And (last and worse) with all the cant of wit,
Without the soul, the muses' hypocrite.

100

There march'd the bard and blockhead side by side,
Who rhymed for hire, and patronized for pride.
Narcissus, praised with all a parson's power,
Look'd a white lily sunk beneath a shower.
There moved Montalto with superior air;
His stretch'd-out arm display'd a volume fair;
Courtiers and patriots in two ranks divide,
Through both he pass'd, and bow'd from side to side;
But, as in graceful act, with awful eye,

Composed he stood, bold Benson thrust him by: 110
On two unequal crutches propp'd he came,
Milton's on this, on that one Johnston's name.
The decent knight retired with sober rage,
Withdrew his hand, and closed the pompous page.
But (happy for him as the times went then)
Appear'd Apollo's mayor and aldermen,

On whom three hundred gold-capp'd youths await,
To lug the ponderous volume off in state.

When Dulness smiling:-Thus revive the wits! But murder first, and mince them all to bits; As erst Medea (cruel, so to save)!

A new edition of old son gave;

Let standard-authors, thus, like trophies borne,
Appear more glorious, as more hack'd and torn.

REMARKS,

120

Ver. 108.-bowed from side to side;] As being of no one party. Ver. 110.-bold Benson-] This man endeavoured to raise himself to fame by erecting monuments, striking coins, setting up heads, and procuring translations of Milton; and afterward by as great a passion for Arthur Johnston, a Scotch physician's Version of the Psalms, of which he printed many fine editions. See more of him, Book iii. ver. 325.

Ver. 113. The decent knight-] An eminent person, who was about to publish a very pompous edition of a great author at his own expense.

Ver. 115, &c.] These four lines were printed in a separate leaf by Mr. Pope in the last edition, which he himself gave, of the Dunciad, with directions to the printer, to put this leaf into its place as soon as Sir T. H's. Shakspeare should be published.

Ver. 119. Thus revive,' &c.] The goddess applauds the practice of tacking the obscuré names of persons not eminent in any branch of learning, to those of the most distinguished writers; either by printing editions of their works with impertinent alterations of their text, as in the former instances; or by setting up monuments disgraced with their own vile names and inscriptions, as in the latter.

And you, my critics! in the chequer'd shade,
Admire new light through holes yourselves have made.
Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone,

A page, a grave, that they can call their own;
But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick,
On passive paper, or on solid brick.

So by each bard, an alderman shall sit,
A heavy lord shall hang at every wit,
And while on Fame's triumphal car they ride,
Some slave of mine be pinion'd to their side.'

130

Now crowds on crowds around the goddess press, Each eager to present the first address.

Dunce scorning dunce beholds the next advance,
But fop shews fop superior complaisance.

REMARKS.

Ver. 128. A page, à grave,] For what less than a grave can be granted to a dead author! or what less than a page can be allowed to a living one!

Ibid. A page,] Pagina, not pedissequus. A page of a book, not a servant, follower, or attendant; no poet having had a page since the death of Mr. Thomas Durfey.-Scribl.

Ver. 131. So by each bard an alderman, &c.] Vide the Tombs of the Poets, editio Westmonasteriensis.

Ibid.an alderman shall sit,] Alluding to the monument erected for Butler by alderman Barber.

Ver. 132. A heavy lord shall hang at every wit,] How unnatural an image, and how ill supported! saith Aristarchus. Had it been,

A heavy wit shall hang at every lord,

something might have been said, in an age so distinguished for well-judging patrons. For lord, then, read load; that is, of debts here, and of commentaries hereafter. To this purpose, conspicuous is the case of the poor author of Hudibras, whose body, long since weighed down to the grave by a load of debts, has lately had a more unmerciful load of commentaries laid upon his spirit; wherein the editor has achieved more than Virgil himself, when he turned critic, could boast of, which was only that he had picked gold out of another man's dung; whereas the editor has picked it out of his own.-Scribl.

Aristarchus thinks the common reading right: and that the author himself had been struggling, and but just shaken off his load, when he wrote the following epigram:

My lord complains, that Pope, stark mad with gardens, Has lopp'd three trees the value of three farthings:

But he's my neighbour, cries the peer polite,

And if he'll visit me, I'll wave my right.

What! on compulsion? and against my will,
A lord's acquaintance? Let him file his bill."

Ver. 137, 138.-Dunce scorning dunce beholds the next advance,
But fop shews fop superior complaisance.]

This is not to be ascribed so much to the different manners of a court and college, as to the different effects which a pretence

140

151

When, lo! a spectre rose, whose index-hand
Held forth the virtue of the dreadful wand;
His beaver'd brow a birchen garland wears,
Dropping with infant's blood, and mother's tears.
O'er every vein a shuddering horror runs;
Eaton and Winton shake through all their sons.
All flesh is humbled, Westminster's bold race
Shrink, and confess the genius of the place:
The pale boy-senator yet tingling stands,
And holds his breeches close with both his hands.
Then thus, Since man from beast by words is known,
Words are man's province, words we teach alone.
When reason doubtful, like the Samian letter,
Points him two ways, the narrower is the better.
Placed at the door of learning, youth to guide,
We never suffer it to stand too wide.
To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence,
As fancy opens the quick springs of sense,
We ply the memory, we load the brain,
Bind rebel wit, and double chain on chain,
Confine the thought, to exercise the breath;
And keep them in the pale of words till death.
Whate'er the talents, or howe'er design'd,
We hang one jingling padlock on the mind:
A poet the first day, he dips his quill;
And what the last? a very poet still.
Pity! the charm works only in our wall,
Lost, lost too soon in yonder house or hall.
There truant Windham every muse gave o'er,
There Talbot sunk, and was a wit no more!
How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast!
How many Martials were in Pulteney lost!

