Cheese, such as men in Suffolk make,
But wish’d it Stilton for his sake;
Yet, to his guest tho’ no way sparing,
He ate himself the rind and paring. 170
Our Courtier scarce could touch a bit,
But show’d his breeding and his wit;
He did his best to seem to eat,
And cried, ‘I vow you ‘re mighty neat:
But lord, my friend, this savage scene! 175
For God’s sake come and live with men;
Consider, mice, like men, must die,
Both small and great, both you and I;
Then spend your life in joy and sport,
(This doctrine, friend, I learn’d at court).’ 180
The veriest hermit in the nation
May yield, God knows, to strong temptation.
Away they came, thro’ thick and thin,
To a tall house near Lincoln’s-Inn
(‘T was on the night of a debate, 185
When all their Lordships had sat late).
Behold the place where if a poet
Shined in description he might show it;
Tell how the moonbeam trembling falls,
And tips with silver all the walls; 190
Palladian walls, Venetian doors,
Grotesco roofs, and stucco floors:
But let it (in a word) be said,
The moon was up, and men a-bed,
The napkins white, the carpet red: 195
The guests withdrawn had left the treat,
And down the Mice sat tête-à-tête.
Our Courtier walks from dish to dish,
Tastes for his friend of fowl and fish;
Tells all their names, lays down the law, 200
‘Que ça est bon! Ah, goutez ça!
That Jelly ‘s rich, this Malmsey healing,
Pray, dip your whiskers and your tail in.’
Was ever such a happy swain!
He stuffs and swills, and stuffs again. 205
‘I ‘m quite ashamed—’t is mighty rude
To eat so much — but all ‘s so good —
I have a thousand thanks to give —
My Lord alone knows how to live.’
No sooner said, but from the hall 210
Rush chaplain, butler, dogs, and all:
‘A rat, a rat! clap to the door’ —
The cat comes bouncing on the floor.
O for the art of Homer’s mice,
Or gods to save them in a trice! 215
(It was by Providence, they think,
For your damn’d stucco has no chink!)
‘An ‘t please Your Honour,’ quoth the peasant,
‘This same dessert is not so pleasant:
Give me again my hollow tree, 220
A crust of bread and Liberty!’
The Seventh Epistle of the First Book of Horace
In the Manner of Dr. Swift
‘T IS true, my Lord, I gave my word
I would be with you June the third;
Changed it to August, and (in short)
Have kept it — as you do at Court.
You humour me when I am sick, 5
Why not when I am splenetic?
In Town what objects could I meet?
The shops shut up in every street,
And funerals black’ning all the doors,
And yet more-melancholy whores: 10
And what a dust in every place!
And a thin Court that wants your face,
And fevers raging up and down,
And W[ard] and H[enley] both in town!
‘The dogdays are no more the case.’ 15
‘T is true, but winter comes apace:
Then southward let your bard retire,
Hold out some months ‘twixt sun and fire,
And you shall see the first warm weather
Me and the butterflies together. 20
My Lord, your favours well I know;
‘T is with distinction you bestow,
And not to every one that comes,
Just as a Scotchman does his plums.
‘Pray take them, Sir — enough ‘s a feast: 25
Eat some, and pocket up the rest:’
What, rob your boys? those pretty rogues!
‘No, Sir, you ‘ll leave them to the hogs.’
Thus fools with compliments besiege ye,
Contriving never to oblige ye. 30
Scatter your favours on a Fop,
Ingratitude ‘s the certain crop;
And ‘t is but just, I ‘ll tell ye wherefore,
You give the things you never care for.
A wise man always is, or should, 35
Be mighty ready to be good,
But makes a diff’rence in his thought
Betwixt a guinea and a groat.
