preaching at court, threatened the sinner with punishment in 'a place
which he thought it not decent to name in so polite an assembly.'--P.
[53] 'Sancho's dread doctor:' see 'Don Quixote,' chap, xlvii.--P.
[54] This was originally written in the year 1715, when Mr Addison
intended to publish his book of medals; it was sometime before he was
Secretary of State; but not published till Mr Tickell's edition of his
works; at which time the verses on Mr Craggs, which conclude the poem,
were added, viz., in 1720.--P.
[55] 'Vadius:' see his history, and that of his shield, in the 'Memoirs
of Scriblerus,' ch. ii.
[56] Alemena, mother of Hercules, is after his death here recounting her
misfortunes to Iole, who replies by narrating the transformations of her
sister Dryope.
[57] Such sons: Eteocles and Polynices.
[58] The Marchantes Tale. Written at sixteen or seventeen years of age.
[59] The first part of this prologue was written by Pope, the conclusion
by Mallet.
[60] Shows a cap with ears.
[61] Flings down the cap, and exit.
[62] 'Basset-Table:' only this of all the Town Eclogues was Mr Pope's,
and is here printed from a copy corrected by his own hand. The humour of
it consists in this, that the one is in love with the game, and the
other with the sharper--W.
[63] 'The Lady Frances Shirley:' a lady whose great merit Mr Pope took a
real pleasure in celebrating.
[64] 'Bertrand's:' a famous toy-shop at Bath.
[65] 'Fool or ass:' 'The Dunciad.'--P.
[66] 'Flattery or fib:' the 'Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot.'--P.
[67] 'Arms:' such toys being the usual presents from lovers to their
mistresses.--P.
[68] 'Print:' when she delivers Aeneas a suit of heavenly armour.--P.
[69] 'Truth nor lies:' if you have neither the courage to write satire,
nor the application to attempt an epic poem. He was then meditating on
such a work.--P.
[70] 'Algerian grot:' alluding to Numa's projecting his system of
politics in this grot, assisted, as he gave out, by the goddess
Aegeria.--P.
[71] 'What-d'ye-call-it:' a comedy by Gay.
[72] 'Turk:' Ulrick, the Turk.
[73] 'Pope:' the author.
[74] 'Bellenden, Lepell, and Griffin:' ladies of the Court of the
Princess Caroline.
[75] 'Blunderland:' Ireland.
[76] 'Meadows:' see verses to Mrs Howe.
[77] 'God send the king safe landing:' this ballad was written anno
1717.
[78] 'Philips:' Ambrose Philips.
[79] 'Budgell:' Eustace Budgell.
[80] 'Carey:' Henry Carey.
[81] 'Mrs Pulteney:' the daughter of John Gumley of Isleworth, who
acquired his fortune by a glass manufactory.
[82] 'Sandys:' George Sandy's, the old, and as yet unequalled,
translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses.
[83] 'Jacob's:' old Jacob Tonson, the publisher of the Metamorphoses.
[84] 'P----:' perhaps Pembroke.
[85] 'Umbra:' intended, it is said, for Ambrose Philips.
[86] 'Only Johnson:' Charles Johnson, a second-rate dramatist.
[87] 'The Man Mountain:' this Ode, and the three following pieces, were
produced by Pope on reading 'Gulliver's Travels.'
[88] 'Biddel:' name of a sea captain mentioned in Gulliver's Travels.
[89] 'Pannel:' name of a sea captain mentioned in Gulliver's Travels.
[90] 'B----:' Britain.
[91] 'C----:' Cobham.
[92] 'P----'s: Pulteney's.
[93] 'S----:' Sandys.
[94] 'S----:' Shippen.
[95] 'C----:' Perhaps the Earl of Carlisle.
[96] 'Ch---s W----:' Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.
[97] 'Sir Har-y or Sir P----:' Sir Henry Oxenden or Sir Paul Methuen.
[98] 'G---r, C---m, B---t:' Lords Gower, Cobham, and Bathurst.
[99] 'C---d:' Chesterfield.
[100] 'C---t:' Lord Carteret.
[101] 'P----:' William Pulteney, created in 1742 Earl of Bath.
