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And looked, and saw a sable sorcerer' rise,
Swift to whose hand a winged volume flies;
All sudden, gorgons hiss, and dragons glare,
And ten-horned fiends and giants rush to war.
Hell rises, heaven descends, and dance on earth:"
Gods, imps, and monsters, music, rage, and mirth,
A fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball,

Till one wild conflagration swallows all.

Thence a new world to nature's laws unknown,
Breaks out refulgent, with a heaven its own:
Another Cynthia her new journey runs,

And other planets circle other suns.
The forests dance, the rivers upward rise,
Whales sport in woods, and dolphins in the skies;
And last, to give the whole creation grace,
Lo! one vast egg produces human race.
Joy fils his soul, joy innocent of thought!
"What power,

" he cries, "what power these wonders wrought?

Son, what thou seek'st is in thee! look, and find
Each monster meets his likeness in thy mind.
Yet wouldst thou more? in yonder cloud behold,
Whose sarsnet skirts are edged with flamy gold,
A matchless youth! his nod these worlds controls,
Wings the red lightning, and the thunder rolls.
Angel of Dulness, sent to scatter round

Her magic charms o'er all unclassic ground:
Yon stars, yon sons, he rears at pleasure higher,
Illumines their light, and sets their flames on fire.
Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease
'Midst snows of paper, and fierce hail of
And proud his mistress' orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.

"But lo! to dark encounter in mid air New wizards rise; I see my Cibber there!

pease;

1 Dr. Faustus, the subject of a set of farces, which lasted in vogue two or three seasons, in which both play-houses strove to outdo each other for some years. All the extravagances in the sixteen lines following were introduced on the stage, and frequented by persons of the first quality in England, to the twentieth and thirtieth time.Warburton.

2 This monstrous absurdity was actually represented in Tibbald's "Rape of Proserpine."- Warburton.

3 In another of these farces, Harlequin is hatched upon the stage out of a large egg.-Warburton.

4 Mr John Rich, master of the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden, was the first that excelled this way.—Warburton."

Booth' in his cloudy tabernacle shrined,

On grinning dragons thou shalt mount the wind.
Dire is the conflict, dismal is the din,

Here shouts all Drury, there all Lincoln's Inn;
Contending theatres our empire raise,

Alike their labours, and alike their praise.

"And are these wonders, son, to thee unknown?
Unknown to thee? these wonders are thy own.2
These fate reserved to grace thy reign divine,
Foreseen by me, but ah! withheld from mine.
In Lud's old walls though long I ruled, renowned
Far as loud Bow's stupendous bells resound;
Though my own aldermen conferred the bays,
To me committing their eternal praise,
Their full-fed heroes, their pacific may'rs
Their annual trophies, and their monthly wars;
Though long my party built on me their hopes,
For writing pamphlets, and for roasting popes;
Yet lo! in me what authors have to brag on!
Reduced at last to hiss in my own dragon.
Avert it, Heaven! that thou my Cibber, e'er
Shouldst wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield fair!
Like the vile straw that's blown about the streets,
The needy poet sticks to all he meets,

Coached, carted, trod upon, now loose, now fast,
And carried off in some dog's tail at last.
Happier thy fortunes! like a rolling stone,
Thy giddy dulness still shall lumber on,
Safe in its heaviness, shall never stray,
But lick up ev'ry blockhead in the way.

1 Booth was joint manager of Drury Lane with Cibber.

2 Annual trophies, on the Lord Mayor's day; and monthly wars in the artillery ground.-Warburton.

3 In his "Letter" to Mr. P., Mr. C. solemnly declares this not to be literally true. We hope therefore the reader will understand it allegorically only.-Pope.

4 A marvellous line of Theobald; unless the play called the "Double Falsehood" be (as he would have it believed) Shakespeare's.

5 Settle, like most party-writers, was very uncertain in his political principles. He was employed to hold the pen in the character of a popish successor, but afterwards printed his narrative on the other side. He had managed the ceremony of a famous pope-burning on Nov. 17, 1680; then became a trooper in King James's army, at Hounslow Heath. After the revolution he kept a booth at Bartholomew Fair, where, in the droll called "St. George for England." he acted in his old age in a dragon of green leather of his own invention; he was at last taken into the Charter House, and there died, aged sixty years.➡ Warburton.

