At the same time Pope had made some progress in The Dunciad*; the first sketch of which, as it was pretended at the time, was snatched from the fire by nity, their own persons and names being utterly secret and obscure. This gave Mr. Pope the thought, that he had now some opportunity of doing good, by detecting and dragging into light these enemies of mankind; since to invalidate this universal slander, it sufficed to shew what contemptible men were the Authors of it. He was not without hopes, that by manifesting the dulness of those who had only malice to recommend them; either the Booksellers would not find their account in employing them, or the men themselves, when discovered, want courage to proceed in so unlawful an occupation. This it was that gave birth to The Dunciad; and he thought it an happiness, that by the late flood of slander on himself, he had acquired such a peculiar right over their Names as was necessary to his design." * One of Swift's Poems was thus addressed to him whilst he was writing The Dunciad: "Pope has the talent well to speak, But not to reach the ear; A while they on each other look, All turns and motions tries: Yet to the Dean his share allot; That without which a thing is not, Thus, Pope, in vain you boast For, had our deaf Divine Been for your conversation fit, You had not writ a line. your wit: Of Sherlock thus, for preaching fam'd, The sexton reason'd well; And justly half the merit claim'd, Because he rang the bell." Swift, who persuaded his friend to proceed in it * ; and to him it was therefore inscribed. * In a Letter to the Dean, Oct. 22, 1727, Pope says, My Poem (which it grieves me that I dare not send you a copy of, for fear of the Curils and Dennises of Ireland, and still more for fear of the worst of traitors, our Friends and Admirers)--my Poem, I say, will show you what a distinguished age we lived in! Your name is in it, with some others, under a mark of such ignominy as you will not much grieve to wear in that company. Adieu; and God bless you, and give you health and spirits"Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air; Or laugh and shake in Rab'lais' easy chair, These two verses are over and above what I have said of you in the Poem." [They were inserted in the Quarto Edition of 1728-9.] In a Letter to Mr. Gay, Nov. 17, Swift says, "The Beggar's Opera hath knocked down Gulliver! I hope to see Pope's Dulness knock down the Beggar's Opera, but not till it hath fully done its job."-Lord Bolingbroke, in February 1727-8, jocosely tells the Dean, "Pope charges himself with this Letter: he has been here two days; he is now hurrying to London; he will hurry back to Twickenham in two days more; and before the end of the week he will be, for aught I know, at Dublin. In the mean time his Dulness grows, and flourishes, as if he was there already. It will indeed be a noble work: the many will stare at it, the few will smile; and all his patrons, from Bickerstaff to Gulliver, will rejoice to see themselves adorned in that immortal piece."-And Mr. Pope, March 23, adds, "As for those Scribblers for whom you apprehend I would suppress my Dulness (which, by the way, for the future you are to call by a more pompous name, The Dunciad), how much that nest of hornets are my regard will easily appear to you when you read the Treatise of the Bathos. At all adventures, yours and my name shall stand linked as friends to posterity, both in verse and prose, and (as Tully calls it) in consuetudine studiorum. Would to God our persons could but as well and as surely be inseparable! As the obtaining the love of valuable men is the happiest end I know of this life, so the next felicity is to get rid of fools and scoundrels; which I cannot but own to you was one part of my design in falling upon these Authors, whose incapacity is not greater than their insincerity, and of whom I have always found (if I may quote myself) "That each bad Author is as bad a friend.' This Poem will rid me of those insects. 'Cedite, Romani Scriptores, cedite Graii; Nescio quid majus nascitur Iliade.' I mean than my Iliad; and I call it Nescio quid which is a degree of modesty; but, however, if it silence these fellows, it must be something greater than any Iliad in Christendom.” This was declaring interminable war. The Dunces were not sparing in retaliation; and this at the precise period when Mr. WARBURTON (whose Letters to Theobald are all long posterior in time to the first appearance of The Dunciad) became an honorary Member of the Club. The first publication* of The Dunciad appears to have been early in 1728; and the remainder of *This circumstance is involved in impenetrable mystery. Its first appearance in Dublin was probably a contrivance of Pope and Swift; or it might have been a device of the London Booksellers, to avoid the odium of being the original Publishers of a Work that was likely to create a great clamour amongst them; not without some apprehension of personal danger. — We are told by Warburton that "an imperfect Edition was published at Dublin, and re-printed at London in twelves; another at Dublin, and another at London in octavo; and three others in twelves the same year. But there was no perfect Edition before that of London in 4to, 1729; which was attended with Notes." "Some false Editions of the Book having an Owl in their Frontispiece, the true one, to distinguish it, fixed in its stead an Ass laden with Authors. Then, upon this surreptitious one being printed with the same Ass, the new Edition in octavo returned for distinction to the Owl again. Hence arose a great contest of Booksellers against Booksellers, and Advertisements against Advertisements; some recommending the Edition of the Owl, and others the Edition of the Ass, by which names they came to be distinguished, to the great honour also of the Gentlemen of the Dunciad." SAVAGE's Dedication to Lord Middlesex, In the earliest Edition I have met with, the title runs, "The Dunciad, an Heroic Poem, in Three Books. Dublin, printed; London, re-printed for 4. Dodd, 1728. This Edition has the Owl, standing on a heavy pedestal, on the ledges of which are written, "P. and K. Arthur;" Shakespeare Restored;" "Dennis's Works;" "Welsted's Poems ;""Dennis's Plays." †The Publisher's Address to the Reader will illustrate the History of the Poem, and demonstrate the antipathy entertained by the Author against Theobald, the original Hero. "It will be found a true observation, though somewhat surprizing, that when any scandal is vented against a man of the highest distinction and character, either in the State or in Literature, the publick in general afford it a most quiet reception; and the larger part accept it as favourably as if it was some kindness done to themselves: whereas, if a known scoundrel or blockhead but chance to be touched upon, a whole legion is up in arms, and it becomes the common cause of all Scribblers, Booksellers, and Printers whatsoever.