Woolston, the scourge of scripture, mark with awe!

And mighty Jacob, blunderbuss of law!

VER. 151. Lo Popple's brow, &c. In the former edition--

Haywood, Centlivre, glories of their race, Lo Horneck's fierce, and Roome's funereal face.

VER. 157. Each songster, riddler, &c. In the former edition--

Lo Bond and Foxton, every nameless name.

After VER. 158 in the first edition followed--

How proud, how pale, how earnest all appear!

How rhymes eternal jingle in their ear!

VER. 197. In the first edition it was--

And proud philosophy with breeches tore, And English music with a dismal score: Fast by in darkness palpable enshrined W---s, B---r, M---n, all the poring kind.

After VER. 274 in the former edition followed--

For works like these let deathless journals tell, 'None but thyself can be thy parallel.'

VER. 295. Safe in its heaviness, etc. In the former edition--

Too safe in inborn heaviness to stray, And lick up every blockhead in the way.

Thy dragons, magistrates and peers shall taste, And from each show rise duller than the last; Till raised from booths, etc.

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 Life._

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

Then when these signs declare the mighty year, When the dull stars roll round and re-appear; Let there be darkness! (the dread Power shall say) All shall be darkness, as it ne'er were day; To their first Chaos wit's vain works shall fall, 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; 10 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.

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. 20

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, Gasps, as they straiten at each end the cord, And dies, when Dulness gives her page the word. 30 Mad Mathesis[380] alone was unconfined, Too mad for mere material chains to bind, Now to pure space[381] lifts her ecstatic stare, Now running round the circle, finds it square.[382]

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. 40 There sunk Thalia, nerveless, cold, and dead, Had not her sister Satire held her head: Nor could'st thou, Chesterfield![383] a tear refuse, Thou wept'st, and with thee wept each gentle Muse.

When, lo! a harlot form[384] 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: By singing peers upheld on either hand, She tripp'd and laugh'd, too pretty much to stand; 50 Cast on the prostrate Nine a scornful look, Then thus in quaint recitative spoke:

'O Cara! Cara! silence all that train: Joy to great Chaos! let division reign:[385]

Chromatic[386] 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;[387]

To the same notes thy sons shall hum, or snore, And all thy yawning daughters cry, Encore! 60 Another Phoebus, 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.

The young, the old, who feel her inward sway, One instinct seizes, and transports away.

None need a guide, by sure attraction led, And strong impulsive gravity of head; None want a place, for all their centre found, Hung to the goddess, and cohered around.

Not closer, orb in orb, conglobed are seen The buzzing bees about their dusky queen. 80

The gathering number, as it moves along, Involves a vast involuntary throng, Who, gently drawn, and struggling less and less, Roll in her vortex, and her power confess.

Not those alone who passive own her laws, But who, weak rebels, more advance her cause.

Whate'er of dunce in college or in town Sneers at another, in toupee or gown; Whate'er of mongrel no one class admits, A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits. 90

Nor absent they, no members of her state, Who pay her homage in her sons, the great; Who, false to Phoebus, bow the knee to Baal; Or, impious, preach his word without a call.

Patrons, who sneak from living worth to dead, Withhold the pension, and set up the head; Or vest dull flattery in the sacred gown; Or give from fool to fool the laurel crown.

And (last and worst) with all the cant of wit, Without the soul, the Muse's hypocrite. 100

There march'd the bard and blockhead, side by side, Who rhymed for hire, and patronised for pride.

Narcissus,[388] praised with all a parson's power, Look'd a white lily sunk beneath a shower.

There moved Montalto with superior air; His stretch'd-out arm display'd a volume fair; Courtiers and patriots in two ranks divide, Through both he pass'd, and bow'd from side to side; But as in graceful act, with awful eye Composed he stood, bold Benson[389] thrust him by: 110 On two unequal crutches propp'd he came, Milton's on this, on that one Johnston's name.

The decent knight[390] retired with sober rage, Withdrew his hand, and closed the pompous page.

But (happy for him as the times went then) Appear'd Apollo's mayor and aldermen, On whom three hundred gold-capp'd youths await, To lug the ponderous volume off in state.

When Dulness, smiling--'Thus revive the wits!

But murder first, and mince them all to bits; 120 As erst Medea (cruel, so to save!) A new edition of old Aeson gave; Let standard authors, thus, like trophies borne, Appear more glorious as more hack'd and torn.

And you, my critics! in the chequer'd shade, Admire new light through holes yourselves have made.

Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone, A page, a grave, that they can call their own; But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick, On passive paper, or on solid brick. 130 So by each bard an alderman[391] shall sit, A heavy lord shall hang at every wit, And while on Fame's triumphal car they ride, Some slave of mine be pinion'd to their side.'

Now crowds on crowds around the goddess press, Each eager to present the first address.