[102] 'W----:' Walpole.
[103] 'H----:' either Sir Robert's brother Horace, who had just quitted
his embassy at the Hague, or his son Horace, who was then on his
travels.
[104] 'W----:' W. Winnington.
[105] 'Young:' Sir William Young.
[106] 'Bub:' Dodington.
[107] 'H----:' probably Hare, Bishop of Chicester.
[108] 'F----, H---y:' Fox and Henley.
[109] 'H---n:' Hinton.
[110] 'Ebor:' Blackburn, Archbishop of York, and Hoadley, Bishop of
Winchester.
[111] 'O---w:' Onslow, Speaker of the House of Commons, and the Earl of
Delawar, Chairman of the Committees of the House of Lords.
[112] 'N----:' Newcastle.
[113] 'D----'s sager:' Dorset; perhaps the last word should be _sneer_.
[114] 'M----'s:' Duke of Marlborough.
[115] 'J----'s:' Jekyll.
[116] 'H---k's:' Hardwick.
[117] 'C----:' probably Sir John Cummins, Lord Chief-Justice of the
Common Pleas.
[118] 'B----:' Britain.
[119] 'S---w:' Earl of Scarborough.
[120] 'M-m-t's:' Marchmont.
[121] 'P---th:' Polwarth, son to Lord Marchmont.
[122] 'W---m:' Wyndham.
[123] 'Sl---s:' slaves.
[124] 'Se---s:' senates.
[125] 'Ad....:' administration.
[126] King's.
[127] 'Religion:' an allusion perhaps to Frederick Prince of Wales.
[128] 'First Book of Horace:' attributed to Pope.
[129] The person here meant was Dr Robert Friend, head master of
Westminster School.
[130] The Misses Lisle.
[131] There occurred here originally the following lax stanza:--
Can sins of moment claim the rod
Of everlasting fires?
[132] And that offend great nature's God, Which nature's self
inspires.--See Boswell's 'Johnson.'
[133] This gentleman was of Scotland, and bred at the university of
Utrecht, with the Earl of Mar. He served in Spain under Earl Rivers.
After the peace, he was made one of the Commissioners of the Customs in
Scotland, and then of Taxes in England, in which having shewn himself
for twenty years diligent, punctual, and incorruptible, though without
any other assistance of fortune, he was suddenly displaced by the
minister in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and died two months after,
in 1741.--P.
[134] Giles Jacob's Lives of Poets, vol. ii. in his Life.
[135] Dennis's Reflections on the Essay on Criticism.
[136] Dunciad Dissected, p. 4.
[137] Guardian, No. 40.
[138] Jacob's Lives, &c. vol. ii.
[139] Dunciad Dissected, p. 4.
[140] Farmer P--- and his Son.
[141] Dunciad Dissected.
[142] Characters of the Times, p. 45.
[143] Female Dunciad, p. ult.
[144] Dunciad Dissected.
[145] Roome, Paraphrase on the 4th of Genesis, printed 1729.
[146] Character of Mr Pope and his Writings, in a Letter to a Friend,
printed for S. Popping, 1716, p. 10. Curll, in his Key to the Dunciad
(first edition, said to be printed for A. Dodd), in the 10th page,
declared Gildon to be author of that libel; though in the subsequent
editions of his Key he left out this assertion, and affirmed (in the
Curlliad, p. 4 and 8) that it was written by Dennis only.
[147] Reflections, Critical and Satirical, on a Rhapsody called An Essay
on Criticism. Printed for Bernard Lintot, 8vo.
[148] Essay on Criticism in prose, 8vo, 1728, by the author of the
Critical History of England.
[149] Preface to his Poems, p.18, 53.
[150] Spectator, No. 253.
[151] Letter to B. B. at the end of the Remarks on Pope's Homer, 1717.
[152] Printed 1728, p. 12.
[153] Alma, canto 2.
[154] In his Essays, vol. i., printed for E. Curll.
[155] Censor, vol. ii. n. 33.
[156] _Vide_ preface to Mr Tickel's translation of the first book of the
Iliad, 4to. Also _vide_ Life.
