Mummins o'erheard him; Mummius, fool-re- | I bought them, shrouded in that living shrine, nown'd, Mine, goddess! mine is all the horned race. REMARKS. Ver. 371. Mummius] This name is not merely an allusion to the Mummius he was so fond of but probably referred to the Roman general of that name, who burned Corinth, and commited the curious statues to the captain of a ship, assuring him, "that if any were lost or broken, he should procure others to be made in their stead;" by which it should seem (whatever may be pretended) that Mummius was no vir tuoso. Ibid.-Fool-renown'd] A compound epithet in the Greek manner, renown'd by fools, or renowned for making fools. Ver. 372. Cheops] A king of Egypt whose body was certainly to be known, as being buried alone in his pyrainid, and is therefore more genuine than any of the Cleopatras. This royal mummy, being stolen by a wild Arab, was purchased by the consul of Alexandria, and transmitted to the museum of Mummius; for proof of which he brings a passage in Sandys's Travels, where that accurate and learned voyager assures us that he saw the sepulchre empty, which agrees exactly (saith he) with the time of the theft above mentioned. But he omits to observe that Herodotus tells the same thing of it in his time. 390 And, at their second birth, they issue mine." The goddess smiling seem'd to give consent; Then thick as locusts blackening all the ground, A tribe, with weeds and shells fantastic crown'd, Each with some wondrous gift approach'd the power, 400 A nest, a toad, a fungus, or a flower. 410 Such varied light in one promiscuous blaze! "Of all th' enamel'd race, whose silvery wing REMARKS. Ver. 387. Witness great Ammon!] Jupiter ander, to whom those kings succeeded in the diviAmmon is called to witness, as the father of Alexsion of the Macedonian empire, and whose horus they wore on their meda Ver. 375. Speak'st thou of Syrian princes? &c.] The strange story following, which may be taken for a fiction of the poet, is justified by a true relation in Spon's Voyages. Vaillant (who wrote the history of the Syrian kings as it is to be found on medals) coming from the Levant, where he had been collecting various coins, and being pursued by a corsair of Sallee, swallowed down twenty gold medals. A sudden bourasque freed him from the rover, and he got to land with them in his belly. On his road to Avignon he met two physicians of whom he demanded assistance. One advised purgations, the other vomits. this uncertainty he took neither, but pursued his way to Lyons, where he found his ancient friend the famous physician and antiquary Dufour to whom he related his adventure. Ver. 409. and nam'd it Caroline:] It is a comDufour, without staying to inquire about the uneasy symptoms and great persons, to give their names to the most pliment which the florists usually pay to princes of the burthen he carried, first asked him, Whether the meals were of the higher empire? He curions flowers of their raising: some have been assured him they were. Dufour was ravished with very jealous of vindicating this honour, but none the hope of possessing so rare a treasure; he bar-smith, who caused his favourite to be painted on more than that ambitious gardener, at Hammergained with him on the spot for the most curious his sign, with this inscription, This is my Queen of them, and was to recover them at his own ex pense. In ing and no less taste; above all, curious in what Ver. 394. Douglas) A physician of great learnedition, translation, and comment, to the numrelated to Horace, of whom he colleted every ber of several hundred volumes. Caroline. At last it fixt, 'twas on what plant it pleas'd, 440 Live happy both, and long promote our arts. "Be that my task" (replies a gloomy clerk, VARIATION. "Let others creep by timid steps and slow, 480 490 450 Or that bright image to our fancy draw, 460 REMARKS. Ver. 492. Where Tindal dictates, and Silenus Ver, 441. The common soul, &c.] in the first snores.] It cannot be denied but that this fine edit. thus: Of souls the greater part, Heaven's common make, Serve but to keep fools pert, and knaves awake; REMARKS. Ver. 452. Wilkins' wings] One of the first projectors of the Royal Society, who, among many enlarged and useful notions, entertained the extravagant hope of a possibility to fly to the Moon; which has put some volatile geniuses upon making wings for that purpose. Ver. 462. When moral evidence shall quite decay,] Alluding to a ridiculous and absurd way of some mathematicians, in calculating the gradual decay of moral evidence by mathematical proportions: according to which calculation, in about fifty years it will be no longer probable that Julius Cæsar was in Gaul, or died in the senate house. See Craig's Theologiae Christianæ Principia Mathematica. But as it seeins evident, that facts of a thousand years old, for instance, are now as probable as they were five hundred years ago; it is plain, that if in fifty more they quite disappear, it must be owing, not to their arguments, but to the extraordinary power