"is remarkably more bare and barren, when"ever 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 preferved, that in the places moft fufpicious, not the words but only the images have been cenfured, and yet are thofe 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 moft grave Doctors, and approved Critics.

As it beareth the name of Epic, it is thereby fubjected to fuch fevere indifpenfable 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 Imitation hath been in this piece, appeareth not only by its general ftructure, but by particular allufions infinite, many whereof have cfcaped both the commentator and poet himself; yea divers by his exceeding diligence are so 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 at forty. For at that season it was that Virgil finished his Georgics; and Sir Richard Blackmore at the like age compofing his Arthurs, declared the same 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 published his Alfred. True it is, that the talents for Criticifm, namely smartnefs, quick cenfure, vivacity of remark, certainty of affeveration, indeed all but acerbity, seem rather the gifts of youth than of riper Age: But it is far otherwife in Poetry; witness the works of Mr. Rymer and Mr. Dennis, who beginning with Criticism, became afterwards fuch Poets as no age hath paralleled. With good reason therefore did our author chufe to write his Effay on that subject at twenty, and referve for his maturer years this great and wonderful work of the Dunciad.

* See his Essays.

P.

E 4

RICHARDUS ARISTARCHUS

OF THE

HERO of
of the
the POE M.

O

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 Perfon of the Hero fitted for fuch poem, in truth he miferably halts and hallucinates. For, misled by one Monfieur Boffu, a gallic Critic, he prateth of I cannot tell what phantom of a Hero, only raised up to fupport the fable. A putid conceit! As if Homer and Virgil, like modern Undertakers, who first 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 set our good brother and the world also 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 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 fuch action as befitteth the dignity of his character.

But the Muse ceaseth not here her eagle-flight. For fometimes, fatiated with the contemplation of thefe Suns of glory, fhe turneth downward on her wing; and darts, with Jove's lightning, on the Goofe and Serpent kind. For we 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 juftofque diligunt. In rebus enim diverfis, ut in utramque partem moveri neceffe 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 be thus interpreted: "If the Gods be not provoked at evil men, neither are they delighted with the good and juft. 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

may

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bad; and he who hateth not bad men, can

"not 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 Mufe arose the little Epic, (more lively and choleric than her elder fifter, whofe bulk and complexion incline her to the flegmatic.) And for this, fome notorious vehicle of vice and folly was fought out, to make thereof an EXAMPLE. An early inftance of which (nor could it efcape the accurate Scriblerus) the Father of Epic-poem himself, affordeth us. From him the practice defcended to the Greek dramatic Poets, his Offspring; who in the compofition 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 fuppofe may be the fubject thereof? Why in truth, and it is worthy obfervation, the unequal Contest of an old, dull, debauched buffoon Cyclops, with the heaven-directed Favourite of Minerva: who, after having quietly born all the monster's obfcene and impious ribaldry, endeth the farce in punishing him with the mark of an indelible brand in his forehead. May we not then be excufed, if for the future we confider 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 ftation of the fatyric piece?