64
The Dunciad.
Book I.
215 And see! thy very Gazetteers[R. 1] give o'er,
Ev'n Ralph repents, and Henly writes no more.
What then remains Ourself. Still, still remain
Cibberian forehead,[R. 2] and Cibberian brain.
This brazen Brightness, to the 'Squire so dear;
220 This polish'd Hardness, that reflects the Peer;
This arch Absurd, that wit and fool delights;
This Mess, toss'd up of Hockley-hole and White's;
Where Dukes and Butchers join to wreathe my crown,
At once the Bear and Fiddle of the town.
225 O born in sin, and forth in folly brought![R. 3]
Works damn'd, or to be damn'd! (your father's fault)
Go, purify'd by flames ascend the sky,
My better and more christian progeny![R. 4]
Ev'n Ralph repents, and Henly writes no more.
What then remains Ourself. Still, still remain
Cibberian forehead,[R. 2] and Cibberian brain.
This brazen Brightness, to the 'Squire so dear;
220 This polish'd Hardness, that reflects the Peer;
This arch Absurd, that wit and fool delights;
This Mess, toss'd up of Hockley-hole and White's;
Where Dukes and Butchers join to wreathe my crown,
At once the Bear and Fiddle of the town.
225 O born in sin, and forth in folly brought![R. 3]
Works damn'd, or to be damn'd! (your father's fault)
Go, purify'd by flames ascend the sky,
My better and more christian progeny![R. 4]
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 219. Gazetteers] A band of ministerial writers, hired at the price mentioned in the note on book ii. ver. 316. who on the very day their Patron quitted his post, laid down their paper, and declared they would never more meddle in Politics.
- ↑ Ver. 218. Cibberian forehead] So indeed all the MSS. read; but I make no scruple to pronounce them all wrong, the Laureate being elsewhere celebrated by our Poet for his great Modesty—modest Cibber–Read, therefore, at my peril, Cerberian forehead. This is perfectly classical, and, what is more, Homerical; the Dog was the ancient, as the Bitch is the modern, symbol of Impudence: (Κυνὸς ὂμματ᾽ ἒχαν, says Achilles to Agamemnon) which, when in a superlative degree, may well be denominated from Cerberus, the Dog with three heads.–But as to the latter part of this verse, Cibberian brain, that is certainly the genuine reading. Bentl.
- ↑ Ver. 225. O born in sin, &c.] This is a tender and passionate Apostrophe to his own works, which he is going to sacrifice, agreeable to the nature of man in great affliction; and reflecting like a parent on the many miserable fates to which they would otherwise be subject.
- ↑ Ver. 228. My better and more christian progeny!] "It may be observable, that my muse and my spouse were equally prolific; that the one was seldom the mother of a Child, but in the same year the other made me the father of a Play. I think we had a dozen of each
