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BOOK THE SECOND.

ARGUMENT.

The king being proclaimed, the solemnity is graced with public games and sports of various kinds; not insti tuted by the hero, as by Æneas in Virgil, but, for greater honour, by the goddess in person, (in like manner as the games of Pythia, Isthmia, &c. were an. ciently said to be ordained by the gods, and as Thetis herself appearing, according to Ilomer, Odyss. xxiv. proposed the prizes in honour of her son Achilles.) Hither flock the poets and critics, attended, as is hu just, with their patrons and booksellers. The goddess is first pleased, for her disport, to propose games to the booksellers, and setteth up the phantom of a poet. which they contend to overtake. The races described. with their divers accidents. Next the game for a poetess. Then follow the exercises for the poets, of tickling, vociferating, diving. The first holds forth the arts and practices of dedicators, the second of disputants and fustian poets, the third of profound, dark, and dirty party-writers. Lastly, for the critics, the

REMARKS.

the first, that an author could never fail to use the best word on every occasion: the second, that a critic canno choose but know which that is. This being granted, whenever any word doth not fully content us, we take upon us to conclude, first, that the author could never have used it; and, secondly, that he must have used that very one, which we conjecture, in its stead.

We cannot, therefore, enough admire the learned Scriblerus, for his alteration of the text in the last two verses of the preceding book, which in all the former editions stood thus:

Hoarse thunder to its bottom shook the bog,

And the loud nation croak'd, 'God save king Log!' He has, with great judgment, transposed these two epi thets; putting hoarse to the nation, and loud to the thunder; and this being evidently the true reading, he vouchsafed not so much as to mention the former: for which assertion of the just right of a critic he merits the acknowledgment of all sound commentators.

goddess proposes, (with great propriety) an exercise, not of their parts, but their patience, in hearing the works of two voluminous authors, one in verse, and the other in prose, deliberately read, without sleeping, the various effects of which, with the several degrees and manners of their operation, are here set forth; till the whole number, not of critics only, but of spectators, actors, and all present, fall asleep; which natu rally and necessarily ends the games.

BOOK II.

HIGH on a gorgeous seat, that far out-shone
Henley's gilt tub, or Fleckno's Irish throne.
Or that where on her Curlls the publicars,
All bounteous, fragrant grains a golden showers,

REMARKS.

Ver. 2. Henley's gilt tub,] The pulpit of a dissenter is usually called a tub; but that of Mr. Orator Henley was covered with velvet, and adorned with gold. He had also a fair altar, and over it this extraordinary inscription: "The primitive eucharist. See the history of this person, book iii.

Ver. 2. or Fleckno's Irish throne,] Richard Fleckno was an Irish priest, but had laid aside (as himself expressed it) the mechanic part of priesthood. He printed some plays, poems, letters, and travels. I doubt not, our author took occasion to mention him in respect to the poem of Mr. Dryden, to which this bears some resemblance, though of a character more different from it than that of the Eneid from the Iliad, or the Lutrin of Boileau from the Defait de Bouts ri mées of Sarazin.

It may be just worth mentioning, that the eminence from whence the ancient sophists entertained their auditors, was called by the pompous name of a throne. Themistius, Orat. i.

Ver. 3. Or that whereon her Curlls the public pours.] Edmund Curll stood in the pillory at Charing-cross, in March 1727-8. This,' saith Edmund Curll, 'is a false assertionI had, indeed, the corporal punishment of what the gentlemen of the long robe are pleased jocosely to call mounting the rostrum for one hour: but that scene of action was not in the month of March, but in February.' (Curliad, 12mo. p. 19.) And of the history of his being tossed in a blanket, he saith, 'Here, Scriblerus! thou leesest in what thou assertest concerning the blanket: it was not a blanket but a rug,' p. 25. Much in the same manner Mr. Cibber remon

Great Cibber sat: the proud Parnassian sneer,
The conscious simper, and the jealous leer,
Mix on his look: all eyes direct their rays
On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze.
His peers shine round him with reflected grace,
New edge their dulness, and new bronze their face.
So from the sun's broad beam, in shallow urns,
Heaven's twinkling sparks draw light, and point their
horns.

Not with more glee, by hands pontific crown'd,
With scarlet hats wide waving circled round,
Rome in her Capitol saw Querno sit,

Throned on seven hills, the Antichrist of wit.

And now the queen, to glad her sons, proclaims By herald hawkers, high heroic games.

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They summon all her race: an endless band
Pours forth, and leaves unpeopled half the land. 20

REMARKS.

strated, that his brothers, at Bedlam, mentioned Book i. were not brazen, but blocks; yet our auther let it pass un altered, as a trifle that no way altered the relationship.

