T’ Exalt the Soul, or make the Heart sincere,
To arm our Lives with honesty severe,
To shake the wretch beyond the reach of Law,
Deter the young, and touch the bold with awe,
To raise the fal’n, to hear the sufferer’s cries,
And sanctify the virtues of the wife,
Old Satire rose from Probity of mind,
The noblest Ethicks to reform mankind.

As Cynthia’s Orb excels the gems of night:
So Epic Satire shines distinctly bright.
Here Genius lives, and strength in every part,
And lights and shades, and fancy fix’d by art.
A second beauty in its nature lies,
It gives not Things, but Beings to our eyes,
Life, Substance, Spirit animate the whole;
Fiction and Fable are the Sense and Soul.
The common Dulness of mankind, array’d
In pomp, here lives and breathes, a wond’rous Maid:
The Poet decks her with each unknown Grace,
Clears her dull brain, and brightens her dark face:
See! Father Chaos o’er his First-born nods,
And Mother Night, in Majesty of Gods!
See Querno’s Throne, by hands Pontific rise,
And a Fool’s Pandaemonium strike our Eyes!
Ev’n what on C l the Publick bounteous pours,
Is sublimated here to Golden show’rs.

A Dunciad or a Lutrin is compleat,
And one in action; ludicrously great.
Each wheel rolls round in due degrees of force;
E’en Episodes are needful, or of course:
Of course, when things are virtually begun
E’er the first ends, the Father and the Son:
Or else so needful, and exactly grac’d,
That nothing is ill-suited, or ill-plac’d.

True Epic’s a vast World, and this a small;
One has its proper beauties, and one all.
Like Cynthia, one in thirty days appears,
Like Saturn one, rolls round in thirty years.
There opens a wide Tract, a length of Floods,
A height of Mountains, and a waste of Woods:
Here but one Spot; nor Leaf, nor Green depart
From Rules, e’en Nature seems the Child of Art.
As Unities in Epick works appear,
So must they shine in full distinction here.
Ev’n the warm Iliad moves with slower pow’rs:
That forty days demands, This forty hours.

Each other Satire humbler arts has known,
Content with meaner Beauties, tho’ its own:
Enough for that, if rugged in its course
The Verse but rolls with Vehemence and Force;
Or nicely pointed in th’ Horatian way
Wounds keen, like Syrens mischievously gay.
Here, All has Wit, yet must that Wit be strong,
Beyond the Turns of Epigram, or Song.
The Thought must rise exactly from the vice,
Sudden, yet finish’d, clear, and yet concise.
One Harmony must first with last unite;
As all true Paintings have their Place and Light.
Transitions must be quick, and yet design’d,
Not made to fill, but just retain the mind:
And Similies, like meteors of the night,
Just give one flash of momentary Light.

As thinking makes the Soul, low things exprest
In high-rais’d terms, define a Dunciad best.
Books and the Man demands as much, or more,
Than He who wander’d to the Latian Shore:
For here (eternal Grief to Duns’s soul,
And B ’s thin Ghost!) the Part contains the Whole:
Since in Mock-Epic none succeeds, but he
Who tastes the Whole of Epic Poesy.

The Moral must be clear and understood;
But finer still, if negatively good:
Blaspheming Capaneus obliquely shows
T’ adore those Gods Aeneas fears and knows.
A Fool’s the Heroe; but the Poet’s end
Is, to be candid, modest, and a Friend.

Let Classic Learning sanctify each Part,
Not only show your Reading, but your Art.

The charms of Parody, like those of Wit,
If well contrasted, never fail to hit;
One half in light, and one in darkness drest,
(For contraries oppos’d still shine the best.)
When a cold Page half breaks the Writer’s heart,
By this it warms, and brightens into Art.
When Rhet’ric glitters with too pompous pride,
By this, like Circe, ’tis un-deify’d.
So Berecynthia, while her off-spring vye
In homage to the Mother of the sky,
(Deck’d in rich robes, of trees, and plants, and flow’rs,
And crown’d illustrious with an hundred tow’rs)
O’er all Parnassus casts her eyes at once,
And sees an hundred Sons and each a Dunce.

