Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845
What next? The compact Argument informs us she forthwith reveals herself to him, transports him to her Temple, unfolds her arts, and initiates him into her mysteries; then announcing the death of Eusden the poet-laureate, anoints him, carries him to court, and proclaims him successor. The close of the Book was as much improved as the opening by the changes consequent on the substitution of Cibber for Theobald. In 1727, when the poem was composed, Eusden, "a drunken parson," wore the laurel; but now Cibber had been for years one of the successors of Spenser, and of the predecessors of Wordsworth—though indeed that last fact could not be known to Pope—and well he deserved this still higher elevation. And here again we must dissent from Dr Johnson's judgment, "that by transferring the same ridicule (not the same) from one to another, he destroyed its efficacy; for, by showing that what he said of one he was ready to say of another, he reduced himself to the insignificance of his own magpye, who from his cage calls cuckold at a venture." We love and honour the sage, but here he is a Sumph.
Oh! do read the Second Book, for we can afford but a few extracts; and, to whet you up, shall prate to you a few minutes about it.
The two ancient kings of heroic song have left us exemplars of Games. The occasions are similar and mournful, although the contests are inspired by, and inspire a jocund mood. At the funeral of Patroclus, Achilles appoints eight games. He gives prizes for a chariot-race, a cestus-fight, a wrestling-match, a foot-race, a lance-fight, a disk-hurling, a strife of archery and of darters. Æneas, on the first anniversary of his father's funeral, proposes five trials of skill—for the chariot-race of Homer, suitably to the posture of the Trojan affairs, a sailing-match; then, the foot-race, the terrible cestus, archery, and lastly, the beautiful equestrian tournament of Young Troy. The English Homer of the Dunces treads in the footsteps of his august predecessors, and celebrates, with imitated solemnities, a joyous day—that which elevates the arch-Dunce to the throne. Here too we have games, but with a dissimilitude in similitude. He adopts an intermediate number, six. The first is exceedingly fanciful and whimsical. The goddess creates the phantom of a poet. It has the shape of a contemptible swindler in literature, a plagiarist without bounds, named More. He is pursued by two booksellers, and vanishes from the grasp of him who has first clutched the fluttering shade. "Gentle Dulness ever loves a joke;" and the aforesaid admirable jest having kindled inextinguishable laughter in heaven, Gentle Dulness repeats it (she loves to repeat herself,) and starts three phantoms in the likenesses respectively of Congreve, Addison, Prior. Three booksellers give chase, and catch Heaven knows what, three foolish forgotten names. For the second exertion of talent, confined to the booksellers Osborne and Curl, the prize is the fair Eliza, and Curl is Victor. Osborne, too, is suitably rewarded; but as this game borders on the indelicate, it shall be nameless. Hitherto, after the simplicity of ancient manners, there have been contentions of bodily powers. But the games of the Dunces belong to an advanced age of the world, and a part of them are accordingly spiritual. The third falls under this category. A patron is proposed as the prize. He who can best tickle shall carry him off. The dedicators fall to their task with great zeal and adroitness. Alas! there steps in a young thief of a competitor unknown to Phœbus, but deep in the counsels of Venus! He, aided by the goddess, and a votaress of her order whom the goddess deputes, avails himself of the noble prize's most susceptible side,
"And marches off, his Grace's secretary."
The fourth game sets up a desirable rivalry with monkeys and asses. Who shall chatter the fastest? Who the loudest shall bray?
-–"Three cat-calls be the bribeOf him whose chatt'ring shames the monkey tribe:And his this drum, whose hoarse heroic baseDrowns the loud clarion of the braying ass."So numerous are the monkey-mimics that the claims of the chatterers cannot be adjusted—
Hold (cried the Queen) a cat-call each shall win;Equal your merits! equal is your din!But that this well-disputed game may end,Sound forth, my Brayers, and the welkin rend."Sir Richard Blackmore, with his six epics and sundry other poems, brays louder and longer than the most leathern or brazen of the other throats; Chancery Lane and Westminster Hall taking prominent part in the reverberating orchestra. The place is to be ranked amongst the famous echo-descriptions, and beats Drayton's and Wordsworth's hollow.
The fifth game is DIVING.
