Roused by the light, old Dulness heaved the head,
Then snatch'd a sheet of Thulè from her bed."
THE DUNCIAD, book i. lines 257, 258.
[Page 68.
Sudden she flies and whelms it o'er the pyre;
Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire.
Her ample presence fills up all the place;
A veil of fogs dilates her awful face : 44
Great in her charms !45 as when on shrieves and mayors
She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.
She bids him wait her to her sacred dome :
Well-pleased he enter'd, and confess'd his home.
So, spirits ending their terrestrial race,
Ascend, and recognize their native place.
This the great mother dearer held than all 46
The clubs of quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall :
Here stood her opium, here she nursed her owls,
And here she plann'd the imperial seat of fools.
Here to her chosen all her works she shows; Prose swell'd to verse, verse loitering into prose:
How, with less reading than makes felons 'scape,
Less human genius than God gives an ape,
Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece,
A past, vamp'd, future, old, revived, new piece,
'Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakespear, and Corneille, Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell.
44 [He had his eye on a couplet of Dryden, in Mac Flecknoe, a couplet of incomparable elegance: :
"His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace;
And lambent dulness play'd around his face."-Wakefield.]
"Alma parens confessa Deam; qualisque videri
Coelicolis, et quanta solet."-Virg. Æn. ii.
"Et lætos oculis afflavit honores."-Id. Æn. i.
"Urbs antiqua fuit-
Quam Juno fertur terris magis omnibus unam
Posthabitâ coluisse Samo: hic illius arma,
Hic currus fuit: hoc regnum Dea gentibus esse
(Si qua Fata sinant) jam tum tenditque fovetque."
Virg. Æneid, i.
The goddess then, o'er his anointed head,
With mystic words the sacred opium shed.
And lo! her bird (a monster of a fowl,
Something betwixt a Heidegger and owl) 47
Perch'd on his crown. "All hail! and hail again,
My son the promised land expects thy reign.
Know Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise ;48
He sleeps among the dull of ancient days;
Safe, where no critics damn, no duns molest,
Where wretched Withers, Ward, and Gildon rest,
And high-born Howard, more majestic sire,
With fool of quality completes the quire.49
Thou, Cibber! thou, his laurel shalt support,
Folly, my son, has still a friend at court.
Lift up your gates, ye princes, see him come!
Sound, sound, ye viols, be the cat-call dumb!
Bring, bring the madding bay, the drunken vine ;
The creeping, dirty, courtly ivy join.
And thou, his aide-de-camp, lead on my sons,
Light-arm'd with points, antitheses, and puns.
Let Bawdry, Billingsgate, my daughters dear,
Support his front, and oaths bring up the rear :
And under his, and under Archer's wing,
Gaming and Grub-street skulk behind the king.
47 [John James Heidegger. Of him, and other parties here named, see notes.]
48 In the former edition :
"Know, Settle, cloy'd with custard and with praise,
Is gather'd to the dull of ancient days,
Safe where no critics damn, no duns molest,
Where Gildon, Banks, and high-born Howard rest.
I see a king! who leads my chosen sons
To lands that flow with clenches and with puns:
Till each famed theatre my empire own;
Till Albion, as Hibernia, bless my throne!
I see! I see! Then rapt she spoke no more.
God save King Tibbald! Grub-street alleys roar.
So when Jove's block," &c.
49 [In edition of 1728, this line stood:-
"Impatient waits till *** joins the quire."
Lord Hervey was supposed to be meant.]
O! when shall rise a monarch all our own,50
And I, a nursing mother, rock the throne;
"Twixt prince and people close the curtain draw,
Shade him from light, and cover him from law;
Fatten the courtier, starve the learned band,
And suckle armies, and dry-nurse the land:
Till senates nod to lullabies divine,
And all be sleep, as at an ode of thine."
She ceased. Then swells the chapel-royal throat: 51 God save king Cibber! mounts in every note.
50 Boileau, Lutrin, Chant. II.
"Helas! qu'est devenu ce tems, cet heureux tems,
Où les Rois s'honoroient du nom de Fainéans," &c.
51 The voices and instruments used in the service of the Chapel-royal being also employed in the performance of the Birth-day and New-year odes.
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