BOOK I. THE Mighty Mother, and her Son, who brings The Smithfield Muses to the ear of Kings REMARKS. The DUNCIAD, sic MS. It may well be disputed whether this be a right reading: ought it not rather to be spelled Dunceiad, as the Etymology evidently demands? Dunce with an e, therefore Dunceiad with an e. That accurate and punctual Man of Letters, the Restorer of Shakespeare, constantly observes the preservation of this very Letter e, in spelling the name of his beloved Author, and not like his common careless Editors, with the omission of one, nay sometimes of two ee's (as Shakspear) which is utterly unpardonable. "Nor is the neglect of a Single Letter so trivial as to some it may appear: the alteration whereof in a learned language is an Achievement that brings honour to the Critic who advances it; and Dr. Bentley will be remembered to posterity for his performances of this sort, as long as the world shall have any esteem for the remains of Menander and Philemon." Theobald. This Poem was written in the year 1726. In the next year an imperfect Edition was published at Dublin, and reprinted at London in twelves; another at Dublin, and another at London VARIATIONS. Ver. 1. The Mighty Mother, &c.] In the first Edit. it was thus, Books and the Man I sing, the first who brings IMITATIONS. Say, great Patricians! since yourselves inspire -"Di cœptis (nam vos mutastis et illas.)" Ovid. Met. 1. I sing. Say you, her instruments the Great! Call'd to this work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate; You by whose care, in vain decry'd, and curst, Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first; REMARKS. 5 But in octavo; and three others in twelves the same year. there was no perfect Edition before that of London in quarto; which was attended with Notes. We are willing to acquaint Posterity, that this Poem was presented to King George the Second and his Queen, by the hands of Sir Robert Walpole, on the 12th of March 1728-9. Schol. Vet. It was expressly confessed in the Preface to the first edition, that this Poem was not published by the Author himself. It was printed originally in a foreign Country. And what foreign Country? Why, one notorious for blunders; where finding blanks only instead of proper names, these blunderers filled them up at their pleasure. The very Hero of the Poem hath been mistaken to this hour; so that we are obliged to open our Notes with a discovery who he really was. We learn from the former Editor, that this Piece was presented by the hands of Sir Robert Walpole to King George II. Now the author directly tells us, his Hero is the Man "who brings The Smithfield Muses to the ear of Kings." And it is notorious who was the person on whom this Prince conferred the honour of the Laurel. It appears as plainly from the Apostrophe to the Great in the third verse, that Tibbald could not be the person, who was never an author in fashion, or caressed by the Great: whereas this single characteristic is sufficient to point out the true Hero; who, above all other Poets of his time, was the Peculiar Delight and Chosen Companion of the Nobility of England; and wrote, as he himself tells us, certain of his Works at the earnest Desire of Persons of Quality. IMITATIONS. Ver. 6. Alluding to a verse of Mr. Dryden, not in Mac Fleckno (as is said ignorantly in the Key to the Dunciad, p. 1), but in his verses to Mr. Congreve, "And Tom the second reigns like Tom the first." Say, how the Goddess bade Britannia sleep, REMARKS. Lastly, the sixth verse affords full proof; this Poet being the only one who was universally known to have had a Son so exactly like him, in his poetical, theatrical, political, and moral Capacities, that it could justly be said of him "Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first." Bentl. Ver. 1. The Mighty Mother and her Son, &c.] The Reader ought here to be cautioned, that the Mother, and not the Son, is the principal Agent in this Poem: the latter of them is only chosen as her colleague (as was anciently the custom in Rome before some great expedition), the main action of the Poem being by no means the Coronation of the Laureat, which is performed in the very first book, but the Restoration of the Empire of Dulness in Britain, which is not accomplished till the last. * Ibid.