Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

long despaired, a performance deserving the name of a poet. Such, sir, is your work. It is, indeed, above all commendation, and ought to have been published in an age and country more worthy of it. If my testimony be of weight any where, you are sure to have it in the amplest manner,' &c. &c. &c. . Thus we see every one of his works bath been ex tolled by one or other of his most inveterate enemies; and to the success of them all they do unanimously give testimony. But it is sufficient, instar omnium, to behold the great critic, Mr. Dennis, sorely lamenting it, even from the Essay on Criticism to this day of the Dunciad! A most notorious instance (quoth he) of the depravity of genius and taste, the approbation this Essay meets with*.--I can safely affirm, that I never attacked any of these writings, unless they had success infinitely beyond their merit. This, though an empty, has been a popular scrib bler. The epidemic madness of the times has given him reputationt.-If, after the cruel treatment so many extraordinary men (Spenser, lord Bacon, Ben Jonson, Milton, Butler, Otway, and others) have received from this country, for these last hundred years, I should shift the scene, and show all that penury changed at once to riot and profuseness; and more squandered away upon one object, than would have satisfied the greater part of those extraordinary men; the reader to whom this one creas ture should be unknown, would fancy him a prodigy of art and nature, would believe that all the great qualities of these persons were centred in him alone. But if I should venture to assure him, that the people of England had made such a choice -the reader would either believe me a malicious enemy, and slanderer, or that the reign of the last

* Dennis, Pref. to his Reflect. on the Essay on Criticism.

† Preface to his Remarks on Homer.

(queen Anne's) ministry was designed by fate to encourage fools*.'

But it happens that this our poet never had any place, pension, or gratuity, in any shape, from the said glorious queen, or any of her ministers. All

he owed, in the whole course of his life, to any court, was a subscription for his Homer, of 2007. from King George I. and 1002. from the prince and princess.

However, lest we imagine our author's success was constant and universal, they acquaint us of certain works in a less degree of repute, whereof, although owned by others, yet do they assure us he is the writer. Of this sort Mr. Dennist ascribes to him two farces, whose names he does not tell, but assures us that there is not one jest in them; and an imitation of Horace, whose title he does not mention, but assures us it is much more execrable than all his works. The Daily Journal, May 11, 1728, assures us, ' He is below Tom Durfey in the drama, because (as that writer thinks) the Marriage. Hater Matched, and the Boarding-School, are better than the What-d'ye-call-it;' which is not Mr. P.'s, 'but Mr. Gay's. Mr. Gildon assures us, in his New Rehearsal, p. 48, That he was writing a play of the Lady Jane Grey;' but it afterwards proved to be Mr. Rowe's. We are assured by another, 'He wrote a pamphlet, called Dr. Andrew Tripe§;' which proved to be one Dr. Wagstaff's. Mr. Theobald assures us, in Mist of the 27th of April, 'That the trea tise of the Profound is very dull, and that Mr. Pope is the author of it. The writer of Gulliveriana is of another opinion; and says, 'The whole, or greatest part, of the merit of this treatise must and can only be ascribed to Gulliver.' [Here, gentle reader! cannot I but smile at the strange blindness and po

Rem. on Homer, p. 8, 9. Character of Mr. Pope, p. 7. $ Character of Mr. Pope, p. 6.

+ Ib. p.8.

|| Gulliv. p. 336.

sitiveness of men; knowing the said treatise to ap pertain to none other but to me, Martinus Scrible rus.]

We are assured, in Mist of June 8,That his own plays and farces would better have adorned the Dunciad, than those of Mr. Theobald; for he had neither genius for tragedy nor comedy.' Which whether true or not, it is not easy to judge; in as much as he had attempted neither. Unless we will take it for granted, with Mr. Cibber, that his being once very angry at hearing a friend's play abused, was an infallible proof the play was his own; the said Mr. Cibber thinking it impossible for a man to be much concerned for any but himself: Now let any man judge (saith he) by his concern, who was the true mother of the child?'

But from all that hath been said, the discerning reader will collect, that it little availed our author to have any candour, since, when he declared he did not write for others, it was not credited; as little to have any modesty, since, when he declined writ ing in any way himself, the presumption of others was imputed to him. If he singly enterprised one great work, he was taxed of boldness and madness to a prodigyt: if he took assistants in another, it was complained of, and represented as a great injury to the public. The loftiest heroics, the lowest ballads, treatises against the state or church, sa | tires on lords and ladies, raillery on wits and authors, squabbles with booksellers, or even full and true ac counts of monsters, poisons, and murders; of any hereof was there nothing so good, nothing so bad, which hath not at one or other season been to him ascribed. If it bore no author's name, then lay he

*Cibber's Letter to Mr. P. p. 19.

+ Burnet's Homerides, p. 1. of his translation of the Iliad.

The London and Mist's Journals, on his under taking the Odyssey.

concealed; if it did, he fathered it upon that author to be yet better concealed: if it resembled any of his styles, then was it evident; if it did not, then disguised he it on set purpose. Yea, even direct oppositions in religion, principles, and politics, have equally been supposed in him inherent. Surely a most rare and singular character; of which let the reader make what he can.

Doubtless most commentators would hence take occasion to turn all to their author's advantage, and from the testimony of his very enemies would affirm, that his capacity was boundless, as well as his imagination; that he was a perfect master of all styles, and all arguments; and that there was in those times no other writer, in any kind, of any degree of excellence, save he himself. But as this is not our own sentiment, we shall determine on nothing; but leave thee, gentle reader, to steer thy judgement equally between various opinions, and to choose whether thou wilt incline to the testimonies of authors avowed, or of authors concealed; of those who knew him, er of those who knew him not.

P.

MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS

OF THE POEM.

THIS poem, as it celebrateth the most grave and ancient of things, Chaos, Night, and Dulness: so is it of the most grave and ancient kind. Homer (saith Aristotle) was the first who gave the form, and (saith Horace) who adapted the measure, to heroic poesy. But even before this, may be rationally presumed, from what the ancients have left written, was a piece by Homer, composed of like nature and matter with this of our poet. For of epic sort it appeareth to have been, yet of matter surely not unpleasant, witness what is reported of it by the learned archbishop Eustathius, in Odyss. x. And accordingly Aristotle, in his poetics, chap. iv. doth further set forth, that as the Iliad and Odyssey gave example to tragedy, so did this poem to comedy its first idea.

From these authors also it should seem, that the hero, or chief personage of it was no less obscure, and his understanding and sentiments no less quaint and strange (if indeed not more so) than any of the actors of our poem. Margites was the name of this personage, whom antiquity recordeth to have been Dunce the first; and surely from what we hear of him, not unworthy to be the root of so spreading a tree, and so numerous a posterity. The poem, therefore, celebrating him was properly and abso. lutely a Dunciad; which though now unhappily lost, yet is its nature sufficiently known by the infallible tokens aforesaid. And thus it doth appear, that the first Dunciad was the first epic poem, writ

« EdellinenJatka »