For, born a Goddess, Dulness never dies.
O Thou! whatever title please thine ear,
20 Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!
Whether thou chuse Cervantes' serious air,
Or laugh and shake in Rablais' easy chair,
Or praise the Court, or magnify Mankind[R. 2],
Or thy griev'd Country's copper chains unbind;
25 From thy Bœotia tho' her Pow'r retires,
Mourn not, my Swift, at ought our Realm acquires,
Here pleas'd behold her mighty wings out-spread
To hatch a new Saturnian age of Lead[R. 3].
Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne,
30 And laughs to think Monroe would take her down,
Remarks
- ↑ Still her old Empire to restore.] This Restoration makes the Completion of the Poem. Vide Book 4.
- ↑ Or praise the Court, or magnify Mankind,] Ironicè, alluding to Gulliver's representations of both.—The next line relates to the papers of the Drapier against the currency of Wood's Copper coin in Ireland, which, upon the great discontent of the people, his Majesty was graciously pleased to recal.
- ↑ To hatch a new Saturnian age of Lead.] The ancient Golden Age
Will see his Work, like Jacob's ladder, rise,
Its foot in dirt, its head amid the skies.Bentl.
She rul'd, in native Anarchy, the mind.] The native Anarchy of the mind is that state which precedes the time of Reason's assuming the rule of the Passions. But in that state, the uncontrolled violence of the Passions would soon bring things to confusion, were it not for the intervention of Dulness in this absence of Reason; who, though she cannot regulate them like Reason, yet blunts and deadens their Vigour, and, indeed, produces some of the good effects of it: Hence it is that Dulness has often the appearance of Reason. This is the only good she ever did; and the Poet takes particular care to tell it in the very introduction of his Poem. It is to be observed indeed, that this is spoken of the universal rule of Dulness in ancient days, but we may form an idea of it from her partial Government in later times.
