The Dunciad (Book IV)

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 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 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 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: among 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 restor’d I sing, 5
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 Dogstar’s unpropitious ray,
Smote ev’ry brain, and wither’d ev’ry 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, 15
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
(’T is thus aspiring Dulness ever shines);
Soft on her lap her Laureate Son reclines: 20
Beneath her footstool Science groans in chains,
And Wit dreads exile, penalties, and pains.
There foam’d rebellious Logic, gagg’d and bound;
There, stript, fair Rhetoric languish’d on the ground;
His blunted arms by Sophistry are borne, 25
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 alone was unconfin’d,
Too mad for mere material chains to bind,
Now to pure Space lifts her ecstatic stare,
Now running round the Circle, finds it square.
But held in tenfold bonds the Muses lie, 35
Watch’d both by envy’s and by flatt’ry’s eye.
There to her heart sad Tragedy addrest
The dagger, wont to pierce the Tyrant’s breast;
But sober History restrain’d her rage,
And promis’d vengeance on a barb’rous age. 40
There sunk Thalia, nerveless, cold, and dead,
Had not her sister Satire held her head:
Nor couldst thou, Chesterfield! a tear refuse,
Thou wept’st, and with thee wept each gentle Muse.
When lo! a harlot form soft sliding by, 45
With mincing step, small voice, and languid eye:
Foreign her air, her robe’s discordant pride
In patchwork flutt’ring, 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 recitativo spoke:
‘O cara! cara! silence all that train!
Joy to great Chaos! let Division reign!
Chromatic tortures soon shall drive them hence, 55
Break all their nerves, and fritter all their sense:
One Trill shall harmonize joy, grief, and rage,
Wake the dull Church, and lull the ranting Stage;
To the same notes thy sons shall hum, or snore,
And all thy yawning daughters cry encore. 60
Another Phœbus, thy own Phœbus, 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, 65
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 th’ 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, 75
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 gath’ring 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, 85
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 Phœbus, bow the knee to Baal,
Or impious, preach his word without a call:
Patrons, who sneak from living worth to dead, 95
Withhold the pension, and set up the head;
Or vast dull Flatt’ry 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 patronized for pride.
Narcissus, prais’d with all a parson’s power,
Look’d a white lily sunk beneath a shower.
There moved Montalto with superior air; 105
His stretch’d-out arm display’d a volume fair;
Courtiers and Patriots in two ranks divide,
Thro’ both he pass’d, and bow’d from side to side;
But as in graceful act, with awful eye,
Composed he stood, bold Benson thrust him by: 110
On two unequal crutches propt he came,
Milton’s on this, on that one Johnston’s name.
The decent knight retired with sober rage,
Withdrew his hand, and closed the pompous page:
But (happy for him as the times went then) 115
Appear’d Apollo’s mayor and aldermen,
On whom three hundred gold-capp’d youths await,
To lug the pond’rous 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 Æson 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, 125
Admire new light thro’ 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 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, 135
Each eager to present the first address.
Dunce scorning Dunce beholds the next advance,
But Fop shows Fop superior complaisance.
When lo! a spectre rose, whose index hand
Held forth the virtue of the dreadful wand; 140
His beaver’d brow a birchen garland wears,
Dropping with infants’ blood and mothers’ tears.
O’er ev’ry vein a shudd’ring horror runs,
Eton and Winton shake thro’ all their sons.
All flesh is humbled, Westminster’s bold race 145
Shrink, and confess the Genius of the place:
The pale boy-senator yet tingling stands,
And holds his breeches close with both his hands.
Then thus: ‘Since man from beast by words is known,
Words are man’s province, words we teach alone. 150
When reason doubtful, like the Samian letter,
Points him two ways, the narrower is the better.
Placed at the door of learning, youth to guide,
We never suffer it to stand too wide.
To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence, 155
As Fancy opens the quick springs of Sense,
We ply the Memory, we load the Brain,
Bind rebel wit, and double chain on chain,
Confine the thought, to exercise the breath,
And keep them in the pale of words till death. 160
Whate’er the talents, or howe’er design’d,
We hang one jingling padlock on the mind:
A poet the first day he dips his quill;
And what the last? a very poet still.
Pity! the charm works only in our wall, 165
Lost, lost too soon in yonder house or hall.
