Book II.
The Dunciad.
109
No noise, no stir, no motion can'st thou make,
Th'unconscious stream sleeps o'er thee like a lake.
Next plung'd a feeble, but a desp'rate pack,305
With each a sickly brother at his back:
Sons of a Day! just buoyant on the flood,[R 1]
Then number'd with the puppies in the mud.
Ask ye their names? I could as soon disclose 310
The names of these blind puppies as of those.
Fast by, like Niobe[R 2] (her children gone)
Sits Mother Osborne,[R 3] stupify'd to stone!
And Monumental Brass this record bears,
"These are,—ah no! these were, the Gazetteers!"[R 4]
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 306, 307. With each a sickly brother at his back: Sons of a day, &c.] These were daily Papers, a number of which, to lessen the expence, were printed one on the back of another.
- ↑ Ver. 311. like Niobe] See the story in Ovid, Met. vii. where the miserable Petrefaction of this old Lady is pathetically described.
- ↑ Ver. 312. Osborne] A name assumed by the eldest and gravest of these writers, who at last being ashamed of his Pupils, gave his paper over, and in his age remained silent.
- ↑ Ver. 314. Gazetteers] We ought not to suppress that a modern Critic here taxeth the Poet with an Anachronism, affirming these Gazetteers not to have lived within the time of his poem, and challenging us to produce any such paper of that date. But we may with equal assurance assert, these Gazetteers not to have lived since, and challenge all the learned world to produce one such paper at this day. Surely therefore, where the point is so obscure, our author ought not to be censured too rashly. Scribl. Notwithstanding this affected ignorance of the good Scriblerus, the Daily Gazetteer was a title given very properly to certain papers, each of which lasted but a day. Into this, as a common sink, was received all the trash, which had been before dispersed in several Journals, and circulated at the public expence of the nation. The authors were the same obscure men; though sometimes relieved by occasional essays from Statesmen, Courtiers, Bishops, Deans, and Doctors. The meaner sort were rewarded with Money; others with Places or Benefices, from an hundred to a thousand a year. It appears from the Report of the Secret Committee for enquiring into the Conduct of R. Earl
