To where Fleet-ditch with disemboguing streams REMARKS. 281 Then sighing thus, "And am I now threescore? He said, and climb'd a stranded lighter's height, REMARKS. of man." "In poetry he was not so happy as laborious, and therefore characterised by the Tatler, No. 62, by the name of Omicron the Unborn Poet." Curll, Key, p. 13. "He writ dramatic works, and a volume of poetry consisting of heroic epistles, &c. some whereof were very well done," said that great judge, Mr. Jacob, in his Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 303. directly contrary to the doctrine of the church of England for the visible descent of an angel must be a miracle. Now it is the doctrine of the church of England that miracles had ceased a long time before prince Arthur came into the world. Now if the doctrine of the church of England be true, as we are obliged to believe, then are all the celestial machines in prince Arthur unsuffer- In his Essay on Criticism, and the Arts of Logic able, as wanting not only human, but divine and Rhetoric, he frequently reflects on our author. probability. But if the machines are sufferable, But the top of his character was a perverter of that is, if they have so much as divine proba-history, in that scandalous one of the Stuarts in bility, then it follows of necessity that the doctrine of the church is false. So I leave it to every impartial clergyman to consider," &c.-Preface to the Remarks on Prince Arthur. : folio, and his Critical History of England, two volumes octavo. Being employed by bishop Kennet, in publishing the historians in his collection, he falsified Daniel's Chronicle in numberless places. Yet this very man, in the preface to the first of these books, advanced a particular fact to charge three eminent persons of falsifying the lord Clarendon's History; which fact has been disproved by Dr. Atterbury, late bishop of Rochester, then the only survivor of them; and the particular part he pretended to be falsified, produced since, after almost ninety years, in that noble author's original manuscript. He was all his life a virulent party-writer for hire, and received his reward in a small place, which he en Ver. 270. (As morning prayer and flagellation end)] It is between eleven and twelve in the morning, after church service, that the criminals are whipt in Bridewell. This is to mark punctually the time of the day: Homer does it by the circumstance of the judges rising from court, or of the labourers dinner our author by one very proper both to the persons and the scene of his poem, which we may remember commenced in the evening of the lord-mayor's day. The first book passed in that night; the next morning the games begin in the Strand, thence along Fleet-joyed to his death. street (places inhabited by booksellers), then they proceed by Bridewell toward Fleet-ditch, and lastly through Ludgate to the city, and the temple of the goddess. Ver. 280. the Weekly Journals] Papers of news and scandal intermixed, on different sides and parties, and frequently shifting from one side to the other, called the London Journal, British Journal, Daily Journal, &c. the concealed writers of which for some time were Oldmixon. Roome, Arnall, Concanen, and others; persons never seen by our author. Ver. 283. In naked majesty Oldmixon stands,] Mr. John Oldinixon, next to Mr. Dennis, the most ancient critic of our nation; an unjust censurer of Mr. Addison in his prose Essay on Criticism, whom also in his imitation of Bouhours (called the Arts of Logic and Rhetoric) he misrepresents in plain matter of fact; for in p. 45. he cites the Spectator as abusing Dr. Swift by name, where there is not the least hint of it; and in p. 394 is so injurious as to suggest that Mr. Addison himself writ that Tatler, No. 43, which says of his own simile, that "Tis as great as ever entered into the mind VARIATION. Ver. 283. In former edit.