Gentle Love, the next ingredient in the true hero's compofition, is a mere bird of paffage, or (as Shakefpeare calls it) Summer-teeming luft, and evaporates in the heat of youth; doubtless by that refinement it suffers in passing through those 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 lasting ornament to the Little Epic. It is true, indeed, there is one objection to its fitness for fuch an use; for not only the ignorant may think it common, but it is admitted to be so even by him who best knoweth its value. "Don't you think

(argueth he) to say only a man has his whore, † " ought to go for little or nothing? Because, defen" dit 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 fingle finner of them, " one with another, had been guilty of the fame "frailty." But here he seemeth not to have done justice to himself: the man is fure enough a hero who hath his lady at fourscore. How doth his modesty herein lessen the merit of a whole well-fpent life? not taking to himself the commendation (which Horace accounted the greatest in a theatrical character) of continuing to the very dregs the fame he was from the beginning

- Servetur ad imum

"Qualis ab incepto procellerat."

But here, in justice both to the Poet and the Hero, let us farther remark, that the calling her his whore, implieth she was his own, and not his neighbour's. Truly a commendable continence! and such as Scipio himself must have applauded: for how much self-denial was exerted not to covet his neighbour's whore! and what diforders must the coveting her have occafioned in that society, where (accordi (according to this po

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litical

litical calculator) nine in ten of all ages have their concubines!

We have now, as briefly as we could devise, gone through the three constituent qualities of either Hero; but it is not in any, nor in all of these, that heroism properly or effentially refideth. It is a lucky result rather from the collision of these lively qualities against one another. Thus, as from wisdom, bravery, and love, arifeth magnanimity, the object of admiration, which is the aim of the Greater Epic, fo from vanity, impudence, and debauchery, fpringeth buffoonry, the fource of ridicule, that "laughing ornament," as the owner well termeth it * of the Little Epic.

He is not ashamed (God forbid he ever should be afhamed!) of this character, who deemeth that not reafon, but risibility, diftinguisheth the human species from the brutal. "As Nature (faith this profound "philosopher) diftinguished 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 fublime (our erected faces) to lift the "dignity of our form above them."† All this confidered, how complete a hero must he be, as well as how happy a man, whose rifibility lieth not barely in his muscles, as in the common fort, but (as himself informeth us) in his very spirits! and whose os fublime is not fimply an erect face, but a brazen head; as should feem by his preferring it to one of iron, faid to belong to the late King of Sweden.

How

But whatever personal qualities a hero may have, the examples of Achilles and Æneas shew us that all these are of small avail without the constant assistance of the gods; for the fubversion and erection of empires have never been adjudged the work of man. greatly foever then we may esteem his high talents, we can hardly conceive his personal prowess alone fufficient to restore the decayed empire of Dulness. So weighty an achievement must require the particular fa

vour

C. Cibber's Letter to Mr. P. p. 31. + C. Cibber's Life, p. 23, 24,

+ Letter, p. 8.

vour 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 fubversion of them can be accomplished. To furmount, 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 incenfe to engage the great in the party of Dulness.

Thus have we essayed to pourtray 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 fuffice to bear his character? Ill hath he read who seeth not, in every trace of this picture, that individual, all-accomplished perfon, 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 impofed on in the late spurious editions, by I cannot tell what Sham-Hero or Phantom; but it was not fo easy to impose on him whom this egregious error most of all concerned: for no fooner 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 fon reclines,"

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(though laureat imply no more than one crown'd with laurel, as befitteth any afssociate or confort in empire) he loudly refented this dignity to violated majesty. Indeed, not without cause, he being there represented as faft afleep; so misbeseeming the eye of Empire, which, like that of Jove, should never doze nor flumber. "Ha! (faith he) fast asleep it feems! that is a "little too strong. Pert and dull at least you might " have allowed me, but as feldom afleep as any fool."* However,

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C. Cibber's Letter, p. 53.

However, the injured Laureat may comfort himself with this reflection, that though it be a fleep, yet it is not the fleep of death, but of immortality. Here he will * live at least, though not awake, and in no wor se condition than many an enchanted hero before him. The famous Durandarte, for instance, was, like him, cast into a long slumber by Merlin the British Bard and necromancer; and his example for fubmitting to it with a good grace might be of fervice to our Hero: for that difastrous knight, being forely preffed or driven to make his answer by several persons of quality,t only replied with a figh, "Patience and shuffle the cards."‡

But now, as nothing in this world, no, not the most facred or perfect things either of religion or government, can escape the stings of envy, methinks I already hear these carpers objecting to the clearness of our Hero's title.

It would never (say they) have been esteemed fufficient to make an hero for the Iliad of Æneis, that Achilles was brave enough to overturn one empire, or Æneas pious enough to raife another, had they not been goddefs-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 bring to pass ?

To all this we have, as we conceive, a sufficient answer from the Roman historian, Fabrum effe fuæ quemque fortuna: "That every man is the carver of his

own fortune." The politic Florentine, Nicholas Machiavel, goeth still further, and affirmeth, that a man needeth but to believe himself a hero to be one of the worthieft that ever breathed. "Let him (faith he) but fancy himself capable of high things, and " he will of course be able to achieve the highest." From this principle it followeth that nothing can exceed our Hero's prowess, as nothing ever equalled the greatness of his conceptions. Hear how he constantly

*C. Cibber's Letter, p. 1. + See Cibber's Letter to Mr. P. ‡ Don Quixote, Part II. Book ii. ch. 22. § See C. Cibber's Life, p. 148.

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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 firit Brutus, for love of liberty;‡ and to Sir Robert Walpole, for good government while in power. At another time to the godlike Socrates, for his diversions and amusements; || to Horace, Montaigne, and Sir William Temple, for an elegant vanity that maketh them for ever read and admired; ** to two Lord Chancellors for law, from whom, when confederated 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 Paftoral Letters.‡‡

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Nor did his actions fall short of the fublimity of his conceit. In his early youth he met the Revolution§§ face to face in Nottingham, at a time when other patriots contented themselves to follow her. It was here he got acquainted with Old Battle-array, of whom he hath made so honourable mention in one of his im. mortal odes. |||| 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 goffip at her chriftening with the bishop and the ladies.†

As to his birth, it is true he pretendeth no relation either to Heathen god or goddess; but, what is as good, he was defcended from a Maker of both. 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 no body's fon at all:§ and what is that, I pray you, but coming into the world a hero?

But be it (the punctilious laws of epic poesy so requiring) that a hero of more than mortal birth must,

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needs

* See C. Cibber's Life, p. 149. Ib. p. 424. Ib. p. 366. Ib. p. 457. Ib. p. 18. ** Ib. p. 425. ++ P. 436, 437. P. 52. 90 P. 47.

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Old Battle-array in confufion is fied,

"And olive-rob'd Peace is come in his stead," &c.

Cibber's Birth, or New Year's Day Ode.

* Cibber's Life, p. 57. † P. 58, 59. A Statuary. Life,