The Dunciad, Book 4

Notes

2.

The reference to “Chaos, and eternal Night” is an allusion to Milton’s Paradise Lost, 2.894–1009; “darkness visible” is from Paradise Lost, 1.63. Pope is ironically invoking the great sublime epic in the English language at the start of his mock epic.

3.

Sirius, the dog-star, is visible in late August; that time of year is known as the “dog-days.” It was traditionally a time when poets read their work in ancient Rome: see Juvenal’s third Satire. Pope’s note: “The Poet introduceth this, (as all great events are supposed by sage Historians to be preceded) by an Eclipse of the Sun; but with a peculiar propriety, as the Sun is the Emblem of that intellectual light which dies before the face of Dulness. Very apposite likewise is it to make this Eclipse, which is occasion’d by the Moon’s predominancy, the very time when Dulness and Madness are in Conjunction.”

5.

The owl is associated with Athena (also known as Minerva), the goddess of wisdom.

7.

A pun: Johnson defines saturnian as “Happy; golden: used by poets for times of felicity, such as are feigned to have been in the reign of Saturn,” but Pope also recalls that Saturn is the chemical name for lead.

8.

Effulgence is “brightness.” Pope’s note: “Vet. Adag. [old saying] The higher you climb, the more you show your A—. Verified in no instance more than in Dulness aspiring. Emblematized also by an Ape climbing and exposing his posteriors.”

9.

Dulness’s “Laureat son” is Colley Cibber, the Poet Laureat of Britain, and the “hero” of the second version of The Dunciad.

13.

Chicane, “crafty and litigious pleading.” Furs refers to the ermine robes worn by judges. Lawn, “Fine linen, remarkable for being used in the sleeves of bishops” (Johnson).

14.

Perhaps a pun: Sir Francis Page was a notorious “hanging judge.”

16.

To “square the circle” — that is, to construct a square with the same area as a given circle, using only a straight edge and a compass — was one of the great problems of ancient mathematics. It is now known to be impossible, although cranks have always been convinced they’ve had a solution.

17.

A reference to the Licensing Act, which restricted what could appear on the stage.

19.

Lord Chesterfield fought against the Stage Licensing Act.

20.

Pope’s note: “The Attitude given to this phantom represents the nature and genius of the Italian Opera: its affected airs, its luxurious and effemenating sounds, and the practise of patching up these Opera’s with favourite tunes, incoherently put together. These things were supported by the subscriptions of the Nobility.”

24.

Cara is Italian for “dear lady,” a term common in operas. The train refers to the Muses.

25.

Pope’s note: “Alluding to the false taste of playing tricks in Music with numberless divisions, to the neglect of that harmony which conforms to the Sense, and applies to the Passions. Mr. Handel had introduced a great number of Hands, and more variety of Instruments into the Orchestra, and employed even Drums and Cannon to make a fuller Chorus; which prov’d so much too manly for the fine Gentlemen of his age, that he was obliged to remove his Music into Ireland. After which they were reduced, for want of Composers, to practise the patch-work above mentioned.”

26.

Pope’s note: “That species of the ancient music called the Chromatic was a variation and embellishment, in odd irregularities, of the Diatonic kind. They say it was invented about the time of Alexander, and that the Spartans forbad the use of it, as languid and effeminate.” In modern usage, the diatonic scale is the familiar major or minor scale; the chromatic scale includes all the tones in between, used to add “color” to the music.

28.

George Friedrich Handel, England’s greatest composer in the early eighteenth century.

29.

In Greek myth, Briareus was a hundred-handed giant.

31.

Pope’s disingenuous note: “Posterior, viz. her second or more certain Report: unless we imagine this word posterior to relate to the position of one of her Trumpets.”

32.

Pope’s note: “None need a Guide, — none want a Place — The sons of Dulness are autodidactos [self-taught], and can introduce themselves into all places, they want no instructors in study, nor guides in life.”

35.

Baal is a false god in the Old Testament, the chief god of the enemies of the Israelites, the “children of light.”

36.

In other words, refuse to support the poet while he’s alive, but after his death set up a statue to honor him.

37.

The Laurel crown was the traditional award given to the poet laureate.

39.

Narcissus is Lord Hervey, attacked as Sporus in the Epistle to Arbuthnot. He was famously fair-skinned.

40.

Pope’s note: “An eminent person of Quality who was about to publish a very pompous Edition of a great Author, very much at his own expence indeed.” He is referring to Sir Thomas Hanmer, whose edition of Shakespeare was published twenty years after Pope’s.

41.

The tasseled caps of gentleman-commoners at Oxford.

42.

Medea was the wife of Jason; she rejuvenated Jason’s father, Aeson.

46.

