56
The Dunciad.
Book I.
Nonsense precipitate, like running Lead,
That slip'd thro' Cracks and Zig-zags of the Head;
125 All that on Folly Frenzy could beget,
Fruits of dull Heat, and Sooterkins of Wit.
Next, o'er his Books his eyes began to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole,
How here he sipp'd, how there he plunder'd snug
130 And suck'd all o'er, like an industrious Bug.
Here lay poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes,[R. 1] and here.
The Frippery[R. 2] of crucify'd Moliere;
There hapless Shakespear, yet of Tibbald sore,[R. 3]
Wish'd he had blotted[R. 4] for himself before.
That slip'd thro' Cracks and Zig-zags of the Head;
125 All that on Folly Frenzy could beget,
Fruits of dull Heat, and Sooterkins of Wit.
Next, o'er his Books his eyes began to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole,
How here he sipp'd, how there he plunder'd snug
130 And suck'd all o'er, like an industrious Bug.
Here lay poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes,[R. 1] and here.
The Frippery[R. 2] of crucify'd Moliere;
There hapless Shakespear, yet of Tibbald sore,[R. 3]
Wish'd he had blotted[R. 4] for himself before.
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 131. poor Fletcher's half-eat scenes,] A great number of them taken out to patch up his Plays.
- ↑ Ver. 132. The Frippery] "When I fitted up an old play, it was as a good housewife will mend old linnen, when she has not better employment." Life, p. 217. octavo.
- ↑ Ver. 133. hapless Shakespear, &c.] It is not to be doubted but Bays was a subscriber to Tibbald's Shakespear. He was frequently liberal this way; and, as he tells us, "subscribed to Mr. Pope's Homer, out of pure Generosity and Civility; but when Mr. Pope did so to his Nonjuror, he concluded it could be nothing but a joke." Letter to Mr. P. p. 24.
This Tibbald, or Theobald, published an edition of Shakespear, of which he was so proud himself as to say, in one of Mist's Journals, June 8, "That to expose any Errors in it was impracticable." And in another, April 27, "That whatever care might for the future be taken by any other Editor, he would still give above five hundred Emendations, that shall escape them all." - ↑ Ver. 134. Wish'd he had blotted] It was a ridiculous praise which the Players gave to Shakespear, "that he never blotted a line." Ben Johnson honestly wished he had blotted a thousand; and Shakespear would certainly have wished the same, if he had lived to see those alterations in his works, which, not the Actors only (and especially the daring Hero of this poem) have made on the Stage, but the presumptuous Critics of our days in their Editions.
