Dulness, extended through her fubordinate inftruments, in all her various operations. This is branched into Epifodes, each of which hath its Moral apart, though all conducive to the main end. The Crowd affembled in the fecond book, demonstrates the design to be more extensive than to bad poets only, and that we may expect other Epifodes of the Patrons, Encouragers, or Paymasters of fuch authors, as occafion fhall bring them forth. And the third book, if wel! confidered, feemeth to embrace the whole world. Each of the Games relateth to fome or other vile clafs of writers: The firft concerneth the Plagiary, to whom he giveth the name of Moore; the fecond, the libellous Novelift, whom he styleth Eliza; the third, the Flattering Dedicator; the fourth, the bawling Critic, or noify Poet; the fifth, the dark and dirty Party-writer; and fo of the reft: affigning to each fome proper name or other, fuch as he could find. As for the Characters, the public hath already acknowledged how justly they are drawn: The manners are fo depicted, and the sentiment fo peculiar to those to whom applied, that furely to transfer them to any other or wifer perfonages, would be exceeding difficult : And certain it is, that every perfon concerned, being confulted apart, hath readily owned the resemblance of every portrait, his own excepted. So Mr. Cibber calls them," a parcel of poor wretches, fo many filly "flies but adds, our Author's Wit is remarkably : i Cibber's Letter to Mr. P. page 9. 12. 41. "more bare and barren, whenever it would fall foul "on Cibber, than upon any other Perfon whatever." The Defcriptions are fingular, the Comparisons very quaint, the Narration various, yet of one colour: The purity and chastity of Diction is fo preserved, that, in the places moft fufpicious, not the words but only the images have been cenfured, and yet are those images no other than have been fanctified by ancient and claffical Authority (though, as was the manner of those good times, not fo 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 fubjected to fuch severe indispensable rules as are laid on all Neoterics, a ftrict imitation of the Ancients; infomuch that any deviation, accompanied with whatever poetic beauties, hath always been cenfured by the found Critic. How exact that limitation hath been in this piece, appeareth not only by its general ftructure, but by particular illufions infinite, many whereof have escaped both the commentator and poet himfelf; yea divers by his exceeding diligence are fo altered and interwoven with the reft, that feveral have already been, and more will be, by the ignorant abufed, 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 : punctually at forty. For at that feafon it was that Virgil finished his Georgics; and Sir Richard Blackmore at the like age compofing his Arthurs, declared the fame to be the very Acme and pitch of life for Epic poefy Though fince he hath altered it to fixty, the year in which he publifhed his Alfred k. True it is, that the talents for Criticifm, namely fmartnefs, quick cenfure, vivacity of remark, certainty of affeveration, indeed all but acerbity, feem rather the gifts of Youth than of riper Age: But it is far otherwife in Poetry; witness the works of Mr. Rymer annd Mr. Dennis, who beginning with Criticifm, became afterwards fuch Poets as no age hath paralleled. With good reason therefore did our author chufe to write his Effay on that fubject at twenty, and referve for his maturer years this great and wonderful work of the Dunciad. RICARDUS ARISTARCHUS 0' OF THE HERO OF THE POEM. F 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, differtated. But when he cometh to speak of the Person of the Hero fitted for fuch Poem, in truth he miserably halts and hallucinates: for, mifled by one Monfieur Bossu, a Gallic critic, he prateth of I cannot tell what Phantom of a Hero, only raised up to support the Fable. A putid conceit! As if Homer and Virgil, like modern Undertakers, who firft build their house and then feek out for a tenant, had contrived the ftory of a War and a Wandering, before they once thought either of Achilles or Æneas. We fhall therefore fet our good brother and the world alfo right in this particular, by affuring them, that, in the greater Epic, the prime intention of the Mufe is to exalt Heroic Virtue, in order to propagate the love of it among the children of men ; and confequently that the Poet's first thought must needs be turned upon a real fubject meet for laud and celebration; not one whom he is to make, but one whom he may find, truly illuftrious. This is the primum mobile of of his poetic world, whence every thing is to receive life and motion. For, this fubject being found, he is immediately ordained, or rather acknowledged, an Hero, and put upon such action as befitteth the dignity of his character. But the Mufe ceaseth not here her Eagle-flight. For fometimes, fatiated with the contemplation of these Suns of glory, fhe turneth downward on her wing, and darts with Jove's lightning on the Goose and Serpent kind. For we may apply to the Muse in her various moods, what an ancient mafter of Wisdom affirmeth of the Gods in general: "Si Dii non irafcuntur impiis et "injuftis, nec pios utique juftosque diligunt. In rebus "enim diverfis, aut in utramque partem moveri necesse "eft, aut in neutram. Itaque qui bonos diligit, et malos "odit; et qui malos non odit, nec bonos diligit. Quia ❝et diligere bonos ex odio malorum venit; et malos "odiffe ex bonorum caritate defcendit." Which in our vernacular idiom may be thus interpreted: "If the "Gods be not provoked at evil men, neither are they. "delighted with the good and juft. For contrary ob"jects must either excite contrary affections, or no af"fections at all. So that he who loveth good men, must "at the fame time hate the bad; and he who hateth not "bad men, cannot love the good; because to love good "men proceedeth from an averfion to evil, and to hate " evil men from a tenderness to the good." From this delicacy of the Muse arose the little Epic, (more lively and choleric than her elder fifter, whose bulk and complexion incline her to the phlegmatick :) And for this, fome |