BOOK THE SECOND.

ARGUMENT.

The king being proclaimed, the solenmity is graced with public games and sports of various kinds; not instituted by the hero, as by Æneas in Virgil, but for greater honour by the Goddess in person (in like manner as the games Pythia, Isthmia, &c., were anciently said to be ordained by the gods, and as Thetis herself appearing, according to Homer, Odyss. 24, proposed the prizes in honour of her son Achilles.) Hither flock the poets and critics, attended, as is but just, with their patrons and booksellers. The Goddess is first pleased, for her disport, to propose games to the booksellers, and setteth up the phantom of a poet, which they contend to overtake. The race is described with their divers accidents. Next, the game for a poetess. Then follow the exercises for the poets, of tickling, vociferating, diving: the first holds forth the arts and practices of dedicators; the second of disputants and fustian poets; the third of profound, dark, and dirty party-writers. Lastly, for the critics, the Goddess proposes (with great propriety) an exercise, not of their parts, but their patience, in hearing the works of two voluminous authors, one in verse and the other in prose, deliberately read, without sleeping; the various effects of which with the several degrees and manners of their operation, are here set forth, till the whole number, not of critics only, but of spectators, actors, and all present, fall fast asleep, which naturally and necessarily ends the games.

HIGH on a gorgeous seat, that far out-shone
Henley's gilt tub, or Fleckno's Irish throne,
Or that where on her Curls the public pours,
All-bounteous, fragrant grains and golden showers,
Great Cibber sate; the proud Parnassian sneer,
The conscious simper and the jealous leer
Mix on his look: all eyes direct their rays
On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze.

1 The pulpit of a dissenter is usually called a tub; but that of Mr. Orator Henley was covered with velvet, and adorned with gold. He had also a fair altar, and over it this extraordinary inscription, "The Primi

tive Eucharist."

Richard Fleckno was an Irish priest, but had laid aside (as himself expressed it) the mechanic part of priesthood. He printed some plays, poems, letters, and travels.

2 Edmund Curl stood in the pillory at Charing-cross, in March

1727-8.

His peers shine round him with reflected grace,
New edge their dulness, and new bronze their face.
So from the sun's broad beam, in shallow urns

Heaven's twinkling sparks draw light and point their horns.

Not with more glee, by hands pontific crown'd,
With scarlet hats wide-waving circled round,
Rome in her capitol saw Querno sit,1

Throned on seven hills, the antichrist of wit.
And now the Queen, to glad her sons, proclaims
By herald hawkers, high heroic games,

They summon all her race: an endless band
Pours forth, and leaves unpeopled half the land.
A motley mixture! in long wigs, in bags,
In silks, in crapes, in garters, and in rags;
From drawing-rooms, from colleges, from garrets,
On horse, on foot, in hacks, and gilded chariots:
All who true Dunces in her cause appear'd,
And all who knew those Dunces to reward.
Amid that area wide they took their stand,
Where the tall May-pole once o'er-looked the Strand;
But now (so Anne and Piety ordain)

A church collects the saints of Drury-lane.
With authors, stationers obeyed the call,
(The field of glory is a field for all).

Glory and gain, the industrious tribe provoke;
And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.
A poet's form she placed before their eyes,
And bade the nimblest racer seize the prize;
Νο
meagre, muse-rid mope, adust and thin,
In a dun night-gown of his own loose skin;
But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise,
Twelve starveling bards of these degenerate days,
All as a partridge plump, full-fed, and fair,
She form'd this image of well-bodied air;
With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head;
A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead;

And empty words she gave, and sounding strain,
But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!
Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit,

A fool, so just a copy of a wit:

1 Camillo Querno was of Apulia, who hearing the great encouragement which Leo X. gave to poets, travelled to Rome with a harp in his hand, and sung to it twenty thousand verses of a poem called Alexias.

So like, that critics said, and courtiers swore,
A wit it was, and call'd the phantom Moore.

All gaze with ardour: some a poet's name,
Others a sword-knot and laced suit inflame.
But lofty Lintot in the circle rose:

"This prize is mine, who tempt it are my foes;
With me began this genius, and shall end."
He spoke and who with Lintot shall contend?
Fear held them mute. Alone, untaught to fear,
Stood dauntless Curl," "Behold that rival here!
The race by vigour, not by vaunts, is won;
So take the hindmost, Hell," he said and run.
Swift as a bard the bailiff leaves behind,

He left huge Lintot, and outstripp'd the wind.
As when a dab-chick waddles through the copse
On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and hops;
So labouring on, with shoulders, hands, and head,
Wide as a windmill all his figure spread,
With arms expanded Bernard rows his state,
And left-legg'd Jacob seems to emulate.
Full in the middle way there stood a lake,

Which Curl's Corinna1 chanced that morn to make;

1 Curl, in his Key to the Dunciad, affirmed this to be James Moore Smith, Esq. His only work was a comedy called the Rival Modes; the town condemned it in the action.

2 We enter here upon the episode of the booksellers; persons whose names being more known and famous in the learned world than those of the authors in this poem, do therefore need less explanation. The action of Mr. Lintot here imitates that of Dares in Virgil, rising just in this manner to lay hold on a bull. This eminent bookseller printed the Rival Modes before-mentioned.

