BY AUTHORITY.

By virtue of the Authority in Us bested 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 evaporate out of this work: And do declare the said Throne of Poesy from henceforth to be abdicated and_vacant, unless duly and lawfully sup plied by the LAUREATE himself. And it is hereby ênacted, that no other person do presume to fill the

same.

QC. CH.

THE DUNCIAD:

ΤΟ

DR. 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 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 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 Thulé. 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.

Kings,

I sing. Say you, her instruments the Great!

1 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 Shakespear, 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 ee's (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.-P.

This poem was written in 1726. In the next year an imperfect Edition was published at Dublin, and reprinted at London in 12mo; another at Dublin, and

Called to this work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate;3 You by whose care, in vain decried and cursed, Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first; *

4

Say, how the Goddess bade Britannia sleep, And poured her Spirit o'er the land and deep.

6

In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read, Ere Pallas issued from the Thunderer's head, 10 Dulness o'er all possessed her ancient right, Daughter of Chaos and eternal Night:"

5

another at London in 8vo; and three others in 12mo the same year. But there was no perfect Edition before that of London in 4to; which was attended with Notes. We are willing to acquaint Posterity, that this Poem was presented to King George II. and his Queen, by the hands of Sir Robert Walpole, on the 12th of March, 1728-9.-Schol. Vet.-P. W. (Pope and Warburton.)

For some account of the Dunciad see the Memoir prefixed to these volumes, pp. xxx-xxxiii. It may here be remarked that the commentary which accompanies the poem was intended to parody the criticisms of Bentley and his school. This commentary has been considerably curtailed in the present edition.

2 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-inn fields, 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.—P.

3.e. by their Judgments, their Interests and their Inclinations.-Warburton.

Alluding to a verse of Mr. Dryden, not in Mac Fleckno (as is said ignorantly in the Key to the Dunciad, p. i.), but in his verses to Mr. Congreve,

"And Tom the second reigns like Tom the first.”—P.

5 The beauty of this whole Allegory being purely of the poetical kind, we think it not our proper busi.

Fate in their dotage this fair Idiot gave,
Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave,'
Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind,
She ruled, in native Anarchy, the mind.
Still her old Empire to restore she tries,
For, born a Goddess, Dulness never dies.

15

20

O Thou! whatever title please thine ear, Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver! 2 Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair, Or praise the Court, or magnify Mankind,3 Or thy grieved Country's copper chains unbind;

From thy Boeotia though her Power retires, 25 Mourn not, my SWIFT, at aught our Realm acquires.

Here pleased behold her mighty wings outspread

To hatch a new Saturnian age of Lead.*

ness, 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 Osoyovia) was the Progenitor of all the Gods.-Scriblerus.-P.

1 A parody on a verse of Dryden, Æn. vii. 1044 : "Famed as his sire, and as his mother fair.

Wakefield.

2 The several Names and Characters he assumed in his ludicrous, his splenetic, or his Party-writings; which take in all his works.- Warburton.

3 Ironicè, alluding to Gulliver's representations of both. The next line relates to the papers of the Drapier against the currency of Wood's Copper coin in Ireland, which, upon the great discontent of the People, his Majesty was graciously pleased to recall. -P.

The ancient Golden Age is by Poets styled Saturnian, as being under the reign of Saturn; but in the Chemical language Saturn is lead.-P. W.