[157] Daily Journal, March 18, 1728.
[158] Ibid, April 3, 1728.
[159] Verses to Mr Pope on his translation of Homer.
[160] Poem prefixed to his works.
[161] In his poems, printed for B. Lintot.
[162] Universal Passion, Satire i.
[163] In his Poems, and at the end of the Odyssey.
[164] The names of two weekly papers.
[165] Theobald, Letter in Mist's Journal, June 22, 1728.
[166] Smedley, Preface to Gulliveriana, p. 14, 16.
[167] Gulliveriana, p. 332.
[168] Anno 1723.
[169] Anno 1729.
[170] Preface to Remarks on the Rape of the Lock, p. 12, and in the last
page of that treatise.
[171] Pages 6, 7 of the Preface, by Concanen, to a book entitled, A
Collection of all the Letters, Essays, Verses, and Advertisements
occasioned by Pope and Swift's Miscellanies. Printed for A. Moore, 8vo,
1712.
[172] Key to the Dunciad, third edition, p. 18.
[173] A list of persons, &c., at the end of the forementioned Collection
of all the Letters, Essays, &c.
[174] Introduction to his Shakspeare Restored, in 4to, p. 3.
[175] Commentary on the Duke of Buckingham's Essay, 8vo, 1721, p. 97,
98.
[176] In his prose Essay on Criticism.
[177] Printed by J. Roberts, 1742, p. 11.
[178] Battle of Poets, folio, p. 15.
[179] Printed under the title of the Progress of Dulness, duodecimo,
1728.
[180] Cibber's Letter to Mr Pope, p. 9, 12.
[181] In a letter under his hand, dated March 12, 1733.
[182] Dennis's Preface to his Reflections on the Essay on Criticism.
[183] Preface to his Remarks on Homer.
[184] Remarks on Homer, p. 8, 9.
[185] Ibid, p. 8.
[186] Character of Mr Pope, p. 7.
[187] Ibid, p. G.
[188] Gulliver, p. 886.
[189] Cibber's Letter to Mr. Pope, p. 19.
[190] Burnet Homerides, p. 1 of his Translation of the Iliad.
[191] The London and Mist's Journals, on his undertaking of the Odyssey.
[192] Vide Bossu, Du Poeme Epique, ch. viii.
[193] Bossu, chap. vii.
[194] Book i. ver. 32, &c.
[195] Ver. 45 to 54.
[196] Ver. 57 to 77.
[197] Ver. 80.
[198] Ibid, chap, vii., viii.
[199] Bossu, chap. viii. Vide Aristot. Poetic, chap. ix.
[200] Cibber's Letter to Mr Pope, pp. 9, 12, 41.
[201] See his Essays.
[202] Si nil Heros Poëtique doit être un honnête homme. Bossu, du Poême
Epique, lib. v. ch. 5.
[203] Dedication to the Life of C. C.
[204] Life, p. 2, 8vo edition.
[205] Life, ibid.
[206] Life, p. 23, 8vo.
[207] Alluding to these lines in the Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot:
'And has not Colley still his lord and whore,
His butchers, Henley, his freemasons, Moore?'
[208] Letter to Mr Pope, p. 46.
[209] P. 31.
[210] Life, p. 23, 24.
[211] Letter, p. 8.
[212] Letter, p. 53.
[213] Letter, p. 1.
[214] Don Quixote, Part ii. book ii. ch. 22.
[215] See Life, p. 148.
[216] Life, p. 149.
[217] p. 424.
[218] p. 366.
[219] p. 457.
[220] p. 18.
[221] p. 425.
[222] pp. 436, 437.
[223] p. 52.
[224] p. 47.
[225] p. 57.
[226] pp. 58, 59.
[227] A statuary.
[228] Life, p. 6.
[229] p. 424.
[230] p. 19.
[231] Life, p. 17.
[232] Ibid. p. 243, 8vo edition.
[233] Ovid, of the serpent biting at Orpheus's head.
