Page:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu/94

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Book I.

The Dunciad.

63

Shall I, like Curtius, desp'rate in my zeal,
210 O'er head and ears plunge for the Commonweal?
Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,^{[R. 1]}
And cackling save the Monarchy of Tories?^{[R. 2]}
Hold–to the Minister I more incline;
To serve his cause, O Queen! is serving thine.

Remarks

the Flying post; Nathanael Mist, of a famous Tory Journal.

↑ Ver. 211. Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,] Relates to the well known story of the geese that saved the Capitol; of which Virgil, Æn. viii.
Atque hic auratis volitans argenteus anser
Porticibus, Gallos in limine adesse canebat.
A passage I have always suspected. Who sees not the antithesis of auratis and argenteus to be unworthy the Virgilian majesty? And what absurdity to say a goose sings? canebat. Virgil gives a contrary character of the voice of this silly bird, in Ecl. ix.
——— argutos interstrepere anser olares.
Read it, therefore, adesse strepebat. And why auratis porticibus? does not the very verse preceding this inform us,
Romuleoque recens horrebat regia culmo.
Is this thatch in one line, and gold in another, consistent? I scruple not (repugnantibus omnibus manuscriptis) to correct it auritis. Horace uses the same epithet in the same sense,
———Auritas sidibus canoris
Ducere quercus.
And to say that walls have ears is common even to a proverb. Scribl.
↑ Ver. 212. And cackling save the Monarchy of Tories?] Not out of any preference or affection to the Tories. For what Hobbes so ingenuously confesses of himself, is true of all Party-writers whatsoever: "That he defends the supreme powers, as the Geese by their cackling defended the Romans, who held the Capitol; for they favoured them no more than the Gauls their Enemies, but were as ready to have defended the Gauls if they had been possessed of the Capitol." Epist. Dedic. to the Leviathan.

[2] Ver. 211. Or rob Rome's ancient geese of all their glories,] Relates to the well known story of the geese that saved the Capitol; of which Virgil, Æn. viii.
Atque hic auratis volitans argenteus anser
Porticibus, Gallos in limine adesse canebat.
A passage I have always suspected. Who sees not the antithesis of auratis and argenteus to be unworthy the Virgilian majesty? And what absurdity to say a goose sings? canebat. Virgil gives a contrary character of the voice of this silly bird, in Ecl. ix.
——— argutos interstrepere anser olares.
Read it, therefore, adesse strepebat. And why auratis porticibus? does not the very verse preceding this inform us,
Romuleoque recens horrebat regia culmo.
Is this thatch in one line, and gold in another, consistent? I scruple not (repugnantibus omnibus manuscriptis) to correct it auritis. Horace uses the same epithet in the same sense,
———Auritas sidibus canoris
Ducere quercus.
And to say that walls have ears is common even to a proverb. Scribl.

[3] Ver. 212. And cackling save the Monarchy of Tories?] Not out of any preference or affection to the Tories. For what Hobbes so ingenuously confesses of himself, is true of all Party-writers whatsoever: "That he defends the supreme powers, as the Geese by their cackling defended the Romans, who held the Capitol; for they favoured them no more than the Gauls their Enemies, but were as ready to have defended the Gauls if they had been possessed of the Capitol." Epist. Dedic. to the Leviathan.

[R. 1]

[R. 2]