156
The Dunciad.
Book IV.
Suspend a while your Force inertly strong,[R 1]
Then take at once the Poet and the Song.
Now flam'd the Dog-star's unpropitious ray,
10 Smote ev'ry Brain, and wither'd ev'ry Bay;
Sick was the Sun, the Owl forsook his bow'r,
The moon-struck Prophet[R 2] felt the madding hour:
Then rose the Seed of Chaos, and of Night,
To blot out Order, and extinguish Light,[R 3]
15 Of dull and venal[R 4] a new World[R 5] to mold,
And bring Saturnian days of Lead and Gold.
Then take at once the Poet and the Song.
Now flam'd the Dog-star's unpropitious ray,
10 Smote ev'ry Brain, and wither'd ev'ry Bay;
Sick was the Sun, the Owl forsook his bow'r,
The moon-struck Prophet[R 2] felt the madding hour:
Then rose the Seed of Chaos, and of Night,
To blot out Order, and extinguish Light,[R 3]
15 Of dull and venal[R 4] a new World[R 5] to mold,
And bring Saturnian days of Lead and Gold.
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 7. Force inertly strong,] Alluding to the Vis inertiæ of Matter, which, tho' it really be no Power, is yet the Foundation of all the Qualities and Attributes of that sluggish Substance.
- ↑ Ver. 11, 12. Sick was the Sun,–The moon-struck Prophet] 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 occasioned by the Moon's predominancy, the very time when Dulness and Madness are in Conjunction; whose relation and influence on each other the poet hath shewn in many places, Book 1. ver, 22. Book 3. ver. 5, & seq.
- ↑ Ver. 14. To blot out Order, and extinguish Light,] The two great Ends of her Mission; the one in quality of Daughter of Chaos, the other as Daughter of Night. Order here is to be understood extensively, both as Civil and Moral, the distinctions between high and low in Society, and true and false in Individuals: Light, as Intellectual only, Wit, Science, Arts.
- ↑ Ver. 15. Of dull and venal] The Allegory continued; dull referring to the extinction of Light or Science, venal to the destruction of Order, or the Truth of Things.
- ↑ Ibid. a new World] In allusion to the Epicurean opinion, that from the Dissolution of the natural World into Night and Chaos, a new one should arise; this
the more is it our duty to draw forth and exalt the same, in the face of Men and Angels. Herein shall we imitate the laudable Spirit of those, who have (for this very reason) delighted to comment on the Fragments of dark and uncouth Authors, preferred Ennius to Virgil, and chosen to turn the dark Lanthorn of Lycophren, rather than to trim the everlasting Lamp of Homer. Scribl.