The Language next: from hence new pleasure springs;
For Styles are dignify’d, as well as Things.
Tho’ Sense subsists, distinct from phrase or sound,
Yet Gravity conveys a surer wound.
The chymic secret which your pains wou’d find,
Breaks out, unsought for, in Cervantes’ mind;
And Quixot’s wildness, like that King’s of old,
Turns all he touches, into Pomp and Gold.
Yet in this Pomp discretion must be had;
Tho’ grave, not stiff; tho’ whimsical, not mad:
In Works like these if Fustian might appear,
Mock-Epics, Blackmore, would not cost thee dear.

We grant, that Butler ravishes the Heart,
As Shakespear soar’d beyond the reach of Art;
(For Nature form’d those Poets without Rules,
To fill the world with imitating Fools.)
What Burlesque could, was by that Genius done;
Yet faults it has, impossible to shun:
Th’ unchanging strain for want of grandeur cloys,
And gives too oft the horse-laugh mirth of Boys:
The short-legg’d verse, and double-gingling Sound,
So quick surprize us, that our heads run round:
Yet in this Work peculiar Life presides,
And Wit, for all the world to glean besides.

Here pause, my Muse, too daring and too young!
Nor rashly aim at Precepts yet unsung.
Can Man the Master of the Dunciad teach?
And these new Bays what other hopes to reach?
’Twere better judg’d, to study and explain
Each ancient Grace he copies not in vain;
To trace thee, Satire, to thy utmost Spring,
Thy Form, thy Changes, and thy Authors sing.

All Nations with this Liberty dispense,
And bid us shock the Man that shocks Good Sense.
Great Homer first the Mimic Sketch design’d
What grasp’d not Homer’s comprehensive mind?
By him who Virtue prais’d, was Folly curst,
And who Achilles sung, drew Dunce the First.

Next him Simonides, with lighter Air,
In Beasts, and Apes, and Vermin, paints the Fair:
The good Scriblerus in like forms displays
The reptile Rhimesters of these later days.

More fierce, Archilochus! thy vengeful flame;
Fools read and dy’d: for Blockheads then had Shame.

The Comic-Satirist attack’d his Age,
And found low Arts, and Pride, among the Sage:
See learned Athens stand attentive by,
And Stoicks learn their Foibles from the Eye.

Latium’s fifth Homer held the Greeks in view;
Solid, tho’ rough, yet incorrect as new.
Lucilius, warm’d with more than mortal flame
Rose next, and held a torch to ev’ry shame.
See stern Menippus, cynical, unclean;
And Grecian Cento’s, mannerly obscene.
Add the last efforts of Pacuvius’ rage,
And the chaste decency of Varro’s page.

See Horace next, in each reflection nice,
Learn’d, but not vain, the Foe of Fools nor Vice.
Each page instructs, each Sentiment prevails,
All shines alike, he rallies, but ne’er rails:
With courtly ease conceals a Master’s art,
And least-expected steals upon the heart.
Yet Cassius felt the fury of his rage,
(Cassius, the We d of a former age)
And sad Alpinus, ignorantly read,
Who murder’d Memnon, tho’ for ages dead.

Then Persius came: whose line tho’ roughly wrought,
His Sense o’erpaid the stricture of his thought.
Here in clear light the Stoic-doctrine shines,
Truth all subdues, or Patience all resigns.
A Mind supreme! impartial, yet severe:
Pure in each Act, in each Recess sincere!
Yet rich ill Poets urg’d the Stoic’s Frown,
And bade him strike at Dulness and a Crown.

The Vice and Luxury Petronius drew,
In Nero meet: th’ imperial point of view:
The Roman Wilmot, that could Vice chastize,
Pleas’d the mad King he serv’d, to satirize.

The next in Satire felt a nobler rage,
What honest Heart could bear Domitian’s age?
See his strong Sense, and Numbers masculine!
His Soul is kindled, and he kindles mine:
Scornful of Vice, and fearless of Offence,
He flows a Torrent of impetuous Sense.

Lo! Savage Tyrants Who blasphem’d their God
Turn Suppliants now, and gaze at Julians Rod.

Lucian, severe, but in a gay disguise,
Attacks old Faith, or sports in learned Lyes;
Sets Heroes and Philosophers at odds;
And scourges Mortals, and dethrones the Gods.

Then all was Night But Satire rose once more
Where Medici and Leo Arts restore.
Tassone shone fantastic, but sublime:
And He, who form’d the Macaronique-Rhime:

Then Westward too by slow degrees confest,
Where boundless Rabelais made the World his Jest;
Marot had Nature, Regnier Force and Flame,
But swallow’d all in Boileau’s matchless Fame!
Extensive Soul! who rang’d all learning o’er,
Present and past and yet found room for more.
Full of new Sense, exact in every Page,
Unbounded, and yet sober in thy Rage.
Strange Fate! Thy solid Sterling of two lines,
Drawn to our Tinsel, thro’ whole Pages shines!