Thee shall the patriot, thee the courtier taste,'
And ev'ry year be duller than the last.
Till raised from booths, to theatre, to court,
Her seat imperial Dulness shall transport.
Already opera prepares the way,

The sure fore-runner of her gentle sway;
Let her thy heart, next drabs and dice, engage,
The third mad passion of thy doting age,
Teach thou the warbling Polypheme' to roar,
And scream thyself as none e'er screamed before!
To aid our cause, if heav'n thou canst not bend,
Hell thou shalt move; for Faustus is our friend:
Pluto with Cato thou for this shalt join,

And link the Mourning Bride to Proserpine.
Grub Street! thy fall should men and gods conspire,
Thy stage shall stand, insure it but from fire.*
Another Eschylus appears! prepare

For new abortions, all ye pregnant fair!
In flames, like Semele's," be brought to bed,
While op'ning hell spouts wild-fire at your head.

66

Now, Bavius, take the poppy from thy brow,
And place it here! here all ye heroes bow!
This, this is he, foretold by ancient rhymes;
Th' Augustus born to bring Saturnian times.'
Signs following signs lead on the mighty year!
See! the dull stars roll round and reappear.
See, see, our own true Phoebus wears the bays!
Our Midas sits Lord Chancellor of plays!

*

1 It stood in the first edition with blanks * and * Concanen was sure "they must needs mean nobody but King George and Queen Caroline; and said he would insist it was so till the poet cleared himself by filling up the blanks otherwise, agreeably to the context and consistent with his allegiance.'

2 He translated the Italian opera of Polifemo; but unfortunately lost the whole jest of the story. The Cyclops asks Ulysses his name, who tells him his name is Noman. After his eye is put out, he roars and calls the brother Cyclops to his aid: They inquire who has hurt him? he answers Noman; whereupon they all go away again. Our ingenious translator, made Ulysses answer, I take no name,' whereby all that followed became unintelligible.-Pope.

3 Names of miserable farces which it was the custom to act at the end of the best tragedies, to spoil the digestion of the audience.

4 In the farce of "Proserpine" a corn-field was set on fire; where. upon the other play-house had a barn burnt down for the recreation of the spectators. They also rivalled each other in showing the burnings of hell-fire, in "Dr. Faustus."-Pope.

5 It is reported of Eschylus, that when his tragedy of the "Furies" was acted, the audience were so terrified that the children fell into fits. See Ovid, Met. iii.

7 The age of lead; Saturn was the alchemist's word for it,

On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ!1
Lo! Ambrose Philips' is preferred for wit!
See under Ripley rise a new Whitehall,
While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall;3
While Wren with sorrow to the grave descends;
Gay dies unpensioned with a hundred friends;
Hibernian politics, O Swift thy fate;

And Pope's, ten years to comment and translate."
"Proceed, great days! till learning fly the shore,
Till birch shall blush with noble blood no more,
Till Thames see Eton's sons forever play,
Till Westminster's whole year be holiday.
Till Isis' elders reel, their pupils' sport,
And Alma Mater lie dissolved in port!"

1 Benson (surveyor of the buildings to his Majesty King George I. gave in a report to the lords, that their house and the painted chamber adjoining were in immediate danger of falling. Whereupon the lords met in a committee to appoint some other place to sit in, while the house should be taken down. But it being proposed to cause some other builders first to inspect it, they found it in very good condition. In favour of this man, the famous Sir Christopher Wren, who had been archirect to the crown for above fifty years, who built most of the churches in London, laid the first stone of St. Paul's, and lived to finish it, had been displaced from his employment at the age of near ninety years.-Warburton. But the allusion is to Benson's erecting a monu ment to Milton in Westminster Abbey, in which his own name is prominent as the founder.

2 "He was (saith Mr. Jacob) one of the wits at Button's and a justice of the peace; but he hath since met with higher preferment in Ireland. * * * He endeavoured to create some misunderstanding between our author and Mr. Addison, whom also soon after he abused as much. His constant cry was, that Mr. Pope was an enemy to the government; and in particular he was the avowed author of a report very industriously spread, that he had a hand in a party-paper called the "Examine':' a falsehood well known to those yet living, who had the direction and publication of it. He proceeded to grosser insults, and hung up a rod at Button's with which he threatened to chastise Pope.-Johnson.