3 We come now to a character of much respect, that of Mr. Edmund Curl. As a plain repetition of great actions is the best praise of them, we shall only say of this eminent man, that he carried the trade many lengths beyond what it ever before had arrived at, and that he was the envy and admiration of all his profession. He possessed himself of a command over ail authors whatever; he caused them to write what he pleased; they could not call their very names their own. He was not only famous among these; he was taken notice of by the state, the church, and the law, and received particular marks of distinction from each.

4 This name, it seems, was taken by one Mrs. T-, who procured some private letters of Mr. Pope's, while almost a boy, to Mr. Cromwell, and sold them without the consent of either of those gentlemen to Curl, who printed them in 12mo, 1727. He discovered her to be the publisher, in his Key.

(Such was her wont, at early dawn to drop

Her evening cates before his neighbour's shop)
Here fortuned Curl to slide: loud shout the band,
And Bernard! Bernard! rings thro' all the Strand.
Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewray'd,
Fallen in the plash his wickedness had laid:
Then first (if poets aught of truth declare)
The caitiff vaticide conceived a prayer.

Hear Jove! whose name my bards and I adore,
As much at least as any god's, or more:
And him and his, if more devotion warms,
Down with the Bible, up with the pope's arms.1
A place there is, betwixt earth, air, and seas,
Where, from ambrosia, Jove retires for ease.
There in his seat two spacious vents appear,
On this he sits, to that he leans his ear,
And hears the various vows of fond mankind;
Some beg an eastern, some a western wind:
All vain petitions, mounting to the sky,
With reams abundant this abode supply;
Amused he reads, and then returns the bills
Sign'd with that ichor which from gods distils.
In office here fair Cloacina2 stands,

And ministers to Jove with purest hands.
Forth from the heap she pick'd her votary's prayer
And placed it next him, a distinction rare!
Oft had the goddess heard her servant's call,
From her black grottos near the Temple-wall,
Listening delighted to the jest unclean
Of link-boys vile, and watermen obscene;
Where as he fished her nether realms for wit,
She oft had favour'd him, and favours yet.
Renew'd by ordure's sympathetic force,
As oil'd with magic juices for the course,
Vigorous he rises: from the effluvia strong,
Imbibes new life, and scours and stinks along:
Re-passes Lintot, vindicates the race,

Nor heeds the brown dishonours of his face.

And now the victor stretch'd his eager hand,
Where the tall nothing stood, or seem'd to stand;
A shapeless shade, it melted from his sight,
Like forms in clouds, cr visions of the night.

The Bible was Curl's sign; the Cross Keys, Lintot's. 2 The Roman goddess of the common sewers. Her black grottos near the Temple still pour forth their odoriferous streams.

To seize his papers, Curl, was next thy care;
His papers light, fly diverse, tost in air;
Songs, sonnets, epigrams the winds uplift,
And whisk 'em back to Evans, Young, and Swift.
The embroider'd suit at least he deem'd his prey;
That suit, an unpaid tailor snatch'd away.
No rag, no scrap, of all the beau, or wit,
That once so flutter'd, and that once so writ.
Heaven rings with laughter: of the laughter vain,
Dulness, good queen, repeats the jest again.
Three wicked imps, of her own Grub-street choir,
She deck'd like Congreve, Addison, and Prior:1
Mears, Warner, Wilkins, run: delusive thought!
Breval, Bond, Bezaleel, the varlets caught.
Curl stretches after Gay, but Gay is gone,
He grasps an empty Joseph3 for a John:
So Proteus, hunted in a nobler shape,
Became, when seized, a puppy, or an ape.
To him the goddess: Son! thy grief lay down,
And turn this whole illusion on the town:4
As the sage dame, experienced in her trade,
By names of toasts retails each batter'd jade;
(Whence hapless Monsieur much complains at Paris
Of wrongs from duchesses and lady Marys ;)
Be thine, my stationer! this magic gift;
Cook shall be Prior, and Concanen, Swift:
So shall each hostile name become our own,
And we too boast our Garth and Addison.

1 These authors being such whose names will reach posterity, wa shall not give any account of them, but proceed to those of whom it is necessary. Bezaleel Morris was author of some satires on the translators of Homer, with many other things printed in newspapers.-" Bond wrote a satire against Pope. Captain Breval was author of The Confederates, an ingenious dramatic performance to expose Mr. P., Mr. Gay, Dr. Arbuthnot and some ladies of quality," says Curl.

2 Booksellers, and printers of much anonymous stuff.

3 Joseph Gay, a fictitious name put by Curl before several pamphlets, which made them pass with many for Mr. Gay's.

4 It was a common practice of this bookseller to publish vile pieces of obscure hands under the names of eminent authors.

5 The man here specified wrote a thing called The Battle of Poets, in which Phillips and Welsted were the heroes, and Swift and Pope utterly routed. He also published some malevolent things in the British, London, and Daily Journals; and at the same time wrote letters to Mr. Pope, protesting his innocence. His chief work was a translation of Hesiod, to which Theobald put notes and half-notes, which he carefully owned.