In Albion then, with equal lustre bright,
Great Dryden rose, and steer’d by Nature’s light.
Two glimmering Orbs he just observ’d from far,
The Ocean wide, and dubious either Star,
Donne teem’d with Wit, but all was maim’d and bruis’d,
The periods endless, and the sense confus’d:
Oldham rush’d on, impetuous, and sublime,
But lame in Language, Harmony, and Rhyme;
These (with new graces) vig’rous nature join’d
In one, and center’d ’em in Dryden’s mind.
How full thy verse? Thy meaning how severe?
How dark thy theme? yet made exactly clear.
Not mortal is thy accent, nor thy rage,
Yet mercy softens, or contracts each Page.
Dread Bard! instruct us to revere thy rules,
And hate like thee, all Rebels, and all Fools.

His Spirit ceas’d not (in strict truth) to be;
For dying Dryden breath’d, O Garth! on thee,
Bade thee to keep alive his genuine Rage,
Half-sunk in want, oppression and old age;
Then, when thy pious hands repos’d his head,
When vain young Lords and ev’n the Flamen fled.
For well thou knew’st his merit and his art,
His upright mind, clear head, and friendly heart.
Ev’n Pope himself (who sees no Virtue bleed
But bears th’ affliction) envies thee the deed.

O Pope! Instructor of my studious days,
Who fix’d my steps in virtue’s early ways:
On whom our labours, and our hopes depend,
Thou more than Patron, and ev’n more than Friend!
Above all Flattery, all Thirst of Gain,
And Mortal but in Sickness, and in Pain!
Thou taught’st old Satire nobler fruits to bear,
And check’d her Licence with a moral Care:
Thou gav’st the Thought new beauties not its own,
And touch’d the Verse with Graces yet unknown.
Each lawless branch thy level eye survey’d.
And still corrected Nature as she stray’d:
Warm’d Boileau’s Sense with Britain’s genuine Fire,
And added Softness to Tassone’s Lyre.

Yet mark the hideous nonsense of the age,
And thou thy self the subject of its rage.
So in old times, round godlike Scaeva ran
Rome’s dastard Sons, a Million, and a Man.

Th’ exalted merits of the Wise and Good
Are seen, far off, and rarely understood.
The world’s a father to a Dunce unknown,
And much he thrives, for Dulness! he’s thy own.
No hackney brethren e’er condemn him twice;
He fears no enemies, but dust and mice.

If Pope but writes, the Devil Legion raves,
And meagre Critics mutter in their caves:
(Such Critics of necessity consume
All Wit, as Hangmen ravish’d Maids at Rome.)
Names he a Scribler? all the world’s in arms,
Augusta, Granta, Rhedecyna swarms:
The guilty reader fancies what he fears,
And every Midas trembles for his ears.

See all such malice, obloquy, and spite
Expire e’re morn, the mushroom of a night!
Transient as vapours glimm’ring thro’ the glades,
Half-form’d and idle, as the dreams of maids,
Vain as the sick man’s vow, or young man’s sigh,
Third-nights of Bards, or H ’s sophistry.

These ever hate the Poet’s sacred line:
These hate whate’er is glorious, or divine.
From one Eternal Fountain Beauty springs,
The Energy of Wit, and Truth of Things,
That Source is GOD: From him they downwards tend,
Flow round yet in their native center end.
Hence Rules, and Truth, and Order, Dunces strike;
Of Arts, and Virtues, enemies alike.

Some urge, that Poets of supreme renown
Judge ill to scourge the Refuse of the Town.
How’ere their Casuists hope to turn the scale,
These men must smart, or scandal will prevail.
By these, the weaker Sex still suffer most:
And such are prais’d who rose at Honour’s cost:
The Learn’d they wound, the Virtuous, and the Fair,
No fault they cancel, no reproach they spare:
The random Shaft, impetuous in the dark,
Sings on unseen, and quivers in the mark.
’Tis Justice, and not Anger, makes us write,
Such sons of darkness must be drag’d to light:
Long-suff’ring nature must not always hold;
In virtue’s cause ’tis gen’rous to be bold.
To scourge the bad, th’ unwary to reclaim,
And make light flash upon the face of shame.