-great Dennis stands. Ver. 291. Next Smedley div'd ;] In the surreptitious editions, this whole episode was applied to an initial letter E-, by whom if they meant the laureat, nothing was more absurd, no part agreeing with his character. The allegory evidently demands a person dipped in scandal, and deeply immersed in dirty work; whereas Mr. Ensden's writings rarely offended but by their length and multitude, and accordingly are taxed of nothing else in book i. ver. 102. But the person here mentioned, an Irishman, was author and publisher of many scurrilous pieces, a weekly Whitehall Journal, in the year 1722, in the name of sir James Baker; and particularly whol volumes of Billingsgate against Dr. Swift and Mr Pope, called Gulliveriana and Alexandriaua, printed in octavo, 1728. Ver. 295. Then ** essay'd ;] A gentleman of genius and spirit, who was secretly dipt in some papers of this kind, on whom our poet bestows a panegyric instead of a satire, as deserving to be better employed than in party-quarrels, and personal invectives. VARIATION. Then **try'd, but hardly snatch'd from sight, He bears no tokens of the sabler streams, 300 No noise, no stir, no motion canst thou make, VARIATIONS. After ver. 298. in the first edit. followed these: REMARKS. Ver. 299. Concanen] Mathew Concanen, an Irishman, bred to the law. Smedley (one of his brethren in enmity to Swift) in his Metamorphosis of Scriblerus, p. 7. accuses him of having boasted of what he had not written, but others had revised and done for him." He was author of several dull and dead scurrilities in the British and London Journals, and in a paper called the Speculatist. In a pamphlet, called a Supplement to the Profound, he dealt very unfairly with our post, not only frequently imputing to him Mr. Broome's verses (for which he might indeed seem in some degree accountable, having corrected what that gentleman did) but those of the duke of Buckingham, and others: to this rare piece somebody humorously caused him to take for his motto, De profundis clamavi. He was since a hired scribbler in the Daily Courant, where he poured forth much Billingsgate against the lord Bolingbroke, and others; after which this man was surprisingly promoted to administer justice and law in Jamaica. Ver. 506, 307. With each a sickly brother at his back:-Sons of a day, &c.] These were daily papers, a number of which, to lessen the expense, were printed one on the back of another. Ver. 312. Osborne] A name assumed by the eldest and gray st of these writers, who, at last, being ashamed of his pupils, gave his paper over, and in his age remained silent. Ver. 314. Gazetteers] We ought not to suppose that a modern critic here taxeth the poet with an anachronis.n, affirming these gazetteers not to bave lived within the time of his poem, and challenging us to pro luce any such paper of that date. But we may with qual assurance assert these gazetteers not to have lived since, and challenge all the learned world to produce one such paper at this day. Surely therefore, where the point is so obscure, our author ought not to be Scribl. censured too rashly. Whirlpools and storms his circling arm invest, VARIATION. Ver. 315. In first edit. Not Welsted so: drawn endlong by his skull, Furious he sinks, precipitately dull. REMARKS. The Notwithstanding this affected ignorance of the good Scriblerus, the Daily Gazetteer was a title given very properly to certain papers, each of which lasted but a day. Into this, as a cominon sink, was received all the trash, which had been before dispersed in several journals, and circulated at the public expense of the nation. The authors were the same obscure men; though sometimes relieved by occasional essays from statesmen, courtiers, bishops, deans, and doctors. meaner sort were rewarded with money; others with places or benefices, from an hundred to a thousand a-year. It appears from the Report of the Secret Committee for inquiring into the Conduct of R. Earl of O→." That no less than fifty thousand seventy-seven pounds eighteen shillings, were paid to authors and printers of newspapers, such as Free Britons, Daily Courants, Corn Cutter's Journals, Gazetters, and other political papers, between Feb. 10, 1731, and Feb. 10, 1741." Which shows the benevolence of one minister, to have expended, for the current dulness of ten years in Britain, double the sum which gained Louis XIV. so much honour, in annual pensions to learned men all over Europe. In which, and in a much longer time, not a pension at court, nor preferment in the church or universities, of any consideration, was bestowed on any man distinguished for his learning separately from partymerit, or pamphlet-writing. It is worth a reflection, that of all the panegyrics bestowed by these writers on this great minister, not one is at this day extant or remembered, not even so much credit done to his personal character by all they have written, as by one-short occasional compliment of our author: Seen him I have; but in his happier hour. Ver. 315. Arnall] William Arnall, bred an attorney, was a perfect genius in this sort of work. He began under twenty