Page:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu/186

^{[R 1]}

YET, yet a moment, one dim Ray of Light^{[R 2]}
Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night!^{[R 3]}
Of darkness visible so much be lent,
As half to shew, half veil the deep Intent.^{[R 4]}
5 Ye Pow'rs! whose Mysteries restor'd I sing,
To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing,^{[R 5]}

Remarks

1. The Dunciad, Book IV.] This Book may properly be distinguished from the former, by the Name of the Greater Dunciad, not so indeed in Size, but in Subject; and so far contrary to the distinction anciently made of the Greater and Lesser Iliad. But much are they mistaken who imagine this Work in any wise inferior to the former, or of any other hand than of our Poet; of which I am much more certain than that the Iliad itself was the Work of Solomon, or the Batrachomuomachia of Homer, as Barnes hath affirmed. Bent.
2. Ver. 1, &c.] This is an Invocation of much Piety. The Poet willing to approve himself a genuine Son, beginneth by shewing (what is ever agreeable to Dulness) his high respect for Antiquity and a Great Family, how dull, or dark soever: Next declareth his love for Mystery and Obscurity; and lastly his Impatience to be re-united to her. Scribl.
3. Ver. 2. dread Chaos, and eternal Night!] Invoked, as the Restoration of their Empire is the Action of the Poem.
4. Ver. 4. half to show, half veil the deep Intent.] This is a great propriety, for a dull Poet can never express himself otherwise than by halves, or imperfectly. Scribl.
   I understand it very differently; the Author in this work had indeed a deep Intent; there were in it Mysteries or λπόῤῥητα which he durst not fully reveal, and doubtless in divers verses (according to Milton)

   ———more is meant than meets the ear.Bent.

5. Ver. 6. To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing,] Fair and softly, good Poet! (cries the gentle Scriblerus on this place.) For sure in spite of his unusual modesty, he shall not travel so fast toward Oblivion, as divers others of more Confidence have done: For when I revolve in my mind the Catalogue of those who have the most boldly promised to themselves Immortality, viz. Pindar, Luis Gongora, Ronsard, Oldham, Lyrics; Lycophron, Statius, Chapman, Blackmore, Heroics; I find the one half to be already dead, and the other in utter darkness. But it becometh not us, who have taken upon us the office of Commentator, to suffer our Poet thus prodigally to cast away his Life; contrariwise, the more hidden and abstruse is his work, and the more remote its beauties from common Understanding,