Now this I ‘ll say, you ‘ll find in me
A safe companion, and a free; 40
But if you ‘d have me always near,
A word, pray, in Your Honour’s ear:
I hope it is your resolution
To give me back my constitution,
The sprightly wit, the lively eye, 45
Th’ engaging smile, the gayety
That laugh’d down many a summer sun,
And kept you up so oft till one;
And all that voluntary vein,
As when Belinda rais’d my strain. 50
A Weasel once made shift to slink
In at a corn-loft thro’ a chink,
But having amply stuff’d his skin,
Could not get out as he got in;
Which one belonging to the house 55
(‘T was not a man, it was a mouse)
Observing, cried, ‘You ‘scape not so;
Lean as you came, Sir, you must go.’
Sir, you may spare your application;
I ‘m no such beast, nor his relation, 60
Nor one that Temperance advance,
Cramm’d to the throat with ortolans;
Extremely ready to resign
All that may make me none of mine.
South-Sea subscriptions take who please, 65
Leave me but liberty and ease:
‘T was what I said to Craggs and Child,
Who praised my modesty, and smil’d.
‘Give me,’ I cried (enough for me)
‘My bread and independency!’ 70
So bought an annual rent or two,
And lived — just as you see I do;
Near fifty, and without a wife,
I trust that sinking fund, my life.
Can I retrench? Yes, mighty well, 75
Shrink back to my paternal cell,
A little house, with trees a row,
And, like its master, very low;
There died my father, no man’s debtor,
And there I ‘ll die, nor worse nor better. 80
To set this matter full before ye,
Our old friend Swift will tell his story.
‘Harley, the nation’s great support’ —
But you may read it, I stop short.
The First Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace
To Venus
AGAIN? new tumults in my breast?
Ah, spare me, Venus! let me, let me rest!
I am not now, alas! the man
As in the gentle reign of my Queen Anne.
Ah! sound no more thy soft alarms, 5
Nor circle sober fifty with thy charms.
Mother too fierce of dear desires!
Turn, turn to willing hearts your wanton fires:
To number five direct your doves,
There spread round Murray all your blooming Loves; 10
Noble and young, who strikes the heart
With ev’ry sprightly, ev’ry decent part;
Equal the injured to defend,
To charm the Mistress, or to fix the Friend.
He, with a hundred arts refin’d, 15
Shall stretch thy conque
sts over half the kind:
To him each rival shall submit,
Make but his Riches equal to his Wit.
Then shall thy form the marble grace,
(Thy Grecian form) and Chloe lend the face: 20
His house, embosom’d in the grove,
Sacred to social life and social love,
Shall glitter o’er the pendant green,
Where Thames reflects the visionary scene:
Thither, the silver-sounding lyres 25
Shall call the smiling Loves, and young Desires;
There, ev’ry Grace and Muse shall throng,
Exalt the dance, or animate the song;
There Youths and Nymphs, in concert gay,
Shall hail the rising, close the parting day. 30
With me, alas! those joys are o’er;
For me, the vernal garlands bloom no more.
Adieu, fond hope of mutual fire,
The still-believing, still-renew’d desire;
Adieu, the heart-expanding bowl, 35
And all the kind deceivers of the soul!
But why? ah tell me, ah too dear!
Steals down my cheek th’ involuntary Tear?
Why words so flowing, thoughts so free,
Stop, or turn nonsense, at one glance of thee? 40
Thee, drest in Fancy’s airy beam,
Absent I follow thro’ th’ extended Dream;
Now, now I seize, I clasp thy charms,
And now you burst (ah cruel!) from my arms;
And swiftly shoot along the Mall, 45
Or softly glide by the Canal,
Now, shown by Cynthia’s silver ray,
And now, on rolling waters snatch’d away.
The Ninth Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace
A Fragment
LEST you should think that verse shall die
Which sounds the silver Thames along,
Taught on the wings of truth to fly
Above the reach of vulgar song;
Tho’ daring Milton sits sublime, 5
In Spenser native muses play;
Nor yet shall Waller yield to time,
Nor pensive Cowley’s moral lay —
Sages and Chiefs long since had birth
Ere Cæsar was or Newton named; 10
These rais’d new empires o’er the earth,
And those new heav’ns and systems framed.