with furious party-papers; then succeeded Concanen in the British Journal. At the first publication of the Dunciad, he prevailed on the author not to give him his due place in it, by a letter professing his detestation of such practices as his predecessor's. But since, by the most unexampled insolence, and personal abuse of several great men, the poet's particular friends, he most amply deserved a niche in the temple of infamy: witness a paper, called the Free Briton, a dedication entituled, To the Genuine Blunderer, 1759,, and many others. He writ for hire, and valued himself upon it; not indeed with out cause, it appearing by the aforesaid Report, that he received" for Free Britons, and other writings, in the space of four years, no less than ten thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven pounds six shillings and eight peace, out of the Treasury." Here brisker vapours o'er the Temple creep, No crab more active in the dirty dance, He brings up half the bottom on his head, And loudly claims the journals and the lead. 330 The plunging prelate, and his ponderous grace, With holy envy gave one layınan place. When lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood, Slow rose a form, in majesty of mud; Shaking the horrours of his sable brows, And each ferocious feature grim with ooze, Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares; Then thus the wonders of the deep declares: First he relates, how sinking to the chin, [in: Smit with his mien, the mud-nymphs suck'd him How young Lutetia, softer than the down, Nigrina black, and Merdamante brown, Vy'd for his love in jetty bowers below, As Hylas fair was ravish'd long ago. [maids, Then sung, how, shown him by the nut-brown A branch of Styx here rises from the shades; That, tinctur'd as it runs with Lethe's streams, And wafting vapours from the land of dreams 340 (As under seas Alpheus' secret sluice Bears Pisa's offering to his Arethuse), Pours into Thames: and hence the mingled wave Intoxicates the pert, and lulls the grave: VARIATIONS Ver. 323-326. In first edit. thus: Sudden a burst of thunder shook the flood, Pours into Thames: each city bowl is full REMAKKS. But frequently, through his fury or folly, he exceeded all the bounds of his commission, and obliged his honourable patron to disavow his scurrilities. Ver. 323. The plunging prelate, &c.] It having been invidiously insinuated that by this title was meant a truly great prelate, as respectable for his defence of the present balance of power in the civil constitution, as for his opposition to the scheme of no power at all, in the religious; I owe so much to the memory of iny deceased friend as to declare, that when, a little before his death, I informed him of this insinuation, he called it vile and malicious, as any candid man, he said, might understand, by his having paid a willing compliment to this very prelate in another part of the poetn. His manner of Ver. 349. And Milbourne] Luke Milbourne, a clergyman, the fairest of critics; who, when he wrote against Mr. Dryden's Virgil, did hin justice in printing at the saine time his own translations of him, which were intolerable. writing has a great resemblance with that of the gentlemen of the Dunciad against our author, as will be seen in the parallel of Mr. Dryden and him. Append. Thence to the banks where reverend bards repose, They led him soft; each reverend bard arose ; A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band, Thro' Lud's fam'd gates, along the well-known Fleet, 361 Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street, "Ye critics! in whose heads, as equal scales, I weigh what author's heaviness prevails: Which most conduce to sooth the soul in slumbers, My Heuley's periods or my Blackmore's numbers, Attend the trial we propose to make: 371 If there be man, who o'er such works can wake, [came, Three college sophs and three pert templars The same their talents,and their tastes the same; 380 VARIATIONS. Ver. 355-362. Not in first edit. where, instead of ver. 365-367, were originally these lines: Slow moves the goddess, from the sable flood, (Her priest preceeding) through the gates of Lud. Her Critics there she summons, and proclaims A gentler exercise to close the games. Here you in whose grave heads, &c. Ver 379. In first edit. Three Cambridge sophs. REMARKS. Ver. 355. Around him wide, &c.] It is to be hoped that the satire in these lines will be under stood in the confined sense in which the author meant it, of such only of the