There truant Wyndham ev’ry Muse gave o’er,
There Talbot sunk, and was a Wit no more!
How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast!
How many Martials were in Pulteney lost! 170
Else sure some bard, to our eternal praise,
In twice ten thousand rhyming nights and days,
Had reach’d the work, the all that mortal can,
And South beheld that masterpiece of man.
‘O (cried the Goddess) for some pedant reign! 175
Some gentle James, to bless the land again:
To stick the doctor’s chair into the throne,
Give law to words, or war with words alone,
Senates and Courts with Greek and Latin rule,
And turn the Council to a grammar school! 180
For sure if Dulness sees a grateful day,
’T is in the shade of arbitrary sway.
O! if my sons may learn one earthly thing,
Teach but that one, sufficient for a King;
That which my priests, and mine alone, maintain, 185
Which, as it dies, or lives, we fall, or reign:
May you, may Cam, and Isis, preach it long!
‘“The right divine of Kings to govern wrong.”’
Prompt at the call, around the Goddess roll
Broad hats, and hoods, and caps, a sable shoal: 190
Thick and more thick the black blockade extends,
A hundred head of Aristotle’s friends.
Nor wert thou, Isis! wanting to the day
(Tho’ Christ Church long kept prudishly away):
Each stanch polemic, stubborn as a rock, 195
Each fierce logician, still expelling Locke,
Came whip and spur, and dash’d thro’ thin and thick,
On German Crousaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck.
As many quit the streams that murm’ring fall
To lull the sons of Marg’ret and Clare Hall, 200
Where Bentley late tempestuous wont to sport
In troubled waters, but now sleeps in port.
Before them march’d that awful Aristarch;
Plough’d was his front with many a deep remark;
His hat, which never veil’d to human pride, 205
Walker with rev’rence took, and laid aside.
Low bow’d the rest; he, kingly, did but nod;
So upright Quakers please both man and God.
‘Mistress! dismiss that rabble from your throne;
Avaunt—is Aristarchus yet unknown? 210
Thy mighty scholiast, whose unwearied pains
Made Horace dull, and humbled Milton’s strains.
Turn what they will to verse, their toil is vain,
Critics like me shall make it prose again.
Roman and Greek grammarians! know your better; 215
Author of something yet more great than letter;
While tow’ring o’er your alphabet, like Saul,
Stands our Digamma, and o’ertops them all.
’T is true, on words is still our whole debate,
Disputes of me or te, of aut or at, 220
To sound or sink in cano, O or A,
Or give up Cicero to C or K.
Let Friend affect to speak as Terence spoke,
And Alsop never but like Horace joke:
For me what Virgil, Pliny, may deny, 225
Manilius or Solinus shall supply:
For Attic phrase in Plato let them seek,
I poach in Suidas for unlicens’d Greek.
In ancient sense if any needs will deal,
Be sure I give them fragments, not a meal; 230
What Gellius or Stobæus hash’d before,
Or chew’d by blind old scholiasts o’er and o’er.
The critic eye, that microscope of wit,
Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit.
How parts relate to parts, or they to whole, 235
The Body’s harmony, the beaming Soul,
Are things which Kuster, Burman, Wasse shall see;
When man’s whole frame is obvious to a flea.
‘Ah, think not, Mistress! more true dulness lies
In Folly’s cap, than Wisdom’s grave disguise. 240
Like buoys, that never sink into the flood,
On learning’s surface we but lie and nod.
Thine is the genuine head of many a house,
And much divinity without a nous.
Nor could a Barrow work on ev’ry block, 245
Nor has one Atterbury spoil’d the flock!
See! still thy own, the heavy Canon roll,
And metaphysic smokes involve the pole.
For thee we dim the eyes, and stuff the head
With all such reading as was never read: 250
For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,
And write about it, Goddess, and about it:
So spins the silkworm small its slender store,
And labours till it clouds itself all o’er.
‘What tho’ we let some better sort of fool 255
Thrid ev’ry science, run thro’ ev’ry school?
Never by tumbler thro’ the hoops was shown
Such skill in passing all, and touching none.
He may indeed (if sober all this time)
Plague with Dispute, or persecute with Rhyme. 260
We only furnish what he cannot use,
Or, wed to what he must divorce, a Muse:
Full in the midst of Euclid dip at once,
And petrify a Genius to a Dunce:
Or, set on metaphysic ground to prance, 265
Show all his paces, not a step advance.
