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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 substitute the kingdom of the Dull upon earth.How she leads captive the sciences, and silences 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 patrous 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 chy 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 endues 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, bisds-nests, moss, etc. but with particular caution, not to proceed beyond trifles, to any useful or extensive view 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 free-thinkers, one of whom speaks iu the name of the rest. The youths, 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 obligation, 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 consummation of all in the restoration of night and chaos, conclude the poem.

THE

DUNCIAD,

&c.

BOOK IV.

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 flam'd 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,†

-dread Chaos, and eternal Night! Invoked, as the restoration of their empire is the action of the poem.

To blot out order, and extinguish light. The two great ends of her mission; the one in quality of the daughter of Chaos, the other as daughter of Night. Order here is to be understood extensively, both as civil and moral; the distinction between high and low in society, and true and

Safe in its heaviness shall never stray,
But lick up every blockhead in the way.
Thee shall the patriot, thee the courtier taste,
And every year be duller than the last,
Till raised from booths, to theatre, to court,
Her seat imperial Dulness shall transport.
Already opera prepares the way,

The sure forerunner of her gentle sway;
Let her thy heart, next drabs and dice, engage,
The third mad passion of thy doing age.
Teach thou the warbling Polypheme* to roar,
And scream thyself as none e'er scream'd before!
To aid our cause, if heaven thou cans not bend,
Hell thou shalt move; for Faustust is cur friend;
Plutot with Cato thou for this shalt join,
And link the Mourning Bride to Proserpine.
Grub-street! thy fall should men and gods conspire,
Thy stage shall stand, ensure it but from fire.
Another chylus appears !§ prepare

For new abortions, all ye pregnant fair!

• Polypheme. He translated the Italian opera of Polifemo; but unfortunately lost the whole jest of the story. The Cy. clops asks Ulysses his name, who tells him his name is Noman: after his eye is put out, he roars and calls the brether Cyclops to his aid: they inquire who has hurt him? he answers Noman: whereupon they all go away again. Our ingenious translator made Ulysses answer, I take no name; whereby all that followed became unintelligible. Hence it appears that Mr. Cibber (who values himself en subscribing to the English translation of Homer's Iliad) had not that merit with respect to the Odyssey, or he might have been better instructed in the Greek punnology.

† Faustus, Pluto, &c. Names of miserable farces which it was the custom to act at the end of the best tragedies, to spoil the digestion of the audience.

ensure it but from fire. In Tibbald's farce of Proser pine, alcorn-field was set on fire: whereupon the other playhouse had a barn burnt down for the recreation of the spectators. They also rivalled each other in showing the bureIngs of hell-fire, in Dr. Faustus.

Another Eschylus appears! It is reported of Aschy. 8, that when his tragedy of the Furics was acted, the su Hence were so terrified that the children fell into fits, and the big-bellied women miscarried.

In flames, like Semele's, be brought to bed,
While opening hell spouts wild-fire at your head.

Now, Bavius, take the poppy from thy brow,
And place it here! here, all ye heroes, bow!

This, this is he foretold by ancient rhymes:
The Augustus born to bring Saturnian times.
Signs following signs lead on the mighty year;
See! the dull stars roll round and reappear.
See, see, our own true Phoebus wears thy bays!
Our Midas sits lord chancellor of plays!
On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ !*
Lo! Ambrose Philipst is preferr'd for wit!
See under Ripley rise a new Whitehall,

While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall:+

On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ! W-m Benson (surveyor of the buildings to his majesty King George I.) gave in a report to the lords, that their house and the Painted-chamber adjoining were in immediate danger of falling. Whereupon the lords met in a committee to appoint some other place to sit in, while the house should be taken down. But it being proposed to cause some other builders first to inspect it, they found it in very good condition. The lords, upon this, were going upon an address to the king against Benson for such a misrepresentation: but the earl of Sunderland, then secretary, gave them an assurance that his majesty would remove him, which was done accordingly. In favour of this man, the famous Sir Christopher Wren, who had been architect to the crown for above fifty years, who built most of the churches in London, laid the first stone of St. Paul's, and lived to finish it, had been displaced from his employment at the age of near ninety years.

† Ambrose Philips. "He was," saith Mr. Jacob, " one of the wits at Button's, and a justice of the peace:" but he hath since met with higher preferment in Ireland: and a much greater character we have of him in Mr. Gildon's Complete art of Poetry, vol. i. p. 157. "Indeed he confesses, he dare not set him quite on the same foot with Virgil, lest "it should seem flattery, but he is much mistaken if posterity does not afford him a greater esteem than he at present enjoys."

While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall. At the time when this poem was written, the banqueting-house of

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