devour Orpheus, so the poet arrests his adversary, at the moment he was preparing to attack him; agreeing with what was before said, that he was dead in law, and might be converted into a mummy and embalmed for posterity. This may be supposed to be the meaning of the quotation; but it would be presumptuous to call upon so great a critic as Aristarchus, to account for the propriety and justness of its application.

It is remarkable that this quotation did not originally occupy its present place, but was prefixed as the motto, on the title

the edition of 1743.

page to

MON DROT

*

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, PseudoPoet, 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 be= stowed on another Person the Crown of Poesy: We have ordered the said Pretender, PseudoPoet, 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.

DC Ch.

P.†

* A stroke of Satire against the act for licensing Plays, which was opposed with equal wit and vehemence by many of our poet's friends, and particularly by the Earl of Chesterfield.

Warton.

1

THE

DUNCIAD:

ΤΟ

DR. JONATHAN SWIFT.

BOOK THE FIRST.

ARGUMENT.

The Proposition, the Invocation, and the Inscription. Then the Original of the great Empire of Dulness, and cause of the continuance thereof. The College of the Goddess in the City, with her private Academy for Poets in particular: the Governors of it, and the four Cardinal Virtues. Then the Poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting her on the evening of a Lord Mayor's day, revolving the long succession of her Sons, and the glories past and to come. She fixes her eye on Bays to be the Instrument of that great Event which is the Subject of the Poem. He is described pensive among his Books, giving up the Cause, and apprehending the Period of her Empire. After debating whether to betake himself to the Church, or to Gaming, or to Party-writing, he raises an Altar of proper books, and (making first his solemn prayer and declaration) purposes thereon to sacrifice all his unsuccessful writings. As the pile is kindled, the Goddess, beholding the flame from her seat, flies and puts it out by casting upon it the poem of Thulé. She forthwith reveals herself to him, transports him to her Temple, unfolds her Arts, and initiates him into her Mysteries; then, announcing the death of Eusden, the Poet Laureate, anoints him, carries him to Court, and proclaims him Successor.