...some worthy man who said Pope's Dunciad was too fine a poem for its subject, and asked incautiously, " a poem on what ? " JOHNSON (with a disdainful look)....dunce then. Ah, Sir, hadst thou lived in those days ! There is nothing involved or obscure about that. Quite apart from the disdainful look the meaning...

...some worthy man who said Pope's Dunciad was too fine a poem for its subject, and asked incautiously, "a poem on what ? " JOHNSON (with a disdainful look)....dunce then. Ah, Sir, hadst thou lived in those days ! There is nothing involved or obscure about that. Quite apart from the disdainful look the meaning...

...Dunciad.1 While he was talking loudly in praise of those lines one of the company ventured to say, "Too fine for such a poem : — a poem on what?" JOHNSON,...worth while being a dunce then. Ah, Sir, hadst thou live in those days ! It is not worth while being a dunce now, when there are no wits." Bickerstaff...

...on what ? " Boswell once asked in rhetorical scorn concerning the Dunciad. " Why," said Johnson, " on dunces. It was worth while being a dunce then. Ah, sir, hadst thou lived in those days ! " At another time Boswell pompously presumed to express his argument by a trite quotation from Hamlet....