tended through her fubordinate inftruments, in all her various operations.

This is branched into Epifodes, each of which hath its Moral apart, though all conducive to the main end. The Crowd affembled in the fecond book, demonftrates the defign to be more extenfive than to bad poets only, and that we may expect other Episodes of the Patrons, Encouragers, or Paymafters of fuch authors, as occafion fhall bring them forth. And the third book, if well confidered, seemeth to embrace the whole World. Each of the Games relateth to fome or other vile clafs of writers: The first concerneth the plagiary, to whom he giveth the name of More; the second the libellous Novellift, whom he ftyleth Eliza; the third, the flattering Dedicator; the fourth, the bawling Critic, or noify Poet; the fifth, the dark and dirty Party writer; and so of the reft; affigning to each fome proper name or other, fuch as he could find.

As for the Characters, the public hath already acknowledged how justly they are drawn: The manners are fo depicted, and the fentiments fo peculiar to those to whom applied, that surely to transfer them to any other or wifer perfonages, would be exceeding difficult: And certain it is, that every perfon concerned, being confulted apart, hath readily owned the resemblance of every portrait, his own excepted. So Mr. Cibber calls

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them, a parcel of poor wretches, fo many filly flies: "but adds, our Author's Wit is remarkably more bare " and barren, whenever it would fall foul on Cibber, "than upon any other Perfon whatever."

The Defcriptions are fingular, the Comparisons very quaint, the Narration various, yet of one colour: The purity and chafity of Diction is fo preferved, that in the places moft fufpicious, not the words but only the images have been cenfured, and yet are thofe images no other than have been fanctified by ancient and claf fical Authority (though, as was the manner of those

i Cibber's Letter to Mr. P. pag. 9, 12, 41.

good times, not fo curiously wrapped up) yea, and commented upon by the most grave Doctors, and approved Critics.

As it beareth the name of Epic, it is thereby fubjected to fuch fevere indifpenfable rules as are laid on all Neoterics, a strict imitation of the Ancients; infomuch that any deviation, accompanied with whatever poetic beauties, hath always been cenfured by the found Critic. How exact that Imitation hath been in this piece, appeareth not only by its general ftructure, but by particular allufions infinite, many whereof have efcaped both the commentator and poet himfelf; yea divers by his exceeding diligence are fo altered and interwoven with the reft, that feveral have already been, and more will be, by the ignorant abufed, as altogether and originally

his own.

In a word, the whole poem proveth itself to be the work of our Author, when his faculties were in full vigour and perfection; at that exact time when years have ripened the Judgment, without diminishing the Imagination which, by good Critics, is held to be punctually at forty. For, at that feafon it was that Virgil finished his Georgics; and Sir Richard Blackmore at the like age compofing his Arthurs, declared the fame to be the very Acme and pitch of life for Epic poefy: Though fince he hath altered it to fixty, the year in which he published his Alfred. True it is, that the talents for Criticifm, namely fmartness, quick cenfure, vivacity of remark, certainty of affeveration, indeed all but acerbity, feem rather the gifts of Youth than of riper Age: But it is far otherwife in Poetry; witness the works of Mr. Rymer and Mr. Dennis, who beginning with Criticism, became afterwards fuch Poets as no age hath paralleled. With good reafon therefore did our author chufe to write his Eay on that fubject at twenty, and referve for his maturer years this great and wonderful work of the Dunciad.

See his Effays.

P.

RICARDUS ARISTARCHUS

OF THE

HERO of the POE M.

O

F the Nature of Dunciad in general, whence derived, and on what authority founded, as well as of the art and conduct of this our poem in particular, the learned and laborious Scriblerus hath, according to his manner, and with tolerable fhare of judgment, differtated. But when he cometh to speak of the Perfon of the Hero fitted for fuch poem, in truth he miferably halts and hallucinates. For, mifled by one Monfieur Boffu, a Gallic critic, he prateth of I cannot tell what Phantom of a Hero, only raised up to fupport the Fable. A putid conceit! As if Homer and Virgil, like modern Undertakers, who firft build their house, and then seek out for a tenant, had contrived the story of a War and a Wandering, before they once thought either of Achilles or Æneas. We fhall therefore fet our good brother and the world alfo right in this particular, by affuring them, that, in the greater Epic, the prime intention of the Mufe is to exalt Heroic Virtue, in order to propagate the love of it among the children of men; and confequently that the Poet's first thought must needs be turned upon a real fubject meet for laud and celebration; not one whom he is to make, but one whom he may find, truly illuftrious. This is the primum mobile of his poetic world, whence every thing is to receive life and motion. For this fubject being found, he is immediately

ordained, or rather acknowledged, an Hero, and put ups on fuch action as befitteth the dignity of his character.