-her Son, who brings, &c.] Wonderful is the stupidity of all the former Critics and Commentators on this work! It breaks forth at the very first line. The author of the Critique prefixed to Sawney, a Poem, p. 5, hath been so dull as to explain the Man who brings, &c. not of the Hero of the piece, but of our Poet himself, as if he vaunted that Kings were to be his readers; an honour, which tho' this Poem hath had, yet knoweth he how to receive it with more modesty. We remit this Ignorant to the first lines of the Æneid, assuring him that Virgil here speaketh not of himself, but of Æneas : "Arma virumque cano, Trojæ qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Lavinaque venit Litora multum ille et terris jactatus et alto," &c. I cite the whole three verses, that I may by the way offer a Conjectural Emendation, purely my own, upon each: First, oris should be read aris, it being, as we see, Æn. ii, 513. from the altar of Jupiter Hercæus that Æneas fled as soon as he saw Priam slain. In the second line I would read flatu for fato, since it is most clear it was by Winds that he arrived at the shore of Italy. Jactatus, in the third, is surely as improperly applied to terris, as proper to alto; to say a man is tost on land, is much at one with saying he walks at sea: Risum teneatis, amici? Correct Scriblerus. it, as I doubt not it ought to be, vexatus. Ver. 2. The Smithfield Muses] Smithfield is the place where Bartholomew Fair was kept, whose shows, machines, and dra In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read, Still her old Empire to restore she tries, O Thou! whatever title please thine ear, Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver! Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, Or laugh and shake in Rab'lais' easy chair, 10 15 20 REMARKS. matical entertainments, formerly agreeable only to the taste of the Rabble, were, by the Hero of this poem, and others of equal genius, brought to the Theatres of Covent Garden, Lincoln's-innfields, and the Haymarket, to be the reigning pleasures of the Court and Town. This happened in the reigns of King George I. and II. See Book iii. Ver. 12. Daughter of Chaos, &c.] The beauty of the whole Allegory being purely of the poetical kind, we think it not our proper business, as a Scholiast, to meddle with it but leave it (as we shall in general all such) to the reader; remarking only that Chaos (according to Hesiod's Oeoyovia) was the Progenitor of all the Gods. Scriblerus. Ver. 20. Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!] The several Names and Characters he assumed, in his ludicrous, his splenetic, or his party writings; which take in all his works. Ver. 21.-Cervantes' serious air,] In the Travels of Gulliver; written to decry the Lying Vanities of Travellers, just as Don Quixote's adventures were to expose the absurdities of Books of Chivalry; and with the same serious and solemn air. The laughing with Rab'lais in the next line, alludes to the Tale of a Or praise the Court, or magnify Mankind, VARIATIONS. After ver. 22 in the MS. Or in the graver Gown instruct mankind, Or silent let thy morals tell thy mind. But this was to be understood, as the Poet says, ironicè, like the 23d Verse. REMARKS. Tub, which is in the manner of the satirical and more regular parts of that famous French droll. Dr. S. Clarke in the first Edition of his Boyle's Lectures gives this book for an example of scoffing Atheism. And tho' I think there be neither impiety nor irreligion in the conduct of his Tale, yet surely it was impossible for a man really penetrated with a serious sense of Religion, ever to prevail on himself to expose the abuses of it in the manner he has done. The Travels of Gulliver were not written to decry the lying vanities of travellers, but chiefly and principally to expose the politics and measures of the English government, as well as the pride and depravity of human nature in general. Nor are they carried on or conceived in the manner of Cervantes. Voltaire called Swift, for writing the Tale of a Tub, Rabelais in his senses. When so many undeserving persons have been persecuted, particularly under the arbitrary government of France, for the freedom of their opinions, it is marvellous that Rabelais, who levelled his bitter satire against so many haughty princes, and as haughty priests, could possibly escape their vengeance. Garagantua certainly meant Francis I.; Louis XII. is Grand Gousier; Henry II. Pantagruel; Charles V. Picrocole. The Monks of that time are disguised under the name of Brother John des Entomures. The genealogy of Christ is ridiculed by that of Garagantua. The Treatises of Theology were laughed at under the titles of the books found in the Library of St. Victor; such as Biga Salutis, Braguelta Juris, Pentouffle Decentorun; and by such questions as, utrum chimera in vacuo bombinans possit comedere secundas intentiones. Lord Peter's Loaf is minutely copied from Rabelais. Scarron had a master named J. Moreau, who wrote in Heroic verse a comic poem called The Pigmeid; which Scarron copied in his Gigantomachei. |