Of 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, dissertated. But when he
cometh to speak of the person of the hero fitted for such poem, in truth
he miserably halts and hallucinates. For, misled by one Monsieur Bossu,
a Gallic critic, he prateth of I cannot tell what phantom of a hero,
only raised up to support the fable. A putrid conceit! As if Homer and
Virgil, like modern undertakers, who first build their house, and then
seek out for a tenant, had contrived the story of a war and a wandering,
before they once thought either of Achilles or Æneas. We shall therefore
set our good brother and the world also right in this particular, by
assuring them, that, in the greater epic, the prime intention of the
Muse is to exalt heroic virtue, in order to propagate the love of it
among the children of men; and, consequently, that the poet's first
thought must needs be turned upon a real subject meet for laud and
celebration; not one whom he is to make, but one whom he may find, truly
illustrious. This is the primum mobile of his poetic world, whence
everything is to receive life and motion. For this subject being found,
he is immediately ordained, or rather acknowledged, a hero, and put upon
such action as befitteth the dignity of his character.
But the Muse ceaseth not here her eagle-flight. For sometimes, satiated
with the contemplation of these suns of glory, she 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
master of wisdom affirmeth of the gods in general: 'Si Dii non
irascuntur impiis et injustis, nec pios utique justosque diligunt. In
rebusenim diversis, aut in utramque partem moveri necesse est, 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 odisse ex bonorum caritate descendit.' 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 just. For contrary
objects must either excite contrary affections, or no affections at all.
So that he who loveth good men must at the same time hate the bad; and
he who hateth not bad men cannot love the good; because to love good men
proceedeth from an aversion 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 sister, whose bulk and
complexion incline her to the phlegmatic), and for this some notorious
vehicle of vice and folly was sought out, to make thereof an example. An
early instance of which (nor could it escape the accurate Scriblerus)
the father of epic poem himself affordeth us. From him the practice
descended to the Greek dramatic poets, his offspring, who, in the
composition of their tetralogy, or set of four pieces, were wont to make
the last a satiric tragedy. Happily one of these ancient Dunciads (as we
may well term it) is come down unto us amongst the tragedies of the poet
Euripides. And what doth the reader suppose may be the subject thereof?
Why, in truth, and it is worthy observation, the unequal contention of
an old, dull, debauched buffoon Cyclops, with the heaven-directed
favourite of Minerva; who, after having quietly borne all the monster's
obscene and impious ribaldry, endeth the farce in punishing him with the
mark of an indelible brand in his forehead. May we not then be excused,
if for the future we consider the epics of Homer, Virgil, and Milton,
together with this our poem, as a complete tetralogy, in which the last
worthily holdeth the place or station of the satiric piece?
Proceed we therefore in our subject. It hath been long, and, alas for
pity! still remaineth a question, whether the hero of the greater epic
should be an honest man? or, as the French critics express it, un
honnête homme:[202] but it never admitted of any doubt, but that the
hero of the little epic should be just the contrary. Hence, to the
advantage of our Dunciad, we may observe how much juster the moral of
that poem must needs be, where so important a question is previously
decided.
But then it is not every knave, nor (let me add) every fool, that is a
fit subject for a Dunciad. There must still exist some analogy, if not
resemblance of qualities, between the heroes of the two poems, and this
in order to admit what neoteric critics call the parody, one of the
liveliest graces of the little epic. Thus, it being agreed that the
constituent qualities of the greater epic hero are wisdom, bravery, and
love, from whence springeth heroic virtue; it followeth that those of
the lesser epic hero should be vanity, impudence, and debauchery, from
which happy assemblage resulteth heroic dulness, the never-dying subject
of this our poem.
