ARGUMENT. The proposition, the invocation, and the inscription.-Therr the original of the great empire of Dulness, and cause of the continuance thereof.-The college of the goddess in the city, with her private academy for poets in particular; the governors of it, and the four cardinal virtues.Then the poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting her, on the evening of a lord mayor's day, revolving the long succession of her sons, and the glories past and to come. She fixes her eyes on Bays to be the instrument of that great event which is the subject of the poem. -He is described pensive among his books, giving up the eause, and apprehending the period of her empire.-Af ter debating whether to betake himself to the church, or to gaming, or to party-writing, he raises an altar of proper books, and (making first his solemn prayer and deelaration) purposes thereon to sacrifice all his unsuc⚫essful writings.-As the pile is kindled, the goddess, be: holding the flame from her seat, flies and puts it out, by easting upon it the poem of Thule.-She forthwith reveals herself to him, transports him to her temple, unfolds her arts, and initiates him into her mysteries; then announcing the death of Eusden, the poet-laureate, anoints him carries him to court, and proclaims him successor, THE DUNCIAD, &c. BOOK I. THE mighty Mother, and her Son who brings* 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 of this poem; the latter of theut 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 Jaureate, 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. The Smithfield muses. Smithfield is the place where Bartholomew-fair was kept, whose shows, machines, and dramatical entertainments, formerly agreeable only to the tasic of the rabble, were by the hero of this poem, and others of equal genius, brought to the theatres of Covent garden, Lincoln's-inn-fields, and the Hay-market, to be the reigning pleasures of the court and town. This happened in the reigns of king George I. and II. See Book iii. By Dulness, Jove, and Fate. i. e. by their judgments, their interests, and their inclinations. You by whose care, in vain decry'd and curst, In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read, Still her old empire to restore* she tries, Oh thou! whatever title please thine ear, Mourn not, my SWIFT, at aught our realm acquires.s * Still her old empire to restore. This restoration makes the completion of the poem. Vide Book iv. Laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy chair. The imagery is exquisite; and the equivoque in the last words, gives a peculiar elegance to the whole expression. The easy chair suits his age: Rabelais' easy chair marks his character; and he filled and possessed it as the right heir and successor of that original genius. Or praise the court, or magnify mankind. Ironice, alJuding to Gulliver's representations of both. The next line relates to the papers of the Drapier against the currency of Wood's copper coin in Ireland, which upon the great discontent of the people, his Majesty was graciously pleased to recall. § Mourn not, my Swift, at aught our realm acquires. Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne, And laughs to think Munro would take her down. Where o'er the gates, by his fam'd father's hand,* Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers stand; One cell there is, conceal'd from vulgar eye, The cave of Poverty and Poetry. Keen, hollow winds howl through the black recess, Hence bards, like Proteus, long in vain tied down, Hence Journals, Medleys, Mercuries, MAGAZINES: And new-year odes, and all the Grub-street race. Ironice iterum. The politics of England and Ireland were at this time by some thought to be opposite, or interfering with each other. Dr. Swift of course was in the interest of the latter, our author of the former. By his famed father's hand. Mr. Caius Gabriel Cibber, father of the poet laureate. The two statues of the lunatics over the gates of Bedlam-hospital were done by him, and (as the son justly says of them) are no ill monuments of his fame as an artist. † Curll's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post. Two booksellers, of whom see Book ii. The former was fined by the Court of King's Bench for publishing obscene books; the latter usually adorned his shop with titles in red letters. Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines. It is an ancient English custom for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution at Tyburn; and no less customary to print elegies on their deaths, at same time, or before. § Sepulchral lies, is a just satire on the flatteries and falsehoods admitted to be inscribed on the walls of churches, in epitaphs: which occasioned the following epigram: "Friend! in your epitaphs, I am grieved, So very much is said; One half will never be believed, The other never read." -new-year odes, Made by the poet-laureate for the |