We should think, gentle reader, that we but ill performed our part, if we corrected not as well our own errors now, as formerly those of the printer; since what moved us to this work, was solely the love of truth, not in the least any vain glory, or desire to contend with great authors. And further, our mistakes, we conceive, will the rather be pardoned, as scarce possible to be avoided in writing of such persons and works as do ever shun the light. However, that we may not any how soften or extenuate the same, we give them thee in the very words of our antagonists; not defending, but retracting them from our heart, and craving excuse of the parties offended: for surely in this work, it hath been Scribl. above all things our desire to provoke no man.

Ver. 15. Rome in her Capitol saw Querno sit.] Camillo Querno was of Apulia, who hearing the great encouragement which Leo X. gave to poets, travelled to Rome with a harp in his hand, and sung to it twenty thousand verses of a poem called Alexias. He was introduced as a buffoon to Leo, and promoted to the honour of the laurel; a jest which the court of Rome and the pope himself entered into so far, as to cause him to ride on an elephant to the Capitol, and to hold a solemn festival on his coronation; at which it is recorded the poet himself was so transported as to weep fo

A motley mixture! in long wigs, in bags,
In silks, in crapes, in garters, and in rags,
From drawing-rooms, from colleges, from garrets,
On horse, on foot, in hacks, and gilded chariots:
All who true Dunces in her cause appear'd,
And all who knew those Dunces to reward.
Amid that area wide they took their stand,
Where the tall may-pole once o'erlook'd the Strand,
But now (so Anne and piety ordain)

A church collects the saints of Drury-lane.

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With authors, stationers obey'd the call: The field of glory is a field for all. Glory and pain the industrious tribe provoke; And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke. A poet's form she placed before their eyes, And bade the nimblest racer seize the prize; No meagre, muse-rid mope, adust and thin, In a dun night-gown of his own loose skin, But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise, Twelve starving bards of these degenerate days. 40 All as a partridge plump, full-fed and fair,

She form'd this image of well-bodied air;

With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head;

A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead:

And empty words she gave, and sounding strain,
But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!
Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit,
A fool, so just a copy of a wit;

REMARKS.

joy. He was ever after a constant frequenter of the pope's table, drank abundantly, and poured forth verses without number. Paulus Jovius, Elog. Vir. Doct. chap. lxxxiii Some idea of his poetry is given by Fam. Strada in his Prolusions.

Ver. 34. And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.] This species of mirth, called a joke, arising from a mal-entendu may be well supposed to be the delight of Dulness.

Ver. 47. Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit.] Our author here seems willing to give some account of the po *See Life of C. C chap. vi. p. 149.

So like, that critics said, and courtiers swore,
A wit it was, and call'd the phantom More.

REMARKS.

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sibility of Dulness making a wit (which could be done no other way than by chance.) The fiction is the more reconciled to probability by the known story of Apelles, who being at a loss to express the foam of Alexander's horse dashed his pencil in despair at the picture, and happened to do it by that fortunate stroke.

Ver. 50. And call'd the phantom More.] Curll, in his Key to the Dunciad, affirmed this to be James Moore Smith, Esq. and it is probable (considering what is said of him in the testimonies) that some might fancy our author obliged to represent this gentleman as a plagiary, or to pass for one himself. His case, indeed, was like that of a man I have heard of, who, as he was sitting in company, perceiv ed his next neighbour had stolen his handkerchief: 'Sir,' said the thief, finding himself detected, 'do not expose me, I did it for mere want; be so good but to take it privately out of my pocket again, and say nothing.' The honest man did so, but the other cried out, 'See, gentlemen, what a thief we have among us! look, he is stealing my handkerchief!'

Some time before, he had borrowed of Dr. Arbuthnot a paper called a Historico-physical account of the South Sea; and of Mr. Pope the memoirs of a Parish Clerk, which for two years he kept, and read to the Rev. Dr. Young, F. Biliers, Esq. and many others, as his own. Being applied to for them, he pretended they were lost; but there happening to be another copy of the latter, it came out in Swift's and Pope's Miscellanies. Upon this, it seems, he was so far mistaken as to confess his proceeding by an endeavour to hide it: unguardedly printing (in the Daily Journal of April 3, 1723,) That the contempt which he and others had for those pieces, (which only himself had shown, and handed about as his own,) occasioned their being lost, and for that cause only not returned.' A fact, of which as none but he could be conscious, none but he could be the publisher of it The plagiarisms of this person gave occasion to the follow ing epigram:

'Moore always smiles whenever he recites;

He smiles (you think) approving what he writes.
And yet in this no vanity is shown;

A modest man may like what's not his own.'

This young gentleman's whole misfortune was too inor. dinate a passion to be thought a wit. Here is a very strong instance attested by Mr. Savage, son of the late Earl Rivers; who having shown some verses of his in manuscript to Mr. Moore, wherein Mr. Pope was called first of the tuneful train, Mr. Moore the next morning sent to Mr. Savage to

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