Others have urg’d (but weigh it, and you’ll find
’Tis light as feathers blown before the wind)
That Poverty, the Curse of Providence,
Attones for a dull Writer’s want of Sense:
Alas! his Dulness ’twas that made him poor;
Not vice versa: We infer no more.
Of Vice and Folly Poverty’s the curse,
Heav’n may be rigid, but the Man was worse,
By good made bad, by favours more disgrac’d,
So dire th’ effects of ignorance misplac’d!
Of idle Youth, unwatch’d by Parents eyes!
Of Zeal for pence, and Dedication Lies!
Of conscience model’d by a Great man’s looks!
And arguings in religion from No books!

No light the darkness of that mind invades,
Where Chaos rules, enshrin’d in genuine Shades;
Where, in the Dungeon of the Soul inclos’d,
True Dulness nods, reclining and repos’d.
Sense, Grace, or Harmony, ne’er enter there,
Nor human Faith, nor Piety sincere;
A mid-night of the Spirits, Soul, and Head,
(Suspended all) as Thought it self lay dead.
Yet oft a mimic gleam of transient light
Breaks thro’ this gloom, and then they think they write;
From Streets to Streets th’ unnumber’d Pamphlets fly,
Then tremble Warner, Brown, and Billingsly.

O thou most gentle Deity appear,
Thou who still hear’st, and yet art prone to hear:
Whose eye ne’er closes, and whose brains ne’er rest,
(Thy own dear Dulness bawling at thy breast)
Attend, O Patience, on thy arm reclin’d,
And see Wit’s endless enemies behind!

And ye, Our Muses, with a hundred tongues,
And Thou, O Henley! blest with brazen lungs;
Fanatic Withers! fam’d for rhimes and sighs,
And Jacob Behmen! most obscurely wise;
From darkness palpable, on dusky wings
Ascend! and shroud him who your Off-spring sings.

The first with Egypt’s darkness in his head
Thinks Wit the devil, and curses books unread.
For twice ten winters has he blunder’d on,
Thro’ heavy comments, yet ne’er lost nor won:
Much may be done in twenty winters more,
And let him then learn English at threescore.
No sacred Maro glitters on his shelf,
He wants the mighty Stagyrite himself.
See vast Coimbria’s comments pil’d on high,
In heaps Soncinas, Sotus, Sanchez lie:
For idle hours, Sa’s idler casuistry.

Yet worse is he, who in one language read,
Has one eternal jingling in his head,
At night, at morn, in bed, and on the stairs ...
Talks flights to grooms, and makes lewd songs at pray’rs
His Pride, a Pun: a Guinea his Reward,
His Critick G-ld-n, Jemmy M-re his Bard.

What artful Hand the Wretch’s Form can hit,
Begot by Satan on a M ly’s Wit:
In Parties furious at the great Man’s nod,
And hating none for nothing, but his God:
Foe to the Learn’d, the Virtuous, and the Sage,
A Pimp in Youth, an Atheist in old Age:
Now plung’d in Bawdry and substantial Lyes,
Now dab’ling in ungodly Theories;
But so, as Swallows skim the pleasing flood,
Grows giddy, but ne’er drinks to do him good:
Alike resolv’d to flatter, or to cheat,
Nay worship Onions, if they cry, come eat:
A foe to Faith, in Revelation blind,
And impious much, as Dunces are by kind.

Next see the Master-piece of Flatt’ry rise,
Th’ anointed Son of Dulness and of Lies:
Whose softest Whisper fills a Patron’s Ear,
Who smiles unpleas’d, and mourns without a tear.
Persuasive, tho’ a woful Blockhead he:
Truth dies before his shadowy Sophistry.
For well he knows the Vices of the Town,
The Schemes of State, and Int’rest of the Gown;
Immoral Afternoons, indecent Nights,
Enflaming Wines, and second Appetites.

But most the Theatres with dulness groan,
Embrio’s half-form’d, a Progeny unknown:
Fine things for nothing, transports out of season,
Effects un-caus’d, and murders without reason.
Here Worlds run round, and Years are taught to stay,
Each Scene an Elegy, each Act a Play.
Can the same Pow’r such various Passions move?
Rejoice, or weep, ’tis ev’ry thing for Love.
The self-same Cause produces Heav’n and Hell:
Things contrary as Buckets in a Well;
One up, one down, one empty, and one full:
Half high, half low, half witty, and half dull.
So on the borders of an ancient Wood,
Or where some Poplar trembles o’er the Flood,
Arachne travels on her filmy thread,
Now high, now low, or on her feet or head.

