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School,' are better than the What-d'ye-call-it; not Mr. P.'s, but Mr. Gay's. Mr. Gildon assures us, in his "New Rehearsal," p. 48, That he was writing a play of the Lady Jane Gray;" but it afterwards proved to be Mr. Rowe's. We are assured by another, "He wrote a pamphlet called Dr. Andrew Tripe; "1 which proved to be one Dr. Wagstaff's. Mr. Theobald assures us, in " "Mist" of the 27th of April, That the treatise of the Profound is very dull, and that Mr. Pope is the author of it." The writer of "Gulliveriana" is of another opinion: and says, "The whole, or greatest part, of the merit of this treatise must and can only be ascribed to Gulliver."2 [Here, gentle reader! cannot I but smile at the strange blindness and positiveness of men; knowing the said treatise to appertain to none other but to me, Martinus Scriblerus.]

We are assured, in "Mist" of June 8th, "That his own plays and farces would better have adorned the " "Dunciad" than those of Mr. Theobald; for he had neither genius for tragedy nor comedy." Which, whether true or not, it is not easy to judge; in as much as he had attempted neither. Unless we will take it for granted, with Mr. Cibber, that his being once very angry at hearing a friend's play abused, was an infallible proof the play was his own; the said Mr. Cibber thinking it impossible for a man to be much concerned for any but himself: "Now let any man judge (saith he) by his concern, who was the true mother of the child."

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But from all that has been said, the discerning reader will collect that it little availed our author to have any candor, since, when he declared he did not write for others, it was not credited; as little to have any modesty since, when he declined writing in any way himself, the presumption of others was imputed to him. If he singly enterprised one great work, he was taxed of boldness and madness to a prodigy :4 if he took assistants in another, it was complained of, and represented as a great injury to the public. The loftiest heroics, the lowest ballads, treatises against the state or church, satires on lords and ladies, raillery on wits and authors, squabbles with booksellers, or even full and true accounts of monsters, poisons and murders; of any hereof was there nothing so good, nothing so bad, which hath not at one or other season been to him ascribed. If it bore no author's name, then lay he concealed; if it did, he fathered it upon that author to be yet better concealed: if it resembled any of his styles, then was it evident; if it did not, then disguised he it on set purpose. Yea, even direct oppositions in religion, principles, and politics, have equally been supposed in him inherent. Surely a most rare and singular character: of which let the reader make what he

can.

Doubtless most commentators would hence take occasion to

1 Ib., p. 6. 2 "Gulliv.," p. 336. 3 Cibber's "Letters to Mr. P.," p. 19. 4 Burnet's "Homerides," p. 1, of his translation of the "Iliad." The "London" and "Mist's" Journals on his undertaking the "Odyssey."

turn all to their author's advantage, and from the testimony of his very enemies would affirm, that his capacity was boundless, as well as his imagination; that he was a perfect master of all styles, and all arguments; and that there was in those times, no other writer, in any kind, of any degree of excellence, save he himself. But as this is not our own sentiment, we shall determine on nothing; but leave thee, gentle reader, to steer thy judgment equally between various opinions, and to choose whether thou wilt incline to the testimony of authors avowed, or of authors concealed; of those who knew him, or of these who knew him not,

P.

MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS.

OF THE POEM.

THIS poem, as it celebrateth the most grave and ancient of things, Chaos, Night, and Dulness: so is it of the most grave and ancient kind. Homer (saith Aristotle) was the first who gave the form, and (saith Horace) who adapted the measure to heroic poesy. But even before this, may be rationally presumed, from what the ancients have left written, was a piece by Homer, composed of like nature and matter with this of our poet. For of epic sort it appeareth to have been, yet of matter surely not unpleasant, witness what is reported of it by the learned Archbishop Eustathius, in Odyss. x. And accordingly Aristotle, in his Poetics, chap. iv., doth further set forth, that as the Iliad and Odyssey gave example to tragedy, so did this poem to comedy its first idea.

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From these authors also it should seem that the hero, or chief personage of it was no less obscure, and his under. standing and sentiments no less quaint and strange (if in. deed no more so) than any of the actors of our poem. gites was the name of this personage, whom antiquity_re cordeth to have been Dunce the first; and surely from what we hear of him, not unworthy to be the root of so spreading a tree, and so numerous a posterity. The poem, therefore, celebrating him was properly and absolutely a Dunciad; which, though now unhappily lost, yet is its nature sufficiently known by the infallible tokens aforesaid. And thus it doth appear, that the first Dunciad was the first epic poem, written by Homer himself, and anterior even to the Iliad or Odyssey.

Now, forasmuch as our poet hath translated those two famous works of Homer, which are yet left, he did conceive it

in some sort his duty to imitate that also which was lost: and was therefore induced to bestow on it the same form which Homer's is reported to have had, namely, that of epic poem; with a title also framed after the ancient Greek manner, to wit, that of Dunciad.

Wonderful it is, that so few of the moderns have been stimulated to attempt some Dunciad! since in the opinion of the multitude, it might cost less pain and toil than an imitation of the greater epic. But possible it is also, that, on due reflection, the maker might find it easier to paint a Charlemagne, a Brute, or a Godfrey, with just pomp and dignity heroic, than a Margites, a Codrus, or a Fleckno.

