THE DUNCIAD, IN FOUR BOOKS; With the Prolegomena of Scriblerus, the Hypercritics of Aristarchus, and Notes Variorum. A LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER, Occasioned by the first correct Edition of the Dunciad. Jany inclination in my friend to be serious with such accusers, or if they had only meddled with his writings; since whoever publishes, puts himself on his trial by his country :-but when his moral character was attacked, and in a manner from which neither truth nor virtue can secure the most innocent; in a manner, which, though it annihilates the credit of the accusation with the just and impartial, yet ag gravates very much the guilt of the accusers: I mean by authors without names: then I thought, since the danger was common to all, the concern ought to be so; and that it was an act of justice to detect the auIt is with pleasure I hear that you have procured a thors, not only on this account, but as many of them correct copy of the Dunciad, which the many sur-are the same who for several years past have made reptitious ones have rendered so necessary; and it is free with the greatest names in church and state, exyet with more, that I am informed it will be attended posed to the world the private misfortunes of fami. with a Commentary: a work so requisite, that I can- lies, abused all, even to women, and whose prostitu not think the author himself could have omitted it, ted papers (for one or other party, in the unhappy Lad he approved of the first appearance of this poem. division of their country) have insulted the fallen, Such notes as have occurred to me I herewith send the friendless, the exiled, and the dead. you: you will oblige me by inserting them amongst Besides this, which I take to be a public concern, I those which are, or will be, transmitted to you by have already confessed I had a private one. I am others; since not only the author's friends, but even one of that number who have long loved and esstrangers, appear engaged by humanity, to take some teemed Mr. Pope; and had often declared it was care of an orphan of so much genius and spirit, which not his capacity or writings (which we ever thought its parent seems to have abandoned from the very the least valuable part of his character,) but the honbeginning, and suffered to step into the world naked, est, open, and beneficent man, that we most esteemunguarded, and unattended. ed and loved in him. Now, if what these people It was upon reading some of the abusive papers say were believed, I must appear to all my friends lately published, that my great regard to a person, either a fool or a knave; either imposed on myself, whose friendship I esteem as one of the chief honours or imposing on them: so that I am as much interested of my life, and a much greater respect to truth than to him or any man living, engaged me in inquiries, of which the inclosed notes are the fruit. in the confutation of these calumnies as he is himself. I am no author, and consequently not to be suspected either of jealousy or resentment against any I perceive that most of these authors had been of the men, of whom scarce one is known to me by (doubtless very wisely) the first aggressors. They sight; and as for their writings, I have sought them had tried, till they were weary, what was to be got (on this one occasion) in vain, in the closets and libraby railing at each other: nobody was either con-ries of all my acquaintance. I had still been in the cerned or surprised, if this or that scribbler was dark, if a gentleman had not procured me (I suppose proved a dunce. But every one was curious to read what could be said to prove Mr. Pope one, and was ready to pay something for such a discovery: a stratagem which, would they fairly own it, might not only reconcile them to me, but screen them from the resentment of their lawful superiors, whom they daily abuse, only (as I charitably hope) to get that by them, which they cannot get from them. vive them. from some of themselves, for they are generally much more dangerous friends than enemies) the passages I send you. I solemnly protest I have added nothing to the malice or absurdity of them; which it behoves me to declare, since the vouchers themselves will be so soon and irrecoverably lost. You may in some measure prevent it, by preserving at least their titles, and discovering (as far as you can depend on the truth of your information) the names of the concealed authors. I found this was not all: il success in that had transported them to personal abuse, either of himself, or (what I think he could less forgive) of his friends. The first objection I have heard made to the They had called men of virtue and honour bad men, poem is, that the persons are too obscure for satire. long before he had either leisure or inclination to call The persons themselves, rather than allow the objec them bad writers; and some had been such old of- tion, would forgive the satire; and if one could be fenders, that he had quite forgotten their persons as tempted to afford it a serious answer, were not all aswell as their slanders, till they were pleased to re-sassinates, popular