of our goddess; for whose help therefore they have reason to pray. stroke of satire against atheism was well intended. But how must the reader smile at our author's officious zeal, when he is told, that at the time wolf in England as an atheist? The truth is, this was written, you might as soon bave found a the whole species was exterminated. There, is a trifling difference indeed concerning the author of the achievement. Some as Dr. Ashenburst, gave it to Bentley's Boylean Lectures. And he so well convinced that great man of the truth, that wherever afterwards he found atheist, he always read it A Theist. But, in spite of a claim exploit to a latter Boylean lecturer. A judicious so well made out, others gave the honour of this apologist for Dr. Clarke, against Mr. Whiston, says, with no less elegance than positiveness of expression," It is a most certain truth, that the demonstration of the being and attributes of God, has extirpated and banished atheism out of the Christian world," p. 18. It is much to be lamented, that the clearest truths have still their dark side. Here we see it becomes a doubt which of the two Herculeses was the monsterqueller. what of that? Since the thing is done, and the proof of it so certain, there is no occasion for so ce a canvassing of circumstances.-Scribl. But Ibid. Silenus] Silenus was an Epicurean pilosopher, as appears from Virgil, Eclog. vi. where Le sings the principles of that philosophy in his drink. 510 First slave to words, then vassal to a name, REMARKS. 520 But, sad example! never to escape Kind Self-conceit to some her glass applies, 530 On others Interest her gay livery flings, Others the syren sisters warble round, On some, a priest succinct in amice white REMARKS. 550 tient lieu de ce qu'on appelloit autrefois grandeur d'ame et fidelité."-Boulainvilliers Hist. des Anciens Parlements de France, &c. Ver. 501. First slave to words, &c.] A recapitulation of the whole course of modern education described in this book, which confines youth motif des prémiers heros, n'est plus regardé que to the study of words only in schools; subjects comme une chimêre; l'idée du service du roi, them to the authority of systems in the univer-etendue jusqu'a l'oubli de tout autre principe, sities; and deludes them with the names of party distinctions in the world. All equally concurring to narrow the understanding, and establish slavery and errour in literature, philosophy, and politics. The whole finished in modern freethinking: the completion of whatever is vain, wrong, and destructive to the happiness of mankind; as it establishes self-love for the sole principle of action. Ver. 506. Smil'd on by a queen!] i. e. This queen or goddess of Dulness Ver. 517. With that a wizard old, &c.] Here beginneth the celebration of the greater mysteries of the goddess, which the poct, in his invocation, ver. 5. promised to sing. Ver. 528. still keep the human shape.] The effects of the Magus's cup, by which is allegorized a total corruption of heart, are just contrary to that of Circe, which only represents the sudden plunging into pleasures. Her's, therefore, took takes away the mind, and leaves the human away the shape, and left the human mind; his shape. Ver. 529. But she, good goddess, &c.] The only comfort people can receive, must be owing in some shape or other to Dulness; which makes some stupid, others impudent, gives self-conceit to some, upon the flatteries of their dependants, presents the false colours of interest to others, and busies or amuses the rest with idle pleasures or sensuality, till they become easy under any infamy. Each of which species is here shadowed under allegorical persons. Ver. 532. Cibberian forehead, or Cimmerian gloom.] i. e. She communicates to them of her own virtue, or of her royal colleagues. The Cib Ver. 518. forgets his former friends,] Surely there little needed the force of charms or magic to set aside an useless friendship. For of all the accommodations of fashionable life, as there are none more reputable, so there are none of so little charge as friendship. It fills up the void of life with a name of dignity and respect; and at the same time is ready to give place to every passion that offers to dispute possession with it.-Scribl. Ver. 523, 524. Lost is his God, his country-berian forehead being to fit them for self-conceit, And nothing left but homage to a king!] So strange as this must seem to a mere English reader, the famous Mons, de la Bruyere declares it to be the character of every good subject in a monarchy: "Where," says he, "there is no such thing as love of our country, the interest, the glory, and service of the prince, supply its place."-De la Republique, chap. x. Of this duty another celebrated French author speaks indeed a little more disrespectfully; which for that reason, we shall not translate, but give in his own words, "L'Amour de la Patrie, le grand self-interest, &c. and the Cimmerian gloom, for the pleasures of opera, and the table.