The Dunciad: Book I. poem – Alexander Pope

A poem by Alexander Pope (1688-1744) , the greatest English poet of “Augustan” or Georgian period

The Mighty Mother, and her son who brings

The Smithfield muses to the ear of kings,

I sing. Say you, her instruments the great!

Called to this work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate;

You by whose care, in vain decried and cursed,

Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first;

Say how the Goddess bade Britannia sleep,

And poured her spirit o’er the land and deep.

In eldest time, e’er mortals writ or read,

E’er Pallas issued from the Thunderer’s head,

Dulness o’er all possessed her ancient right,

Daughter of Chaos and eternal Night:

Fate in their dotage this fair idiot gave,

Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave,

Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind,

She ruled, in native anarchy, the mind.

Still her old empire to restore she tries,

For, born a goddess, Dulness never dies.

O thou! whatever title please thine ear,

Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!

Whether thou choose Cervantes’ serious air,

Or laugh and shake in Rabelais’ easy chair,

Or praise the court, or magnify mankind,

Or thy grieved country’s copper chains unbind;

From thy Boeotia though her power retires,

Mourn not, my SWIFT, at ought our realm acquires,

Here pleased behold her mighty wings out-spread

To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead.

Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne,

And laughs to think Monroe would take her down,

Where o’er the gates, by his famed by father’s hand

Great Cibber’s brazen, brainless brothers stand;

One cell there is, concealed from vulgar eye,

The cave of poverty and poetry.

Keen, hollow winds howl through the bleak recess,

Emblem of music caused by emptiness.

Hence bards, like Proteus long in vain tied down,

Escape in monsters, and amaze the town.

Hence miscellanies spring, the weekly boast

Of Curll’s chaste press, and Lintot’s rubric post :

Hence hymning Tyburn’s elegiac lines,

Hence Journals, Medleys, Merc’ries, Magazines:

Sepulchral lies, our holy walls to grace,

And new Year odes, and all the Grub Street race.

In clouded majesty here Dulness shone;

Four guardian virtues, round, support her throne:

Fierce champion Fortitude, that knows no fears

Of hisses, blows, or want, or loss of ears:

Calm Temperance, whose blessings those partake

Who hunger, and who thirst for scribbling sake:

Prudence, whose glass presents th’ approaching goal.

Poetic justice, with her lifted scale,

Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,

And solid pudding against empty praise.

Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep,

Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep,

Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day,

Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play:

How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,

How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry.

Maggots half-formed in rhyme exactly meet,

And learn to crawl upon poetic feet.

Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes,

And ductile dullness new meanders takes;

There motley images her fancy strike,

Figures ill paired, and similes unlike.

She sees a mob of metaphors advance,

Pleased with the madness of the mazy dance:

How tragedy and comedy embrace;

How farce and epic get a jumbled race;

How time himself stands still at her command,

Realms shift their place, and ocean turns to land.

Here gay description Egypt glads with showers,

Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flowers;

Glittering with ice here hoary hills are seen,

There painted valleys of eternal green,

In cold December fragrant chaplets blow,

And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.

All these, and more, the cloud-compelling Queen

Beholds through fogs, that magnify the scene.

She, tinselled o’er in robes of varying hues,

With self-applause her wild creation views;

Sees momentary monsters rise and fall,

And with her own fools-colours gilds them all.

‘Twas on the day, when rich and grave,

Like Cimon, triumphed both on land and wave:

(Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces,

Glad chains, warm furs, broad banners, and broad faces)

Now night descending, the proud scene was o’er,

But lived, in Settle’s numbers, one day more.

Now mayors and shrieves all hushed and satiate lay,

Yet eat, in dreams, the custard of the day;

While pensive poets painful vigils keep,

Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.

Much to the mindful Queen the feast recalls

What city swans once sung within the walls;

Much she revolves their arts, their ancient praise,

And sure succession down from Heywood’s days.

She saw, with joy, the line immortal run,

Each sire impressed and glaring in his son:

So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care,

Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear.

She saw old Prynne in restless Daniel shine,

And Eusden eke out Blackmore’s endless line;

She saw slow Philips creep like Tate’s poor page,

And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.

In each she marks her image full expressed,

But chief in BAY’S monster-breeding breast;

Bays, formed by nature stage and town to bless,

And act, and be, a coxcomb with success.

Dulness with transport eyes the lively dunce,

Remembering she herself was pertness once.

Now (shame to fortune!) an ill run at play

Blanked his bold visage, and a thin third day:

Swearing and supperless the hero sate,

Blasphemed his gods, the dice, and damned his fate.