We shall next declare the occasion and the cause which moved our poet to this particular work. He lived in those days, when (after Providence had permitted the invention of printing as a scourge for the sins of the learned) paper also became so cheap, and printers so numerous, that a deluge of authors covered the land: whereby not only the peace of the honest unwriting subject was daily molested, but unmerciful demands were made of his applause, yea, of his money, by such as would neither earn the one nor deserve the other. At the same time, the license of the press was such, that it grew dangerous to refuse them either: for they would forthwith publish slanders unpunished, the authors being anonymous, and skulking under the wings of publishers, a set of men who neither scrupled to vend either calumny or blasphemy, as long as the town would call for it.

1 Now our author, living in those times, did conceive it an endeavour well worthy an honest satirist, to dissuade the dull, and punish the wicked, the only way that was left. la that public-spirited view he laid the plan of this poem, as the greatest service he was capable (without much hurt, or being slain) to render his dear country. First, taking things from their original, he considereth the causes creative of such authors, namely, dulness and poverty; the one born with them, the other contracted by neglect of their proper talents, through self-conceit of greater abilities. This truth he wrappeth in an allegory 2 (as the construction of epic poesy requireth), and feigns that one of these goddesses had taken up her abode with the other, and that they jointly inspired all such writers and such works. He proceedeth to shew the qualities they bestow on these authors, and the effects they produce: then the materials or stock, with which they furnish them; 5 and, above all, that self-opinion which causeth it to seem to themselves vastly greater than it is, and is the prime motive of their setting up in this sad and sorry merchandise. The great power of these goddesses acting in alliance (whereof as the one is the mother of industry so is the other of plodding) was to be exemplified in some one great and remarkable action; and none could be more so

1 Vide Bossu, "Du Poeme 2 Bossu, chap. vii.

Ver. 57 to 77.

Epique," chap. viii. 3 Book i., ver. 32, &c. 6 Ver. 80.

4 Ver. 45 to 54,

than that which our poet hath chosen,' viz., the restoration of the reign of Chaos and Night, by the ministry of Dulness, their daughter, in the removal of her imperial seat from the city to the polite world, as the action of the Eneid is the restoration of the empire of Troy, by the removal of the race from thence to Latium. But as Homer singeth only the wrath of Achilles, yet includes in his poem the whole history of the Trojan war, in like manner our author hath drawn into this single action the whole history of Dulness and her children.

A person must next be fixed upon to support this action. This phantom in the poet's mind must have a name,2 he finds it to be ; and he becomes of course the hero of

the poem.

The fable being thus, according to the best example, one and entire, as contained in the proposition; the machinery is a continued chain of allegories, setting forth the whole power, ministry, and empire, of Dulness, extended through her subordinate instruments, in all her various operations.

This is branched into episodes, each of which hath its moral apart, though all conducive to the main end. The crowd assembled in the second book, demonstrates the design to be more extensive than to bad poets only, and that we may expect other episodes of the patrons, encouragers, or paymasters of such authors, as occasion shall bring them forth. And the third book, if well considered, seemeth to embrace the whole world. Each of the games relateth to some or other vile class of writers: the first concerneth the plagiary, to whom he giveth the name of Moore; the second, the libellous novelist; whom he styleth Eliza; the third, the flattering dictator; the fourth, the brawling critic, or noisy poet; the fifth, the dark and dirty party writer: and so of the rest assigning to each some proper name or other, such as he could find.

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As for the characters, the public hath already acknowedged how justly they are drawn: the manners are so depicted, and the sentiment so peculiar to those to whom applied, that 'surely to transfer them to any other or wiser personages, would be exceeding difficult and certain it is, that every person concerned, being consulted apart, hath readily owned the resemblance of every portrait, his own excepted. So Mr. Cibber calls them "a parcel of poor wretches, so many silly flies; "3 but adds, our author's wit is remarkably more bare and barren, whenever it would fall foul on Cibber, than upon any other person whatever."

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The descriptions are singular, the comparisons very quaint, the narration various, yet of one colour; the purity and chastity of diction is so preserved, that, in the places most suspicious, not the words but only the images have been censured, and yet are those images no other than

1 Ibid., chaps. vii., viii.

2 Bossu, chap. viii. Vide Aristot, Poet. cap. ix. 9 Cibber's "Letter to Mr. P.," pp. 9, 12, 41.

have been sanctified by ancient and classical authority (though, as was the manner of those good times, not so 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 subjected to such severe indispensable rules as are laid on all neoterics, a strict imitation of the ancients; insomuch that any deviation, accompanied with whatever poetic beauties, hath always been censured by the sound critic. How exact that limitation hath been in this piece, appeareth not only by its general structure, but by particular allusions infinite, many whereof have escaped both the commentator and poet himself, yea, divers by his exceeding diligence are so altered and interwoven with the rest, that several have already been, and more will be, by the ignorant abused, 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 season it was that Virgil finished his Georgics; and Sir Richard Blackmore, at the like age, composing his Arthurs, declared the same to be the very acme and pitch of life for epic poesy: though since he hath altered it to sixty, the year in which he published his Alfred.1 True it is, that the talents for criticism, namely smartness, quick censure, vivacity of remark, certainty of asseveration, indeed all but acerbity seem rather the gifts of youth than of riper age: but it is far otherwise in poetry; witness the works of Mr. Rymer and Mr. Dennis, who, beginning with criticism, became afterwards such poets as no age hath paralleled. With good reason, therefore, did our author choose to write his essay on that subject at twenty, and reserve for his maturer years this great and wonderful work of the Duncia.

RICARDUS ARISTARCHUS

OF THE HERO OF THE POEM.

Or 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 share of judgment, dissertated. But when he cometh to speak of the person of the hero fitted for such poem in

1 See his Essays.

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