by the Goddess's transporting the new king to her temple, laying him in a deep slumber on her lap, and conveying him in a vision to the banks of Lethe, where he meets with the ghost of his predecessor Settle; who, in a speech that begins at line 35, to almost the end of the book, shews him the past triumphs of the empire of Dulness, then the present, and lastly the future: enumerating particularly by what aids, and by what persons, Great Britain shall be forthwith brought to her empire; and prophesying how first the nation shall be over-run with farces, operas, shows; and the throne of Dulness advanced over both the theatres: then, how her sons shall preside in the seats of arts and sciences; till, in conclusion, all shall return to their original chaos. On hearing which, Enough! enough! the raptur'd MONARCH cries; with which words, the design above recited being perfected, the poem concludes. Thus far all was clear, consistent, and of a piece; and was delivered in such nervous and spirited versifica tion, that the delighted reader had only to lament that so many poetical beauties were thrown away on such dirty and despicable subjects as were the scribblers here proscribed; who appear like monsters preserved in the most costly spirits. But in the year 1742, our poet was persuaded, unhappily enough, to add a fourth book to his finished piece, of such a very different cast and colour, as to render it at last one of the most motley compositions, that, perhaps, is any where to be found in the works of so exact a writer as POPE. For one great purpose of this fourth book (where, by the way, the hero does nothing at all) was to satirize and proscribe infidels, and free-thinkers; to leave the ludicrous for the serious, Grub-street for theology, the mock-heroic for metaphysics; which occasioned a marvellous mixture and jumble of images and sentiments, Pantomime and Philosophy, Journals and Moral evidence, Fleet-ditch and the High Priori road, Curl and Clarke. To ridicule our petulant libertines, and affected minute philosophers, was doubtless a most laudable intention; but speaking of the Dunciad as a work of art, in a critical, not a religious light, I must venture to affirm, B b VOL. II. that that the subject of this fourth book was foreign and heterogeneous; and the addition of it as injudicious, ill-placed, and incongruous, as any of those dissimilar images we meet with in Pulci or Ariosto. It is like introducing a crucifix into one of Teniers's burlesque conversation-pieces. Some of his most splendid and striking lines are, indeed, here to be found; but I must beg leave to insist that they want propriety and decorum; and must wish they had adorned some separate work against irreligion, which would have been worthy the pen of our bitter and immortal satirist. But neither was this the only alteration the Dunciad was destined to undergo. For in the year 1743, our author, enraged with Cibber, (whom he had usually treated with contempt ever since the affair of Three Hours after Marriage,) for publishing a ridiculous pamphlet against him, dethroned Tibbald, and made the Laureate the hero of his poem. Cibber, with a great stock of levity, vanity, and affectation, had sense, and wit, and humour; and the author of the Careless Husband was by no means a proper king of the dunces. "His Treatise on the Stage 1 (says (says Mr. Walpole) is inimitable. Where an author writes on his own profession, feels it profoundly, and is sensible his readers do not, he is not only excusable, but meritorious, for illuminating the subject by new metaphors, or bolder figures than ordinary. He is the corcomb that sneers, not he that instructs by appropriated diction." The consequence of this alteration was, that many lines, which exactly suited the heavy character of Tibbald, lost all their grace and pro * priety when applied to Cibber. Such as, Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound! Such also is the description of his gothic library; for Cibber troubled not himself with Caxton, Wynkyn, and De Lyra, Tibbald, who was an anBb2 tiquarian, * 'Tis dangerous to disoblige a great poet or painter. Dante placed his master Brunetto in his Inferno. Brunetto was a man of sense and learning, and wrote an abridgment of Aristotle's Ethics. It is remarkable that he used to say, the French language will, one day, become the most universal and common of all the languages in Europe. And Michael Angelo placed the Pope's master of the ceremonies, Biaggio, in hell, in his Last Judgment. tiquarian, had collected these curious old writers. And to slumber in the Goddess's lap, was adapted to his stupidity, not to the vivacity of his suc cessor. If we now descend from these remarks on the general design and constitution of the Dunciad, to particular passages, the following must be mentioned as highly finished, and worked up with peculiar elegance and force. In book i. the Chaos of Absurd Writings, v. 55, to v. 78. In book ii. v. 35, the Phantom of a Poet, to v. 50. The Description of the Tapestry, v. 143, to v. 156. The Adventures of Smedley, and what he saw in the shades below, v. 331, to v. 350. The Effects of hearing two dull Authors read, v. 387, to the end of that book. In book iii. the Ghost of Settle, v. 35, to v. 66. View of Learning, v. 83, to v. 102. The Description of Pantomimes, Farces, and their monstrous Absurdities, v. 235, to v. 264. In book iv. v. 1, to v. 16. The Modern Traveller, v. 295, to v. 330. The Florist, v. 403, to v. 420. terfly-hunter, v. 421, to v. 436. the Yawn, from v. 627, to the end. The But The Effects of The fre quent |