With the same cement, ever sure to bind,
We bring to one dead level ev’ry mind:
Then take him to develop, if you can,
And hew the Block off, and get out the Man. 270
But wherefore waste I words? I see advance
Whore, pupil, and laced governor from France.
Walker! our hat!’——nor more he deign’d to say,
But stern as Ajax’ spectre strode away.
In flow’d at once a gay embroider’d race, 275
And titt’ring push’d the pedants off the place:
Some would have spoken, but the voice was drown’d
By the French horn or by the opening hound.
The first came forwards with as easy mien,
As if he saw St. James’s and the Queen. 280
When thus th’ attendant orator begun:
‘Receive, great Empress! thy accomplish’d son;
Thine from the birth, and sacred from the rod,
A dauntless infant! never scared with God.
The sire saw, one by one, his Virtues wake; 285
The mother begg’d the blessing of a Rake.
Thou gavest that ripeness, which so soon began,
And ceas’d so soon, he ne’er was boy nor man.
Thro’ school and college, thy kind cloud o’ercast,
Safe and unseen the young Æneas past: 290
Thence bursting glorious, all at once let down,
Stunn’d with his giddy larum half the town.
Intrepid then, o’er seas and lands he flew;
Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too.
There all thy gifts and graces we display, 295
Thou, only thou, directing all our way!
To where the Seine, obsequious as she runs,
Pours at great Bourbon’s feet her silken sons;
Or Tyber, now no longer Roman, rolls,
Vain of Italian arts, Italian souls: 300
To happy convents, bosom’d deep in vines,
Where slumber abbots, purple as their wines:
To isles of fragrance, lily-silver’d vales,
Diffusing languor in the panting gales:
To lands of singing, or of dancing, slaves, 305
Love-whisp’ring woods, and lute-resounding waves.
But chief her shrine where naked Venus keeps,
And Cupids ride the lion of the deeps;
Where, eas’d of fleets, the Adriatic main
Wafts the smooth eunuch and enamour’d swain. 310
Led by my hand, he saunter’d Europe round,
And gather’d ev’ry vice on Christian ground;
Saw every Court, heard every King declare
His royal sense of Op’ras or the Fair;
The Stews and Palace equally explored, 315
Intrigued with glory, and with spirit whored;
Tried all hors-d’œuvres, all liqueurs defined,
Judicious drank, and greatly daring dined;
Dropp’d the dull lumber of the Latin store,
Spoil’d his own language, and acquired no more; 320
All classic learning lost on classic ground;
And last—turn’d Air, the Echo of a Sound!
See now, half-cured, and perfectly well-bred,
With nothing but a solo in his head;
As much estate, and principle, and wit, 325
As Jansen, Fleetwood, Cibber shall think fit;
Stol’n from a Duel, follow’d by a Nun,
And, if a borough choose him not, undone;
See, to my country happy I restore
This glorious youth, and add one Venus more. 330
Her too receive (for her my soul adores);
So may the sons of sons of sons of whores
Prop thine, O Empress! like each neighbour Throne,
And make a long posterity thy own.’
Pleas’d, she accepts the Hero and the Dame, 335
Wraps in her veil, and frees from sense of shame:
Then look’d, and saw a lazy lolling sort,
Unseen at Church, at Senate, or at Court,
Of ever listless loit’rers, that attend
No cause, no trust, no duty, and no friend. 340
Thee, too, my Paridell! she mark’d thee there,
Stretch’d on the rack of a too easy chair,
And heard thy everlasting yawn confess
The pains and penalties of Idleness.
She pitied! but her pity only shed 345
Benigner influence on thy nodding head.
But Annius, crafty seer, with ebon wand,
And well-dissembled em’rald on his hand,
False as his gems, and canker’d as his coins,
Came, cramm’d with capon, from where Pollio dines. 350
Soft, as the wily fox is seen to creep,
Where bask on sunny banks the simple sheep,
Walk round and round, now prying here, now there,
So he, but pious, whisper’d first his prayer:
‘Grant, gracious Goddess! grant me still to cheat! 355
O may thy cloud still cover the deceit!
Thy choicer mists on this assembly shed,
But pour them thickest on the noble head.