This being confessed, come we now to particulars. It is the character of
true wisdom to seek its chief support and confidence within itself, and
to place that support in the resources which proceed from a conscious
rectitude of will. And are the advantages of vanity, when arising to the
heroic standard, at all short of this self-complacence? Nay, are they
not, in the opinion of the enamoured owner, far beyond it? 'Let the
world (will such an one say) impute to me what folly or weakness they
please; but till wisdom can give me something that will make me more
heartily happy, I am content to be gazed at.'[203] This, we see, is
vanity according to the heroic gauge or measure; not that low and
ignoble species which pretendeth to virtues we have not, but the
laudable ambition of being gazed at for glorying in those vices which
everybody knows we have. 'The world may ask (says he) why I make my
follies public? Why not? I have passed my time very pleasantly with
them.'[204] In short, there is no sort of vanity such a hero would
scruple, but that which might go near to degrade him from his high
station in this our Dunciad--namely, 'Whether it would not be vanity in
him to take shame to himself for not being a wise man?'[205]
Bravery, the second attribute of the true hero, is courage manifesting
itself in every limb; while its correspondent virtue in the mock hero is
that same courage all collected into the face. And as power when drawn
together must needs have more force and spirit than when dispersed, we
generally find this kind of courage in so high and heroic a degree, that
it insults not only men, but gods. Mezentius is, without doubt, the
bravest character in all the Æneis. But how? His bravery, we know, was a
high courage of blasphemy. And can we say less of this brave man's, who,
having told us that he placed 'his summum bonum in those follies,
which he was not content barely to possess, but would likewise glory
in,' adds, 'If I am misguided, 'tis nature's fault, and I follow
her.'[206] Nor can we be mistaken in making this happy quality a species
of courage, when we consider those illustrious marks of it which made
his face 'more known (as he justly boasteth) than most in the kingdom,'
and his language to consist of what we must allow to be the most daring
figure of speech, that which is taken from the name of God.
Gentle love, the next ingredient in the true hero's composition, is a
mere bird of passage, or (as Shakspeare calls it) summer-teeming lust,
and evaporates in the heat of youth; doubtless, by that refinement, it
suffers in passing through those certain strainers which our poet
somewhere speaketh of. But when it is let alone to work upon the lees,
it acquireth strength by old age, and becometh a lasting ornament to the
little epic. It is true, indeed, there is one objection to its fitness
for such a use: for not only the ignorant may think it common, but it is
admitted to be so, even by him who best knoweth its value. 'Don't you
think,' argueth he, 'to say only a man has his whore,[207] ought to go
for little or nothing? Because defendit numerus; take the first ten
thousand men you meet, and I believe you would be no loser if you betted
ten to one that every single sinner of them, one with another, had been
guilty of the same frailty.'[208] But here he seemeth not to have done
justice to himself: the man is sure enough a hero who hath his lady at
fourscore. How doth his modesty herein lessen the merit of a whole
well-spent life: not taking to himself the commendation (which Horace
accounted the greatest in a theatrical character) of continuing to the
very dregs the same he was from the beginning,
... 'Servetur ad imum
Qualis ab incepto processerat' ...
But here, in justice both to the poet and the hero, let us further
remark, that the calling her his whore implieth she was his own, and not
his neighbour's. Truly a commendable continence! and such as Scipio
himself must have applauded. For how much self-denial was exerted not to
covet his neighbour's whore? and what disorders must the coveting her
have occasioned in that society where (according to this political
calculator) nine in ten of all ages have their concubines!
We have now, as briefly as we could devise, gone through the three
constituent qualities of either hero. But it is not in any, or in all of
these, that heroism properly or essentially resideth. It is a lucky
result rather from the collision of these lively qualities against one
another. Thus, as from wisdom, bravery, and love, ariseth magnanimity,
the object of admiration, which is the aim of the greater epic; so from
vanity, impudence, and debauchery, springeth buffoonery, the source of
ridicule, that 'laughing ornament,' as he well termeth it,[209] of the
little epic.
He is not ashamed (God forbid he ever should be ashamed!) of this
character, who deemeth that not reason, but risibility, distinguisheth
the human species from the brutal. 'As nature,' saith this profound
philosopher, 'distinguished our species from the mute creation by our
risibility, her design must have been by that faculty as evidently to
raise our happiness, as by our os sublime (our erected faces) to lift
the dignity of our form above them.'[210] All this considered, how
complete a hero must he be, as well as how happy a man, whose risibility
lieth not barely in his muscles, as in the common sort, but (as himself
informeth us) in his very spirits! and whose os sublime is not simply
an erect face, but a brazen head, as should seem by his preferring it to
one of iron, said to belong to the late king of Sweden![211]
But whatever personal qualities a hero may have, the examples of
Achilles and Aeneas show us, that all those are of small avail without
the constant assistance of the gods--for the subversion and erection of
empires have never been adjudged the work of man. How greatly soever,
then, we may esteem of his high talents, we can hardly conceive his
personal prowess alone sufficient to restore the decayed empire of
Dulness. So weighty an achievement must require the particular favour
and protection of the great--who, being the natural patrons and
supporters of letters, as the ancient gods were of Troy, must first be
drawn off and engaged in another interest, before the total subversion
of them can be accomplished. To surmount, therefore, this last and
greatest difficulty, we have, in this excellent man, a professed
favourite and intimado of the great. And look, of what force ancient
piety was to draw the gods into the party of Aeneas, that, and much
stronger, is modern incense, to engage the great in the party of
Dulness.
