed in their ftead. All her Children, by a wonderful attraction, are drawn about her; and bear along with them divers others, who promote her Empire by connivance, weak refiftance, or discouragement of Arts: fuch as Half wits, taftelefs Admirers, vain Pretenders, the Flatterers of Dunces, or the Patrons of them. All these crowd round her; one of them, offering to approachher, is driven back by a Rival, but fhe commends and encourages both. The firft who speak in form are the Geniuses of the Schools, who affure her of their care to advance her Caufe by confining Youth to Words, and keeping them out of the way of real Knowledge. Their Addrefs, and her gracious Anfwer; with her Charge to them and the Univerfities. The Universities appear by their propor Deputies, and affure her that the fame method is obferv'd in the progress of Education. The fpeech of Ariftarchus on this fubject. They

They are driven off by a band of young gentlemen rés turned from Travel with their Tutors; one of whom delivers to the Goddefs, in a polite oration, an account of the whole Conduct and Fruits of their Tra els: presenting to her at the fame time a young Nobleman perfectly accomplished. She receives him graciously, and indues him with the happy quality of Want of Shame. She fees loitering about her a number of Indolent Perfons abandoning all business and duty, and dying with lazinefs: To thefe approaches the Antiquary Annius, intreating her to make them Virtuofos, and affign them over to him: But Mummius, another Antiquary, complaining of his fraudulent proceeding, fhe finds a method to reconcile their difference. Then enter a Troop of people fantaftically adorned, offering her ftrange and exotic prefents: Amongst them, one stands forth and demands juftice on another, who had deprived him of one of the greatest Curiofities in nature: but he juftifies himself fo well, that the Goddess gives them both her approbation. She recommends to them to find proper employment for the Indolents before-mentioned, in the ftudy of Butterflies, Shells, Birds-nefis, Mifs, etc. but with particular caution, not to proceed beyond Trifles, to any useful or extenfive views of Nature, or of the Author of Nature. Against the last of these apprehenfions, fhe is fecured by a hearty Addrefs from the Minute Philofophers and Freethinkers, one of whom fpeaks in the name of the reft. The Youth thus inftructed and principled, are delivered to her in a body, by the hands of Silenus; and then admitted to taste the Cup of the Magus her High Prieft, which caufes a total oblivion of all Obligations, divine, civil, moral, or rational. To these her Adepts fhe fends Priefs, Attendants, and Comforters, of various kinds; confers on them Orders and Degrees; and then difmiffing them with a fpeech, confirming to each his Privileges, and telling what the expects from each, concludes with a rawn of extraordinary virtue : The Progrefs and Effects whereof on all Orders of men, and the Confummation of all, in the Reftoration of Night and Chaos, conclude the Poem.

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IV.

YET, yet a moment, one dim Ray of Light*
Indulge dread Chaos, and eternal Night + !

Of darkness vifible fo much be lent,

As half to fhew, half veil the deep Intent .
Ye Pow'rs! whose Mysteries reftor'd I fing,
To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing ||,
VOL. II.
M m

5

Sufpend

REMARKS.

This book may properly be distinguished from the former, by the Name of the GREATER DUNCIAD, not fo indeed in Size, but in subject; and fo far contrary to the distinction anciently made of the Greater and Leffer Iliad. But much are they mistaken who imagine this Work in any wife inferior to the former, or of any other hand than of our Poet; of which I am much more certain than that the Iliad itself was the Work of Solomon, or the Batrachomomachia of Homer, as Barnes hath affirmed.

BENT.

* This is an Invocation of much Piety. The Poet willing to approve himself a genuine Son, beginneth by fhewing (what is ever agreeable to Dulness) his high refpect for Antiquity and a Great Family, how dead or dark foever Next declareth his paffion for explaining Myfteries; and lastly his Impatience to be re-united to her. SCRIBL.

+ Invoked, as the Restoration of their Empire is the Action of the Poem. This is a great propriety, for a dul¡ Poet can never exprefs himself otherwife than by balves, or imperfectly. SCRIBL.

I understand it very differently; the Author in this work had indeed a deep Intent; there were in it Myfteries or drippara which he durft not fully reveal, and doubtless in divers verses (according to Milton)

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Fair and foftly, good Poet! (cries the gentle Scriblerus on this place.) For fure, in fpite of his unufual modetty, he fhall not travel so fast toward Oblivion, as divers others of more Confidence have done: for when I revolve in my mind the Catalogue of those who have moft boldly promised to themselves Immortality, viz. Pizdar, Luis Gongora, Ronfard, Oldham, Lyrics; Lycophron, Statius, Chapman, Blackmore, Heroics; I find the one half to be

already

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Sufpend a while your Force inertly strong
Then take at once the Poet and the Song.
Now flam'd the Dog-ftar's unpropitious ray,
Smote cv'ry Brain, and wither'd ev'ry Bay;
Sick was the Sun, the Owl forfook his bow'r,
The moon-ftruck Prophet + felt the madding hour:
Then rofe the Seed of Chaos, and of Night,
To hlot out Order, and extinguish Light,
Of dull and venal || a new World to mold §,
And bring Saturnian days of Lead and Gold**.

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already dead, and the other in utter darkness. But it becometh not us, who have taken up the office of his Commentator, to fuffer our Poet thus pro digally to caft away his life; contrariwife, the more hidden and abftrufe is his work, and the more remote its beauties from common Understanding, the more is it our duty to draw forth and exalt the fame, in the face of Men and Angels. Herein fhall we imitate the laudable Spirit of those, who have (for this very reason) delighted to comment on dark and uncouth Authors, and even on their darker Fragments; preferred Ennius, to Virgil, and chofen to turn the dark Lanthorn of Ly COPHRON, rather than to trim the everlafling Lamp of Homer.

SCRIBL.

Alluding to the Vis inertia of Matter, which, though it really be no Power, is yet the Foundation of all the Qualities and Attributes of that Auggish Subftance.

The Poet introduceth this (as all great events are fuppofed by fage Hiftorians to be preceded) by an Eclipfe of the Sun; but with a peculiar propric ty, as the Sun is the Emblem of that intellectual light which dies before the face of Dulness. Very appofite likewife is it to make this Eclipfe, which is occafioned by the Moon's predominancy, the very time when Dulness and Madnefs are in Conjunction; whose relation and influence on each other the poet bath fhewn in many places, Book i, ver. 29. Book iii. ver. 5, & feq.

The two great Ends of her Miffion; the one in quality of Daughter of Chass, the other as Daughter of Night. Order here is to be underflood extenfively, both as Civil and Moral; the diftinétions between high and low in Society, and true and falfe in Individuals: Light as Intellectual only, Wit, Science, Arts.

The Allegory continued; dull referțing to the extinction of Light or Science; venal to the deftruction of Order, and the Truth of Things.

In allufion to the Epicurean opinion, that from the Diffolution of the natural World into Night and Chaos a new one fhould atife; this the Poet alluding to, in the Production of a new moral World, makes it partake of its original Principles.

** 1. c. Pull and venal.

She

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