Then gnawed his pen, then dashed it on the ground,

Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound!

Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there,

Yet wrote and floundered on, in mere despair.

Round him much embryo, much abortion lay,

Much future ode, and abdicated play;

Nonsense precipitate, like running lead,

That slipped through cracks and zigzags of the head;

All that on folly frenzy could beget,

Fruits of dull heat, and sooterkins of wit.

Next, o’er his books his eyes began to roll,

In pleasing memory of all he stole,

How here he sipped, how there he plundered snug

And sucked all o’er, like an industrious bug.

Here lay poor Fletcher’s half-eat scenes, and here

The frippery of crucified Molière;

There hapless Shakespeare, yet of Tibbald sore,

Wished he had blotted for himself before.

The rest on outside merit but presume,

Or serve (like other fools) to fill a room;

Such with their shelves as due proportion hold,

Or their fond parents dressed in red and gold;

Or where the pictures for the page atone,

And Quarles is saved by beauties not his own.

Here swells the shelf with Ogibly the great;

There, stamped with arms, Newcastle shines complete:

Here all his suffering brotherhood retire,

And ‘scape the martyrdom of jakes and fire:

A Gothic library! Of Greece and Rome

Well purged, and worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.

But, high above, more solid learning shone,

The classics of an age that heard of none;

There Caxton slept, with Wynkyn at his side,

One clasped in wood, and one in strong cow-hide;

There, saved by spice, like mummies, many a year,

Dry bodies of divinity appear:

De Lyra there a dreadful front extends,

And here the groaning shelves Philemon bends.

Of these twelve volumes, twelve of amplest size,

Redeemed from tapers and defrauded pies,

Inspired he seizes: these an altar raise:

An hetatomb of pure, unsullied lays

That altar crowns: a folio commonplace

Founds the whole pile, of all his works the base:

Quartos, octavos, shape the lessening pyre;

A twisted birthday ode completes the spire.

Then he: ‘Great tamer of all human art!

First in my care, and ever at my heart;

Dulness! Whose good old cause I yet defend,

With whom my muse began, with whom shall end;

E’er since Sir Fopling’s periwig was praise

To the last honours of the butt and bays:

O thou! of business the directing soul!

To this our head like bias to the bowl,

Which, as more ponderous, made its aim more true,

Obliquely waddling to the mark in view:

O! ever gracias to perplexed mankind,

Still spread a healing mist before the mind;

And lest we err by wit’s wild dancing light,

Secure us kindly in our native night.

Or, if to wit a coxcomb make pretence,

Guard the sure barrier between that and sense;

Or quite unravel all the reasoning thread,

And hang some curious cobweb in its stead!

As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,

And ponderous slugs cut swiftly through the sky;

As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe,

The wheels above urged by the load below:

Me emptiness, and Dulness could inspire,

And were my elasticity, and fire.

Some daemon stole my pen(forgive th’offence)

And once betrayed me into common sense:

Else all my prose and verse were much the same;

This, prose on stilts, that, poetry fallen lame.

Did on the stage my fops appear confined?

My life gave ampler lessons to mankind.

Did the dead letter unsuccessful prove?

The brisk example never failed to move.

Yet sure had heaven decreed to save the state,

Heaven had decreed these works a longer date.

Could Troy be saved by any single hand,

This grey-goose weapon must have made her stand.

What can I now? my Fletcher cast aside,

Take up the Bible, once my better guide?

Or tread the path by venturous heroes trod,

This box my thunder, this right hand my god?

Or chaired at White’s amidst the doctors sit,

Teach oaths to gamesters, and to nobles wit?

Or bidst thou rather party to embrace?

(A friend to party thou, and all her race;

‘Tis the same rope at different ends they twist;

To Dulness Ridpath is as dear as Mist.)

Shall I, like Curtius, desperate in my zeal,

O’er head and ears plunge for the commonweal?

Or rob Rome’s ancient geese of all their glories,

And cackling save the monarchy of Tories?

Hold-to the minister I more incline;

To serve his cause, O Queen! is serving thine.

And see! Thy very gazetteers give o’er,

Ev’n Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more.

What then remains? Ourself. Still, still remain

Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain.

This brazen brightness, to the ‘squire so dear;

This polished hardness, that reflects the peer;

This arch absurd, that sit and fool delights;

This mess, tossed up of Hockley Hole and White’s;

Where dukes and butchers join to wreathe my crown,

At once the bear and fiddle of the town.

