Dulness o'er all poffefs'd her ancient right,
Daughter of Chaos and eternal Night,
Fate in their dotage this fair Ideot gave,
Grofs as her fire, and as her mother grave,
Laborious, heavy, bufy, bold, and blind,
She rul'd, in native Anarchy, the mind.

REMARK S.

15

Court and Town. This happened in the reigns of K. George I, and II. See Book iii.

VER. 4. By Dulness, Jove, and Fate:] i. e. By their Judgments, their Interefts, and their Inclinations.

VER. 7. Say bow the Goddess, &c.] The Poet ventureth to fing the Action of the Goddess: but the Paffion the impresseth on her illustrious Votaries, he thinketh can be only told by themfelves. SCRIBL.

VER. 12. Daughter of Chaos &c.] The beauty of the whole Allegory being purely of the poetical kind, we think it not our proper bufinefs, as a Scholiaft, to meddle with it: But leave it (as we fhall in general all fuch) to the reader; remarking only that Chaos according to Hefiod's Oɛoyovía) was the Progenitor of all the Gods. SCRIBLER US.

VER. 15. Laborious, beavy, busy, bold, &c.] I wonder the learned Scriblerus has omitted to advertise the Reader, at the opening of this Poem, that Dulness here is not to be taken contractedly for mere Stupidity, but in the enlarged sense of the word, for all Slownefs of Apprehenfion, Shortness of Sight, or imperfect Senfe of things. It includes (as we fee by the Poet's own words) Labour, Industry, and fome degrees of Activity and Boldness: a ruling principle not inert, but turning topsy-turvy the Understanding, and inducing an Anarchy or confused State of Mind. This remark ought to be carried along with the reader throughout the work; and without this caution he will be apt to mistake the importance of many of the Characters, as well as of the Defign of the Poet. Hence it is, that some have complained he chufes too mean a subject, and imagined he em

Still her old Empire to restore she tries, For, born a Goddess, Dulness never dies.

O Thou! whatever title please thine ear, Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver! Whether thou chuse Cervantes' serious air, Or laugh and shake in Rab'lais' eafy chair,

VARIATION S.

After VER. 22. in the MS.

Or in the graver Gown instruct mankind,
Or filent let thy morals tell thy mind.

૨૦

But this was to be understood, as the Poet fays, ironicè, like the 23d Verse.

REMARK S.

ploys himself, like Domitian, in killing flies; whereas those who have the true key will find he sports with nobler quarry, and embraces a larger compafs; or, (as one faith, cn a like occafion)

Will fee his Work, like Jacob's ladder, rife,

Its foot in dirt, its head amid the skies.

BENT. VER. 16. She rul'd, in native Anarchy, the mind.] The native Anarchy of the mind is that ftate which precedes the time of Reafon's affuming the rule of the Paffions. But in that state,

the uncontrolled violence of the Passions would foon bring things to confufion, were it not for the intervention of DULNESS in this absence of Reason; who, though she cannot regulate them like Reason, yet blunts and deadens their Vigour, and, indeed produces fome of the good effects of it: Hence it is that Dulness has often the appearance of Reason. This is the only good fhe ever did; and the candid Poet is careful to tell it in the very introduction of his Poem. It is to be observed indeed, that this is spoken of the univerfal rule of Dulness in ancient days, but we may form an idea of it from her partial Government in latter times,

VER. 17. Still her old Empire to restore] This Restoration makes the Completion of the Poem. Vide Book iv.

Or praise the Court, or magnify mankind,

Or thy griev'd Country's copper chains unbind;
From thy Becotia tho' her Pow'r retires,

25

Mourn not, my SWIFT, at ought our Realm acquires. Here pleas'd behold her mighty wings out-fpread To hatch a new Saturnian age of Lead.

Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne, And laughs to think Monroe would take her down,

VARIATIONS,

VER. 29. Clofe to thofe walls &c.] In the former Edit. thus, Where wave the tatter'd enfigns of Rag-fair,

A yawning ruin hangs and nods in air;

Keen hollow winds howl thro' the bleak recefs,
Emblem of Mufic caus'd by Emptiness;

Here in one bed two shiv'ring Sifters lie,
The Cave of Poverty and Poetry.

Var. Where wave the tattering enfigns of Rag-fair,] Rag-fair is a place near the Tower of London, where old cloaths and frippery are fold.