A reference to Dr. Busby, the headmaster of Westminster School, a notorious disciplinarian.

47.

Pope’s note: “A thin cane is usually born by Schoolmasters, which drives the poor Souls about like the Wand of Mercury.” He’s referring to a cane, usually made of birch (see “birchen” in the next line), used to beat schoolchildren.

48.

Beaver, “A hat of the best kind, so called from being made of the fur of beaver” (Johnson), commonly associated with doctors.

49.

An allusion to Paradise Lost, 1.392–93: “First Moloch, horrid King besmear’d with blood/ Of human sacrifice, and parents tears.”

50.

Eton, Winton (or Winchester), and Westminster are three of the most exclusive “public schools” — “public” in the British sense, not the American. They catered to the sons of the rich and powerful.

52.

The Samian letter is Y, used by Pythagoras of Samia to represent the paths to Virtue and Vice.

56.

The House of Commons and Westminster Hall.

57.

Politicians and friends of Pope: William Wyndham, leader of the Tory opposition; Charles Talbot, Baron Talbot, Lord Chancellor; William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield; and William Pulteney, Earl of Bath.

58.

King James I (reigned 1603-25) was renowned for his pedantry.

61.

The Cam is the river that runs through Cambridge; the Isis is the name of the Thames as it flows through Oxford.

62.

The “divine right of kings” was advocated by James I and his supporters.

63.

Sable refers to the black gowns of professors; shoal likens them to a school of fish.

64.

Pope’s note: “This line is doubtless spurious, and foisted in by the impertinence of the Editor; and accordingly we have put it between Hooks [brackets]. For I affirm this College came as early as any other, by its proper Deputies; nor did any College pay homage to Dulness in its whole body. Bentl.” The note is (falsely) attributed to Richard Bentley, who printed “spurious” lines, supposedly added to Milton’s Paradise Lost by a meddling editor, in brackets.

65.

Pope’s note: “In the year 1703 there was a meeting of the heads of the University of Oxford to censure Mr. Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding, and to forbid the reading it.”

66.

Two professors of logic, Jean Pierre de Crousaz and Francis Burgersdyck. The former had attacked Pope for his Essay on Man.

Richard Bentley, England’s greatest classical scholar, and one of Pope’s enemies. Pope attacks his pedantry throughout the Dunciad, but especially in his notes.

69.

Dr. Richard Walker, a friend of Bentley.

70.

Quakers did not bow in prayer or to social superiors.

71.

Pope’s note: “A famous Commentator, and Corrector of Homer, whose name has been frequently used to signify a complete Critic.”

73.

Bentley had edited both Horace (in 1711) and Milton’s Paradise Lost (in 1732). His Horace was in fact the best edition to date, but his eccentric edition of Milton earned much scorn.

74.

Pope’s note: “Alludes to the boasted restoration of the Æolic Digamma, in his long projected Edition of Homer. He calls it something more than Letter, from the enormous figure it would make among the other letters, being one Gamma set upon the shoulders of another.” Pope is referring to one of Bentley’s greatest discoveries, the digamma (F), a Greek letter that had fallen out of use during the classical period. His conjectures, confirmed by later classical scholars, made a great many curious features of Greek poetry comprehensible.

75.

Examples of debates over the spelling and pronunciation of classical Latin — for Pope, pedantic wastes of time.

76.

Richard Freind and Anthony Alsop, classical scholars.

77.

Manilius was a Latin poet and author of the Astronomica, on which Bentley wrote a commentary. Solinus was a third-century writer, whose Collectanea rerum memorabilium summarizes Pliny’s Natural History.

78.

Pope’s note on Suidas, Gellius, and Stobæus: “The first a Dictionary-writer, a collector of impertinent facts and barbarous words; the second a minute Critic; the third an author, who gave his Common-place book to the public, where we happen to find much Mince-meat of old books.” Bentley helped to edit the Suidas lexicon, and Theobald had written on him.

79.

Ludolph Kuster, Peter Burman, and Joseph Wasse, classical scholars and supporters of Bentley. Contrast the scholars’ attention to tiny details, rather than the whole, with Pope’s advice in his Essay on Criticism: “In Wit, as Nature, what affects our Hearts/ Is not th’ Exactness of peculiar Parts;/ ’Tis not a Lip, or Eye, we Beauty call,/ But the joint Force and full Result of all.”

80.

Pope’s note: “A word much affected by the learned Aristarchus [i.e., Bentley] in common conversation, to signify Genius or natural acumen. But this passage has a further view: Nous was the Platonic term for Mind, or the first Cause, and that system of Divinity is here hinted at which terminates in blind Nature without a Nous: such as the Poet afterwards describes (speaking of the dreams of one of these later Platonists) ’Or that bright Image to our Fancy draw,/ Which Theocles in raptur’d Vision saw,/ That Nature — &c.“

81.