3 At the time when this poem was written, the banqueting house at Whitehall the Church and piazza of Covent Garden, and the palace and chapel of Somerst House, the works of the famous Inigo Jones, had been for many years so neglected, as to be in danger of ruin. The portico of Covent Garden church had been just then restored and beau. tified at the expense of the Earl of Burlington [Richard Boyle]; who, at the same time, by his publication of the designs of that great master and Palladio, as well as by many noble buildings of his own, revived the true taste of architecture in this kingdom--Warburton. See Epistle to Lord Burlington.

4 Sir Christopher Wren who built St. Paul's; he died at the age of ninety-one.

5 See his "Fable of the Hare and Many Friends:" but he had one true friend in the Duchess of Queensbury.

The author here plainly laments that he was so long employed in translating and commenting. He began the "Iliad" in 1713, and finished it in 1719. The edition of "Shakespeare" (which he undertook merely because nobody else would) took up near two years more in the drudgery of comparing impressions, rectifying the scenery, &c., and the translation of half the "Odyssey" employed him from that time to 1725.-Warburton,

"Enough! enough!" the raptured monarch cries; And through the iv'ry gate the vision flies.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

ARGUMENT.

The poet being, in this book, to declare the completion of the prophecies mentioned at the end of the former, makes a new invocation; as the greater poets are wont, when some high and worthy matter is to be sung. He shows the goddess coming in her majesty, to destroy order and science, and to substitue the kingdom of the dull upon earth. How she leads captive the sciences, and silenceth the muses, and what they be who succeed in their stead. All her children, by a wonderful attraction, are drawn about her, and bear along with them divers others, who promote her empire by connivance, weak resistance, or discouragement of arts; such as half-wits, tasteless admirers, vain pretenders, the flatterers of dunces, or the patrons of them. All these crowd round her; one of them offering to approach her is driven back by a rival; but she commends and encourages both. The first who speak in form are the geniuses of the schools, who assure her of their care to advance her cause, by confining youth to words, and keeping them out of the way of real knowledge. Their address, and her gracious answer; with her charge to them and the universities. The universities appear by their proper deputies, and assure her that the same method is observed in the progress of education. The speech of Aristarchus on this subject. They are drawn off by a band of young gentlemen returned from travel with their tutors; one of whom delivers to the goddess, in a polite oration, an account of the whole conduct and fruits of their travels: presenting to her at the same time a young nobleman perfectly accomplished. She receives him graciously, and endues him with the happy quality of want of shame. She sees loitering about her a number of indolent persons abandoning all business and duty, and dying with laziness. To these approaches the antiquary Annius, cntreating her to make them Virtuosos, and assign them over to him; but Mummius, another antiquary, complaining of his fraudulent proceeding, she finds a method to reconcile their difference. Then enter a troop of people fantastically adorned, offering her strange and exotic presents. Amongst them one stands forth and demands justice on another, who had deprived him of one of the greatest curiosities in nature; but he justifies himself so well, that the goddess gives them both her approbation. She recommends to them to find proper employment for the indolents before mentioned, in the study of butterflies, shells, birds' nests, moss, &c., but with particular caution, not to proceed beyond trifles, to any useful or extensive views of nature, or of the Author of nature. Against the last of these apprehensions, she is secured by a hearty address from the minute philosophers and freethinkers, one of whom speaks in the name of the rest. The youth, thus instructed and principled, are delivered to her in a body, by the hands of Silenus, and then admitted to taste the cup of the Magus her high priest, which causes a total oblivion of all obligations, divine, civil, moral, or rational. To these her adepts she sends priests, attendants and comforters, of various kinds; confers on them orders and degrees; and then dismissing them with a speech, confirming to each his privileges, and telling what she expects from each, concludes with a yawn of extraordinary virtue: the progress and effects whereof on all orders of men, and the consummation of all, in the restoration of night and chaos, conclude the poem,

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