insurrections, the insolence of the rabble without doors, and of domestics within, most Now what had Mr. Pope done before, to incense wrongfully chastised, if the meanness of offenders inthem? He had published those works which are in demnified them from punishment? On the contrary, the hands of every body, in which not the least men-obscurity renders them more dangerous, as less tion is made of any of them. And what has he done thought of: law can pronounce judgment only on since? He has laughed, and written the Dunciad. open facts: morality alone can pass censure on inWhat has that said of them? A very serious truth, tentions of mischief; so that for secret calumny, or which the public had said before, that they were dull the arrow flying in the dark, there is no public punish and what it had no sooner said, but they themselves ment left, but what a good writer inflicts. were at great pains to procure, or even purchase, The next objection is, that these sort of authors room in the prints, to testify under their hands the are poor. That might be pleaded as an excuse at the truth of it. Old Bailey, for lesser crimes than defamation, (for it I should still have been silent, if either I had seen is the case of almost all who are tried there,) but sure it can be none here; for who will pretend that claim this as a justice, it lies not on him, but entirely the robbing another of his reputation, supplies the on the public, to defend its own judgment. want of it in himself? I question not but such authors There remains what, in my opinion, might seem a are poor, and heartily wish the objection were removed by any honest livelihood. But poverty is here the accident, not the subject: he who describes malice and villany to be pale and meagre, expresses not the least anger against paleness or leanness, but against malice and villany. The Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet is poor; but is he therefore justified in vending poison? Not but poverty itself becomes a just subject of satire, when it is the consequence of vice, prodigality, or neglect of one's lawful callings; for then it increases the public burthen, fills the streets and highways with robbers, and the garrets with clippers, coiners, and weekly journalists. But admitting that two or three of these offend less in their morals than in their writings: must poverty make nonsense sacred? If so, the fame of bad authors would be much better consulted than that of all the good ones in the world; and not one of a hundred had ever been called by his right name. They mistake the whole matter: it is not charity to encourage them in the way they follow, but to get them out of it; for men are not bunglers because they are poor, but they are poor because they are bunglers. Is it not pleasant enough to hear our authors crying out on the one hand, as if their persons and characters were too sacred for satire; and the public objecting on the other, that they are too mean even for ridicule? But whether bread or fame be their end, it must be allowed, our author, by and in this poem, has mercifully given them a little of both. There are two or three, who by their rank and fortune have no benefit from the former objections, supposing them good; and these I was sorry to see in such company. But if, without any provocation, two or three gentlemen will fall upon one, in an affair wherein his interest and reputation are equally embarked; they cannot certainly, after they have been content to print themselves his enemies, complain of being put into the number of them. better plea for these people, than any they have made use of. If obscurity or poverty were to exempt a man from satire, much more should folly or dulness, which are still more involuntary; nay, as much so as personal deformity. But even this will not help them: deformity becomes an object of ridicule when a man sets up for being handsome; and so must dulness, when he sets up for a wit. They are not ridi. culed, because ridicule in itself is, or ought to be, a pleasure; but because it is just to undeceive and vindicate the honest and unpretending part of mankind from imposition, because particular interest ought to yield to general, and a great number who are not naturally fools, ought never to be made so, in complaisance to a few who are. Accordingly we find, that, in all ages, all vain pretenders, were they ever so poor, or ever so dull, have been constantly the topics of the most candid satirists, from the Codrus of Juvenal to the Damon of Boileau. Having mentioned Boileau, the greatest poet and most judicious critic of his age and country, admirable for his talents, and yet perhaps more admirable for his judgment in the proper application of them, I cannot help remarking the resemblance betwixt him and our author, in qualities, fame, and fortune: in the distinction shown them by their superiors, in the general esteem of their equals, and in their extended reputation amongst foreigners; in the latter of which ours has met with a better fate, as he has had for his translators persons of the most eminent rank and abilities in their respective nations. But