326. Slow rose a form: Presumably Smedley is finally resurfacing.
330. the wonders of the deep: Adapted from Psalm 107:24.
332. Smit with his mien: Smitten with his features and demeanour.
333. Lutetia: The Roman name for ancient Paris, muddy at the time (luteus is mud). down: Feathers.
334. Nigrina: Black (from nigra). Merdamante: Lover of excrement (from merda and amans); Fleet Ditch was used as an open sewer.
335. jetty: Jet-black (‘jet’ is black coal).
336. Hylas: Greek youth pulled down by water nymphs while drinking.
338. Styx: Chief river of the underworld (‘the shades’).
339. Lethe: Underworld river of forgetfulness.
340. Land of Dreams: A place spirits pass through when they die (Odyssey, XXIV); ‘Lethe and the Land of Dreams allegorically represent the stupefaction and visionary madness of poets, equally dull and extravagant’ (Pope’s note).
341–2. Alphaeus … Arethuse: The river Alphaeus was believed to flow unaltered beneath the sea from the Greek (not the Italian) town of Pisa to the fountain of Arethusa in Sicily, carrying objects (‘off’rings’) that had been thrown into it at Pisa.
345. brisker … the Temple: The young lawyers, although dunces, are ‘brisk’ ones.
346. Paul’s to Aldgate: The central City of London, from St Paul’s Cathedral to Aldgate.
347. rev’rend Bards: Numerous poets who were also clergymen.
349. Milbourne: The Reverend Luke Milbourn, poet and critic.
350. cassock, surcingle, and vest: Ecclesiastical gown, belt, and other vestments.
352. Dullness is sacred: Lay persons are cautious about attacking the clergy. sound divine: Theologically correct clergyman.
354. Flamen: Roman priest. lengthened dress: Long cassock reaching to the ground.
355. sable army: Priests dressed in black (and eager to cultivate political favours).
357. or … or: Either … or.
358. Swiss: Swiss guards, employed all over Europe.
359. Lud … Fleet: Fleet Street passed through the wall of the City at Ludgate, named for a legendary King Lud.
361. Characters: Literary sketches of character types.
364. volumes: Rolling clouds, but also books (‘so called because books were anciently rolled upon a staff’, Dictionary), with dark covers that shed snowy white pages when torn apart.
370. Henley’s periods: Long sentences by either Bishop Benjamin Hoadley or John (‘Orator’) Henley (on Hoadley, see ‘Donne’, 73n.; also 400n. below); in manuscript Pope tried out both names.
372. wake: Stay awake.
374. Ulysses’ ear: Odysseus (Ulysses) had himself tied to the mast in order to resist the seductive song of the sirens. Argus’ eye: Monster covered with a hundred eyes, only two of which slept at any time; see also IV, 637n.
375. To him: Whoever can manage not to fall asleep.
379. Sophs: Sophomores, second-year university students (from sophistes, sophist). Templars: Lawyers and law students at the Temple.
382. Prate: ‘tattle; slight talk; unmeaning loquacity’ (Dictionary); the line recalls Paradise Lost, III, 29: ‘smit with the love of sacred song’.
384. vulgar: Common people.
385. mum: ‘ale brewed with wheat’ (Dictionary, citing this line).
387. Clerks: The undergraduates.
396. the drowsy god: Morpheus, god of sleep.
397. Budgell: Eustace Budgell: see ‘Donne’, 51n., and Horoce, Satire, II, i, 100n.
398. Arthur: Blackmore (see I, 104n.) wrote two epics about King Arthur.
399. Toland and Tindal: John Toland and Matthew Tindal, freethinkers whose deistical books scandalized the orthodox.
400. Christ’s No Kingdom: Sermon preached by Bishop Hoadley, paraphrasing ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ (John 18:36), and denying the existence of a visible church of Christ.
408. Like: Similar.
409. nutation: Nodding.
411. Centlivre: Susanna Centlivre, playwright, poet, and critic of Pope.
412. Motteux: See ‘Donne’, 50n.
413. Boyer: Abel Boyer, prolific political writer. Law: William Law, clergyman who denounced the theatre.
414. Morgan: Thomas Morgan, writer against religion. Mandeville: Bernard Mandeville, whose Fable of the Bees claimed that immorality works to the advantage of society.
415. Ostroea: John Gay’s invented word for an oyster-seller; Norton’s mother was said to have been an oyster-wench, noted for coarse language (‘mother’s tongue’ (416)).
416. front: Effrontery.
420. bulks: Stalls in front of shops, ‘as usual’ because they cannot afford lodgings.
422. Did slumb’ring visit: As the Muse visited Milton’s ‘slumbers nightly’ (Paradise Lost, VII, 29). stews: Brothels.
424. roundhouse: ‘the constable’s prison, in which disorderly persons found in the street are confined’ (Dictionary, citing this line).
425. sink: Sewer.
427. Fleet: Debtors’ prison close to Fleet Ditch.
Book the Third
Argument: enthusiasts: Ecstatic or fanatical religious people. projectors: Entrepreneurs promoting ‘projects’. inamoratos: People sick with love. castle-builders: People fantasizing about castles in the air. chemists: Alchemists, hoping to turn base metals into gold. and poets: i.e. as crazy as the rest. Sybil: Priestess of Apollo, who leads Aeneas into the underworld (‘Elysian shade’) to learn his future. Bavius: A bad poet in Virgil (Eclogue, III, 90), invoked here as initiating souls into duncehood; also 24, 317. Settle: Elkanah Settle: see I, 90n. Science: Knowledge in general. the King himself: Bays/Cibber. types: Prefigurations of things to come. Pisgah-sight: As Moses, who died before reaching the Promised Land, was granted a sight of it from Mount Pisgah.
