In each she marks her Image full expressed, toad.-A book through which folly and ignorance, those brethren so lame and impotent, do ridiculously look very big and very dull, and strut and hobble, cheek by jowl, with their arms on kimbo, being led and supported, and bully-backed by that blind Hector, Impudence."-Reflect. on the Essay on Criticism, pp. 26, 29, 30. 66 66 It would be unjust not to add his reasons for this fury, they are so strong and so coercive: I regard him," saith he, as an Enemy, not so much to me, as to my King, to my Country, to my Religion, and to that Liberty which has been the sole felicity of my life. A vagary of Fortune, who is sometimes pleased to be frolicsome, and the epidemic Madness of the Times, have given him Reputation, and Reputation (as Hobbes says) is Power, and that has made him dangerous. Therefore I look on it as my duty to King George, whose faithful subject I am; to my Country, of which I have appeared a constant lover; to the laws, under whose protection I have so long lived; and to the Liberty of my Country, more dear to me than life, of which I have now for forty years been a constant assertor, &c. I look upon it as my duty, I say, to do-you shall see what-to pull the lion's skin from this little Ass, which popular error has thrown round him; and to show that this Author, who has been lately so much in vogue, has neither sense in his thoughts, nor English in his expressions.' -Dennis, Rem. on Hom. Pref. pp. 2, 91, &c. Besides these public-spirited reasons, Mr. D. had a private one; which, by his manner of expressing it in p. 92, appears to have been equally strong. He was even in bodily fear of his life from the machinations of the said Mr. P. "The story (says he) is too long to be told, but who would be acquainted with it, may hear it from Mr. Curl, my Bookseller. However, what my reason has suggested to me, that I have with a just confidence said, in defiance of his two clandestine weapons, his Slander and his Poison." Which last words of his book plainly discover Mr. D.'s suspicion was that of being poisoned, in like manner as Mr. Curl had been before him: Of which fact see A full and true Account of a Horrid and Barbarous Revenge, by Poison, on the Body of Ed But chief in BAYS's monster-breeding breast: 1 mund Curl, printed in 1716, the year antecedent to that wherein these remarks of Mr. Dennis were published. But what puts it beyond all question, is a passage in a very warm treatise, in which Mr. D. was also concerned, price twopence, called A true Character of Mr. Pope, and his Writings, printed for S. Popping, 1716; in the tenth page whereof he is said "to have insulted people on those calamities and diseases which he himself gave them, by administering Poison to them;" and is called (p. 4) "a lurking waylaying coward, and a stabber in the dark." Which (with many other things most lively set forth in that piece) must have rendered him a terror, not to Mr. Dennis only, but to all Christian people. For the rest: Mr. John Dennis was the son of a Saddler in London, born in 1657. He paid court to Mr. Dryden; and having obtained some correspondence with Mr. Wycherly and Mr. Congreve, he immediately obliged the public with their Letters. He made himself known to the Government by many admirable schemes and projects; which the Ministry, for reasons best known to themselves, constantly kept private. For his character, as a writer, it is given us as follows: "Mr. Dennis is excellent at Pindaric writings, perfectly regular in all his performances, and a person of sound Learning. That he is master of a great deal of Penetration and Judgment, his criticisms (particularly on Prince Arthur) do sufficiently demonstrate. From the same account it also appears that he writ plays "more to get Reputation than Money."-Dennis of himself. See Giles Jacob's Lives of Dram. Poets, pp. 68, 69, compared with p. 286.-P. In the editions before 1743, these lines ran as follows: "But chief, in Tibbald's monster-breeding-breast; See gods with demons in strange league engage, And earth, and heaven, and hell her battles wage. She eyed the bard, where supperless he sate, And pined, unconscious of his rising fate ; Studious he sate, with all his books around, Sinking from thought to thought," &c. Tibbald. Author of a pamplet entitled Shakespear Restored. During two whole years while Mr. Bays, formed by nature Stage and Town to bless,1 And act, and be, a Coxcomb with success. IIO Dulness with transport eyes the lively Dunce, Remembering she herself was Pertness once. Pope was preparing his edition of Shakespear, he published Advertisements, requesting assistance, and