the resemblance holds in nothing more, than in their being equally abused by the ignorant pretenders to poetry of their times, of which not the least memory will remain but in their own writings, and in the notes made upon them. What Boileau has done in almost all his poems, our author has only in this: I dare answer for him he will do it no more; and on this principle, of attacking few but who had slandered him, he could not have done it at all, had he been confined from censuring obscure and worthless persons, for scarce any other were his enemies. However, as the parity is so remarkable, I hope it will continue to the last; and if ever he should give us an edition of this Others, I am told, pretend to have been once his friends. Surely, they are their enemies who say so; since nothing can be more odious than to treat a friend as they have done. But of this I cannot persuade myself, when I consider the constant and eter-poem himself, I may see some of them treated as nal aversion of all bad writers to a good one. gently, on their repentance or better merit, as Perrault and Quinault were at last by Boileau. Such as claim merit from being his admirers, I would gladly ask if it lays him under a personal obli- In one point I must be allowed to think the characgation? At that rate he would be the most obliged ter of our English poet the more amiable. He has humble servant in the world. I dare swear for these not been a follower of fortune or success; he has in particular, he never desired them to be his ad-lived with the great without flattery; been a friend to mirers, nor promised in return to be theirs: that had men in power without pensions, from whom, as he truly been a sign he was of their acquaintance: but asked, so he received, no favour, but what was done would not the malicious world have suspected such an approbation of some motive worse than ignorance in the author of the Essay on Criticism? Be it as it will, the reasons of their admiration and of his contempt are equally subsisting; for his works and theirs are the very same that they were. 1 Essay on Criticism, in French verse, by General Hamilton; the same, in verse also, by Monsieur Robo ton, counsellor and privy secretary to King George I. after by the abbe Reynel, in verse, with notes. Rape of the Lock, in French, by the princess of Conti, Paris, One, therefore, of their assertions I believe may be 1728; and in Italian verse by the abbe Conti, a noble Venetian; and by the marquis Rangoni, envoy extratrue, 'That he has a contempt for their writings.'ordiary from Modena to King George II. Others of his And there is another which would probably be sooner | works by Salvini of Florence, &c. His Essay and Dis. allowed by himself than by any good judge beside, sertations on Homer, several times translated inte That his own have found too much success with the by Monsieur Sithoute, in prose, 1737, and since by others French. Essay on Man, by the abbe Reynel, in verse ¦ public.' But as it cannot consist with his modesty to lin French, Italian and Latin. him in his friends. As his satires were the more just for being delayed, so were his panegyrics; bestow Character of Mr. P. 1716. The persons whom Boileau has attacked in his ed only on such persons as he had familiarly known, writings have been for the most part authors, and most of those authors, poets: and the censures he hath passed upon them have been confirmed by all Europe. Gildon, Preface to his New Rehearsal. only for such virtues as he had long observed in them, and only at such times as others cease to praise, if not begin to calumniate them; I mean when out of power or out of fashion. A satire, therefore, on writers so notorious for the contrary practice, became It is the common cry of the poetasters of the town, no man so well as himself; as none, it is plain, was and their fautors, that it is an ill-natured thing to exso little in their friendships, or so much in that of pose the pretenders to wit and poetry. The judges those whom they had most abused, namely, the great- and magistrates may with full as good reason be re est and best of all parties. Let me add a further rea-proached with ill-nature for putting the laws in exeson, that, though engaged in their friendships, he cution against a thief or impostor.-The same will never espoused their animosities; and can almost hold in the republic of letters, if the critics and judges singly challenge this honour, not to have written a will let every ignorant pretender to scribbling pass on line of any man, which, through guilt, through shame, the world. or through fear, through variety of fortune, or change of interests, he was ever unwilling to own. I shall conclude with remarking, what a pleasure one. Theobald, Letter to Mist, June 22, 1728. Attacks may be levelled, either against failures in it must be to every reader of humanity, to see all genius, or against the pretensions of writing without along, that our author, in his very laughter, is not indulging his own ill-nature, but only punishing that of others. As to his poem, those alone are capable of doing it justice, who, to use the words of a great writer, know how hard it is (with regard both to his subject and his manner) vetustis dare novitatem, obsoletis nitorem, obscuris lucem fastiditis gratiam. I am your most humble servant, WILLIAM CLELAND.2 St. James's, Dec. 22d, 1728. Concanen, Dedication to the Author of the Dunciad. A satire upon dulness is a thing that has been used and allowed in all ages. Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, wicked scribbler! MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS. HIS PROLEGOMENA AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE DUNCIAD: With the Hypercritics of Aristarchus. TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS, Concerning our Poet and his Works. M. Scriblerus Lectori S. BEFORE we present thee with our exercitations on this most delectable poem (drawn from the many volumes of our adversaria on modern authors) we shall here, according to the laudable usage of editors, collect the various judgments of the learned concernDennis's Remarks on Prince Arthur. ing our poet; various indeed, not only of different I CANNOT but think it the most reasonable thing in authors, but of the same author at different seasons. the world, to distinguish good writers, by discouraging Nor shall we gather only the testimonies of such emithe bad. Nor is it an ill-natured thing, in relation nent wits as would of course descend to posterity, even to the very persons upon whom the reflections and consequently be read without our collection; but are made. It is true, it may deprive them a little the we shall likewise, with incredible labour, seek out sooner of a short profit and a transitory reputation; for divers others, which, but for this our diligence, but then it may have a good effect, and oblige them could never at the distance of a few months appear (before it be too late) to decline that for which they to the eye of the most curious. Hereby thou mayest are so very unfit, and to have recourse to something not only receive the delectation of variety, but also in which they may be more successful. arrive at a more certain judgment by a grave and circumspect comparison of the witnesses with each 1 As Mr. Wycherley, at the time the town declaimed other, or of each with himself. Hence also thou wilt against his book of poems; Mr. Walsh, after his death; be enabled to draw reflections, not only of a critical, sir William Trumball, when he had resigned the office but a moral nature, by being let into many particulars of secretary of state; lord Bolingbroke, at his leaving England, after the queen's death; lord Oxford, in his last of the person as well as genius, and of fortune as well decline of life; Mr. Secretary Craggs, at the end of the as merit of our author: in which, if I relate some South-sea year, and after his death: others only in epi- things of little concern peradventure to thee, and some taphs. This gentleman was of Scotland, and bred at the uni- of as little even to him, I entreat thee to consider versity of Utrecht, with the earl of Mar. He served in how minutely all true critics and commentators are Spain under earl Rivers. After the peace, he was made one of the commissioners of the customs in Scotland, wont to insist upon such, and how material they seem and then of taxes in England; in which, having shown to themselves, if to none other. Forgive me, gentle himself for twenty years diligent, punctual, and incor- reader, if (following learned example) I ever and anon raptible (though without any other assistance of for tune,) he was suddenly displaced by the minister, in the become tedious: allow me to take the same pains to sitty-eighth year of his age, and died two months after, find whether my author were good or bad, well or illin 1741. He was a person of universal learning, and an natured, modest or arrogant; as another, whether his enlarged conversation; no man had a warmer heart for his friend, or a sincerer attachment to the constitu author was fair or brown, short or tall, or whether he tion of his country. wore a coat or a cassock. We proposed to begin with his life, parentage, and Mr. Oldmiron. education: but as to these, even his contemporaries I dare not say any thing on the Essay on Criticism do exceedingly differ. One saith,' he was educated in verse; but if any more curious reader has discoverat home; another, that he was bred at St. Omer's by ed in it something new which is not in Dryden's preJesuits; a third, not at St. Omer's, but at Oxford! a faces, dedications, and his essay on dramatic poetry, fourth, that he had no university education at all. not to mention the French critics, I should be very Those who allow him to be bred at home, differ as glad to have the benefit of the discovery." much concerning his tutor. One saith, he was kept He is followed (as in fame, so in judgment) by the by his father on purpose; a second, that he was an modest and simple-minded itinerant priest; a third, that he was a parson; ones calleth him a secular clergyman of the church of Rome; another, a monk. As little do they agree who, out of great respect to our poet, not naming about his father, whom one supposeth, like