Book I.
The Dunciad.
55
Dulness with transport eyes the lively Dunce,
Remembring she herself was Pertness once.
Now (shame to Fortune!)[R. 1] an ill Run at Play
Blank'd his bold visage, and a thin Third day:
115 Swearing and supperless the Hero sate,[R. 2]
Blasphem'd his Gods, the Dice, and damn'd his Fate.
Then gnaw'd his pen, then dash'd it on the ground,
Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound!
Plung'd for his sense, but found no bottom there,
120 Yet wrote and flounder'd on, in mere despair.
Round him much Embryo, much Abortion lay,
Much future Ode, and abdicated Play;
Remembring she herself was Pertness once.
Now (shame to Fortune!)[R. 1] an ill Run at Play
Blank'd his bold visage, and a thin Third day:
115 Swearing and supperless the Hero sate,[R. 2]
Blasphem'd his Gods, the Dice, and damn'd his Fate.
Then gnaw'd his pen, then dash'd it on the ground,
Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound!
Plung'd for his sense, but found no bottom there,
120 Yet wrote and flounder'd on, in mere despair.
Round him much Embryo, much Abortion lay,
Much future Ode, and abdicated Play;
Remarks
- ↑ Ver. 113. shame to Fortune!] Because she usually shews favour to persons of this Character, who have a three-fold pretence to it.
- ↑ Ver. 115. supperless; the Hero sate,) It is amazing how the sense of this hath been mistaken by all the former commentators, who most idly suppose it to imply that the Hero of the poem wanted a supper. In truth a great absurdity! Not that we are ignorant that the Hero of Homer's Odyssey is frequently in that circumstance, and therefore it can no way derogate from the grandeur of Epic Poem to represent such Hero under a calamity, to which the greatest, not only of Critics and Poets, but of Kings and Warriors, have been subject. But much more refined, I will venture to say, is the meaning of our author: It was to give us, obliquely a curious precept, or, what Bossu calls, a disguised sentence, that "Temperance is the life of Study." The language of poesy brings all into action; and to represent a Critic encompassed with books, but without a supper, is a picture which lively expresseth how much the true Critic prefers the diet of the mind to that of the body, one of which he always castigates, and often totally neglects for the greater improvement of the other. Scribl. But since the discovery of the true Hero of the poem, may we not add that nothing was so natural, after so great a loss of Money at Dice, or of Reputation by his Play, as that the Poet should have no great stomach to eat a supper?, Besides, how well has the Poet consulted his Heroic Character, in adding that he swore all the time Bentl.
of C. C. chap. vii. and Letter to Mr. P. pag. 15.40. 53.