clergy, who, though solemnly engaged in the service of religion, dedicate themselves for venal and corrupt ends to that of ministers or factions; and though educated under in the government of it, and consequently to disan entire ignorance of the world, aspire to interfere turb and disorder it; in which they fall short of their predecessors only by being invested with much less of that power and authority, which they employed indifferently (as is hinted at in the lines above) either in supporting arbitrary power, or in exciting rebellion in canonizing the vices of tyrants, or in blackening the virtues of patriots; in corrupting religion by superstition, or betraying it by libertinism, as either was thought best to serve the ends of policy, or flatter the follies of the great. 391 Each prompt to query, answer, and debate, VARIATIONS. Ver. 399. in the first edit. it was, Collins and Tindal, prompt at priests to jeer. Ver. 412. In first edit. Old James himself, REMARKS. 409 Ver. 413. Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o'er, A. Boyer, a voluminous compiler of annals, political collections, &c.-William Law, A. M. wrote with great zeal against the stage; Mr. Dennis answered with as great: their books were printed in 1726. The same Mr. Law is author of a book entituled, An Appeal to all that doubt of or disbelieve the truth of the Gospel; in which he has detailed a system of the rankest Spinozism, for the most exalted theology; and amongst other things as rare, has informed us of this, that sir Isaac Newton stole the principles of his philosophy from one Jacob Behmen, a German cobler. Ver. 397. Thrice Budgel ann'd to speak,] Famous for his speeches on inany occasions about the South Ver. 414. Morgan] A writer against religion, Sea scheme, &c. "He is a very ingenious gen-distinguished no otherwise from the rabble of his tleman, and hath written some excellent epilogues to plays, and one small piece on Love, which is very pretty." Jacob, Lives of Poets, vol. ii. p. 282. But this gentleman since made himself much more eminent, and personally well known to be the greatest statesman of all parties, as well as to all the courts of law in this nation. tribe, than by the pompousness of his title; for having stolen his morality from Tindal, and his philosophy from Spinosa, he calls himself, by the courtesy of England, a moral philosopher. Ibid. Mandevil This writer, who prided himself in the reputation of an immoral philosopher, was author of a famous book called the Fable of the Bees; written to prove, that moral virtue is the invention of knaves, and christian virtue the imposition of fools; and that vice is necessary, and alone sufficient to render society flourishing and happy. Ver. 399. Toland and Tindal,] Two persons not so happy as to be obscure, who writ against the religion of their country. Toland, the author of the atheist's liturgy, called Pantheisticon, was a spy, in pay to lord Oxford. Tindal was author of the Rights of the Christian Church, and Chris- Ver. 415. Norton] Norton De Foe, offspring of He also wrote an tianity as old as the Creation. the famous Daniel, fortes creantur fortibus. One abusive pamphlet against earl S, which was of the authors of the Flying Post, in which wellsuppressed while yet in MS. by an eminent per- bred work Mr. P. had some time the honour to be son, then out of the ministry, to whom he showed abused with his betters; and of many hired scurit, expecting his approbation. This doctor after-rilities and daily papers, to which he never set wards published the same piece, mutatis mutandis, against that very person. Ver, 400. Christ's no kingdom,] This is said by Curil, Key to Dune, to allude to a sermon of a reverend bishop. Ver. 411. Centlivre] Mrs. Susanna Centlivre, wife to Mr. Centlivre, yeoman of the mouth to his majesty. She writ many plays, and a song (says Mr. Jacob, vol i. p. 52.) before she was seven years old. She also writ a ballad against Mr. Pope's Homer, before he began it, his name. Ver. 427. Fleet] A prison for insolvent debtors on the bank of the ditch. BOOK THE THIRD. ARGUMENT, AFTER the other persons are disposed in their proper places of rest, the goddess transports the king to her temple, and there lays him to slum. ber with his head on her lap; a position of And now on Fancy's easy wing convey'd, Benlowes, propitious still to blockheads, hows; VARIATION. Ver. 15-22. Not in the first edit. REMARKS. marvellous virtue, which causeth all the visions | The maid's romantic wish, the