Yet these love Verse, as Croaking comforts Frogs,
And Mire and Ordure are the Heav’n of Hogs.
As well might Nothing bind Immensity,
Or passive Matter Immaterials see,
As these shou’d write by reason, rhime, and rule,
Or we turn Wit, whom nature doom’d a Fool.
If Dryden err’d, ’twas human frailty once,
But blund’ring is the Essence of a Dunce.

Some write for Glory, but the Phantom fades;
Some write as Party, or as Spleen invades;
A third, because his Father was well read,
And Murd’rer-like, calls Blushes from the dead.
Yet all for Morals and for Arts contend
They want’em both, who never prais’d a Friend.
More ill, than dull; For pure stupidity
Was ne’er a crime in honest Banks, or me.

See next a Croud in damasks, silks, and crapes,
Equivocal in dress, half-belles, half-trapes:
A length of night-gown rich Phantasia trails,
Olinda wears one shift, and pares no nails:
Some in C l’s Cabinet each act display,
When nature in a transport dies away:
Some more refin’d transcribe their Opera-loves
On Iv’ry Tablets, or in clean white Gloves:
Some of Platonic, some of carnal Taste,
Hoop’d, or un-hoop’d, ungarter’d, or unlac’d.
Thus thick in Air the wing’d Creation play,
When vernal Phoebus rouls the Light away,
A motley race, half Insects and half Fowls,
Loose-tail’d and dirty, May-flies, Bats, and Owls.

Gods, that this native nonsense was our worst!
With Crimes more deep, O Albion! art thou curst.
No Judgment open Prophanation fears,
For who dreads God, that can preserve his Ears?
Oh save me Providence, from Vice refin’d,
That worst of ills, a Speculative Mind!
Not that I blame divine Philosophy,
(Yet much we risque, for Pride and Learning lye.)
Heav’n’s paths are found by Nature more than Art,
The Schoolman’s Head misleads the Layman’s Heart.

What unrepented Deeds has Albion done?
Yet spare us Heav’n! return, and spare thy own.
Religion vanishes to Types, and Shade,
By Wits, by fools, by her own Sons betray’d!
Sure ’twas enough to give the Dev’l his due,
Must such Men mingle with the Priesthood too?
So stood Onias at th’ Almighty’s Throne,
Profanely cinctur’d in a Harlot’s Zone.

Some Rome, and some the Reformation blame;
’Tis hard to say from whence such License came;
From fierce Enthusiasts, or Socinians sad?
C ns the soft, or Bourignon the mad?
From wayward Nature, or lewd Poet’s Rhimes?
From praying, canting, or king-killing times?
From all the dregs which Gallia cou’d pour forth,
(Those Sons of Schism) landed in the North?
From whence it came, they and the D l best know,
Yet thus much, Pope, each Atheist is thy Foe.

O Decency, forgive these friendly Rhimes,
For raking in the dunghill of their crimes.
To name each Monster wou’d make Printing dear,
Or tire Ned Ward, who writes six Books a-year.
Such vicious Nonsense, Impudence, and Spite,
Wou’d make a Hermit, or a Father write.
Tho’ Julian rul’d the World, and held no more
Than deist Gildon taught, or Toland swore,
Good Greg’ry prov’d him execrably bad,
And scourg’d his Soul, with drunken Reason mad.
Much longer, Pope restrain’d his awful hand,
Wept o’er poor Niniveh, and her dull band,
’Till Fools like Weeds rose up, and choak’d the Land.
Long, long he slumber’d e’er th’ avenging hour;
For dubious Mercy half o’er-rul’d his pow’r:
’Till the wing’d bolt, red-hissing from above
Pierc’d Millions thro’ For such the Wrath of Jove.
Hell, Chaos, Darkness, tremble at the sound,
And prostrate Fools bestrow the vast Profound:
No Charon wafts ’em from the farther Shore,
Silent they sleep, alas! to rise no more.

Oh POPE, and Sacred Criticism! forgive
A Youth, who dares approach your Shrine, and live!
Far has he wander’d in an unknown Night,
No Guide to lead him, but his own dim Light.
For him more fit, in vulgar Paths to tread,
To shew th’ Unlearned what they never read,
Youth to improve, or rising Genius tend,
To Science much, to Virtue more, a Friend.