See under Ripley rise a new Whitehall,
While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall; 1
While Wren with sorrow to the grave descends,
Gay dies unpension'd with a hundred friends;
Hibernian politics, O Swift! thy fate;

And Pope's, ten years to comment and translate.

327

'Proceed, great days! till Learning fly the shore,
Till Birch shall blush with noble blood no more,
Till Thames see Eton's sons for ever play,
Till Westminster's whole year be holiday,
Till Isis' elders reel, their pupils sport,
And Alma Mater lie dissolved in port!'
Enough! enough! the raptured monarch cries;
And through the Ivory Gate the vision flies.

340

While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall' at the time when this poem was written, the banqueting-house of Whitehall, the church and piazza of Covent Garden, and the palace and chapel of Somerset House, the works of the famous Inigo Jones, had been for many years so neglected as to be in danger of ruin. The portico of Covent Garden church had been just then restored and beautified at the expense of the Earl of Burlington, who, at the same time, by his publication of the designs of that great master and Palladio, as well as by many noble buildings of his own, revived the true taste of architecture in this kingdom.-P.

VARIATIONS.

VER. 323. See, see, our own, &c. In the former edition

Beneath his reign shall Eusden wear the bays.
Cibber preside Lord Chancellor of plays,
Benson sole Judge of Architecture sit,
And Namby Pamby be preferr'd for wit!
I see the unfinish'd dormitory wall,

I see the Savoy totter to her fall;
Hibernian politics, O Swift! thy doom,
And Pope's, translating three whole years with
Broome.

Proceed great days, &c.

VER. 331. In the former edition, thus-
--O Swift! thy doom,

And Pope's, translating ten whole years with Broome. See Lije.

After VER. 338, in the first edition, were the following lines

Then when these signs declare the mighty year, | All shall be darkness, as it ne'er were day; When the dull stars roll round and re-appear;

To their first Chaos wit's vain works shall fall,

Let there be darkness! (the dread Power shall say) | And universal darkness cover all.

BOOK THE FOURTH.

ARGUMENT.

The poet being, in this book, to declare the completion of the prophecies mentioned at the end of the former, makes a new invocation; as the greater poets are wont, when some high and worthy matter is to be sung. He shows the goddess coming in her majesty to destroy order and science, and to substitute the kingdom of the Dull upon earth; how she leads captive the Sciences, and silenceth the Muses; and what they be who succeed in their stead. All her children, by a wonderful attraction, are drawn about her; and bear along with them divers others, who promote her empire by connivance, weak resistance, or discouragement of Arts; such as half-wits, tasteless admirers, vain pretenders, the flatterers of Dunces, or the patrons of them. All these crowd round her; one of them offering to approach her, is driven back by a rival, but she commends and encourages both. The first who speak in form are the geniuses of the schools, who assure her of their care to advance her cause, by confining youth to words, and keeping them out of the way of real knowledge. Their address, and her gracious answer; with her charge to them and the Universities. The Universities appear by their proper deputies, and assure her that the same method is observed in the progress of education. The speech of Aristarchus on this subject. They are driven off by a band of young gentlemen returned from travel with their tutors; one of whom delivers to the goddess, in a polite oration, an account of the whole conduct and fruits of their travels; presenting to her at the same time a young nobleman perfectly accomplished. She receives him graciously, and indues him with the happy quality of want of shame. She sees loitering about her a number of indolent persons abandoning all business and duty, and dying with laziness: to these approaches the antiquary Annius, entreating her to make them virtuosos, and assign them over to him; but Mummius, another antiquary, complaining of his fraudulent proceeding, she finds a method to reconcile their difference. Then enter a troop of people fantastically adorned, offering her strange and exotic presents: amongst them, one stands forth and demands justice on another, who had deprived him of one of the greatest curiosities in nature; but he justifies himself so well, that the goddess gives them both her approbation. She recommends to them to find proper employment for the indolents before-mentioned, in the study of butterflies, shells, birds' nests, moss, &c., but with particular caution not to proceed beyond trifles, to any useful or extensive views of nature, or of the Author of nature. Against the last of these apprehensions, she is secured by a hearty address from the minute philosophers and freethinkers, one of whom speaks in the name of the rest. The youth thus instructed and principled, are delivered to her in a body, by the hands of Silenus; and then admitted to taste the cup of the Magus her high-priest, which causes a total oblivion of all obligations, divine, civil, moral, or rational. To these her adepts she sends priests,

attendants, and comforters, of various kinds; confers on them orders and degrees; 'and then dismissing them with a speech, confirming to each his privileges, and telling what she expects from each, concludes with a yawn of extraordinary virtue: the progress and effects whereof on all orders of men, and the consummation of all, in the restoration of Night and Chaos, conclude the poem.

YET, yet a moment, one dim ray of light
Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night!
Of darkness visible so much be lent,

As half to show, half veil the deep intent.
Ye Powers! whose mysteries restored I sing,
To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing,
Suspend a while your force inertly strong,
Then take at once the poet and the song.