-Scribl. Ver. 553. The board with specious miracles he loads, &c.] Scriblerus seems at a loss in this Horace, were the monstrous fables of the Cyplace. Speciosa miracula (says he) according to clops, Læstrygons, Scylla, &e. What relation have these to the transformation of hares into arks, or of pigeons into tonds? I shall tell thee, do larks upon skewers; and The Lestrygons spitted men upon spears, as we the fair pigeon turned to a toad, is similar to the fair virgin Scylla Another (for in all what one can shine?) ́ REMARKS. 570 Impale a glow-worm, or vertù profess, REMARKS. reality, a gentleman only of the Dunciad; or, to speak him better, in the plain language of our ending in a filthy beast. But here is the difficulty, honest ancestors to such mushrooms, a gentleman why pigeons in so shocking a shape should be of the last edition: who, nobly eluding the solicibrought to a table. Hares indeed might be cut tude of his careful father, very early retained into larks at a second dressing, out of frugality: himself in the cause of Dulness against Shakeyet that seems no probable motive, when we con- speare, and with the wit and learning of his ansider the extravagance before-mentioned, of dis- cestor Tom Thimble in the Rehearsal, and with solving whole oxen and boars into a small vial of the air of good nature and politeness of Caliban in jelly; nay it is expressly said, that all flesh is the Tempest, hath now happily finished the nothing in his sight. I have searched in Apicius, Dunce's progress, in personal abuse. For a libelPliny, and the feast of Trimalchio, in vain; Iler is nothing but a Grub-street critic run can only resolve it into some mysterious superstitious rite, as it is said so be done by a priest, and soon after called a sacrifice, attended (as all ancient sacrifices were)with libation and song.-Scribl. This good scholiast, not being acquainted with modern luxury, was ignorant that these were only the miracles of French cookery, and that particularly Pigeons en crapeau were a common dish. Ver. 556. Seve and verdeur] French terms relating to wines, which signify their flavour and poignancy. Et je gagerois que chez le commandeur, Déspreaux. St. Evremont has a very pathetic letter to a nobleman in disgrace, advising him to seek comfort in a good table, and particularly to be attentive to these qualities in his champaigne. Ver. 560, Bladen-Hays] Names of gamesters. Bladen is a black man. Robert Knight, cashier of the South-Sea company, who fled from England in 1720 (afterwards pardoned in 1742).— These lived with the utmost magnificence at Paris, and kept open tables frequented by persons of the first quality in England, and even by princes of the blood of France. Ibid. Bladen, &c.] The former note of "Bladen is a black man," is very absurd. The manuscript here is partly obliterated, and doubtless could only have been, wash blackmoors white, alluding to a known proverb.--Scribl. Ver. 567. seed. 64 to Lamentable is the dulness of these gentlemen of the Dunciad. This Fungoso and his friends, who are all gentlemen, have exclaimed much against us for reflecting his birth, in the words, a gentleman of the last edition," which we hereby declare concern not his birth, but his adoption only and mean no more than that he is become a gentleman of the last edition of the the Dunciad. Since gentlemen, then, are so captious, we think it proper to declare that Mr. Thomas Thimble, who is here said to be Mr. Thomas Edwards's ancestor, is only related to him by the Muse's side.-Scribl. This tribe of men, which Scriblerus has bere mirably characterized in that happy line, so well exemplified, our poet hath elsewhere ad A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead. For the satire extends much farther than to the person who occasioned it, and takes in the whole species of those on whom a good education (to fit them for some useful and learned profession) has been bestowed in vain. That worthless band Of ever-listless loiterers, that attend Who, with an understanding too dissipated and No cause, no trust, no duty, and no friend; futile for the offices of civil life; and a heart too lumpish, narrow, and contracted for those of social, become fit for nothing・ and so turn wits and critics, where sense and civility are neither required nor expected. Ver. 571. Some, deep free-masons, join the silent race] The poet all along expresses a very particular concern for this silent race. He has here provided, that in case they will not waken or open (as was before proposed) to a hummningbird or a cockle, yet at worst they may be made free-masons; where taciturnity is the only essenial qualification, as it was the chief of the disciples of P-thagoras. Her children first of more distinguish'd sort, Who study Shakespare at the inns of court.] I would that scholiast discharge his duty, who shonld neglect to honour those whom Duluess has distinguished: or suffer them to lie forgotten, when their rare modesty would have left them nameless. Let us not, therefore, overlook the service which have been done her cause, by one Mr. Thomas Edwards, a gentleman, as he is pleased to call himself, of Lincoln's-inn; but, in free-masons. Ver. 576. A Gregorian, one a Gormogon,] A sort of lay-brothers, slips from the root of the All my commands are easy, short, and full: The judge to dance his brother sergeant call; REMARKS. 