[234] 'The Dunciad:' _sic_ MS. It may well be disputed whether this be a
right reading. Ought it not rather to be spelled Dunceiad, as the
etymology evidently demands? Dunce with an _e_, therefore Dunceiad with
an _e_? That accurate and punctual man of letters, the restorer of
Shakespeare, constantly observes the preservation of this very letter
_e_, in spelling the name of his beloved author, and not like his common
careless editors, with the omission of one, nay, sometimes of two _e's_
(as Shakspear), which is utterly unpardonable. 'Nor is the neglect of a
single letter so trivial as to some it may appear; the alteration
whereof in a learned language is an achievement that brings honour to
the critic who advances it; and Dr Bentley will be remembered to
posterity for his performances of this sort, as long as the world shall
have any esteem for the remains of Menander and Philemon.'--_Theobald_.
This is surely a slip in the learned author of the foregoing note, there
having been since produced by an accurate antiquary, an autograph of
Shakspeare himself, whereby it appears that he spelled his own name
without the first _e_. And upon this authority it was, that those most
critical curators of his monument in Westminster Abbey erased the former
wrong reading, and restored the true spelling on a new piece of old
Egyptian granite. Nor for this only do they deserve our thanks, but for
exhibiting on the same monument the first specimen of an edition of an
author in marble; where (as may be seen on comparing the tomb with the
book), in the space of five lines, two words and a whole verse are
changed, and it is to be hoped will there stand, and outlast whatever
hath been hitherto done in paper; as for the future, our learned sister
University (the other eye of England) is taking care to perpetuate a
total new Shakspeare, at the Clarendon press.--_Bentl_.
It is to be noted, that this great critic also has omitted one
circumstance: which is, that the inscription with the name of Shakspeare
was intended to be placed on the marble scroll to which he points with
his hand; instead of which it is now placed behind his back, and that
specimen of an edition is put on the scroll, which indeed Shakspeare
hath great reason to point at.--_Anon_.
Though I have as just a value for the letter _e_ as any grammarian
living, and the same affection for the name of this poem as any critic
for that of his author, yet cannot it induce me to agree with those who
would add yet another _e_ to it, and call it the Dunceiade; which being
a French and foreign termination, is no way proper to a word entirely
English and vernacular. One _e_, therefore, in this case is right, and
two _e's_ wrong. Yet, upon the whole, I shall follow the manuscript, and
print it without any _e_ at all; moved thereto by authority (at all
times, with critics, equal, if not superior to reason). In which method
of proceeding, I can never enough praise my good friend, the exact Mr
Thomas Hearne; who, if any word occur which to him and all mankind is
evidently wrong, yet keeps he it in the text with due reverence, and
only remarks in the margin _sic_ MS. In like manner we shall not amend
this error in the title itself, but only note it _obiter_, to evince to
the learned that it was not our fault, nor any effect of our ignorance
or inattention.--_Scriblerus_.
This poem was written in the year 1726. In the next year, an imperfect
edition was published at Dublin, and reprinted at London in twelves;
another at Dublin, and another at London in octavo; and three others in
twelves the same year. But there was no perfect edition before that of
London in quarto; which was attended with notes. We are willing to
acquaint posterity, that this poem was presented to King George the
Second and his queen by the hands of Sir Robert Walpole, on the 12th of
March 1728-9.--_Schol. Vet_.
It was expressly confessed in the preface to the first edition, that
this poem was not published by the author himself. It was printed
originally in a foreign country. And what foreign country? Why, one
notorious for blunders; where finding blanks only instead of proper
names, these blunderers filled them up at their pleasure.
The very hero of the poem hath been mistaken to this hour; so that we
are obliged to open our notes with a discovery who he really was. We
learn from the former editor, that this piece was presented by the hands
of Sir Robert Walpole to King George II. Now the author directly tells
us, his hero is the man
'who brings
The Smithfield muses to the ear of kings.'
And it is notorious who was the person on whom this prince conferred the
honour of the laurel.
It appears as plainly from the apostrophe to the great in the third
verse, that Tibbald could not be the person, who was never an author in
fashion, or caressed by the great; whereas this single characteristic is
sufficient to point out the true hero, who, above all other poets of his
time, was the peculiar delight and chosen companion of the nobility of
England, and wrote, as he himself tells us, certain of his works at the
earnest desire of persons of quality.
