411

What Dulness dropp'd among her sons impress'd
Like motion from one circle to the rest:
So from the midmost the nutation spreads
Round and more round o'er all the sea of heads.
At last Centlivre felt her voice to fail;
Motteux himself unfinish'd left his tale;
Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o'er;
Morgan and Mandevil could prate no more;
Norton, from Daniel and Ostrœa sprung,
Bless'd with his father's front and mother's tongue,
Hung silent down his never-blushing head;
And all was hush'd, as Folly's self lay dead.

415

411 Centlivre. Mrs. Susanna Centlivre, wife to Mr. Centlivre, yeoman of the mouth to his majesty. She wrote many plays, and a song, (says Mr. Jacob, vol. i. p. 32.) before she was seven years old: she also wrote a ballad against Mr. Pope's Homer, before he began it. --P.

413 Boyer the state, and Law the stage gave o'er. A. Boyer, a voluminous compiler of annals, political collections, &c.William Law, A.M. wrote with great zeal against the stage; Mr. Dennis answered with as great: their books were printed in 1726. Mr. Law affirmed, 'The playhouse is the temple of the devil; the peculiar pleasure of the devil; where all they who go yield to the devil; where all the laughter is a laughter among devils; and all who are there are hearing music in the very porch of hell.'-P.

414 Morgan. A writer against religion, distinguished no otherwise from the rabble of his tribe, than by the pompousness of his title, a moral philosopher.'-W.

Ibid. Mandevil. Author of a famous book called The Fable of the Bees;' written to prove that moral virtue is the invention of knaves, and christian virtue the imposition of fools; and that vice is necessary, and alone sufficient to render society florishing and happy.-P.†

415 Norton. Norton De Foe, said to be the natural offspring of the famous Daniel De Foe, one of the authors of the Flying Post.'-P.

420

Thus the soft gifts of sleep conclude the day; And stretch'd on bulks, as usual, poets lay. Why should I sing, what bards the nightly Muse Did slumbering visit, and convey to stews? Who prouder march'd, with magistrates in state, To some famed round-house, ever open gate? How Henley lay inspired beside a sink, And to mere mortals seem'd a priest in drink <; While others, timely, to the neighboring Fleet, Haunt of the Muses, make their safe retreat?

·

425

426 And to mere mortals seem'd a priest in drink. This line presents us with an excellent moral, that we are never to pass judgment merely by appearance: an eminent casuist tells us, that if a priest be seen in any indecent action, we ought to account it a deception of sight, or illusion of the devil, who sometimes takes on him the shape of holy men on purpose to cause scandal.' Scriblerus.-P.

427 Fleet. A prison for insolvent debtors on the bank of the ditch.-P.t

THE DUNCIAD.

BOOK THE THIRD.

ARGUMENT OF BOOK III.

After the other persons are disposed in their proper places of rest, the goddess transports the king to her temple, and there lays him to slumber with his head on her lap ; a position of marvellous virtue, which causes all the visions of wild enthusiasts, projectors, politicians, inamoratos, castlebuilders, chemists, and poets. He is immediately carried on the wings of Fancy, and led by a mad poetical sibyl to the Elysian shade; where, on the banks of Lethe, the souls of the dull are dipped by Bavius, before their entrance into this world there he is met by the ghost of Settle, and by him made acquainted with the wonders of the place, and with those which he himself is destined to perform. He takes him to a mount of vision, from whence he shows him the past triumphs of the empire of Dulness, then the present, and lastly the future; how small a part of the world was ever conquered by science; how soon those conquests were stopped, and those very nations again reduced to her dominion. Then, distinguishing the island of Great Britain, he shows by what aids, by what persons, and by what degrees, it shall be brought to her empire. Some of the persons he causes to pass in review before his eyes, describing each by his proper figure, character, and qualifications. On a sudden the scene shifts, and a vast number of miracles and prodigies appear, utterly surprising and unknown to the king himself, till they are explained to be the wonders of his own reign now commencing. On this subject, Settle breaks into a congratulation, yet not unmixed with concern, that his own times were but the types of these. He prophesies how first the nation shall be over-run with farces, operas, and shows; how the throne of Dulness shall be advanced over the theatres, and set up even at court; then, how her sons shall preside in the seats of arts and sciences; giving a glimpse, or Pisgah-sight, of the future fulness of her glory, the accomplishment whereof is the subject of the fourth and last book.