So shall each youth, assisted by our eyes,
See other Cæsars, other Homers rise; 360
Thro’ twilight ages hunt th’ Athenian fowl,
Which Chalcis, Gods, and Mortals call an owl;
Now see an Attys, now a Cecrops clear,
Nay, Mahomet! the pigeon at thine ear;
Be rich in ancient brass, tho’ not in gold, 365
And keep his Lares, tho’ his House be sold;
To heedless Phœbe his fair bride postpone,
Honour a Syrian prince above his own;
Lord of an Otho, if I vouch it true;
Bless’d in one Niger, till he knows of two.’ 370
Mummius o’erheard him; Mummius, fool renown’d,
Who, like his Cheops, stinks above the ground,
Fierce as a startled adder, swell’d and said,
Rattling an ancient Sistrum at his head:
‘Speak’st thou of Syrian Princes? traitor base! 375
Mine, Goddess! mine is all the horned race.
True, he had wit to make their value rise;
From foolish Greeks to steal them was as wise;
More glorious yet, from barb’rous hands to keep,
When Sallee rovers chased him on the deep. 380
Then taught by Hermes, and divinely bold,
Down his own throat he risk’d the Grecian gold,
Receiv’d each demigod, with pious care,
Deep in his entrails—I revered them there,
I bought them, shrouded in that living shrine, 385
And, at their second birth, they issue mine.’
‘Witness, great Ammon! by whose horns I swore
(Replied soft Annius), this our paunch before
Still bears them, faithful; and that thus I eat,
Is to refund the Medals with the Meat. 390
To prove me, Goddess! clear of all design,
Bid me with Pollio sup as well as dine:
There all the learn’d shall at the labour stand,
And Douglas lend his soft obstetric hand.’
The Goddess, smiling, seem’d to give consent; 395
So back to Pollio hand in hand they went.
Then thick as locusts black’ning all the ground,
A tribe with weeds and shells fantastic crown’d,
Each with some wondrous gift approach’d the Power,
A nest, a toad, a fungus, or a flower. 400
By far the foremost two, with earnest zeal
And aspect ardent, to the throne appeal.
The first thus open’d: ‘Hear thy suppliant’s call,
Great Queen, and common Mother of us all!
Fair from its humble bed I rear’d this flower, 405
Suckled, and cheer’d, with air, and sun, and shower.
Soft on the paper ruff its leaves I spread,
Bright with the gilded button tipp’d its head,
Then throned in glass, and named it CAROLINE.
Each maid cried, “Charming!” and each youth, “Divine!” 410
Did Nature’s pencil ever blend such rays,
Such varied light in one promiscuous blaze?
Now prostrate! dead! behold that Caroline:
No maid cries, “Charming!” and no youth, “Divine!”
And lo, the wretch! whose vile, whose insect lust 415
Laid this gay daughter of the spring in dust.
O punish him, or to th’ Elysian shades
Dismiss my soul, where no Carnation fades.’
He ceas’d, and wept. With innocence of mien
Th’ accused stood forth, and thus address’d the Queen: 420
‘Of all th’ enamell’d race, whose silv’ry wing
Waves to the tepid zephyrs of the spring,
Or swims along the fluid atmosphere,
Once brightest shined this child of Heat and Air.
I saw, and started from its vernal bower 425
The rising game, and chased from flower to flower.
It fled, I follow’d; now in hope, now pain;
It stopt, I stopt; it mov’d, I mov’d again.
At last it fix’d,’t was on what plant it pleas’d,
And where it fix’d the beauteous bird I seiz’d: 430
Rose or Carnation was below my care;
I meddle, Goddess! only in my sphere.
I tell the naked fact without disguise,
And, to excuse it, need but show the prize;
Whose spoils this paper offers to your eye, 435
Fair ev’n in death, this peerless butterfly!’
‘My sons! (she answer’d) both have done your parts:
Live happy both, and long promote our Arts.
But hear a mother when she recommends
To your fraternal care our sleeping friends. 440
The common soul, of Heav’n’s more frugal make,
Serves but to keep Fools pert, and Knaves awake;
A drowsy watchman, that just gives a knock,
And breaks our rest, to tell us what ’s o’clock.
Yet by some object ev’ry brain is stirr’d; 445
The dull may waken to a Humming-bird;
The most recluse, discreetly open’d, find
Congenial matter in the Cockle king;
The mind, in metaphysics at a loss,
May wander in a wilderness of Moss; 450
The head that turns at superlunar things
Pois’d with a tail, may steer on Wilkins’ wings.
