THE DUNCIAD.

TO DR. JONATHAN SWIFT.

BOOK IV.

YET, yet a moment, one dim ray of light
Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night!
Of darkness visible so much be lent,
As half to show, half veil the deep intent.
Ye pow'rs, whose mysteries restor❜d I sing,
To whom time bears me on his rapid wing,
Suspend awhile your force inertly strong,
Then take at once the poet and the song.
Now flam'd the dog-star's unpropitious ray,
Smote ev'ry brain, and wither'd ev'ry bay ;
Sick was the sun, the owl forsook his bow'r,
The moon-struck prophet felt the madding hour:

REMARKS.

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v. 2. —dread Chaos, and eternal Night!] Invoked, as the restoration of their empire is the action of the poem.

Then rose the seed of Chaos, and of Night,
To blot out order, and extinguish light,
Of dull and venal a new world to mould,
And bring Saturnian days of lead and gold.

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She mounts the throne: her head a cloud conceal'd,

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In broad effulgence all below reveal'd,
('Tis thus aspiring Dulness ever shines)
Soft on her lap her laureate son reclines.
Beneath her footstool Science groans in chains,
And Wit dreads exile, penalties, and pains.
There foam'd rebellious Logic, gagg'd and bound;
There, stript, fair Rhet'ric languish'd on the ground;

REMARKS.

v. 14. To blot out order, and extinguish light.] The two great ends of her mission; the one in quality of daughter of Chaos, the other as daughter of Night. Order here is to be understood extensively, both as civil and moral; the distinctions between high and low in society, and true and false in individuals: light as intellectual only, wit, science,

arts.

v. 15. Of dull and venal.] The allegory continued; dull referring to the extinction of light or science; venal to the destruction of order and the truth of things.

Ibid. —a new world.] In allusion to the epicurean opinion, that from the dissolution of the natural world into night and chaos, a new one should arise; this the poet alluding to, in the production of a new world, makes it partake of its original principles.

His blunted arms by Sophistry are borne,
And shameless Billingsgate her robes adorn.
Morality, by her false guardians drawn,
Chicane in furs, and Casuistry in lawn,
Gasps, as they straiten at each end the cord,

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And dies when Dulness gives her page the word. 30 Mad Mathesis alone was unconfin'd,

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Too mad for mere material chains to bind :
Now to pure space lifts her ecstatic stare,
Now running round the circle, finds it square.
But held in tenfold bonds the muses lie,
Watch'd both by Envy's and by Flatt'ry's eye:
There to her heart sad Tragedy addrest
The dagger, wont to pierce the tyrant's breast;
But sober History restrain'd her rage,
And promis'd vengeance on a barb'rous age.
There sunk Thalia, nerveless, cold, and dead,
Had not her sister, Satire, held her head:
Nor couldst thou, Chesterfield! a tear refuse,
Thou wep'st, and with thee wept each gentle muse.
When lo! a harlot form soft sliding by,
With mincing step, small voice, and languid eye;
Foreign her air, her robe's discordant pride
In patch-work flutt'ring, and her head aside;
By singing peers upheld on either hand,

She tripp'd and laugh'd, too pretty much to stand;

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Cast on the prostrate nine a scornful look,
Then thus in quaint recitativo spoke :

O Cara! Cara! silence all that train;
Joy to great Chaos! let Division reign :

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Chromatic tortures soon shall drive them hence, 55
Break all their nerves, and fritter all their sense :
One trill shall harmonize joy, grief, and rage,
Wake the dull church, and lull the ranting stage;
To the same notes thy son shall hum or snore,
And all thy yawning daughters cry, Encore.
Another Phoebus, thy own Phoebus, reigns,
Joys in my jigs, and dances in my chains.
But soon, ah soon, rebellion will commence,
If music meanly borrows aid from sense:
Strong in new arms, lo! giant Handel stands,
Like bold Briareus, with a hundred hands;
To stir, to rouse, to shake the soul he comes,
And Jove's own thunders follow Mars's drums.
Arrest him, empress, or you sleep no more...........
She heard, and drove him to th' Hibernian shore. 70
And now had Fame's posterior trumpet blown,
And all the nations summon'd to the throne:
The young, the old, who feel her inward sway,
One instinct seizes, and transports away.
None need a guide, by sure attraction led,
And strong impulsive gravity of head;

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None want a place, for all their centre found,
Hung to the goddess, and coher'd around.
Not closer, orb in orb, conglob'd are seen
The buzzing bees about their dusky queen.

The gath'ring number, as it moves along,
Involves a vast involuntary throng,

Who gently drawn, and struggling less and less,
Roll in her vortex, and her pow'r confess.
Not those alone who passive own her laws,

But who, weak rebels, more advance her cause.
Whate'er of dunce in college or in town
Sneers at another in toupee or gown;
Whate'er of mongrel no one class admits,
A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.

Nor absent they, no members of her state,
Who pay her homage in her sons, the great;
Who, false to Phoebus, bow the knee to Baal,
Or impious, preach his word without a call.
Patrons, who sneak from living worth to dead,
Withhold the pension, and set up the head;
Or vest dull Flatt'ry in the sacred gown,
Or give from fool to fool the laurel crown ;
And, last and worst, with all the cant of wit,

Without the soul, the muse's hypocrite.

There march'd the bard and blockhead side by side, Who rhym'd for hire, and patroniz'd for pride.