O born in sin, and forth in folly brought!

Works damned, or to be damned! (your father’s fault)

Go, purified by flames ascend the sky,

My better and more Christian progeny!

Unstained, untouched, and yet in maiden sheets;

While all your smutty sisters walk the streets.

Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland,

Sent with a pass, and vagrant through the land;

Not sail, with Ward, to ape-and-monkey climes,

Where vile mundungus trucks for viler rhymes;

Not sulphur-tipped, emblaze an alehouse fire;

Not wrap up oranges, to pelt your sire!

O! pass more innocent, in infant state,

To the mild limbo of our father Tate:

Or peaceably forgot, at once be blessed

In Shadwell’s bosom with eternal rest!

Soon to that mass of nonsense to return,

Where things destroyed are swept to things unborn.’

With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace!)

Stole from the master of the sevenfold face:

And thrice he lifted high the birthday brand,

And thrice he dropped it from his quivering hand;

Then lights the structure, with averted eyes:

The rolling smokes involve the sacrifice.

The opening clouds disclose each work by turns,

Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns;

Great Ceasar roars, and hisses in the fires;

King John in silence modestly expires:

No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims,

Molière’s old stubble in a moment flames.

Tears gushed again, as from pale Priam’s eyes

When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies.

Roused by the light, old Dulness heaved the head;

Then snatched a sheet of Thulè from her bed,

Sudden she flies, and whelms it o’er the pyre;

Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire.

Her ample presence fills up all the place;

A veil of fogs dilates her awful face;

Great in her charms! as when on shrieves and mayors

She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.

She bids him wait her to her sacred dome:

Well pleased he entered, and confessed his home.

So spirits ending their terrestrial race,

Ascend, and recognize their native place.

This the Great Mother dearer held than all

The clubs of quidnuncs, or her own Guildhall:

Here stood her opium, here she nursed her owls,

And here she planned th’ imperial seat of Fools.

Here to her chosen all her works she shows;

Prose swelled to verse, verse loitering into prose:

How random thoughts now meaning chance to find,

Now leave all memory of sense behind:

How prologues into prefaces decay,

And these to notes are frittered quite away:

How index-learning turns no student pale,

Yet holds the eel of science by the tail:

How, with less reading than makes felons ‘scape,

Less human genius than God gives an ape,

Small thanks to France, and none to Rome or Greece,

A past, vamped, future, old, revived, new piece,

‘Twixt Plautus, Fletcher, Shakespeare, and Corneille,

Can make a Cibber, Tibbald, or Ozell.

The Goddess then, o’er his anointed head,

With mystic words, the sacred opium shed.

And lo! her bird, (a monster of a fowl,

Something betwixt a Heidegger and owl,)

Perched on his crown: ‘ All hail! and hail again,

My son! The promised land expects thy reign.

Know, Eusden thirsts no more for sack or praise;

He sleeps among the dull of ancient days;

Safe, where no critics damn, no duns molest,

Where wretched Withers, Ward, and Gildon rest,

And high-born Howard, more majestic sire,

With fool of quality completes the quire.

Thou Cibber! thou, his laurel shalt support,

Folly, my son, has still a friend at court.

Lift up your gates, ye princes, see him come!

Sound, sound ye viols, be the catcall dumb!

Bring, bring the madding bay, the drunken vine;

The creeping, dirty, courtly ivy join.

And thou! his aide de camp, lead on my sons,

Light-armed with points, antitheses, and puns.

Let bawdry, Billingsgate, my daughters dear,

Support his front, and oaths bring up the rear:

And under his, and under Archer’s wing,

Gaming and Grub Street skulk behind the king.

O! when shall rise a monarch all our own,

And I, a nursing-mother, rock the throne,

‘Twixt prince and people close the curtain draw,

Shade him from light, and cover him from law;

Fatten the courtier, starve the learned band,

And suckle armies, and dry-nurse the land:

Till senates nod to lullabies divine,

And all be asleep, as at an ode of thine.’

She ceased. Then swells the Chapel Royal throat:

‘God save King Cibber!’ mounts in every note.

Familiar White’s, ‘God save king Colley!’ cries;

‘God save King Colley!’ Drury Lane replies:

To Needham’s quick the voice triumphal rode,

But pious Needham dropped the name of God;

Back to the Devil the last echoes roll,

And ‘Coll!’ each butcher roars at Hockley Hole.

So when Jove’s block descended from on high

(As sings thy great forefather Ogilby)

Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog,

And the hoarse nation croaked, ‘God save King Log!

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