‘O! would the sons of men once think their eyes
And Reason giv’n them but to study flies!
See Nature in some partial narrow shape, 455
And let the Author of the whole escape:
Learn but to trifle; or, who most observe,
To wonder at their Maker, not to serve!’
‘Be that my task (replies a gloomy Clerk,
Sworn foe to myst’ry, yet divinely dark; 460
Whose pious hope aspires to see the day
When moral evidence shall quite decay,
And damns implicit faith, and holy lies;
Prompt to impose, and fond to dogmatize):
Let others creep by timid steps, and slow, 465
On plain Experience lay foundations low,
By common sense to common knowledge bred,
And last, to Nature’s Cause thro’ Nature led.
All-seeing in thy mists, we want no guide,
Mother of Arrogance, and source of pride! 470
We nobly take the high priori road,
And reason downward, till we doubt of God:
Make Nature still encroach upon his plan,
And shove him off as far as e’er we can:
Thrust some Mechanic Cause into his place, 475
Or bind in Matter, or diffuse in Space:
Or, at one bound o’erleaping all his laws,
Make God man’s image; man, the final Cause;
Find Virtue local, all Relation scorn,
See all in self, and but for self be born: 480
Of nought so certain as our Reason still,
Of nought so doubtful as of Soul and Will.
O hide the God still more! and make us see
Such as Lucretius drew, a God like thee:
Wrapt up in self, a God without a thought, 485
Regardless of our merit or default.
Or that bright image to our fancy draw,
Which Theocles in raptured vision saw,
While thro’ poetic scenes the Genius roves,
Or wanders wild in academic groves; 490
That Nature our society adores,
Where Tindal dictates, and Silenus snores!’
Rous’d at his name, up rose the bousy Sire,
And shook from out his pipe the seeds of fire;
Then snapt his box, and stroked his belly down; 495
Rosy and rev’rend, tho’ without a gown.
Bland and familiar to the Throne he came,
Led up the youth, and call’d the Goddess Dame;
Then thus: ‘From priestcraft happily set free,
Lo! every finish’d son returns to thee: 500
First slave to Words, then vassal to a Name,
Then dupe to Party; child and man the same;
Bounded by Nature, narrow’d still by Art,
A trifling head, and a contracted heart.
Thus bred, thus taught, how many have I seen, 505
Smiling on all, and smil’d on by a Queen!
Mark’d out for honours, honour’d for their birth,
To thee the most rebellious things on earth:
Now to thy gentle shadow all are shrunk,
All melted down in Pension or in Punk! 510
So K[ent] so B—— sneak’d into the grave,
A monarch’s half, and half a harlot’s slave.
Poor W[harton] nipt in Folly’s broadest bloom,
Who praises now? his chaplain on his tomb.
Then take them all, O take them to thy breast! 515
Thy Magus, Goddess! shall perform the rest.’
With that a wizard old his Cup extends,
Which whoso tastes, forgets his former Friends,
Sire, Ancestors, Himself. One casts his eyes
Up to a star, and like Endymion dies: 520
A feather, shooting from another’s head,
Extracts his brain, and Principle is fled;
Lost is his God, his Country, everything,
And nothing left but homage to a King!
The vulgar herd turn off to roll with hogs, 525
To run with horses, or to hunt with dogs;
But, sad example! never to escape
Their infamy, still keep the human shape.
But she, good Goddess, sent to every child
Firm Impudence, or Stupefaction mild; 530
And straight succeeded, leaving shame no room,
Cibberian forehead, or Cimmerian gloom.
Kind Self-conceit to some her glass applies,
Which no one looks in with another’s eyes:
But as the Flatt’rer or Dependant paint, 535
Beholds himself a Patriot, Chief, or Saint.
On others Int’rest her gay liv’ry flings,
Int’rest, that waves on party-colour’d wings:
Turn’d to the sun, she casts a thousand dyes,
And, as she turns, the colours fall or rise. 540
Others the Syren Sisters warble round,
And empty heads console with empty sound.
No more, alas! the voice of Fame they hear,
The balm of Dulness trickling in their ear.
Great C—, H—, P—, R—, K—, 545
Why all your toils? your sons have learn’d to sing.
How quick Ambition hastes to Ridicule:
The sire is made a Peer, the son a Fool.