the father of Hesiod, a tradesman or merchant; another," a husbandman; another,12 a hatter, &c. Nor has an author been wanting to give our poet such a father as Apuleius hath to Plato, Jamblichus to Pythagoras, and divers to Homer, viz. a demon: for thus Mr. Gildon:-13 Mr. Leonard Welsted; him, doth yet glance at his Essay, together with the and of Horace, which he more openly taxeth:2 As duke of Buckingham's, and the criticisms of Dryden to the numerous treatises, essays, arts, &c., both in verse and prose, that have been written by the moderns on this ground-work, they do but hackney the Certain it is, that his original is not from Adam, same thoughts over again, making them still more trite. Most of their pieces are nothing but a pert, inbut the devil; and that he wanteth nothing but horns]] and tail to be the exact resemblance of his infernal sipid heap of common-place. Horace has, even in father.' Finding, therefore, such contrariety of opinhis Art of Poetry, thrown out several things which ions, and (whatever be ours of this sort of generation) plainly show, he thought an art of poetry was of no not being fond to enter into controversy, we shall use, even while he was writing one.' To all which great authorities, we can only oppose defer writing the life of our poet, till authors can dethat of termine among themselves what parents or education ne had, or whether he had any education or parents at all. Proceed we to what is more certain, his Works, though not less uncertain the judgments concerning them; beginning with his Essay on Criticism, of which hear first the most ancient of critics, Mr. John Dennis. Mr. Addison. "The Essay on Criticism,' saith he, which was published some months since, is a master-piece in its kind. The observations follow one another like those in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose writer. They are some of them uncommon, but such as the reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that ease and perspicuity in which they His precepts are false or trivial, or both; his thoughts are crude and abortive, his expressions abare delivered. As for those which are the most surd, his numbers harsh and unmusical, his rhymes known and the most received, they are placed in so trivial and common;-instead of majesty, we have beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusomething that is very mean; instead of gravity, sions, that they have in them all the graces of novel. something that is very boyish; and instead of perspicuity and lucid order, we have but too often obscurity with them, still more convinced of their truth and ty; and make the reader, who was before acquainted and confusion.' And in another place- What rare numbers are here! Would not one swear that this solidity. And here give me leave to mention what Monsieur Boileau has so well enlarged upon in the youngster had espoused some antiquated muse, who had sued out a divorce from some superannuated sin- preface to his works: that wit and fine writing doth ner, upon account of impotence, and who, being not consist so much in advancing things that are new poxed by the former spouse, has got the gout in her as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn. decrepid age, which makes her hobble so dam- It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of nably.4 No less peremptory is the censure of our hypercritical historian the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others; we have little else left us, but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights. If a reader examines Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find but few precepts in it which he may not meet 4 Guardian, No. 40. with in Aristotle, and which were not commonly 6 Dunciad Dissected, p. 4. & Dunciad Dissected. known by all the poets of the Augustan age. His way of expressing, and applying them, not his inven tion of them, is what we are chiefly to admire. 'Longinus, in his Reflections, has given us the same 1 Giles Jacob's Lives of the Poets, vol. ii. in his Life. 5 Jacob's Lives, &c. vol. ii. 7 Farmer P. and his son. 9 Characters of the Times, p. 45 10 Female Dunciad, p. ult. 11 Dunciad Dissected. 12 Roome, Paraphrase on the 4th of Genesis, printed 1729. 13 Character of Mr. P. and his Writings, in a Letter kind of sublime, which he observes in the several to a Friend, printed for S. Popping, 1716, p. 10. Curll, in his Key to the Danciad, (first edition, said to be passages that occasioned them: I cannot but take printe! for A. Dodd, in the 10th page, declared Gildon notice that our English author has, after the same to be the author of that libel; though in the subsequent manner, exemplified several of the precepts in the editions of his Key he left out this assertion, and affirm elin the Curliad, p. 4 and 8) that it was written by. Dennis only. 1 Essay on Criticism in prose, octavo, 1728, by the 14 Reflections critical and satirical on a rhapsody, call-author of the Critical History of England. ed, an Essay on Crit.cisin, printed for Bernard Lintot, svo. 2 Preface to his Poems, p. 18, 53 very precepts themselves." He then produces