Vain was the Chief’s, the Sage’s Pride!
They had no Poet, and they died.
In vain they schemed, in vain they bled! 15
They had no Poet, and are dead.
THE DUNCIAD
This famous satirical work was first published anonymously in 1728, with a second version, now known as the Dunciad Variorum, appearing in 1729. A final version in four books, The New Dunciad, featuring an entirely different hero, appeared much later in 1742. The poem satirically celebrates the goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bring decay, imbecility, and tastelessness to the Kingdom of Great Britain.
Pope had released an edition of Shakespeare in 1725 and, following the publication of Shakespeare Restored by Lewis Theobald, Pope was keen to complete The Dunciad, wishing to satirise his rival’s work. Pope was angered by Theobald’s full title of: Shakespeare restored, or, A specimen of the many errors, as well committed, as unamended, by Mr. Pope : in his late edition of this poet. Although Theobald was certainly Pope’s superior in criticism, The Dunciad demonstrates how Pope could use his poetic prowess to embarrass and ultimately defeat his rival.
Composed in a mock-heroic structure, the poem was inspired by MacFlecknoe, a poem celebrating the apotheosis of Thomas Shadwell, whom Dryden nominated as the dullest poet of the age. Shadwell is the spiritual son of Flecknoe, an obscure Irish poet of low fame, and he takes his place as the favourite of the goddess Dulness. Pope takes this idea of the personified goddess of Dulness being at war with reason, darkness at war with light, and extends it to a full parody of Virgil’s Aeneid. The Dunciad celebrates a war, rather than a mere victory, and a process of ignorance, and Pope picks as his champion of all things insipid Lewis Theobald.
The Dunciad was not originally signed and Pope used only initials in the text to refer to the various ‘Dunces’ in the kingdom of Dulness. However, the key figures of the poem were swiftly identified by many and an Irish pirate edition was printed that filled in the names. Additionally, the men attacked by Pope wrote angry denunciations of the poem, attacking Pope’s poetry and person. Pope endured attacks from, among others, George Duckett, Thomas Burnet, and Richard Blackmore. All of these, however, were less vicious than the attack launched by Edmund Curll, a notoriously unscrupulous publisher, who produced his own pirate copy of the Dunciad, as well as The Popiad and a number of pamphlets attacking Pope.
In 1729, Pope published an acknowledged edition of the poem, and the Dunciad Variorum appeared in 1732. This version was substantially the same text as the 1729 edition, but it now had a lengthy prolegomenon – introductory essay. The prefatory material has Pope speaking in his own defence, although under a variety of other names. ; for example, “A Letter to the Publisher Occasioned by the Present Edition of the Dunciad” is signed by William Cleland (d. 1741), one of Pope’s friends and father of John Cleland, but it was probably written by Pope himself.
The plot of the poem is simple. Dulness, the goddess, appears at a Lord Mayor’s Day in 1724 and notes that her king, Elkannah Settle, has died. She chooses Lewis Theobald as his successor. In honour of his coronation, she holds heroic games. He is then transported to the Temple of Dulness, where he has visions of the future. The poem has a consistent setting and time, as well. Book I covers the night after the Lord Mayor’s Day, Book II the morning to dusk, and Book III the darkest night. Furthermore, the poem begins at the end of the Lord Mayor’s procession, goes in Book II to the Strand, then to Fleet Street (where booksellers were), down by Bridewell Prison to the Fleet ditch, then to Ludgate at the end of Book II; in Book III, Dulness goes through Ludgate to the City of London to her temple.