REMARKS.

160

170

to learning, and a pretence to wit, have on blockheads. For as judgment consists in finding out the differences in things, and wit in finding out their likenesses, so the dunce is all discord and dissension, and constantly busied in reproving, examining, confuting, &c. while the fop flourishes in peace, with songs and hymns of praise, addresses, characters, epithalamiums, &c.

Ver. 140.-the dreadful wand;] A cane usually borne by schoolmasters, which drives the poor souls about like the wand of Mercury. Scribl.

Ver. 151. like the Samian letter,] The letter Y used by Pythagoras, as an emblem of the different roads of virtue and vice.

Et tibi que Samios diduxit litera ramos.-Pers.

Else sure some bard, to our eternal praise,
In twice ten thousand rhyining nights and days,
Had reach'd the work, the all that mortal can;
And South beheld that master-piece of man.

Oh,' cried the goddess, 'for some pedant reign!
Some gentle James, to bless the land again;
To stick the doctor's chair into the throne,
Give law to words, or war with words alone.
Senates and courts with Greek and Latin rule,
And turn the council to a grammar-school!
For sure, if Dulness sees a grateful day,
'Tis in the shade of arbitrary sway.

O! if my sons may learn one earthly thing,
Teach but that one, sufficient for a king;

That which my priests, and mine alone, maintain,
Which, as it dies, or lives, we fall, or reign:
May you, my Cam, and Isis, preach it long,
"The right divine of kings to govern wrong."'
Prompt at the call, around the goddess roll
Broad hats, and hoods, and caps, a sable shoal:
Thick and more thick the black blockade extends,
A hundred head of Aristotle's friends.

Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day,
[Though Christ-church long kept prudishly away.]
Each staunch polemic, stubborn as a rock,
Each fierce logician, still expelling Locke,

REMARKS.

180

190

Ver. 174.that master-piece of man.] Viz. an epigram. The famous Dr. South declared a perfect epigram to be as difficult a performance as an epic poem. And the critics say, An epic poem is the greatest work human nature is capable of.'

Ver. 176. Some gentle James, &c.] Wilson tells us that this king, James the First, took upon himself to teach the Latin tongue to Car, earl of Somerset; and that Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, would speak false Latin to him, on purpose to give him the pleasure of correcting it, whereby he wrought himself into his good graces.

This great prince was the first who assumed the title of Sacred Majesty, which his loyal clergy transferred from God to him. The principles of passive obedience and non-resistance,' says the author of the Dissertation on Parties, Letter 8, which before his time had skulked, perhaps, in some old homily, were talked, written, and preached into vogue in that inglorious reign. Ver. 194. [Though Christ-church, &c.] This line is doubtless spurious, and foisted in by the impertinence of the editor; and accordingly we have put it in between hooks. For I affirm this college came as early as any other, by its proper deputies; nor did any college pay homage to Dulness in its whole body.-Henti.

Came whip and spur, and dash'd through thin and

thick

On German Crouzaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck.
As many quit the streams that murmuring fall
To lull the sons of Margaret and Clare-hall,
Where Bentley late tempestuous wont to sport
In troubled waters, but now sleeps in port.
Before them march'd that awful Aristarch;
Flow'd was his front with many a deep remark:
His hat, which never vail'd to human pride,
Walker with reverence took, and laid aside.

REMARKS.

200

Ver. 196. still expelling Locke.] In the year 1703 there was a meeting of the heads of the university of Oxford to censure Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, and to forbid the reading of it. See his Letters in the last edition.

Ver. 198, On German Crouzaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck.] There seems to be an improbability that the doctors and heads of houses should ride on horseback, who of late days, being gouty or unwieldy, have kept their coaches. But these are horses of great strength, and fit to carry any weight, as their German and Dutch extraction may manifest; and very famous we may conclude, being honoured with names, as were the horses Pegasus and Bucephalus. Scribl.

Though I have the greatest deference to the penetration of this eminent scholiast, and must own that nothing can be more natural than his interpretation, or juster than that rule of criticism, which directs us to keep to the literal sense, when no apparent absurdity accompanies it (and sure there is no absurdity in supposing a logician on horseback), yet still I must needs think the hackneys here celebrated were not real horses, nor even Centaurs, which, for the sake of the learned Chiron, I should rather be inclined to think, if I were forced to find them four legs, but downright plain men, though logicians: and only thus metamorphosed by a rule of rhetoric, of which Cardinal Perron gives us an example, where he calls Clavius, Un esprit pesant, lourd, sans subtilité, ni gentillesse, un gros cheval d'Allemagne.

Here I profess to go opposite to the whole stream of commentators. I think the poet only aimed, though awkwardly, at an elegant Grecism in this representation; for in that language the word inwog [horse] was often prefixed to others, to denote greatness of strength; as ἱππολάπαθον, ἱππόγλωσσον, ἱππομά ραθρον, and particularly ΙΠΠΟΓΝΩΜΩΝ, a great connoisseur, which comes nearest to the case in hand.-Scip. Maff.

Ver. 199.-the streams-] The river Cam, running by the walls of these colleges, which are particularly famous for their skill in disputation.

Ver. 202.-sleeps in port.] Viz. 'Now retired into harbour, after the tempests that had long agitated his society.' So Scriblerus. But the learned Scipio Maffei understands it of a certain wine called Port, from Oporto, a city of Portugal, of which this professor invited him to drink abundanily. Scip. Maff. De Compotationibus Academicis. [And to the opinion of Maffei inclineth the sagacious annotator on Dr. King's Advice to Horace.]