But the Mufe ceafeth not here her Eagle-flight. For fometimes, fatiated with the contemplation of these Suns of glory, she turneth downward on her wing, and darts with Jove's lightning on the Goose and Serpent kind. For we may apply to the Mufe in her various moods, what an ancient master of Wisdom affirmeth of the Gods in general: Si Dii non irafcuntur impiis et injuftis, nec pros utique juftofque diligunt. In rebus enim diverfis, aut in utramque partem moveri neceffe eft, aut in neutram. Itaque qui bonos diligit, et malos odit ; et qui malos non odit, nec bonos diligit. Quia et diligere bonos ex odio malorum vemit; et malos odiffe ex bonorum caritate defcendit. Which in our vernacular idiom may be thus interpreted: "If "the Gods be not provoked at evil men, neither are they delighted with the good and juft. For contrary "objects must either excite contrary affections, or no "affections at all. So that he who loveth good men, "muft at the fame time hate the bad; and he who hateth not bad men, cannot love the good; because to love good men proceedeth from an averfion to evil, and to "hate evil men from a tenderness to the good." From this delicacy of the Mufe arose the little Epic, (more lively and choleric than her elder fifter, whofe bulk and complexion incline her to the flegmatic) and for this fome notorious Vehicle of vice and folly was fought out, to make thereof an example. An early inftance of which (nor could it efcape the accurate Scriblerus) the Father of Epic poem himself affordeth us. From him the practice defcended to the Greek Dramatic poets, his offspring; who in the compofition of their Tetralogy, or fet of four pieces, were wont to make the last a Satiric Tragedy. Happily one of these ancient Dunciads (as we may well term it) is come down unto us amongst the Tragedies of the Poet Euripides. And what doth the reader fuppofe may be the fubje&t thereof? Why in truth, and it is worthy obfervation, the unequal Contention of an old, dull, debauched buffoon Cyclops, with the heaven-directed

Favourite of Minerva; who, after having quietly born all the monster's obfcene and impious ribaldry, endeth the farce in punishing him with the mark of an indelible brand in his forehead. May we not then be excufed, if for the future we confider the Epics of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, together with this our poem, as a complete Tetralogy, in which the last worthily holdeth the place or ftation of the fatiric piece?

Proceed we therefore in our subject. It hath been long, and, alas for pity! ftill remaineth a question, whether the Hero of the greater Epic fhould be an honest man? or, as the French critics exprefs it, un honnête hommea: but it never admitted of any doubt, but that the Hero of the little Epic fhould be just the contrary. Hence, to the advantage of our Dunciad, we may observe how much jufter the Moral of that Poem muft needs be, where fo important a question is previously decided.

But then it is not every Knave, nor (let me add) every Fool, that is a fit fubject for a Dunciad. There mult ftill exift fome Analogy, if not Refemblance of Qualities, between the Heroes of the two Poems; and this in order to admit what Neoteric critics call the Parody, one of the livelieft graces of the little Epic. Thus it being agreed, that the conftituent qualities of the greater Epic Hero, are Wisdom, Bravery, and Love, from whence fpringeth beroic Virtue; it followeth, that thofe of the leffer Epic Hero, fhould be Vanity, Impudence, and Debauchery, from which happy affemblage refulteth heroic Dulness, the never-dying fubject of this our Poem.

This being confeffed, come we now to particulars. It is the character of true Wisdom, to feek its chief fupport and confidence within itself; and to place that fupport in the resources which proceed from a conscious rectitude of Will. And are the advantages of Vanity, when arifing to the heroic standard, at all fhort of this felf-complacence? Nay, are they not, in the opinion of the ena

a Si un Heros Poëtique doit être un honnête homme, Boffu, du Poême Épique, lib, v. ch, 5,