In 1741, Pope wrote a fourth book of the poem and had it published the next year as a separate text. He also began revising the whole poem to create a new, integrated, and darker version of the text. The four-book New Dunciad appeared in 1743, with the most obvious change being of its hero from Lewis Theobald to Colley Cibber. Cibber was the pioneer of sentimental drama and a celebrated comic actor. Pope fell out with him due to a long public squabble that originated in 1717, when Cibber introduced jokes onstage at the expense of a poorly received farce, Three Hours After Marriage, written by Pope with John Arbuthnot and John Gay. Pope was in the audience and naturally infuriated, as was Gay, who got into a physical fight with Cibber on a subsequent visit to the theatre. Pope published a pamphlet satirising Cibber, and continued his literary assault until his death, the situation escalating following Cibber’s politically motivated appointment to the post of poet laureate in 1730.
In this edition of Pope’s works, all three versions of The Dunciad are presented, with the original three book Dunciad of 1727, the added Prolegomena of the Dunciad Variorum of 1732 and the final New Dunciad text of 1742.
Colley Cibber (1671–1757) was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. He rose to ignominious fame when he became the chief target, the head Dunce, of the later four-book New Dunciad.
CONTENTS
The Three Book Dunciad, 1728
THREE BOOK DUNCIAD. BOOK THE FIRST.
THREE BOOK DUNCIAD. BOOK THE SECOND.
THREE BOOK DUNCIAD. BOOK THE THIRD.
Dunciad Variorum, 1732
THE PROLEGOMENA
The New Dunciad, 1742
NEW DUNCIAD. BOOK I
NEW DUNCIAD. BOOK II
NEW DUNCIAD. BOOK III
NEW DUNCIAD. BOOK IV
A satirical print against Pope from Pope Alexander (1729).
The Three Book Dunciad, 1728
Preface
Prefixed to the
Five First Imperfect Editions of The Dunciad, in Three Books, Printed at Dublin and London, in Octavo and Duodecimo, 1727.
The Publisher to the Reader
It will be found a true observation, though somewhat surprising, that when any scandal is vented against a man of the highest distinction and character, either in the state or literature, the public in general afford it a most quiet reception, and the larger part accept it as favourably as if it were some kindness done to themselves: whereas, if a known scoundrel or blockhead but chance to be touched upon, a whole legion is up in arms, and it becomes the common cause of all scribblers, booksellers, and printers whatsoever. 15
Not to search too deeply into the reason hereof, I will only observe as a fact, that every week, for these two months past, the town has been persecuted with pamphlets, advertisements, letters, and weekly essays, not only against the wit and writings, but against the character and person of Mr. Pope; and that of all those men who have received pleasure from his works (which by modest computation may be about a hundred thousand in these kings doms of England and Ireland, not to mention Jersey, Guernsey, the Orcades, those in the New World, and foreigners who have translated him into their languages), of all this number not a man hath stood up to say one word in his defence. 16
The only exception is the author of the following poem, who doubtless had either a better insight into the grounds of this clamour, or a better opinion of Mr. Pope’s integrity, joined with a greater personal love for him than any other of his numerous friends and admirers. 17
Farther, that he was in his peculiar intimacy, appears from the knowledge he manifests of the most private authors of all the anonymous pieces against him, and from his having in this poem attacked no man living who had not before printed or published some scandal against this gentleman. 18
How I came possessed of it, is no concern to the reader; but it would have been a wrong to him had I detained the publication; since those names which are its chief ornaments die off daily so fast, as must render it too soon unintelligible. If it provoke the author to give us a more perfect edition, I have my end. 19
Who he is I cannot say, and (which is a great pity) there is certainly nothing in his style and manner of writing which can distinguish or discover him; for if it bears any resemblance to that of Mr. Pope, it is not improbable but it might be done on purpose, with a view to have it pass for his. But by the frequency of his allusions to Virgil, and a laboured (not to say affected) shortness in imitation of him, I should think him more an admirer of the Roman poet than of the Grecian, and in that not of the same taste with his friend. 20
Alexander Pope - Delphi Poets Series Page 48