some should most admire the justness to the original, or instances of a particular beauty in the numbers, and the force and beauty of the language, or the sounding concludes with saying, that there are three poems in variety of the numbers: but when I find all these our tongue of the same nature, and each a master- meet, it puts me in mind of what the poet says of piece in its kind! the Essay on Translated Verse; the one of his heroes, "That he alone raised and flung Essay on the Art of Poetry; and the Essay on Criti-with ease a weighty stone, that two common men cism.' could not lift from the ground; just so, one single Of Windsor Forest, positive is the judgment of the person has performed in this translation, what I once affirmative. despaired to have seen done by the force of several masterly hands.' Indeed the same gentleman appears Mr. John Dennis, That it is a wretched rhapsody, impudently writ in to have changed his sentiment in his Essay on the Art emulation of the Cooper's Hill of sir John Denham: the author of it is obscure, is ambiguous, is affected, is temerarious, is barbarous !2 But the author of the Dispensary,3 Dr. Garth, in the preface to his poem of Claremont, differs from this opinion: Those who have seen these two excellent poems of Cooper's Hill, and Windsor Forest, the one written by sir John Denham, the other by Mr. Pope, will show a great deal of candour if they approve of this.' of Sinking in Reputation, (printed in Mist's Journal, March 30, 1728,) where he says thus: 'In order te sink in reputation, let him take it into his head to descend into Homer (let the world wonder, as it will, how the devil he got there,) and pretend to do him into English, so his version denote his neglect of the manner how.' Strange variation! We are told in Mist's Journal, (June 8,) That this translation of the Iliad was not in all respects conformable to the fine taste of his friend Mr. Addison; insomuch that he employed a younger muse Of the Epistle of Eloïsa, we are told by the obscure in an undertaking of this kind, which he supervised writer of a poem called Sawney, That because himself.' Whether Mr. Addison did find it conformPrior's Henry and Emma charmed the finest tastes, able to his taste, or not, best appears from his own our author writ his Eloïsa in opposition to it; but for- testimony the year following its publication, in these got innocence and virtue. If you take away her ten-words: der thoughts, and her fierce desires, all the rest is of no value. In which, methinks, his judgment resembleth that of a French tailor on a villa and garden by the Thames: All this is very fine; but take away the river, and it is good for nothing.' But very contrary hereunto was the opinion of Mr. Prior, himself, saying in his Alma.4 'O Abelard! ill-fated youth, Its colours; gently has he laid The mantle o'er thy sad distress, And Venus shall the texture bless,' &c. Mr. Addison's Freeholder, No. 40. "When I consider myself a British freeholder, I am in a particular manner pleased with the labours of those who have improved our language with the translations of old Greek and Latin authors.We have already most of their historians in our own tongue, and, what is more for the honour of our language, it has been taught to express with elegance the greatest of their poets in each nation. The illiterate among our own countrymen may learn to judge from Dryden's Virgil, of the most perfect epic performance. And those parts of Homer which have been published already by Mr. Pope, gives us reason to think that the Iliad will appear in English with as little disadvantage to that immortal poem.' As to the rest, there is a slight mistake; for this younger muse was an elder; nor was the gentleman (who is a friend of our author) employed by Mr. Addison to translate it after him, since he saith himself Come we now to his translation of the Iliad, cele- that he did it before. Contrariwise, that Mr. Adbrated by numerous pens; yet shall it suffice to men-dison engaged our author in this work appeareth by ton the indefatigable Sir Richard Blackmore, Knt. declaration thereof in the preface to the Iliad, printed some time before his death, and by his own letters of October 26, and November 2, 1713, where he declares who though otherwise a severe censurer of our au- it is his opinion that no other person was equal to it. thor) yet styleth this a 'laudable translation.' That| ready writer Mr. Oldmixon, Next comes his Shakspeare on the stage: 'Let him (quoth one, whom I take to be Mr. Theobald, Mist's Journal, June 8, 1728,) in his forementioned Essay, frequently commends the publish such an author as he has least studied, and same. And the painful forget to discharge even the dull duty of an editor. In this project let h m lend the bookseller his name (for a competent sum of money) to promote the credit of an exorbitant subscription.' Gentle reader, be pleased to cast thine eye on the proposal below quoted, and on what follows (some months after the former assertion) in the same Journalist of June 8: "The book 1 Vid. Pref. to Mr. Tickell's translation of the first book of the Iliad, 4to. |