"This labor past, by Bridewell all descend,(As morning pray'r and flagellation end)To where Fleet-ditch, with disemboguing streamsRolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames,The king of dykes! than whom, no sluice of mudWith deeper sable blots the silver flood.'Here strip, my children! here at once leap in,Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin,And who the most in love of dirt excel,Or dark dexterity of groping well:Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes aroundThe stream, be his the Weekly Journals bound;A pig of lead to him who dives the best;A peck of coals a-piece shall glad the rest.'"In naked majesty Oldmixon stands,And, Milo-like, surveys his arms and hands;Then sighing thus, 'And am I now threescore?Ah, why, ye Gods! should two and two make four?'He said, and climb'd a stranded lighter's height,Shot to the black abyss, and plung'd downright:The senior's judgment all the crowd admire,Who but to sink the deeper rose the higher."Next Smedley div'd; slow circles dimpled o'erThe quaking mud, that clos'd and op'd no more.All look, all sigh, and call on Smedley lost;Smedley in vain resounds through all the coast."Then ** essay'd; scarce vanish'd out of sight,He buoys up instant, and returns to light;He bears no tokens of the sabler streams,And mounts far off among the swans of Thames."True to the bottom, see Concanen creep,A cold, long-winded, native of the deep;If perseverance gain the diver's prize,Not everlasting Blackmore this denies:No noise, no stir, no motion canst thou make,Th' unconscious stream sleeps o'er thee like a lake."Next plung'd a feeble, but a desperate pack,With each a sickly brother at his back:Sons of a day! just buoyant on the flood,Then number'd with the puppies in the mud.Ask ye their names? I could as soon discloseThe names of these blind puppies as of those.Fast by, like Niobe, (her children gone,)Sits Mother Osborne, stupify'd to stone!And monumental brass this record bears,'These are, ah no! these were the Gazetteers!'"Not so bold Arnall; with a weight of scullFurious he drives, precipitately dull.Whirlpools and storms in circling arm invest,With all the might of gravitation blest.No crab more active in the dirty dance,Downward to climb, and backward to advance,He brings up half the bottom on his head,And loudly claims the Journal and the Lead."The plunging Prelate, and his pond'rous Grace,With holy envy gave one layman place.When lo! a burst of thunder shook the flood,Slow rose a form in majesty of Mud;Shaking the horrors of his sable brows,And each ferocious feature grim with ooze.Greater he looks, and more than mortal stares;Then thus the wonders of the deep declares."First he relates how, sinking to the chin,Smit with his mien, the mud-nymphs suck'd him in;How young Lutetia, softer than the down,Nigrina black, and Merdamente brown,Vy'd for his love in jetty bow'rs below,As Hylas fair was ravish'd long ago.Then sung, how shown him by the Nut-brown maidsA branch of Styx here rises from the shades,That tinctured as it runs with Lethe's streams,And wafting vapors from the land of dreams,(As under seas Alpheus' secret sluiceBears Pisa's offering to his Arethuse)Pours into Thames; and hence the mingled waveIntoxicates the pert, and lulls the grave:Here brisker vapours o'er the Temple creep;There, all from Paul's to Aldgate drink and sleep."Thence to the banks where rev'rend bards repose,They led him soft; each rev'rend bard arose;And Milbourn chief, deputed by the rest,Gave him the cassock, surcingle, and vest.'Receive (he said) these robes, which once were mine,Dulness is sacred in a sound divine.'He ceas'd, and spread the robe; the crowd confessThe rev'rend flamen in his lengthen'd dress.Around him wide a sable army stand,A low-born, cell-bred, selfish, servile band,Prompt or to guard or stab, to saint or damn,Heav'n's Swiss, who fight for any god, or man."Through Lud's fam'd gates, along the well-known Fleet,Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street,Till show'rs of sermons, characters, essays,In circling fleeces whiten all the ways:So clouds replenish'd from some bog below,Mount in dark volumes, and descend in snow."The last of the contests offers one or two difficulties. The goddess will appoint her Supreme Judge in the Court of Criticism, and she ordains a trial of qualifications. This is the manner of ordeal. A dull piece in prose, and a dull piece in verse, is to be read aloud. The auditor who remains the longest awake carries the election. The two preparations of Morphine exhibited, are a sermon of H—ley's (Henley or Hoadley?) and Blackmore's Prince Arthur. Six candidate heroes present themselves, three from the University, and three from the Inns of Court. Some explanation seems to be required of an arrangement which allots extraordinarily high promotion in the State of Dulness to a real and prodigious effort of mental energy. What explanation can be given? Are the affairs of Dulness conducted, in some respects, by the same rules which obtain in the Commonwealth of Wit? Is it held there, as here, that the first step to be taken, in order to forming a judgment of any book, is to read it? Was it prudently considered that the dullest of critics can read only as long as his eyes are open? and that the function of judge must incessantly bring under his cognisance papaverous volumes, with which only a super-human endowment of vigilance could hope successfully to contend? so that the goddess is driven, by the necessity of the game, to admit within the circuit of her somnolent sway, a virtue to which she is naturally and peculiarly hostile? Or are we mistaken in supposing that vigour of mind really qualifies for hearing a dull book through? Is it dulness itself that the most ably listens to dulness? We are out of our element, we presume, for we arrive at no satisfactory solution.
