158
The Dunciad.
Book VI.
[R 1]There foam'd rebellious Logic, gagg'd and bound,
There, stript, fair Rhet'ric languish'd on the ground;
25 His blunted Arms by Sophisory are born,
And shameless Billingsgate her Robes adorn.
Morality, by her false Guardians drawn,[R 2]
Chicane in Furs, and Casuistry in Lawn,
Gasps, as they straiten at each end the cord,
30 And dies, when Dulness gives her Page the word.[R 3]
Mad Mathesis,[R 4] alone was unconfin'd,
Too mad for mere material chains to bind,
There, stript, fair Rhet'ric languish'd on the ground;
25 His blunted Arms by Sophisory are born,
And shameless Billingsgate her Robes adorn.
Morality, by her false Guardians drawn,[R 2]
Chicane in Furs, and Casuistry in Lawn,
Gasps, as they straiten at each end the cord,
30 And dies, when Dulness gives her Page the word.[R 3]
Mad Mathesis,[R 4] alone was unconfin'd,
Too mad for mere material chains to bind,
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 21, 22. Beneath her footstool, &c.] We are next presented with the pictures of those whom the Goddess leads in Captivity. Science is only depressed and confined so as to be rendered useless; but Wit or Genius, as a more dangerous and active enemy, punished, or driven away: Dulness being often reconciled in some degree with Learning, but never upon any terms with Wit. And accordingly it will be seen that she admits something like each Science, as Casuistry, Sophistry, &c.
- ↑ Ver. 27. by her false Guardians drawn,] Morality is the Daughter of Astræa. This alludes to the Mythology of the ancient Poets; who tell us that in the Gold and Silver ages, or in the State of Nature, the Gods cohabited with Men here on Earth; but when by reason of human degeneracy men were forced to have recourse to a Magistrate, and that the Ages of Brass and Iron came on, (that is, when Laws were wrote on brazen tablets and inforced by the Sword of Justice) the Celestials soon retired from Earth, and Astræa last of all; and then it was she left this her Orphan Daughter in the hands of the Guardians aforesaid. Scribl.
- ↑ V. 30. gives her Page the word.] There was a Judge of this name, always ready to hang any man, of which he was suffered to give a hundred miserable examples during a long life, even to his dotage.—Tho' the candid Scriblerus imagined Page here to mean no more than a Page or Mute, and to allude to the custom of strangling State Criminals in Turkey by Mutes or Pages. A practice more decent than that of our Page, who before he hanged any person, loaded him with reproachful language. Scribl.
- ↑ Ver. 31. Mad Mathesis] Alluding to the strange Conclusions some Mathematicians have deduced from their principles concerning the real Quantity of Matter, the Reality of Space, &c.