Lastly, the sixth verse affords full proof; this poet being the only one
who was universally known to have had a son so exactly like him, in his
poetical, theatrical, political, and moral capacities, that it could
justly be said of him,
'Still Dunce the second reign'd like Dunce the first.'--_Bentl_.
[235] 'Her son who brings,' &c. Wonderful is the stupidity of all the
former critics and commentators on this work! It breaks forth at the
very first line. The author of the critique prefixed to Sawney, a poem,
p. 5, hath been so dull as to explain 'the man who brings,' &c., not of
the hero of the piece, but of our poet himself, as if he vaunted that
kings were to be his readers--an honour which though this poem hath had,
yet knoweth he how to receive it with more modesty.
We remit this ignorant to the first lines of the Aeneid, assuring him
that Virgil there speaketh not of himself but of Aeneas:
'Arma virumque cano, Trojae qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venit
Littora: multum ille et terris jactatus et alto,' &c.
I cite the whole three verses, that I may by the way offer a conjectural
emendation, purely my own, upon each: First, _oris_ should be read
_aris_, it being, as we see, Aen. ii. 513, from the altar of Jupiter
Hercaeus that Aeneas fled as soon as he saw Priam slain. In the second
line I would _flatu_ for _fato_, since it is most clear it was by winds
that he arrived at the shore of Italy. _Jactatus_, in the third, is
surely as improperly applied to _terris_, as proper to _alto_. To say a
man is tossed on land, is much at one with saying, he walks at sea.
_Risum teneatis, amici_? Correct it, as I doubt not it ought to be,
_vexatus_.--_Scriblerus_.
[236] 'The Smithfield Muses.' Smithfield was the place where Bartholomew
Fair was kept, whose shows, machines, and dramatical entertainments,
formerly agreeable only to the taste of the rabble, were, by the hero of
this poem and others of equal genius, brought to the theatres of Covent
Garden, Lincolns-Inn-Fields, and the Haymarket, to be the reigning
pleasures of the court and town. This happened in the reigns of King
George I. and II. See Book iii.
[237] 'By Dulness, Jove, and Fate:' _i.e._, by their judgments, their
interests, and their inclinations.--W.
[238] 'Say how the goddess,' &c. The poet ventureth to sing the action
of the goddess; but the passion she impresseth on her illustrious
votaries, he thinketh can be only told by themselves.--_Scribl. W_.
[239] 'Daughter of Chaos,' &c. The beauty of this whole allegory being
purely of the poetical kind, we think it not our proper business, as a
scholiast, to meddle with it, but leave it (as we shall in general all
such) to the reader, remarking only that Chaos (according to Hesiod's
[Greek: Theogonia]), was the progenitor of all the gods.--_Scriblerus_.
[240] 'Laborious, heavy, busy, bold,' &c. I wonder the learned
Scriblerus has omitted to advertise the reader, at the opening of this
poem, that Dulness here is not to be taken contractedly for mere
stupidity, but in the enlarged sense of the word, for all slowness of
apprehension, shortness of sight, or imperfect sense of things. It
includes (as we see by the poet's own words) labour, industry, and some
degree of activity and boldness--a ruling principle not inert, but
turning topsy-turvy the understanding, and inducing an anarchy or
confused state of mind. This remark ought to be carried along with the
reader throughout the work; and without this caution he will be apt to
mistake the importance of many of the characters, as well as of the
design of the poet. Hence it is, that some have complained he chooses
too mean a subject, and imagined he employs himself like Domitian, in
killing flies; whereas those who have the true key will find he sports
with nobler quarry, and embraces a larger compass; or (as one saith, on
a like occasion)--
'Will see his work, like Jacob's ladder, rise,
Its foot in dirt, its head amid the skies.'--_Bentl_.
[241] 'Still her old empire to restore.' This restoration makes the
completion of the poem. _Vide_ Book iv.--P.
[242] 'Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!' the several names and
characters he assumed in his ludicrous, his splenetic, or his
party-writings; which take in all his works.--P.
