YE BOOK IV. ET, yet a moment, one dim Ray of Light Of darkness vifible fo much be lent, As half to shew, half veil the deep Intent. REMARKS. The DUNCIAD, Book IV.] This Book may properly be diftinguished from the former, by the name of the GREATER DUNCIAD, not fo indeed in fize, but in subject; and so far, contrary to the diftinction anciently made of the Greater and Leffer Iliad. But much are they miftaken who imagine this Work to be 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 Solomm, or the Batrachomyomachia of Homer, as Barnes hath affirmed. BENTL. P. VER. I, &c. 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 laftly, his Impatience to be re-united to her. SCRIBL. P. VER. 2. dread Chaos, and eternal Night!] Invoked, as the Restoration of their Empire is the Action of the Poem. P. *. VER. 4. half to fhew, half veil the deep Intent.] This is a great propriety, for a dull Poet can never express himself otherwife than by halves, or imperfectly. SCRIBL. P. *. I understand it very differently; the Author in this work. had indeed a deep Intent; there were in it Mysteries or anopila, which he durft not fully reveal; and doubtless in divers verfes (according to Milton) "more is meant than meets the ear." BENT. P. *. Ye Pow'rs! whose Mysteries restor❜d I fing, To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing, 5 Now flam'd the Dog-ftar's unpropitious ray, Smote ev'ry Brain, and wither'd ev'ry Bay; 10 REMARK S. VER. 6. To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing,] Fair and foftly, good Poet! (cries the gentle Scriblerus on this place.) For fure, in fpite of his unufual modefty, he fhall not travel fo faft 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 themfelves Immortality, viz. Pindar, Luis Gongora, Ronfard, Oldham, Lyrics; Lycophron, Statius, Chapman, Blackmore, Heroics; I find the one half to be 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 prodigally to caft away his Life; contrariwife, the more hidden and abftrufe his work is, and the more remote its beauties from common Understanding, the more it is 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 reafon) delighted to comment on dark and uncouth Authors, and even on their darker Fragments; have preferred Ennius to Virgil, and chofe to turn the dark Lanthorn of LYCOPHRON, rather than to trim the everlasting Lamp of Homer. SCRIBL. P. *. VER. 7. Force inertly frong,] 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 sluggish fubftance. P. Sick was the Sun, the Owl forfook his bow'r, The moon-struck Prophet felt the madding hour: Then rose the Seed of Chaos, and of Night, REMARK S. 15 VER. 11, 12. Sick was the Sun,- The moon-flruck Prophet] The Poet introduceth this (as all great events are fuppofed by fage Hiftorians to be preceded) by an Eclipse of the Sun; but with a peculiar propriety, as the Sun is the Emblem of that intellectual light which dies before the face of Dulnefs. Very appofite likewife is it to make this Eclipfe, which is occafioned by the Moon's predominancy, at the very time when Dulness and Madness are in Conjunction; whose relation and influence on each other the Poet hath fhewn in many places, Book i. ver. 29. Book iii. ver. 5. & feq. VER. 14. To blet out Order, and extinguish Light] The two great ends of her miffion; the one in quality of Daughter of Chaos, the other as Daughter of Night. Order here is to be understood extenfively, both as civil and moral; the diftinctions between high and low in Society, and true and falfe in Individuals: Light, as intellectual only; Wit, Science, Arts. P. VER. 15. Of dull and venal] The Allegory continued ; dull referring to the extinction of Light or Science; venal to the deftruction of Order, or the Truth of things. P. Ibid. a new World] In reference to the Epicurean opinion, that from the diffolution of the natural World into Night and Chaos, a new one should arife; this the Poet alluding to, in the production of a new moral World, makes it partake of its original Principles. VER. 16. Lead and Gold] i. e. dull and venal. P. P. *. She mounts the Throne: her head a Cloud conceal'd, In broad Effulgence all below reveal'd, ('Tis thus afpiring Dulness ever fhines) Soft on her lap her Laureat fon reclines. REMARK S. 20 VER. 18. all below reveal'd,] It was the opinion of the Ancients, that the Divinities manifested themselves to men by their Back-parts. Virg. Æn. i. et avertens, rofea cervice refulfit. But this paffage may admit of another expofition. -Vet. Adag The high r you climb, the more you shew your AVerified in no inftance more than in Dulnefs afpiring. Emblematized alfo by an Ape climbing and expofing his pofteriors. SCRIBL. P. *. VER. 20. her Laureat fon reclines] With great judgment is it imagined by the Poet, that fuch a Collegue as Dulness had elected, fhould fleep upon the Throne, and have very little share in the Action of the Poem. Accordingly he hath done little or nothing from the day of his Anointing; having past through the fecond book without taking part in any thing that was tranfacted about him; and through the third in profound Sleep. Nor ought this, well confidered, to feem ftrange in our days, when fo many King-conforts have done the SCRIBL. P. *. like. This verfe our excellent Laureat took fo to heart, that he appealed to all mankind, "if he was not as feld m asleep as any fool?" But it is hoped the Poet hath not injured him, but rather verified his Prophecy (p 243. of his own Life, 8vo. ch. ix.) where he fays the reader will be as much pleafed to find me a Dunce in my Old Age, as he was to prove me a "brifk blockhead in my Youth." Wherever there was any room for brifknefs, or alacrity of any fort, even in finking, he hath had it allowed; but here, where there is nothing for him to do but to take his natural reft, he must permit his Hiftorian to be filent. It is from their actions only that Princes have their character, and Poets from their works Beneath her foot - ftool, Science groans in Chains, And Wit dreads Exile, Penalties and Pains. There foam'd rebellious Logic, gagg'd and bound, There, stript, fair Rhet'ric languish'd on the ground; His blunted Arms by Sophiftry are born, And shameless Billingsgate her Robes adorn. REMARK S. 25 And if in those he be as much afleep as any fool, the Poet must leave him and them to fleep to all eternity. BENTL. P. Ibid. her Laureat] "When I find my Name in the fatyri"cal works of this Poet, I never look upon it as any ma "lice meant to me, but PROFIT to himself. For he confi"ders that my Face is more known than most in the nation; " and therefore a Lick at the Laureat will be a fure bait ad "captandum vulgus, to catch little readers," Life of Colley Cibber, ch. ii. Now if it be certain, that the works of our Poet have owed their fuccefs to this ingenious expedient, we hence derive an unanswerable argument, that this Fourth DUNCIAD, as well as the [former three, hath had the Author's laft hand, and was by him intended for the prefs: Or elfe to what purpose hath he crowned it, as we fee, by this finishing stroke, the profitable Lick at the Laureat? BENTL: P. VER. 21, 22. Beneath her foot-flool, &c.] We are next prefented with the pictures of those whom the Goddefs leads in Captivity. Science is only depreffed and confined so as to be rendered useless; but Wit or Genius, as a more dangerous nd active enemy, punished, or driven away: Dulness being ften reconciled in fome degree with Learning, but never pon any terms with Wit. And accordingly it will be feen |