Pope’s note: “Isaac Barrow Master of Trinity, Francis Atterbury Dean of Christ-church, both great Genius’s and eloquent Preachers; one more conversant in the sublime Geometry, the other in classical Learning; but who equally made it their care to advance the polite Arts in their several Societies.”

82.

Pope’s note: “Cannon here, if spoken of Artillery, is in the plural number; if of the Canons of the House, in the singular, and meant only of one: in which case I suspect the Pole to be a false reading, and that it should be the Poll, or Head of that Canon. It may be objected, that this is a mere Paronomasia or Pun. But what of that? Is any figure of Speech more apposite to our gentle Goddess, or more frequently used by her, and her Children, especially of the University? Doubtless it better suits the Character of Dulness, yea of a Doctor, than that of an Angel; yet Milton fear’d not to put a considerable quantity into the mouths of his. It hath indeed been observed, that they were the Devil’s Angels, as if he did it to suggest the Devil was the Author as well of false Wit, as of false Religion, and that the Father of Lies was also the Father of Puns. But this is idle: It must be own’d a Christian practice, used in the primitive times by some of the Fathers, and later by most of the Sons of the Church; till the debauch’d reign of Charles the second, when the shameful Passion for Wit overthrew every thing: and even then the best Writers admitted it, provided it was obscene, under the name of the Double entendre. Scribl.” The pun is on cannon, the weapon, and canon, which Johnson defines as “A dignitary in cathedral churches.”

84.

Euclid, an ancient Greek writer on mathematics, whose propositions in geometry were widely studied.

85.

After satirizing the scholarly pedants, Pope turns his attention on the fashionable fops with French manners.

90.

Pope’s note: “Very eminent persons, all Managers of Plays; who tho’ not Governors by profession, had each in his way concern’d themselves in the Education of youth, and regulated their Wits, their Morals, or their Finances, at that period of their age which is the most important, their entrance into the polite world.”

92.

Members of Parliament could not be arrested for debt.

93.

The name Paridel comes from Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Pope’s note: “The Poet seems to speak of this young gentleman with great affection. The name is taken from Spenser, who gives it to a wandering Courtly ’Squire, that travell’d about for the same reason, for which many young Squires are now fond of travelling, and especially to Paris.”

94.

The portraits of Annius and Mummius satirize antiquaries, who were obsessed with historical and natural curiosities, and especially liable to forgeries. Pope’s note: “The name taken from Annius the Monk of Viterbo, famous for many Impositions and Forgeries of ancient manuscripts and inscriptions, which he was propted to from mere vanity; but our Annius had a more substantial motive.”

96.

Pope’s note: “The first Kings of Athens, of whom it is hard to suppose any Coins are extant; but not so improbable as what follows, that there should be any of Mahomet, who forbad all Images. Nevertheless one of these Annius’s made a counterfeit one, now in the collection of a learned Nobleman.”

98.

Lares, “household gods.”

99.

Pope’s note: “Mummius is not merely an allusion to the Mummies he was so fond of, but probably referred to the Roman General of that name, who burn’d Corinth, and committed the curious Statues to the Captain of a Ship, assuring him, ’that if any were lost or broken, he should procure other to be made in their stead’: by which it should seem (whatever may be pretended) that Mummius was no Virtuoso.” Johnson defines virtuoso as “A man skilled in antique or natural curiosities; a man studious of painting, statuary, or architecture.”

103.

Pencil, “A small brush of hair which painters dip in their colours” (Johnson).

108.

Bird is a seventeenth-century usage for “insect.”

109.

Pope’s note: “Of which the Naturalists count above three hundred species.”

110.

Pope’s note: “One of the first Projectors of the Royal Society, who among many enlarged and useful notions, entertain’d the extravagant hope of a possibility to fly to the Moon; which has put some volatile Genius’s upon making wings for that purpose.” Johnson defines projector as “One who forms schemes or designs” and “One who forms wild impracticable schemes.” The Royal Society was the most distinguished scientific society in the country. John Wilkins was a bishop and scientist, author of Discovery of a World in the Moon and Mathematical Magick.

111.

Even today, in British English clerk rhymes with dark, not work.

112.

Pope’s note: “Alluding to a ridiculous and absurd way of some Mathematicians, in calculating the gradual decay of Moral Evidence by mathematical proportions: according to which calculation, in about fifty years it will be no longer probable that Julius Cæsar was in Gaul, or died in the Senate House. See Craig’s Theologiæ Christianæ Principia Mathematica. But as it seems evident, that facts of a thousand years old, for instance, are now as probable as they were five hundred years ago; it is plain that if in fifty more they quite disappear, it must be owing, not to their Arguments, but to the extraordinary Power of our Goddess; for whose help therefore they have reason to pray.” The “moral evidence” refers to the “Christian evidences,” that is, the authenticity of the Bible. Craig was a Scottish mathematician, and supported the Deists who argued that Scriptural testimony was unreliable.