Var. A yawning ruin hangs and nods in air ;

Here in one Bed tavo fhiv'ring Sisters lie,

The Cave of Poverty and Poetry.]

Hear upon this place the forecited Critic on the Dunciad. "Thefe lines (faith he) have no construction, or are nonsense, "The two fhivering Sifters must be the fifter-caves of Poverty ❝ and Poetry, or the bed and cave of Poverty and Poetry must "be the fame, {questionless, if they lie in one bed] and the two "Sifters the Lord knows who." O the conftruction of grammatical heads! Virgil writeth thus: Æn. i.

Fronte fub adverfa fcopulis pendentibus antrum:

Intus aquæ dulces, vivoque fedilia faxo;
Nympharum domus.

May we nct fay in like manner. "The Nymphs must be the "waters and the ftones, or the waters and the ftones must be

Where, o'er the gates, by his fam'd father', hand, 31 Great Cibber's brazen brainless brothers ftand;

VARIATIONS.

the houfes of the Nymphs?" Infulfe! The fecond line Intus aquæ, c, is a parenthefis (as are two lines of our Author. Keen bollow winds, &c.) and it is the Antrum, and the yawning Ruin, in the line before that parenthesis, which are the Domus and the Cave.

Let me again, I befeech thee, Reader, prefent thee with an other Conjectural Emendation on' Virgil's feapulis pendentibus: He is here defcribing a place, whither the weary Mariners of Æneas repaired to dress their dinner.-Feffi-frugefque receptas & torrere parant flammis; What has fcopulis pendantibus here to do? Indeed the aquae dulces and fedilia are something; fweet water's to drink, and feats to rest on the other is furely an error of the Copyifts, Rektore it without the least scruple, Populis prandentibus.

But for this and a thousand more, expect our Virgil restored, SCRIBLERUS.

REMARKS,

VIR. 20.- Drapier, Bickerftaff, or Gulliver!] The several names and characters he affumed in his ludicrous, his spleenetic, or his Party-writings; which take in all his works.

VER. 22. —laugh and shake in Rab`lais' eafy chair,] The imagery is exquifite; and the equivoque in the last words, gives a peculiar elegance to the whole expreffion. The eafy chair fuits his age: Rab'lais' eafy chair marks his character: and he fills and poffeffes it as the heir and successor of that original genius.

VER. 23. Or praise the Court, or magnify Mankind,] Ironice, alluding to Gulliver's representations of both.-The next line relates to the papers of the Drapier against the currency of Wood's Copper coin in Ireland, which, upon the great difcontent of the people, his Majefty was graciously pleafed to recal.

VER. 26. Mourn not, my Swift! at ought our realm acquires.] Ironice iterum. The Politics of England and Ireland were at this

One Cell there is, conceal'd from vulgar eye,

The Cave of Poverty and Poetry.

REMARKS.

time by fome thought to be oppofite, or interfering with each other: Dr. Swift of course was in the interest of the latter, our Author of the former.

VER. 28. To batch a new Saturnian age of Lead.] The ancient Golden Age is by Poets ftyled Saturnian, as being under the reign of Saturn but in the Chemical language Saturn is Lead. She is here said only to be spreading her wings to hatch this Age; which is not produced completely till the fourth book.

VER. 31. By his fam'd father's band,] Mr. Caius-Gabriel Cibber, father of the Poet-Laureate. The two Statues of the Lunatics over the gates of Bedlam hospital were done by him, and (as the fon justly says of them) are no ill monuments of his fame as an Artist.

VIR. 33. One cell there is.] The cell of poor Poetry is here very properly represented as a little unindowed Hall in the neigh bourhood of the Magnific College of Bedlam; and as the fureft Seminary to fupply those learned Walls with profeffors. For there cannot be a plainer Symptom of Madness than for Men to chufe Poverty and Contempt; to starve themselves and offend the public by fcribling.

Escape in Monsters, and amaze the Town.

when they might have benefited themselves and others in profitable and honeft employments. The Qualities and Productions of the students of this private Academy are afterwards deferibed in this first book; as are alfo their Actions throughout the fecond; by which it appears, how near allied Dulness is to Madness. This naturally prepares us for the fubject of the third book, where we find them in union, and acting in conjunction to produce the Catastrophe of the fourth; a mad poetical Sibyl leading our Hero through the Regions of Vifion, to animate him in the prefent undertaking by a view of the paft triumphs of Barbarifm over Science...