Nor sail with Ward,* to ape-and-monkey climes,
Where vile Mundungus trucks for viler rhymes:
Not, sulphur-tipp'd, emblaze an alehouse fire;
Not wrap up oranges to pelt your sire.
O pass more innocent, in infant state,
To the mild limbo of our father Tate; +
Or peaceably forgot, at once be bless'd,
In Shadwell's bosom, with eternal rest;
Soon to that mass of nonsense to return,
Where things destroy'd are swept to things un-
born.'

240

With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace!)
Stole from the master of the sevenfold face;
And thrice he lifted high the birth-day brand,
And thrice he dropp'd it from his quivering hand;
Then lights the structure with averted eyes:
The rolling smoke involves the sacrifice."

The opening clouds disclose each work by turns ;
Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns; 250
Great Cæsar roars, and hisses in the fires:
King John in silence modestly expires;
No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims;
Molière's old stubble in a moment flames.
Tears gush'd again, as from pale Priam's eyes,
When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies. §
Roused by the light, old Dulness heaved the
head,

Then snatch'd a sheet of Thulé || from her bed:
Sudden she flies, and whelms it o'er the pyre :
Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire. 260
Her ample presence fills up all the place;
A veil of fog dilates her awful face :

*Edward Ward, a very voluminous poet in Hudibrastic verse, but best known by the 'London Spy,' in prose. He eventually became a publican.

+ Nahum Tate, poet-laureate, 1692.

Succeeled Dryden as poet-laureate.

The names in the text (lines 250-253, also 255 and

256) allude to plays by Cibber.

An unfinished poem by Ambrose Philips.

Great in her charms, 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 recognise their native place.
This the great mother dearer held than all
The clubs of quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall: 270
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 random thoughts now meaning chance to find,

Now leave all memory of sense behind :
How prologues into prefaces decay,
And these to notes are fritter'd quite away:
How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail:

280

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, Shakspeare, and Cor-
neille,

Can make a Cibber, Tibbald,* or Ozell.+

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 heideggre‡ and owl) Perch'd on his crown. 'All hail! and hail again, My son the promised land expects thy reign.

*See Book I., 1. 133, note.

290

John Ozell, translated several French plays into English.

Alluding to John James Heidegger, a Swiss, celebrated for managing operas, &c. He was a particularly ugly

man.

Know, Eusden* thirsts no more for sack or praise;
He sleeps among the dull of ancient days;
Safe, where no critics damn, no duns molest,
Where wretched Withers,+ Ward, ‡ and Gildon §
rest;

300

And high-born Howard, || more majestic sire,
With Fool of Quality ¶ completes the quire.
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.

'O! when shall rise a monarch all our own, 311 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 :

'God save king Cibber!' mounts in every note: 320 Familiar White's, 'God save king Colley!' cries: 'God save king Colley!' Drury-lane replies:

*See Book I., 1. 104, note.

+ George Withers, a poet.

For his political satire,

'Abuses Whipt and Stript,' he was committed to the Marshalsea.

See Book I., 1. 233, note.

Charles Gildon, a writer of criticisms and libels.

Hon. Edward Howard, author of the 'British Princes.'
Probably Lord Hervey.

To Needham's quick the voice triumphal rode,
But pious Needham* dropp'd the name of God:
Back to the Devil the last echoes roll,
And 'Coll!' each butcher roars at Hockley-hole.
So when Jove's block descended from on high,
(As sings thy great forefather, Ogilby,‡)
Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog;
And the hoarse nation croak'd, 'God save king
Log!'
330

* Mrs. Needham, a hypocritical enthusiast, finally put in the pillory.

+ The Devil Tavern in Fleet-street, where these odes were usually rehearsed before being performed at court. It stood between Temple-bar and the Middle Temple Gate, and was Ben Jonson's great resort.

See Book I., 1. 141, note.

THE DUNCIAD.

BOOK THE SECOND.

ARGUMENT.

The king being proclaimed, the solemnity is graced with public games and sports of various kinds; not instituted by the hero, as by Eneas in Virgil; but, for greater honour, by the goddess in person, in like manner as the games Pythia, Isthmia, &c. were anciently said to be ordained by the gods; and as Thetis herself appearing, according to Homer, Odyss. xxiv., proposed the prizes in honour of her son Achilles. Hither flock the poets and critics, attended, as is but just, with their patrons and booksellers. The goddess is first pleased, for her disport, to propose games to the booksellers, and setteth up the phantom of a poet, which they contend to overtake. The races described, with their divers accidents. Next, the game for a poetess. Then follow the exercises for the poets, of tickling vociferating, diving: the first holds forth the arts and practices of dedicators; the second of disputants and fustian poets; the third of profound, dark, and dirty party-writers. Lastly, for the critics, the goddess proposes, with great propriety, an exercise, not of their parts, but their patience, in hearing the works of two voluminous authors, the one in verse, and the other in prose, deliberately read, without sleeping; the various effects of which, with the several degrees and manners of their operation, are here set forth; till the whole number, not of critics only, but of spectators, actors, and all present, fall fast asleep; which naturally and necessarily ends the games.

HIGH on a gorgeous seat, that far outshone
Henley's gilt tub,* or Fleckno's Irish throne, +

*"The pulpit of a Dissenter is usually called a tub; but that of Mr. Orator Henley was covered with velvet, adorned with gold he had also a fair altar, and over it this extraordinary inscription,-The Primitive Eucharist."" See Book I., 1. 216, note.

↑ "Richard Fleckno was an Irish priest, but had laid