On some, a priest succinct in amice white
Attends; all flesh is nothing in his sight! 550
Beeves, at his touch, at once to jelly turn,
And the huge boar is shrunk into an urn:
The board with specious Miracles he loads,
Turns hares to larks, and pigeons into toads.
Another (for in all what one can shine?) 555
Explains the sève and verdeur of the Vine.
What cannot copious sacrifice atone?
Thy truffles, Périgord, thy hams, Bayonne,
With French libation, and Italian strain,
Wash Bladen white, and expiate Hays’s stain, 560
Knight lifts the head; for, what are crowds undone,
To three essential partridges in one?
Gone ev’ry blush, and silent all reproach,
Contending Princes mount them in their coach.
Next bidding all draw near on bended knees, 565
The Queen confers her Titles and Degrees.
Her children first of more distinguish’d sort,
Who study Shakespeare at the Inns of Court,
Impale a glow-worm, or Vertù profess,
Shine in the dignity of F. R. S. 570
Some, deep Freemasons, join the silent race,
Worthy to fill Pythagoras’s place:
Some Botanists, or florists at the least,
Or issue members of an annual feast.
Nor past the meanest unregarded; one 575
Rose a Gregorian, one a Gormogon.
The last, not least in honour or applause,
Isis and Cam made Doctors of her Laws.
Then, blessing all, ‘Go children of my care!
To practice now from theory repair. 580
All my commands are easy, short and full:
My sons! be proud, be selfish, and be dull.
Guard my Prerogative, assert my Throne:
This nod confirms each privilege your own.
The cap and switch be sacred to His Grace; 585
With staff and pumps the Marquis leads the race;
From stage to stage the licens’d Earl may run,
Pair’d with his fellow charioteer, the sun;
The learned Baron butterflies design,
Or draw to silk Arachne’s subtle line; 590
The Judge to dance his brother sergeant call;
The Senator at cricket urge the ball:
The Bishop stow (pontific luxury!)
A hundred souls of turkeys in a pie;
The sturdy Squire to Gallic masters stoop, 595
And drown his lands and manors in a soup.
Others import yet nobler arts from France,
Teach Kings to fiddle, and make Senates dance.
Perhaps more high some daring son may soar,
Proud to my list to add one monarch more; 600
And nobly-conscious, Princes are but things
Born for first Ministers, as slaves for Kings,
Tyrant supreme! shall three estates command,
And make one mighty Dunciad of the land!’
More she had spoke, but yawn’d—All nature nods: 605
What mortal can resist the yawn of Gods?
Churches and chapels instantly it reach’d
(St. James’s first, for leaden Gilbert preach’d);
Then catch’d the Schools; the Hall scarce kept awake;
The Convocation gaped, but could not speak. 610
Lost was the Nation’s sense, nor could be found,
While the long solemn unison went round:
Wide, and more wide, it spread o’er all the realm;
Ev’n Palinurus nodded at the helm:
The vapour mild o’er each committee crept; 615
Unfinish’d treaties in each office slept;
And chiefless armies dozed out the campaign;
And navies yawn’d for orders on the main.
O Muse! relate (for you can tell alone,
Wits have short memories, and Dunces none), 620
Relate who first, who last, resign’d to rest;
Whose heads she partly, whose completely blest;
What charms could Faction, what Ambition lull,
The venal quiet, and entrance the dull,
Till drown’d was Sense, and Shame, and Right, and Wrong; 625
O sing, and hush the nations with thy song!
. . . . .

In vain, in vain—the all-composing hour
Resistless falls; the Muse obeys the power.
She comes! she comes! the sable throne behold
Of Night primeval, and of Chaos old! 630
Before her Fancy’s gilded clouds decay,
And all its varying rainbows die away.
Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires,
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires.
As one by one, at dread Medea’s strain, 635
The sick’ning stars fade off th’ ethereal plain;
As Argus’ eyes, by Hermes’ wand opprest,
Closed one by one to everlasting rest;
Thus at her felt approach, and secret might,
Art after Art goes out, and all is night. 640
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of casuistry heap’d o’er her head!
Philosophy, that lean’d on Heaven before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.
Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, 645
And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense!
See Mystery to Mathematics fly!
In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.
Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires. 650
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restor’d;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; 655
And universal Darkness buries all.