promising satisfaction to any who could contribute to its greater perfection. But this Restorer, who was at that time soliciting favours of him by letters, did wholly conceal his design till after its publication (which he was since not ashamed to own, in a Daily Journal of Nov. 26, 1728). And then an outcry was made in the Prints, that our Author had joined with the booksellers to raise an extravagant subscription; in which he had no share, of which he had no knowledge, and against which he had publicly advertised in his own proposals for Homer. Probably that proceeding elevated Tibbald to the dignity he holds in this Poem, which he seems to deserve no other way better than his brethren; unless we impute it to the share he had in the Journals, cited among the Testimonies of Authors prefixed to this work.-P. Lewis Theobald was the exact contemporary of Pope, being born in 1688, and dying in 1744. His edition of Shakespeare, published in 1733, was greatly superior to Pope's edition, published five years earlier. Theobald was hero of the Dunciad from 1728 till 1743, when he was replaced by Cibber. See Memoir, p. xxxii. 1 It is hoped the poet here hath done full justice to his Hero's character, which it were a great mistake to imagine was wholly sunk in stupidity; he is allowed to have supported it with a wonderful mixture of Vivacity. This character is heightened, according to his own desire, in a Letter he wrote to our author. "Pert and dull at least you might have allowed me. What! am I only to be dull, and dull still, and again, and for ever?" He then solemnly appealed to his own conscience, that "he could not think himself so, nor believe that our Poet did; but that he spoke worse of him than he could possibly think; and concluded it must be merely to show his Wit, or for 1 Now (shame to Fortune!) an ill Run at Play Blanked his bold visage, and a thin Third day: 115 Swearing and supperless the Hero sate, Blasphemed his Gods, the Dice, and damned his Fate. Then gnawed his pen, then dashed it on the ground, Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound! Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there, Yet wrote and floundered on, in mere despair. 120 Round him much Embryo, much Abortion lay, Much future Ode, and abdicated Play; All that on Folly Frenzy could beget, 125 How here he sipped, how there he plundered snug, And sucked all o'er, like an industrious Bug. 130 Here lay poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes,' and here some Profit or Lucre to himself."-Life of C. C., chap. vii. and Letter to Mr. P., pp. 15, 40, 53.-P. Because she usually shows favour to persons of this character, who have a threefold pretence to it.-P. W. 2 Abortions. 3 A great number of them taken out to patch up his plays.-P. W. Alluding to Cibber's thefts from Fletcher in his "Cæsar in Egypt."-Courthope. 1 The Frippery of crucified Molière; 1 135 1 "When I fitted up an old play, it was as a good housewife will mend old linen, when she has not better employment. -Life, p. 217, 8vo.-P. W. Cibber's " Non-juror" was founded on the "Tar tuffe" of Molière. 2 It is not to be doubted but Bays was a subscriber to Tibbald's Shakespear. He was frequently liberal this way; and, as he tells us, "subscribed to Mr. Pope's Homer, out of pure Generosity and Civility; but when Mr. Pope did so to his Nonjuror, he concluded it could be nothing but a joke."-Letter to Mr. P., p. 24. This Tibbald, or Theobald, published an edition of Shakespear, of which he was so proud himself as to say, in one of Mist's Journals, June 8, "That to expose any Errors in it was impracticable.' And in another, April 27, "That whatever care might for the future be taken by any other Editor, he would still give above five hundred emendations, that shall escape them all."-P. W. 3 It was a ridiculous praise which the Players gave to Shakespear, "that he never blotted a line." Ben Jonson honestly wished he had blotted a thousand ; and Shakespear would certainly have wished the same, if he had lived to see those alterations in his works, which, not the Actors only (and especially the daring Hero of this poem) have made on the Stage, but the presumptuous Critics of our days in their Editions.-P. W. 4 This library is divided into three parts; the first consists of those authors from whom he stole, and whose works he mangled; the second, of such as fitted the shelves, or were gilded for show, or adorned with pictures; the third class our author calls solid learning, old Bodies of Divinity, old Commentaries, old English Printers, or old English Translations; all very voluminous, and fit to erect altars to Dulness. -P. W. |