-Not to search too deeply into the that year teemed with an infinite variety of poetical squibs, and with pamphlets innumerable, many of the reason hereof, I will only observe as a fact, that every week for these two months past, the Town has been persecuted with Pamphlets, Advertisements, Letters, and Weekly Essays, not only against the wit and writings, but against the character and person of Mr. Pope; and that of all those men who have received pleasure from his works (which by modest computation may be about a hundred thousand in these kingdoms of England and Ireland; not to mention Jersey, Guernsey, the Orcades, those in the New World, and Foreigners who have translated him into their languages), of all this number not a han hath stood up to say one word in his defence.-The only exception is the Author of the following Poem *, who doubtless had either a better insight into the grounds of this clamour, or a better opinion of Mr. Pope's integrity, joined with a greater personal love for him, than any other of his numerous friends and admirers. Further, that he was in his peculiar intimacy, appears from the knowledge he manifests of the most private Authors of all the anonymous pieces against him, and from his having in this Poem attacked no man living †, who had not before printed, or published, some scandal against this particular gentleman.-How I became possessed of it, is no concern to the Reader; but it would have been a wrong to him, had I detained this publication; since those names which are its chief ornaments die off daily so fast, as must render it too soon unintel ligible. If it provoke the Author to give us a more perfect Edition, I have my end. "Who he is, I cannot say; and (which is a great pity) there is certainly nothing in his style and manner of writing, which can distinguish or discover him: for, if it bears any resemblance to that of Mr. Pope, it is not improbable but it might be done on purpose, with a view to have it pass for his. But by the frequency of his allusions to Virgil, and a laboured (not to say affected) shortness in imitation of him, I should think him more an admirer of the Roman Poet than of the Grecian, and in that not of the same taste with his Friend.--I have been well informed, that this work was the labour of full six years of his life, and that he wholly retired himself from all the avocations and pleasures of the world, to attend diligently to its correction and perfection; and six years more he intended to bestow upon A very plain irony, speaking of Mr. Pope himself. WARBURTON. The Publisher in these words went a little too far: but it is certain whatever names the Reader finds that are unknown to him, are of such; and the exception is only of two or three, whose dulness, impudent scurrilities, or self-conceit, all mankind agreed to have justly entitled them to a place in The Dunciad. WARBURTON. This irony had small effect in concealing the Author. The Dunciad, imperfect as it was, had not been published two days, but the whole Town gave it to Mr. Pope. WARBURTON. VOL. II. 3 C it which were anonymous*; but several had real names subscribed to them. it, as it should seem by this verse of Statius, which was cited at the head of his manuscript, Oh mihi bissenos multum vigilata per annos, Duncia! "Hence also we learn the true Title of the Poem; which with the same certainty as we call that of Homer the Iliad, of Virgil the Æneid, of Camoëns the Lusiad, of Voltaire the Henriade, we may pronounce, could have been, and can be no other than THE DUNCIAD. It is styled Heroic, as being doubly so; not only with respect to its nature, which, according to the best rules of the Ancients, and strictest ideas of the Moderns, is critically such; but also, with regard to the Heroical disposition and high courage of the Writer, who dared to stir up such a formidable, irritable, and implacable race of mortals. "The time and date of the action is evidently in the last Reign, when the office of CITY POET expired upon the death of Elkanah Settle; and he has fixed it to the Mayoralty of Sir George Thorold. But there may arise some obscurity in Chronology from the Names in the Poem, by the inevitable removal of some Authors, and insertion of others, in their Niches: for whoever will consider the unity of the whole design, will be sensible that the Poem was not made for these Authors, but these Authors for the Poem. And I should judge they were clapped in as they rose, fresh and fresh, and changed from day to day, in like manner as, when the old boughs wither, we thrust new ones into a chimney. I would not have the Reader too much troubled or anxious, if he cannot decypher them; since, when he shall have found them out, he will probably know no more of the Persons than before. Yet we judged it better to preserve them as they are, than to change them for fictitious names, by which the Satire would only be multiplied; and applied to many instead of one. Had the HERO, for instance, been called Codrus, how many would have affirmed him to be Mr. W— Mr. D, Sir RB, &c. But now, all that unjust scandal is saved, by calling him THEOBALD, which, by good luck, happens to be the name of a real person. I was indeed aware that this name may to some appear too mean for the Hero of an Epic Poem! But it is hoped they will alter that opinion, when they find that an Author no less eminent than La Bruyere has thought him worthy a place in his "Characters."-“ Voudriez vous, THEOBALDE, que je crusse que vous êtes baisse? que vous n'êtes plus Poete, ni bel esprit ? que vous êtes presentement aussi mauvais juge de tout genre d'ouvrage, que mechant auteur? Votre air libre & presumptueux me rassure, & me persuade tout le contraire, &c." Characteres, vol. I. de la Societé & de la Conversation, 1720, p. 176. * Amongst these was, "Gulliveriana: or, a Fourth Volume of Miscellanies; being a Sequel of the Three Volumes published by Pope and Swift. To which is added, Alexandriana; or, a Com parison |