Be all this as it may, the method of competition fails of accomplishing its end; and the chair, after all, is left vacant. Not that the divinity has in the least misjudged the way of operation proper to her beloved tomes; but she has miscalculated the strength of her sons. Every dull head of the congregated multitude—of the illustrious competitors—and of the two officiating readers, bows overcome. There is, perforce, an end; and the chair is yet open to the whole kingdom.
The trial involves another matter of some doubt. Do the two clerks read aloud at one and the same time? and to the same audience? The description conveys the impression that they do. If so, one might have been tempted to fear that the sermon and the poem might have neutralized each other; but, on the contrary, the mixture worked like a patent.
Where has Cibber been all the while, and what has he been doing? "What su'd he hae been doin'? Sittin' on his nain lowpin'-on-stane—lukin' frae him." Joe Warton complains that he is too much of a passive hero. Why, he is not so active as Achilles, or even Diomed; yet in Book Second he is equal to Æneas. He is almost as long-winded, and excels the Pious in this, that he braves a fire of his own raising, whereas the other flies from one kindled much against his will—
"High on a gorgeous seat, that far outshoneHenley's gilt tub, or Flecknoe's Irish throne,Or that where on her Curls the public poursAll-bounteous, fragrant grains and golden showers,Great Cibber sate!——All eyes direct their raysOn him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze!"Is that being passive? The crowds are passive—not he surely, who, in the potent prime of coxcombhood, without shifting his seat of honour, breathes over all his subjects such family resemblance that they seem one brotherhood, sprung from his own royal loins. Besides, who ever heard, in an Epic poem, of a hero contending in games instituted in his own honour? Yet we do not fear to say, that had he, inspired by the spectacle of Curl and Osborne displaying their prowess for the fair Eliza, leapt from his gorgeous "seat," and amid the shouts of the lieges, in rainbow glory jointed the contest, that infallibly he had won the day. We have the authority of Aristotle on our side.
You cry aloud for an extract. Here is a superb one:—
"'Ye Critics! in whose heads, as equal scales,I weigh what author's heaviness prevails;Which most conduce to sooth the soul in slumbers,My H—ley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers;Attend the trial we propose to make:If there be man who o'er such works can wake,Sleep's all-subduing charms who dares defy,And boasts Ulysses' ear with Argus' eye;To him we grant our amplest pow'rs to sitJudge of all present, past, and future wit;To cavil, censure, dictate, right or wrong,Full and eternal privilege of tongue.'"Three college sophs, and three pert Templars came,The same their talents, and their tastes the same;Each prompt to query, answer, and debate,And smit with love of poesy and prate.The pond'rous books two gentle readers bring;The heroes sit, the vulgar form a ring.The clam'rous crowd is hush'd with mugs of mum,Till all, tun'd equal, send a gen'ral hum.Then mount the clerks, and in one lazy toneThrough the long, heavy, painful page drawl on;Soft creeping, words on words, the sense compose,At ev'ry line they stretch, they yawn, they doze.As to soft gales top-heavy pines bow lowTheir heads, and lift them as they cease to blow;Thus oft they rear, and oft the head decline,As breathe, or pause, by fits, the airs divine.And now to this side, now to that they nod,As verse, or prose, infuse the drowsy god.Thrice Budgel aim'd to speak, but thrice supprestBy potent Arthur, knock'd his chin and breast.Toland and Tindal, prompt at priests to jeer,Yet silent bow'd to Christ's no kingdom here.Who sat the nearest, by the words o'ercome,Slept first; the distant nodded to the hum;Then down are roll'd the books, stretch'd o'er 'em liesEach gentle clerk, and mutt'ring seals his eyes.As what a Dutchman plumps into the lakes,One circle first, and then a second makes;What dulness dropt among her sons imprest,Like motion from one circle to the rest:So from the midmost the nutation spreads,Round and more round, o'er all the sea of heads.At last Centlivre felt her voice to fail,Motteux himself unfinish'd left his tale.Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o'er,Morgan and Mandeville could prate no more;Norton from Daniel and Ostroea sprung,Bless'd with his father's front and mother's tongue,Hung silent down his never-blushing head,And all was hush'd, as Folly's self lay dead."Thus the soft gifts of Sleep conclude the day,And stretch'd on bulks, as usual, poets lay.Why should I sing what bards the nightly MuseDid slumb'ring visit, and convey to stews;Who prouder march'd, with magistrates in state,To some fam'd round-house, ever-open gate!How Henley lay inspir'd beside a sink,And to mere mortals seem'd a priest in drink:While others, timely, to the neighb'ring Fleet(Haunt of the Muses) made their safe retreat."Ulysses and Æneas presented themselves alive and in the body, as visitors in the land of departed souls. A descent to the shades is not wanting in our Epos. It fills the whole Third Book. But our poet again manages a discreet difference in his imitation. Our Dunce hero visits Elysium in a dream; whilst he sleeps, his head recumbent on the lap of the goddess, in the innermost recess of her sanctuary. His vision resembles the Trojan's rather than the Greek's adventure. "A slipshod sibyl,"
"In lofty madness meditating song,leads him. She seems to be typical of the half-crazed human poetess, in usual sublime dishabille. Venerable shades of the Dull greet him. As in Virgil's Elysian fields a glimpse is afforded into the dark philosophy of human existence, and we see the Lethean bank crowded with spirits, who taste and become prepared to live again—so here. And as Æneas finds Anchises engaged in taking cognizance of the ghosts that are to animate Roman bodies, so here Cibber sees a great Patriarch of Dulness, Bavius, (him of old classical renown,) dipping in Lethe the souls that are to be born dull upon the earth. The poet cannot resist a slight deviation from the doctrine of his original. By the ancient theory the Lethean dip extinguishes the memory of a past life, of its faults, and of their punishment; and thence the willingness to inhabit the gross, earthy frame, as generated anew. But the dip of Bavius is more powerful; it quenches the faculties that are innate in a spirit, fitting it
"for a skullOf solid proof, impenetrably dull."The subterranean traveller then falls in with the ghost of Elkanah Settle, who properly represents Anchises, and expounds the glories of the Kingdom of Dulness. Something is borrowed also from the vision of Adam, in the Eleventh Book of Paradise Lost. And something is original; for that which has been is declared as well as that which shall be; and the kingdom of intellectual darkness to the earth's verge displayed in visible presentment, which the speaker interprets. The Emperor Chi Ho-am-ti, who ordered a universal conflagration of books throughout his celestial dominions—the multitude of barbarous sons which the populous North poured from her frozen loins to sweep in deluge away the civilization of the South—figure here. Here is Attila with his Huns. Here is the Mussulman. Here is Rome of the dark ages. Great Britain appears last—the dulness which has blessed, which blesses, and which shall bless her. We extract the prophetical part. The visioned progress of Dulness has reached the theatres; and some sixteen verses which contain—says Warton, well and truly—"some of the most lively and forcible descriptions any where to be found, and are perfect pattern of a clear picturesque style," call up into brilliant and startling apparition the ineffable monstrosities and impossibilities which constituted the theatrical spectacles of the day. The sight extorts the opening exclamation—
"What pow'r, he cries, what pow'r these wonders wrought?Son, what thou seek'st is in thee! look and findEach monster meets his likeness in thy mind.Yet would'st thou more? in yonder cloud behold,Whose sarsenet skirts are edg'd with flamy gold,A matchless youth! his nod these worlds controls,Wings the red lightning, and the thunder rolls.Angel of Dulness, sent to scatter roundHer magic harms o'er all unclassic ground:Yon' stars, yon' suns, he rears at pleasure higher,Illumes their light, and sets their flames on fire.Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease,Midst snows of paper, and fierce hail of pease!And proud his mistress' orders to perform,Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm."But lo! to dark encounter in mid airNew wizards rise; I see my Cibber there!Booth in his cloudy tabernacle shrin'd,On grinning dragons thou shalt mount the wind.Dire is the conflict, dismal is the din,Here shouts all Drury, there all Lincoln's Inn;Contending theatres our empire raise,Alike their labours, and alike their praise."And are these wonders, Son, to thee unknown?Unknown to thee! these wonders are thy own.These Fate reserv'd to grace thy reign divine,Foreseen by me, but, ah! withheld from mine.In Lud's old walls, though long I rul'd, renown'dFar as loud Bow's stupendous bells resound;Though my own aldermen conferr'd the bays,To me committing their eternal praise,Their full-fed heroes, their pacific may'rs,Their annual trophies, and their monthly wars:Though long my party built on me their hopes,For writing pamphlets, and for roasting Popes;Yet lo! in me what authors have to brag on!Reduc'd at last to hiss in my own dragon.Avert in Heav'n! that thou, my Cibber, e'erShouldst wag a serpent-tail in Smithfield fair!Like the vile straw that's blown about the streets,The needy poet sticks to all he meets;Coach'd, carted, trod upon, now loose, now fast,And carry'd off in some dog's tail at last.Happier thy fortunes! like a rolling stone,Thy giddy dulness still shall lumber on,Safe in its heaviness, shall never stray,But lick up ev'ry blockhead in the way.Thee shall the Patriot, thee the Courtier taste,And ev'ry year be duller than the last;Till rais'd 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 doting age.Teach thou the warring Polypheme to roar,And scream thyself as none e'er scream'd before!To aid our cause, if Heav'n thou canst not bend,Hell thou shalt move; for Faustus is our friend;Pluto 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, insure it but from fire.Another Æschylus appears! prepareFor new abortions, all ye pregnant fair!In flames like Semele's, be brought to bed,While op'ning hell spouts wildfire 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:Th' 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 Phœbus wears the bays!Our Midas sit Lord Chancellor of plays!On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ!Lo! Ambrose Philips is preferr'd for wit!See under Ripley rise a new Whitehall,While Jones' and Boyle's united labours fall:While Wren with sorrow to the grave descends,Gay dies unpension'd, with a hundred friends;Hibernian politics, O Swift! thy fate;And Pope's, ten years to comment and translate."Proceed, great days! 'till Learning fly the shore,Till Birch shall blush with noble blood no more;Till Thames see Eton's sons for ever play,Till Westminster's whole year be holiday;Till Isis' elders reel, their pupils' sport,And Alma Mater lie dissolv'd in Port!"Enough! enough! the raptur'd Monarch cries!And through the iv'ry gate the vision flies."In Book Fourth the goddess occupies her throne. All the rebellious and hostile powers—wit, logic, rhetoric, morality, the muses—lie bound; and diverse votaries of Dulness successively move into presence. The first is Opera, who puts Handel to flight. Then flow in a crowd of all sorts. A part have been described:—
"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,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."There march'd the bard and blockhead side by side,Who rhym'd for hire, and patroniz'd for pride.Narcissus, prais'd with all a parson's power,Look'd a white lily sunk beneath a shower.There mov'd Montalto with superior air:His stretch'd out arm displayed 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,Conpos'd he stood, bold Benson thrust him by:On two unequal crutches props he came,Milton's on this, on that one Jonson's name.The decent Knight retir'd with sober rage,Withdrew his hand, and clos'd the pompous page:But (happy for him as the times went then)Appear'd Apollo's may'r and aldermen,On whom three hundred gold-capt 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!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,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.So by each bard an alderman shall sit,A heavy lord shall hang at ev'ry wit,And while on Fame's triumphal car they ride,Some slave of mine be pinion'd to their side.'"A dreadful figure appears—The Schoolmaster. He eulogizes the system of education, which teaches nothing but words and verse-making.