[243] 'Or praise the court, or magnify mankind:' _ironicè_, alluding to
Gulliver's representations of both. The next line relates to the papers
of the Drapier against the currency of Wood's copper coin in Ireland,
which, upon the great discontent of the people, his Majesty was
graciously pleased to recall.
[244] 'By his famed father's hand:' Mr Caius-Gabriel Cibber, father of
the poet laureate. The two statues of the lunatics over the gates of
Bedlam Hospital were done by him, and (as the son justly says of them)
are no ill monuments of his fame as an artist.
[245] 'Bag-fair' is a place near the Tower of London, where old clothes
and frippery are sold--P.
[246] 'A yawning ruin hangs and nods in air:'--Here in one bed two
shivering sisters lie, The cave of Poverty and Poetry.
[247] 'Curll's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post:' two booksellers,
of whom, see Book ii. The former was fined by the Court of King's Bench
for publishing obscene books; the latter usually adorned his shop with
titles in red letters.--P.
[248] 'Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines:' it is an ancient English
custom for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution at Tyburn,
and no less customary to print elegies on their deaths, at the same
time, or before.--P.
[249] 'Sepulchral lies:' is a just satire on the flatteries and
falsehoods admitted to be inscribed on the walls of churches, in
epitaphs, which occasioned the following epigram:--
'Friend! in your epitaphs, I'm grieved,
So very much is said:
One-half will never be believed,
The other never read.'--W.
[250] 'New-year odes:' made by the poet laureate for the time being, to
be sung at Court on every New-Year's Day, the words of which are happily
drowned in the voices and instruments.--P.
[251] 'Jacob:' Tonson, the well-known bookseller.
[252] 'How farce and epic--how Time himself,' allude to the
transgressions of the unities in the plays of such poets. For the
miracles wrought upon time and place, and the mixture of tragedy and
comedy, farce and epic, see Pluto and Proserpine, Penelope, &c., if yet
extant.--P.
[253] ''Twas on the day, when Thorold rich and grave, like Cimon,
triumph'd:' viz., a Lord Mayor's day; his name the author had left in
blanks, but most certainly could never be that which the editor foisted
in formerly, and which no way agrees with the chronology of the
poem.--_Bentl_. The procession of a lord mayor is made partly by land,
and partly by water. Cimon, the famous Athenian general, obtained a
victory by sea, and another by land, on the same day, over the Persians
and Barbarians.--P.
[254] 'Glad chains:' The ignorance of these moderns! This was altered in
one edition to gold chains, showing more regard to the metal of which
the chains of aldermen are made than to the beauty of the Latinism and
Graecism--nay, of figurative speech itself: _Loetas segetes_, glad, for
making glad, &c.--P.
[255] 'But lived, in Settle's numbers, one day more:' a beautiful manner
of speaking, usual with poets in praise of poetry, in which kind nothing
is finer than those lines of Mr Addison:--
'Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng,
I look for streams immortalised in song,
That lost in silence and oblivion lie,
Dumb are their fountains, and their channels dry;
Yet run for over by the Muses' skill,
And in the smooth description murmur still.--P.
Settle was poet to the city of London. His office was to compose yearly
panegyrics upon the lord mayors, and verses to be spoken in the
pageants. But that part of the shows being at length frugally abolished,
the employment of city-poet ceased, so that upon Settle's demise there
was no successor to that place.--P.
[256] John Heywood, whose interludes were printed in the time of Henry
VIII.--P.
[257] 'Daniel Defoe,' a man in worth and original genius incomparably
superior to his defamer.
[258] 'And Eusden eke out,' &c.: Laurence Eusden, poet laureate. Mr
Jacob gives a catalogue of some few only of his works, which were very
numerous. Mr Cook, in his Battle of Poets, saith of him--
'Eusden, a laurell'd bard, by fortune raised,
By very few was read, by fewer praised.'--P.
[259] Nahum Tate was poet laureate, a cold writer, of no invention; but
sometimes translated tolerably when befriended by Mr Dryden. In his
second part of Absalom and Achitophel are above two hundred admirable
lines together of that great hand, which strongly shine through the
insipidity of the rest. Something parallel may be observed of another
author here mentioned.--P.