Now flamed the dog-star's unpropitious ray,
Smote every brain, and wither'd every bay;
Sick was the sun, the owl forsook his bower,
The moon-struck prophet felt the madding hour:
Then rose the seed of Chaos, and of Night,
To blot out order, and extinguish light,
Of dull and venal a new world to mould,

And bring Saturnian days of lead and gold.

10

She mounts the throne: her head a cloud conceal'd,

In broad effulgence all below reveal'd,

(Tis thus aspiring Dulness ever shines),

Soft on her lap her laureate son reclines.

Beneath her foot-stool, Science groans in chains,

And Wit dreads exile, penalties and pains.
There foam'd rebellious Logic, gagg'd and bound,
There, stripp'd, fair Rhetoric languish'd on the

ground;

His blunted arms by Sophistry are borne,
And shameless Billingsgate her robes adorn.
Morality, by her false guardians drawn,
Chicane in furs, and Casuistry in lawn,

20

Speech

addwer

ter.

Gasps, as they straiten at each end the cord,
And dies, when Dulness gives her page the word.
Mad Máthesis 1 alone was unconfined,

Too mad for mere material chains to bind,
Now to pure space 2 lifts her ecstatic stare,
Now running round the circle, finds it square.3
But held in tenfold bonds the Muses lie,
Watch'd both by Envy's and by Flattery's eye:
There to her heart sad Tragedy address'd
The dagger wont to pierce the tyrant's breast;
But sober History restrain'd her rage,
And promised vengeance on a barbarous age.
There sunk Thalia, nerveless, cold, and dead,
Had not her sister Satire held her head:
Nor could'st thou, Chesterfield! 4 a tear refuse,
Thou wept'st, and with thee wept each gentle Muse.
When, lo! a harlot form 5 soft sliding by,

With mincing step, small voice, and languid eye:
Foreign her air, her robe's discordant pride
In patchwork fluttering, and her head aside:

40

''Mad Máthesis:' alluding to the strange conclusions some mathematicians have deduced from their principles, concerning the real quantity of matter, the reality of space, &c.-P. W.-2' Pure space:' i.e. pure and defæcated from mat'Ecstatic stare :' the action of men who look about with full assurance of seeing what does not exist, such as those who expect to find space a real being. — W.—3 ‘Running round the circle, finds it square' regards the wild and fruitless attempts of squaring the circle.-P. W.- 'Nor couldst thou,' &c. : this noble person in the year 1737, when the act aforesaid was brought into the House of Lords, opposed it in an excellent speech (says Mr Cibber), with a lively spirit, and uncommon eloquence.' This speech had the honour to be answered by the said Mr Cibber, with a lively spirit also, and in a manner very uncommon, in the 8th chapter of his Life and Manners.-P.-$ Harlot form the attitude given to this phantom represents the nature and genius of the Italian Opera; its affected airs, its effeminate sounds, and the practice of patching up these operas with favourite songs, incoherently put together. These things were supported by the subscriptions of the nobility. This circumstance, that Opera should prepare for the opening of the grand sessions, was prophesied of in book iii. ver. 304,

'Already Opera prepares the way,
The sure forerunner of her gentle sway.'

6

P. W.

By singing peers upheld on either hand,

She tripp'd and laugh'd, too pretty much to stand;
Cast on the prostrate Nine a scornful look,
Then thus in quaint recitativo spoke :

49

60

O Cara Cara! silence all that train: Joy to great Chaos! let division reign:1 Chromatic2 tortures soon shall drive them hence, Break all their nerves, and fritter all their sense: One trill shall harmonise joy, grief, and rage, Wake the dull church, and lull the ranting stage; To the same notes thy sons shall hum, or snore, And all thy yawning daughters cry, Encore! Another Phœbus, thy own Phoebus, reigns, Joys in my jigs, and dances in my chains. But soon, ah soon, rebellion will commence, If music meanly borrows aid from sense: Strong in new arms, lo! giant Handel stands, Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands; To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes, And Jove's own thunders follow Mars's drums. Arrest him, empress; or you sleep no more'-She heard, and drove him to the Hibernian shore. 70 And now had Fame's posterior trumpet blown,

And all the nations summon'd to the throne.

''Division reign:' alluding to the false taste of playing tricks in music with numberless divisions, to the neglect of that harmony which conforms to the sense, and applies to the passions. Mr Handel had introduced a great number of hands, and more variety of instruments into the orchestra, and employed even drums and cannon to make a fuller chorus; which proved so much too manly for the fine gentlemen of his age, that he was obliged to remove his music into Ireland. After which they were reduced, for want of composers, to practise the patch-work above mentioned.—P. W.- 'Chromatic:' that species of the ancient music called the Chromatic was a variation and embellishment, in odd irregularities, of the diatonic kind. They say it was invented about the time of Alexander, and that the Spartans forbad the use of it, as languid and effeminate.-W.-Wake the dull church, and lull the ranting stage :' i.e. dissipate the devotion of the one by light and wanton airs; and subdue the pathos of the other by recitative and sing-song.-W.