chymist's flame, of wild enthusiasts, projectors, politicians, ina- And poet's vision of eternal Fame. moratos, castle-builders, chymists, and poets. He is immediately carried on the wings of fancy, and led by a mad poetical sibyl, to the Elysian shade; where, on the banks of Lethe, the souls of the dull are dipped by Bavius, before their entrance into this world. There he is met by the ghost of Settle, and by him made acquainted with the wonders of the place, and with those which he himself is destined to perform. He takes him to a mount of vision, from whence he shows him the past triumphs of the empire of Dulness, then the present, and lastly the future: how small a part of the world was ever conquered by Science, how soon those conquests were stopped, and those very nations again reduced to her dominion. Then distinguishing the island of Great Britain, shows by what aids, by what persons, and by what degrees, it shall be brought to her empire. Some of the persons he causes to pass in review before his eyes, describing each by his proper figure, character, and qualifications, On a sudden the scene shifts, and a vast number of miracles and prodigies appear, utterly surprising and unknown to the king himself, till they are explained to be the wonders of his own reign now commencing. On this subject Settle breaks into a congratulation, yet not unmixed with concern, that his own times were but the types of these. He prophesies how first the pation shall be over-run with farces, operas, and shows; how the throne of Dulness shall be advanced over the theatres, and set up even at court: then how her sons shall preside in the seats of arts and sciences; giving a glimpse, or Pisgah sight, of the future fulness of her glory, the accomplishment whereof is the subject of the fourth and last book. BOOK III. BUT in her temple's last recess enclos'd, REMARKS. Ver. 5, 6, &c.] Hereby is intimated that the following vision is no more than the chimera of the dreamer's brain, and not a real or intended satire on the present age, doubtless more learned, more enlightened, and more abounding with great geniuses in divinity, politics, and whatever arts and sciences, than all the preceding. For fear of any such mistake of our poet's honest meaning, he hath again, at the end of the vision, repeated this monition, saying that it all passed through the ivory gate, which (according to the ancients) denoteth falsity,-Scribl. How much the good Scriblerus was mistaken, may be seen from the fourth book, which, it is plain from hence, he had never seen.-Bentl, 20 But Ver. 15. A slip-shod sibyl] This allegory is extremely just, no confirmation of the mind so much subjecting it to real madness, as that which produces real dulness. Hence we find the religious (as well as the poetical) enthusiasts of all ages were ever, in their natural state, most heavy and lumpish; but on the least application of heat, they ran like lead, which of all metals fall quickest into fusion. Whereas fire in a genius is truly Promethean, it hurts not its constituent parts, but only fits it (as it does well-tempered steel) for the necessary impressions of art. the common people have been taught (I do not know on what foundation) to regard lunacy as a mark of wit, just as the Turks and our modern methodists do of holiness. But if the cause of madness assigned by a great philosopher be true, it will unavoidably fall upon the dunces. supposes it to be the dwelling over long on one object or idea. Now as this attention is occasioned either by grief or study, it will be fixed by dulness; which hath not quickness enough to comprehend what it seeks, nor force and vigour enough to divert the imagination from the object it la ments. He Ver. 19. Taylor,] John Taylor, the water-poet, an honest man, who owns he learned not so much as the accidence: a rare example of modesty in a poet! I must confess I do want eloquence, I there was gravell'd, could no farther get. Ver. 21. Benlowes,] A country gentleman, famous for his own bad poetry, and for patronizing bad poets, as may be seen from many dedications of Quarles and others to him. Some of these anagramed his name Benlowes into Benevolus: to verify which, he spent his whole estate upon them. Ver. 22. And Shadwell nods the poppy, &c.] Shadwell took opium for many years; and died of too large a dose, in the year 1692. Ver. 24. Old Bavius sits, Bavius was an ancient poet, celebrated by Virgil for the like causes as Bays by our author, theugh not in so Christian |