Smart, in return for our Janus-faced critic’s treatment, balanced the amount of debtor and creditor with a pungent Dunciad The Hilliad. Hill, who had heard of the rod in pickle, anticipated the blow, to break its strength; and, according to his adopted system, introduced himself and Smart, with a story of his having recommended the bard to his bookseller, “who took him into salary on my approbation. I betrayed him into the profession, and having starved upon it, he has a right to abuse me.” This story was formally denied by an advertisement from Newbery, the bookseller.
“The Hilliad” is a polished and pointed satire. The hero is thus exhibited on earth, and in heaven.
On earth, “a tawny sibyl,” with “an old striped curtain—”
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And tatter’d tapestry o’er her shoulders hung— Her loins with patchwork cincture were begirt, That more than spoke diversity of dirt. Twain were her teeth, and single was her eye— Cold palsy shook her head—— |
with “moon-struck madness,” awards him all the wealth and fame she could afford him for sixpence; and closes her orgasm with the sage admonition—
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The chequer’d world’s before thee; go, farewell! Beware of Irishmen; and learn to spell! |
But in heaven, among the immortals, never was an unfortunate hero of the vindicative Muses so reduced into nothingness! Jove, disturbed at the noise of this thing of wit, exclaims, that nature had never proved productive in vain before, but now,
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On mere privation she bestow’d a frame, And dignified a nothing with a name; A wretch devoid of use, of sense, of grace, The insolvent tenant of incumber’d space! |
Pallas hits off the style of Hill, as
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The neutral nonsense, neither false nor true— Should Jove himself, in calculation mad, Still negatives to blank negations add; How could the barren ciphers ever breed; But nothing still from nothing would proceed. Raise, or depress, or magnify, or blame, Inanity will ever be the same. |