Thus have we essayed to portray or shadow out this noble imp of fame.
But now the impatient reader will be apt to say, if so many and various
graces go to the making up a hero, what mortal shall suffice to bear his
character? Ill hath he read who seeth not, in every trace of this
picture, that individual, all-accomplished person, in whom these rare
virtues and lucky circumstances have agreed to meet and concentre with
the strongest lustre and fullest harmony.
The good Scriblerus indeed--nay, the world itself--might be imposed on,
in the late spurious editions, by I can't tell what sham hero or
phantom; but it was not so easy to impose on him whom this egregious
error most of all concerned. For no sooner had the fourth book laid open
the high and swelling scene, but he recognised his own heroic acts; and
when he came to the words--
'Soft on her lap her laureate son reclines,'
(though laureate imply no more than one crowned with laurel, as
befitteth any associate or consort in empire), he loudly resented this
indignity to violated majesty--indeed, not without cause, he being there
represented as fast asleep; so misbeseeming the eye of empire, which,
like that of Providence, should never doze nor slumber. 'Hah!' saith he,
'fast asleep, it seems! that's a little too strong. Pert and dull at
least you might have allowed me, but as seldom asleep as any fool.'[212]
However, the injured hero may comfort himself with this reflection, that
though it be a sleep, yet it is not the sleep of death, but of
immortality. Here he will live[213] at least, though not awake; and in
no worse condition than many an enchanted warrior before him. The famous
Durandarte, for instance, was, like him, cast into a long slumber by
Merlin, the British bard and necromancer; and his example, for
submitting to it with a good grace, might be of use to our hero. For
that disastrous knight being sorely pressed or driven to make his answer
by several persons of quality, only replied with a sigh--'Patience, and
shuffle the cards.'[214]
But now, as nothing in this world, no, not the most sacred or perfect
things either of religion or government, can escape the sting of envy,
methinks I already hear these carpers objecting to the clearness of our
hero's title.
It would never (say they) have been esteemed sufficient to make an hero
for the Iliad or Aeneis, that Achilles was brave enough to overturn one
empire, or Aeneas pious enough to raise another, had they not been
goddess-born, and princes bred. What, then, did this author mean by
erecting a player instead of one of his patrons (a person 'never a hero
even on the stage,'[215]) to this dignity of colleague in the empire of
Dulness, and achiever of a work that neither old Omar, Attila, nor John
of Leyden could entirely bring to pass?
To all this we have, as we conceive, a sufficient answer from the Roman
historian, Fabrum esse suae quemque fortunae: That every man is the
smith of his own fortune. The politic Florentine, Nicholas Machiavel,
goeth still further, and affirmeth that a man needeth but to believe
himself a hero to be one of the worthiest. 'Let him (saith he) but fancy
himself capable of the highest things, and he will of course be able to
achieve them.' From this principle it follows, that nothing can exceed
our hero's prowess; as nothing ever equalled the greatness of his
conceptions. Hear how he constantly paragons himself; at one time to
Alexander the Great and Charles XII of Sweden, for the excess and
delicacy of his ambition;[216] to Henry IV of France for honest
policy;[217] to the first Brutus, for love of liberty;[218] and to Sir
Robert Walpole, for good government while in power.[219] At another
time, to the godlike Socrates, for his diversions and amusements;[220]
to Horace, Montaigne, and Sir William Temple for an elegant vanity that
maketh them for ever read and admired;[221] to two Lord Chancellors, for
law, from whom, when confederate against him at the bar, he carried away
the prize of eloquence;[222] and, to say all in a word, to the right
reverend the Lord Bishop of London himself, in the art of writing
pastoral letters.[223]
Nor did his actions fall short of the sublimity of his conceit. In his
early youth he met the Revolution[224] face to face in Nottingham, at a
time when his betters contented themselves with following her. It was
here he got acquainted with old Battle-array, of whom he hath made so
honourable mention in one of his immortal odes. But he shone in courts
as well as camps. He was called up when the nation fell in labour of
this Revolution;[225] and was a gossip at her christening, with the
bishop and the ladies.[226]
As to his birth, it is true he pretended no relation either to heathen
god or goddess; but, what is as good, he was descended from a maker of
both.[227] And that he did not pass himself on the world for a hero as
well by birth as education was his own fault: for his lineage he
bringeth into his life as an anecdote, and is sensible he had it in his
power to be thought he was nobody's son at all:[228] And what is that
but coming into the world a hero?