590 600 Ver. 584. each privilege your own, &c.] This speech of Dulness to her sons at parting may pos sibly fall short of the reader's expectation; who may imagine the goddess might give them a charge of more consequence, and, from such a theory as is before delivered, incite them to the practice of something more extraordinary, than to personate running footmen, jockeys, stagecoachmen, &c. Tyrant supreme! shall three estates command, And make one mighty Dunciad of the land !" More she had spoke, but yawn'd-All nature What mortal can resist the yawn of gods? [nods: Churches and chapels instantly it reach'd : (St. James's first, for leaden G― preach'd) Then catch'd the schools; the hall scarce kept awake; The convocation gap'd, but could not speak: 610 REMARKS. Ver. 606. What mortal can resist the yawn of gods?] This verse is truly Homerical; as is the conclusion of the action, where the great mother composes all, in the same manner as Minerva at the period of the Odyssey.-It may indeed seem a very singular epitasis of a poem, to end as this does, with a great yawn; but we must consider it as the yawn of a god, and of powerful effects. It is not out of nature, most long and grave counsels concluding in this very manner : nor without authority, the incomparable Spenser having ended one of the most considerable of his works with a roar; but then it is the roar of a lion, the effects whereof are described as the catastrophe of the poem. Ver. 607. Churches and chapels, &c.] The But if it be well considered, that whatever in-progress of this yawn is judicious, natural, and clination they might have to do mischief, her sons are generally rendered harmless by their inability; and that it is the common effect of Dulness (even in her greatest efforts) to defeat her own design; the poet, I am persuaded, will be justitied, and it will be allowed that these worthy persons, in their several ranks, do as much as can be expected from them. Ver. 585. The cap and switch, &c.] The goddess's political balance of favour, in the distribution of her rewards, deserves our notice. It consists of joining with those honours claimed by birth and high place, others more adapted to the genins and talents of the candidates. And thus her great forerunner, John of Leyden, king of Munster, entered on his government, by making his ancient friend and companion, Knipperdolling, general of his horse and hanginan. And had but fortune seconded his great schemes of Reformation, it is said, he would have established his whole household on the same reasonable footing. -Scribl. Ver. 590. Arachne's subtile line;] This is one of the most ingenious employments assigned, and therefore recommended only to peers of learning. Of weaving stockings of the webs of spiders, see the Phil. Trans. Ver. 591. The judge to dance his brother sergeant call;] Alluding perhaps that ancient and solemn dance, entitled, A cal' of sergeants. Ver. 598. Teach kings to fiddle,] An ancient amusement of sovereign princes, (viz.) Achilles, Alexander, Nero; though despised by Themistocles, who was a republican-Make senates dance, either after their prince, or to Pontoise, or Siberia. worthy to be noted. First it seizeth the churches and chapels; then catcheth the schools, where, though the boys be unwilling to sleep, the masters are not: Next Westminster-hall, much more hard indeed to subdue, and not totally put to silence even by the goddess: Then the convocation, which though extremely desirous to speak, yet cannot Even the house of commons, justly called the sense of the nation, is lost (that is to say suspended) during the yawn; (far be it from our author to suggest it could be lost any longer!) but it spreadeth at large over all the rest of the kingdom, to such a degree, that Palinurus himself (though as incapable of sleeping as Jupiter) yet noddeth for a moment; the effect of which, though ever so momentary, could not but cause some relaxation for the time, in all public affairs.-Scribl. Ver. 610. The convocation gap'd, but could not speak ;] Implying a great desire so to do, as the learned scholiast on the place rightly observes, Therefore beware, reader, lest thou take this gape for a yawn, which is attended with no desire but to go to rest, by no means the disposition of the convocation; whose melancholy case in short is this: she was, as is reported, infected with the general influence of the goddess; and while she was yawning carelessly at her case, a wanton courtier took her at advantage, and in the very nick clap'd a gag into her chops. Well therefore may we know her meaning by her gaping; and this distressful posture our poet here describes, just as she stands at this day, a sad example of the effects of Dulness and Malice unchecked, and despised.-Bentl. |