113.

Pope’s note: “Those who, from the effects in this Visible world, deduce the Eternal Power and Godhead of the First Cause tho’ they cannot attain to an adequate idea of the Deity, yet discover so much of him, as enables them to see the End of their Creation, and the Means of their Happiness: whereas they who take this high Priori Road (such as Hobbs, Spinoza, Des Cartes, and some better Reasoners) for one that goes right, ten lose themselves in Mists, or ramble after Visions which deprive them of all sight of their End, and mislead them in the choice of wrong means.” The reference is to argument a priori, that is, beginning with general principles and working to derive specific truths.

114.

Pope’s note: “The first of these Follies is that of Des Cartes, the second of Hobbs, the third of some succeeding Philosophers.”

115.

Lucretius was a Roman philosopher who argued for a materialist view of the universe, in which the gods have no special concern about human beings.

116.

Matthew Tindal, a famous Deist; Silenus, an Epicurean philosopher mentioned in Virgil’s sixth Eclogue.

122.

K——, B——. and W—— have never been reliably idenitified. Some have suggested the Duke of Kent, the 3d Earl of Berkeley, and the Earl of Warwick.

123.

Pope’s note: “Here beginneth the celebration of the greater Mysteries of the Goddess, which the Poet in his Invocation ver. 5, promised to sing. For when now each Aspirant, as was the custom, had proved his qualification and claim to a participation, the High Priest of Dulness first initiateth the Assembly by the usual way of Libation. And then each of the Initiated, as was always required, putteth on a new Nature, described from ver. 518 to 529. When the High-Priest and Goddess have thus done their parts, each of them is delivered into the hands of his Conductor, an inferior Minister or Hierophant, whose names are Impudence, Stupefaction, Self-conceit, self-interest, Pleasure, Epicurism, etc., to lead them through the several apartments of her Mystic Dome or Palace. When all this is over, the sovereign Goddess, from ver. 565 to 600 conferreth her Titles and Degrees; rewards inseparably attendant on the participation of the Mysteries. . . . Hence being enriched with so many various Gifts and Graces, Initiation into the Mysteries was anciently, as well as in these our times, esteemed a necessary qualification for every high office and employment, whether in Church or State. Lastly the great Mother shutteth up the Solemnity with her gracious benediction, which concludeth in drawing the Curtain, and laying all her Children to rest. It is to be observed that Dulness, before this her Restoration, had her Pontiffs in Partibus; who from time to time held her Mysteries in secret, and with great privacy. But now, on her Re-establishment, she celebrateth them, like those of the Cretans (the most ancient of all Mysteries) in open day, and offereth them to the inspection of all men.” The Wizard is probably Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister.

124.

The Knights of the Garter and Knights of the Bath wore a star; ditto the feather in the next line.

125.

Endymion is a legendary shepherd who died for love of Selene, goddess of the moon.

126.

Cimmeria is a region mentioned in Homer where the sun never shines; Pope is punning on the name of Colley Cibber.

129.

A reference not only to Homer’s Sirens, but also to the opera.

130.

These are probably Lords William Cowper, Simon Harcourt, Thomas Parker, Robert Raymond, and Peter King, whose sons never achieved any political prominence.

135.

Perigord and Bayonne are luxurious regions in France.

145.

Pope’s note: “This verse is truly Homerical, as is the conclusion of the Action, where the great Mother composes all, in the same manner as Minerva at the period [end] of the Odyssey.”

146.

John Gilbert, whom Pope accuses of being boring.

147.

Palinurus was the helmsman in Virgil’s Aeneid; Pope uses it to refer to Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister.

148.

A reference back to line 2.

149.

Argus is a mythological giant with countless eyes.

151.

Mystery, “Something above human intelligence; something awfully obscure” (Johnson); it was a term in Christian theology. Pope’s note: “A sort of men (who make human Reason the adequate measure of all Truth) having pretended that whatsoever is not fully comprehended by it, is contrary to it; certain defenders of Religion, who would not be outdone in a pardox, have gone as far in the opposite folly, and attempted to shew that the mysteries of Religion may be mathematically demonstrated; as the authors of Philosophic, or Astronomic Principles, natural and reveal’d; who have much prided themselves on reflecting a fantastic light upon religion from the frigit subtilty of school moonshine.”

152.

An allusion to the opening of the book of John, in which God is referred to as the Word (or logos), and to Genesis, “Let there be light.”