44
The Dunciad.
Book I.
Where o'er the gates, by his fam'd father's hand[R. 1]
Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers stand;
One Cell there is[R. 2], conceal'd from vulgar eye,
The Cave of Poverty and Poetry[R. 3].
35 Keen, hollow winds howl thro' the bleak recess,
Emblem of Music caus'd by Emptiness.
Hence Bards, like Proteus[R. 4] long in vain ty'd down,
Escape in Monsters, and amaze the town.
Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers stand;
One Cell there is[R. 2], conceal'd from vulgar eye,
The Cave of Poverty and Poetry[R. 3].
35 Keen, hollow winds howl thro' the bleak recess,
Emblem of Music caus'd by Emptiness.
Hence Bards, like Proteus[R. 4] long in vain ty'd down,
Escape in Monsters, and amaze the town.
Remarks
- ↑ By his fam'd father's hand] Mr. Caius-Gabriel Cibber, father of the Poet Laureate. The two Statues of the Lunatics over the gates of Bedlam-hospital were done by him, and (as the son justly says of them) are no ill monuments of his fame as an Artist
- ↑ One Cell there is,] The cell of poor Poetry is here very properly represented as a little unendowed Hall in the neighbourhood of the Magnific College of Bedlam; and as the surest Seminary to supply those learned walls with Professors. For there cannot be a plainer indication of madness than in mens persisting to starve themselves and offend the public by scribling,
Escape in Monsters, and amaze the town.
when they might have benefited themselves and others in profitable and honest employments. The Qualities and Productions of the students of this private Academy are afterwards described in this first book; as are also their Actions throughout the second; by which it appears, how near allied Dulness is to Madness. This naturally prepares us for the subject of the third book, where we find them in union, and acting in conjunction to produce the Catastrophe of the fourth; a mad poetical Sibyl leading our Hero through the Regions of Vision, to animate him in the present undertaking, by a view of the past triumphs of Barbarism over Science. - ↑ Poverty and Poetry] I can not here omit a remark that will greatly endear our Author to every one, who shall attentively observe that Humanity and Candor, which every where appears in him towards those unhappy objects of the ridicule of all mankind, the bad Poets. He here imputes all scandalous rhymes, scurrilous weekly papers, base flatteries, wretched elegies, songs, and verses (even from those sung at Court to ballads in the streets) not so much to malice or servility as to Dulness; and not so much to Dulness as to Necessity. And thus, at the very commencement of his Satyr, makes an apology for all that are to be satyrized.
- ↑ Hence Bards, like Proteus]
is by Poets styled Saturnian; but in the Chemical language Saturn is Lead. She is said here only to be spreading her wings to hatch this age; which is not produced completely till the fourth book.
