"Servetur ad imum 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 disorders must the coveting her have occasioned in that society, where, according to this political 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 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 the owner 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, distinguished 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 preferring it to one of iron, said to belong to the late king of Sweden. But whatever personal qualities a hero may have, the examples of Achilles and Æneas show us that all these are of small avail without the constant assistance of the gods; for the subversion and erection of empires have never been adjudged the work of man. How greatly soever then we may esteem 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 sur mount, 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 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 suffice to bear his character? Ill hath he read who seeth 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 cannot 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 loudly resented this dignity to violated majesty. Indeed not without cause, he being there represented as fast asleep; so misbeseeming the eye of empire, which, like that of Jove, should never doze nor slumber. "Ha! (saith he) fast asleep it seems! that is a " little too strong. Pert and dull at least you might " have allowed me, but as seldom asleep as any fool." However, the injured laureat may comfort himself with this reflection, that though it be a 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 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 submiting to it with a good grace might be of service to our hero : for that 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 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 sufficient to make a hero for the Iliad of 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 bring to pass ? To all this, we have, as we conceive, a sufficient answer from the Roman historian, Fabrum esse sue 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 worthiest that ever breathed. "Let him," saith he, " but fancy himself capable of high things, " and he will of course be able to achieve the high"est." 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 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 power. At another time to the godlike Socrates, for his diversions and amuse |