"On the whole," stammereth the Doctor further on, "the chief fault of the Dunciad is the violence and vehemence of its satire." The same fault may be found with vitriolic acid, nay, with Richardson's Ultimate Result. No doubt, that for many domestic purposes water is preferable—for not a few, milk—and for some, milk and water. But not with that latter amalgam did Hannibal force his way through the Alps.
But, softly—the Doctor compares the violence and vehemence of Pope's satire—no—not the violence and vehemence, but the height—to water—but to water rare among the liquid elements. "And the excessive height to which it is carried, and which therefore I may compare to that marvellous column of boiling water near Mount Hecla in Iceland, thrown upwards, above ninety feet, by the force of subterraneous fire." And he adds in a note, to please the incredulous, "Sir Joseph Banks, our great philosophical traveller, had the satisfaction of seeing this wonderful phenomenon."
"What are the impressions," eloquently asks the inspired Joseph "left upon the mind after a perusal of this poem? Contempt, aversion vexation, and anger. No sentiments that enlarge, ennoble, move, or mend the heart! Insomuch so, that I know a person whose name would be an ornament to these papers, if I were suffered to insert it, who, after reading a book of the Dunciad, always soothes himself, as he calls it, by turning to a canto of the Faery Queene." There is no denying that satire is apt to excite the emotions the Doctor complains of, and few more strongly than the Dunciad. Yet what would it be without them—and what should we be? But other emotions, too, are experienced at some of the games; and some of an exalted kind, by innumerable passages throughout the poem. Were it not so, this would be a saturnine world indeed. Would we had had the name of the wise gentleman, that it might ornament these papers, who so frequently indulged in "contempt, aversion, vexation, and anger" over Pope, that he might soothe himself, as he called it, with Spenser. We wonder if he occasionally left the bosom of the Faery Queene for that of the Goddess of Dulness.
"This is not the case with that very delightful poem Mac-Flecnoe, from which Pope has borrowed many hints and images and ideas. But Dryden's poem was the offspring of contempt, and Pope's of indignation; one is full of mirth, and the other of malignity. A vein of pleasantry is uniformly preserved through the whole of Mac-Flecnoe, and the piece begins and ends in the same key." That very beautiful and delightful poem, Mac-Flecnoe! That very pretty and agreeable waterfall, Niagara! That very elegant and attractive crater of Mount Vesuvius! That very interesting and animated earthquake, vulgarly called the Great Earthquake at Lisbon! Having ourselves spoken of the good-humour of Dryden, (some twenty pages back, about the middle of this article,) we must not find fault with Warton for saying that a vein of pleasantry is preserved through the whole of Mac-Flecnoe; but what thought Mac-Flecnoe himself? "Ay, there's the rub." Then what a vein of pleasantry is preserved through the whole of Og! So light and delicate is the handling, that you might be charmed into the soft delusion, that you beheld Christopher with his Knout.
"Since the total decay," innocently exclaims this estimable man, "was foretold in the Dunciad, how many very excellent pieces of criticism, poetry, history, philosophy, and divinity, have appeared in this country, and to what a degree of perfection has almost every art, either useful or elegant, been carried?" Mr Bowles—mirabile dictu—backs his old schoolmaster against the goddess. "Can it be thought," says the Canon—standing up for the age of Pope himself—"that this period was enlightened by Young, Thomson, Glover, and many whose characters reflected equal lustre on religion, morals, and philosophy? But such is satire, when it is not guided by truth." All this might have been said in fewer words—"Look At Blackwood's Magazine." There is not, in the Dunciad itself, an instance of such stupidity recorded, as this indignant attribution of blindness to the present, and to the future, "as far off its coming shone," to "the seed of Chaos and old night," by two divines, editors both of the works of Alexander Pope, Esq. in eight (?) and in ten volumes.
Lord Kames, in his Elements of Criticism, urges an objection to the opening of the Dunciad, which, if sustained, is sufficient to prove the whole poem vicious on beginning to end. "This author (Pope) is guilty of much greater deviation from the rule. Dulness may be imagined a Deity or Idol, to be worshipped by bad writers; but then some sort of disguise is requisite, some bastard virtue must be bestowed, to give this Idol a plausible appearance. Yet, in the Dunciad, Dulness, without the least disguise, is made the object of worship. The mind rejects such a fiction as unnatural." Warburton meets this objection with his usual fierté and acumen. "But is there no bastard virtue in the mighty Mother of so numerous an offspring, which she takes care to bring to the ears of kings? Her votaries would, for this single virtue, prefer her influence to Apollo and the Nine Muses. Is there no bastard virtue in the peace of which the poet makes her the author?—'The goddess bade Britannia sleep.' Is she not celebrated for her beauty, another bastard virtue?—'Fate this fair idol gave.' One bastard virtue the poet hath given her; which, with these sort of critics, might make her pass for a wit; and that is, her love of a joke—'For gentle Dulness ever loved a joke.' Her delight in games and races is another of her bastard virtues, which would captivate her nobler sons, and draw them to her shrine; not to speak of her indulgence to young travellers, whom she accompanies as Minerva did Telemachus. But of all her bastard virtues, her FREE-THINKING, the virtue which she anxiously propagates amongst her followers in the Fourth Book, might, one would think, have been sufficient to have covered the poet from this censure. But had Mr Pope drawn her without the least disguise, it had not signified a rush. Disguised or undisguised, the poem had been neither better nor worse, and he has secured it from being rejected as unnatural by ten thousand beauties of nature." This is too Warburtonian—and Lord Kames must be answered after another fashion, by Christopher North.
What would his lordship have? That she should be called by some other more specious name? By that of some quality to which writers and other men do aspire, and under the semblance of which Dulness is actually found to mask itself—as Gravity, Dignity, Solemnity? Why, two losses would thus be incurred. First, the whole mirth of the poem, or the greater part of it, would be gone. Secondly, the comprehensiveness of the present name would be forfeited, and a more partial quality taken.
The vigour and strength of the fiction requires exactly what Pope has done—the barefaced acceptance of Dulness as the imperial power. The poet acts, in fact, under a logical necessity. She is really the goddess under whose influence and virtue they, her subjects, live; whose inspiration sustains and governs their actions. But it would be against all manners that a goddess should not be known and worshipped under her own authentic denomination. To cheat her followers out of their worship, by showing herself to them under a diversity of false appearances, would have been unworthy of her divinity.
As to the probability of the fiction, the answer is plain and ready. Nobody asks for probability. Far otherwise. The bravery of the jest is its improbability. There is a wild audacity proper to the burlesque Epos which laughs at conventional rules, and the tame obligations of ordinary poetry. The absurd is one legitimate source of the comic.
For example, are the Games probable? Take the reading to sleep—which is purely witty—a thing which the poet does not go out of his way to invent. It lies essentially on the theme, being a literary αγων and it is indeed only that which is continually done, (oh, us miserable!) thrown into poetical shape. But it is perfectly absurd and improbable, done in the manner in which it is represented—not therefore to be blamed, but therefore to be commended with cachinnation while the world endures.