Book II.
The Dunciad.
79
No meagre, muse-rid mope, adust and thin,
In a dun night-gown of his own loose skin;
But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise,[I 1]
Twelve starv'ling bards of these degen'rate days.40
All as a partridge plump, full-fed, and fair,
She form'd this image of well-body'd air;
With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head;
A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead;[R 1]
And empty words she gave, and sounding strain, 45
But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!
Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit,[R 2]
A fool, so just a copy of a wit;
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 44. A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead;] i.e.A trifling head, and a contracted heart,as the poet, book 4. describes the accomplished Sons of Dulness; of whom this is only an Image, or Scarecrow, and so stuffed out with these corresponding materials.Scribl.
- ↑ Ver. 47. Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit,]. Our author here seems willing to give some account of the possibility of Dulness making a Wit (which could be done no other way than by chance.) The fiction is the more reconciled to probability, by the known story of Apelles, who being at a loss to express the foam of Alexander's horse, dashed his pencil in de-
Imitations
- ↑ The reader will observe how exactly some of these verses suit with their allegorical application here to a Plagiary: There seems to me a great propriety in this Episode, where such an one is imaged by a phantom that deludes the grasp of the expecting Bookseller.Ver. 39. But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise,]Vix illud lecti bis sex———
Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus.Virg. Æn. xii.