But be it (the punctilious laws of epic poesy so requiring) that a hero
of more than mortal birth must needs be had, even for this we have a
remedy. We can easily derive our hero's pedigree from a goddess of no
small power and authority amongst men, and legitimate and install him
after the right classical and authentic fashion: for like as the ancient
sages found a son of Mars in a mighty warrior, a son of Neptune in a
skilful seaman, a son of Phoebus in a harmonious poet, so have we here,
if need be, a son of Fortune in an artful gamester. And who fitter than
the offspring of Chance to assist in restoring the empire of Night and
Chaos?
There is, in truth, another objection, of greater weight, namely, 'That
this hero still existeth, and hath not yet finished his earthly course.
For if Solon said well, that no man could be called happy till his
death, surely much less can any one, till then, be pronounced a hero,
this species of men being far more subject than others to the caprices
of fortune and humour.' But to this also we have an answer, that will
(we hope) be deemed decisive. It cometh from himself, who, to cut this
matter short, hath solemnly protested that he will never change or
amend.
With regard to his vanity, he declareth that nothing shall ever part
them. 'Nature (saith he) hath amply supplied me in vanity--a pleasure
which neither the pertness of wit nor the gravity of wisdom will ever
persuade me to part with.'[229] Our poet had charitably endeavoured to
administer a cure to it: but he telleth us plainly, 'My superiors
perhaps may be mended by him; but for my part I own myself incorrigible.
I look upon my follies as the best part of my fortune.'[230] And with
good reason: we see to what they have brought him!
Secondly, as to buffoonery, 'Is it (saith he) a time of day for me to
leave off these fooleries, and set up a new character? I can no more put
off my follies than my skin; I have often tried, but they stick too
close to me; nor am I sure my friends are displeased with them, for in
this light I afford them frequent matter of mirth, &c., &c.'[231] Having
then so publicly declared himself incorrigible, he is become dead in law
(I mean the law Epopoeian), and devolveth upon the poet as his property,
who may take him and deal with him as if he had been dead as long as an
old Egyptian hero; that is to say, embowel and embalm him for posterity.
Nothing therefore (we conceive) remaineth to hinder his own prophecy of
himself from taking immediate effect. A rare felicity! and what few
prophets have had the satisfaction to see alive! Nor can we conclude
better than with that extraordinary one of his, which is conceived in
these oraculous words, 'My dulness will find somebody to do it
right.'[232]
'Tandem Phoebus adest, morsusque inferre parantem
Congelat, et patulos, ut erant, indurat hiatus.'[233]
BY AUTHORITY.
By virtue of the Authority in Us vested by the Act for subjecting poets
to the power of a licenser, we have revised this piece; where finding
the style and appellation of King to have been given to a certain
pretender, pseudo-poet, or phantom, of the name of Tibbald; and
apprehending the same may be deemed in some sort a reflection on
Majesty, or at least an insult on that Legal Authority which has
bestowed on another person the crown of poesy: We have ordered the said
pretender, pseudo-poet, or phantom, utterly to vanish and evaporate out
of this work: And do declare the said Throne of Poesy from henceforth to
be abdicated and vacant, unless duly and lawfully supplied by the
Laureate himself. And it is hereby enacted, that no other person do
presume to fill the same.
FOOTNOTES
[202] Si nil Heros Poëtique doit être un honnête homme. Bossu, du Poême
Epique, lib. v. ch. 5.
[203] Dedication to the Life of C. C.
[204] Life, p. 2, 8vo edition.
[205] Life, ibid.
[206] Life, p. 23, 8vo.
[207] Alluding to these lines in the Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot:
'And has not Colley still his lord and whore,
His butchers, Henley, his freemasons, Moore?'
[208] Letter to Mr Pope, p. 46.
[209] P. 31.
[210] Life, p. 23, 24.
[211] Letter, p. 8.
[212] Letter, p. 53.
[213] Letter, p. 1.
[214] Don Quixote, Part ii. book ii. ch. 22.
[215] See Life, p. 148.
[216] Life, p. 149.
[217] p. 424.
[218] p. 366.
[219] p. 457.
[220] p. 18.
[221] p. 425.
[222] pp. 436, 437.
[223] p. 52.
[224] p. 47.
[225] p. 57.
[226] pp. 58, 59.
[227] A statuary.
[228] Life, p. 6.
[229] p. 424.
[230] p. 19.
[231] Life, p. 17.
[232] Ibid. p. 243, 8vo edition.
[233] Ovid, of the serpent biting at Orpheus's head. |
