Book II.

THE DUNCIAD.

Unlucky Welsted! thy unfeeling master,

The more thou ticklest, gripes his fist the faster.

141

209

While thus each hand promotes the pleasing pain,
And quick sensations skip from vein to vein.
A youth unknown to Phoebus, in despair,
Puts his last refuge all in heav'n and pray'r.
What force have pious vows! The Queen of Love
Her sister sends, her vot'ress from above.

As taught by Venus, Paris learnt the art

To touch Achilles' only tender part;

Secure, through her, the noble prize to carry,
He marches off, his Grace's secretary.

216

220

225

Now turn to diff'rent sports (the Goddess cries)
And learn, my Sons, the wondrous pow'r of Noise,
To move, to raise, to ravish ev'ry heart,
With Shakespeare's nature, or with Johnson's art,
Let other's aim; 'tis yours to shake the soul
With thunder rumbling from the mustard bowl;
With horns and trumpets now to madness swell,
Now sink in sorrows with a tolling bell!
Such happy arts attention can command
When Fancy flags, and sense is at a stand.

REMARKS.

"Till lab'ring on for want of eyes,
"It blunders into light, and dies.'
You have him again in Book III. ver. 169.

IMITATIONS.

v. 223, 225. To move, to raise,

c.

Let others aim; 'tis yours to shake, &c.]

"Excudent alii spirantia mollus aera,

230

Credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vultus, &c.
Tu regere imperio populos Romane, memento,
Hae tibi erunt artes."

66

Improve we these. Three cat-calls be the bribe
Of him whose chatt'ring shames the monkey tribe:
And is this drum, whose hoarse heroic base
Drowns the loud clarion of the braying ass.

Now thousand tongues are heard in one loud din;
The monkey-mimics rush discordant in;
236
'Twas chatt'ring, grinning, mouthing, jabb'ring all,
And Noise and Norton, Brangling and Breval,
Dennis and dissonance, and captious Art,
And snip-snap short, and interruption smart,
And demonstration thin, and theses thick,
And major, minor, and conclusion quick.
Hold, (cry'd the Queen) a cat-call each shall win;
Equal your merits! equal is your din!

240

But that this well-disputed game may end,

245

Sound forth, my Brayers, and the welkin rend.

As when the long-ear'd milky mothers wait At some sick miser's triple-bolted gate, For their defrauded, absent foals they make. A moan so loud, that all the guild awake; Sore sighs Sir Gilbert, starting at the bray, From dreams of millions, and three groats to pay :

REMARKS,

259

v. 238.---Norton.] See ver. 415.---J. Durant Breval, author of a very extraordinary book of travels, and some poems.

IMITATIONS.

v. 243.---A cat-call each shall win, &c.]

"Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites, Et vitula tu dignus, et hic." Virg. Ecl. III. v. 247. As when the, &c.] A simile, with a long tail,

n the manner of Homer.

So swells each wind-pipe; ass intones to ass,
Harmonic twang! of leather, horn, and brass;
Such as from lab'ring lungs th' enthusiast blows,
High sound, attemper'd to the vocal nose;
Or such as bellow from the deep divine;

256

260

There, Webster! peal'd thy voice, and, Whitfield!
But far o'er all, sonorous Blackmore's strain; [thine.
Walls, steeples, skies, bray back to him again.
In Tot'nam-fields the Brethren with amaze,
Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze!

REMARKS.

v. 258.---Webster---and, Whitfield.] The one the writer of a newspaper called The Weekly Miscellany, the other a field-preacher. This thought the only means of advancing religion was by the new-birth of spiritual madness; that by the old death of fire and faggot: and therefore they agreed in this, though in no otherearthly thing, to abuse all the sober clergy. From the small success of these two extraordinary persons,

IMITATIONS.

v. 260.----bray back to him again.] A figure of speech taken from Virgil:

"Et vox assensu nemorum ingeminata remugit." Georg. III. "He hears his numerous herds low o'er the plain, "While neighb'ring hills low back to them again." Cowley.

The poet here celebrated, Sir R. B. delighted much in the word bray, which he endeavoured to ennoble by applying it to the sound of armour, war, &c. In imitation of him, and strengthened by his authority, our Author has here admitted it into heroic poetry.

v. 262. Prick all their ears up, and forget to graze!] "Immemor herbarum quos est mirata juvenca." Virg. Ecl. viii. The progress of the sound from place to place, and

Long Chanc'ry-iane retentive rolls the sound,
And courts to courts return it round and round;
Thames wafts it thence to Rufus' roaring hall,
And Hungerford re-echoes bawl for bawl.
All hail him victor in both gifts of song,
Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long.
This labour past, by Bridewell all descend,
(As morning pray'r and flagellation end)
To where Fleet-ditch, with disemboguing streams
Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames,
The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud
With deeper sable blots the silver flood.

165

270

"Here strip, my Children! here at once leap in, 275 "Here prove who best can dash thro' thick and thin, "And who the most in love of dirt excel,

" Or dark dexterity of groping well:

"Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around "The stream, be his the Weekly Journals bound; 280

BEMARKS.

we may learn how little hurtful bigotry and enthusiasm are, while the civil magistrate prudently forbears to lend his power to the one, in order to the employing it against the other.

IMITATIONS.

scenery here of the bordering regions, Tottenhamfields, Chancery-lane, the Thames, Westminster-hall, and Hungerford-stairs, are imitated from Virgil, Æn. VII. on the sounding the horn of Alecto: "Audiit et Triviae longe lacus, audiit amnis "Sulphurea Nar albus aqua fontesque Velini," &c. v. 273. The king of dykes! &c.]

"Fluviorum rex Eridanus,

"----Quo non alius, per pinguia culta,

"In mare purpureum violentior influit amnis." Virg.

"A pig of lead to him who dives the best;
"A peck of coals a-piece shall glad the rest."
In naked majesty Oldmixon stands,

And, Milo-like, surveys his arms and hands;

Then sighing thus, "And am I now threescore? 285
46 Ah, why, ye Gods! should two and two make four?"
He said, and climb'd a stranded lighter's height,
Shot to the black abyss, and plung'd downright:
The senior's judgment all the crowd admire,
Who but to sink the deeper rose the higher.

Next Smedley div'd; slow circles dimpled o'er
The quaking mud, that clos'd and op'd no more.
All look, all sigh, and call on Smedley lost;
Smedley in vain resounds through all the coast.

REMARKS.

290

v. 283. In naked Majesty Odmixon stands.] Mr. John Oldmixon, 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. 304, is so injurious as to suggest that Mr.Addison himself writ that Tatler, No.43, which says of his own similie that "It is as great as ever entered into the mind of man." "In poetry he was not so happy as laborious, and is therefore characterized by the Tattler, No. 62, by the name of Omicron, the unborn poet.”

IMITATIONS.

Ovid.

v. 285. Then sighing, thus, And am I now threescore? &c.] --Fletque Milon senior, cum spectat inanes "Herculeis similes, fluidos pendere lacertos." v. 293. And call on Smedley lost, &c.] "Alcides wept in vain for Hylas lost,

"Hylas, in vain, resounds through all the coast." Lord Roscom. Translat. of Ecl. vi. of Virgil.

Volume IV.

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