2. anointed: Consecrated, chosen.
4. Cimmerian dew: Fog like that of the mythical realm of Cimmeria, perpetually dark.
6. refined from reason: Purged of reason, i.e. mad.
7. Bedlam’s: Bethlehem hospital for the insane. nods: Dozes.
9–12. fool’s paradise … fame: Repeating the various forms of madness and folly listed in the Argument.
13. Fancy: Imagination, fantasy.
15. slipshod: ‘having the shoes not pulled up at the heels, but barely slipped on’ (Dictionary).
17. staring: Standing on end.
18. Castalia’s streams: Water from the spring sacred to the Muses; i.e. she never washes her hair with actual water.
19. Taylor: John Taylor, a boatman who became known as the Water Poet, and thus an appropriate equivalent for Charon, who ferried the dead across the River Styx.
20. swan of Thames: See II, 298n.
21. Benlowes: Edward Benlowes, a country gentleman ‘famous for his own bad poetry and for patronizing bad poets’ (Pope’s note).
22. poppy: Source of opium, conducive to sleep; Shadwell was in fact a heavy user and died of an overdose; see also Horace, Epistle, II, i, 85n.
28. Brown and Mears: ‘printers for anybody; the allegory of the souls of the dull coming forth in the form of books, dressed in calf’s leather, and being let abroad in vast numbers by the booksellers, is sufficiently intelligible’ (Pope’s note).
34. Ward: John Ward: see ‘III Bathurst’, 20n.
36. length of ears: i.e. he is an ass.
37. band: Collar.
44. th’ oblivious Lake: Formed by Lethe (see II, 339n.).
50. Baeotian: See I, 25n.
51. Dutchmen: Conventionally thought of as heavy and dull. thrid: ‘to slide through a narrow passage’ (Dictionary).
52. rid: Rode, by stages, at each of which tired horses are exchanged for fresh ones.
57. whirligigs: Toys that spin on a string. swain: Rural youth.
66. let the past and future: ‘First, those places in the globe are shown where Science never rose; then those where she was destroyed by tyranny; [then] by inundations of barbarians; [then] by supers
tition’ (Pope’s note).
70. Line: The equator.
74. orient Science: Learning, which began in the East.
75. monarch: ‘Chi Ho-am-ti [Ch’in Shi Huangdi], Emperor of China, the same who built the Great Wall between China and Tartary, destroyed all the books and learned men of that empire’ (Pope’s note).
80–82. rival flames … physic of the soul: Destroyed the great Alexandrian Library in Egypt; ‘the Caliph Omar I, having conquered Egypt, caused his general to burn the Ptolemaean library, on the gates of which was this inscription, The Physic of the Soul’ (Pope’s note).
81. Vulcan: God of fire.
83. ball: The earth.
84. Science: Learning.
85. hyperborean: Northern, beyond the source of the cold north wind Boreas.
86–90. Vandals … Goths … Huns: Nomadic tribes from the eastern steppes which invaded Europe in successive waves.
87–8. Lo … snows: The river Tanais (the Don) in Russia flows into Maeotis (the Sea of Azov); this couplet was said to have been Pope’s favourite in all his works.
91. Alaric’s stern port: The demeanour of Alaric the Goth, who conquered Rome in 410.
92. Genseric: King of the Vandals, who sacked Rome in 455.
93. Ostrogoths: East Goths. Latium: Italy.
94. Visigoths: West Goths.
96. The soil: ‘Phoenicia, Syria, etc., where letters are said to have been invented’ (Pope’s note).
97. th’ Arabian prophet: Muhammad.
98. saving Ignorance enthrones by laws: Religious laws, promising salvation, promoted ignorance rather than learning.
99. one heavy sabbath: i.e. every day of the week was an anti-intellectual day of rest.
101. Rome: The Papacy.
103. synods: Ecclesiastical councils, where ‘grey-haired’ theologians decided which books were to be prohibited.
104. Bacon: The medieval friar and philosopher Roger Bacon, who supposedly made a bronze head that could speak, was accused of magic, and was forced to give up writing.
105. Livy: Ancient historian, born at Padua, which grieves because most of his voluminous writings are lost.
106. th’ Antipodes Vigilius mourn: Eighth-century saint and Bishop of Salzburg, who was denounced by the Church (which believed the earth was flat) for asserting that there were people in the Antipodes, on the opposite side of the earth.
107. Cirque: Circus, the Roman Colosseum.
108. Streets paved … gods: Pagan statues were broken up or thrown into the river.
109. Peter’s keys … christened Jove: The Pope, heir to the keys of St Peter, sometimes authorized the conversion of temples into churches.
110. Pan … horn: Moses was thought to have had horns (a misreading of a passage in the Vulgate Bible that refers to rays of light); i.e. they were borrowed from the similarly horned nature-god Pan.
111. graceless Venus: The goddess of love, lacking divine grace, is transformed by the Church into the Virgin Mary.
112. Phidias … Apelles: The greatest sculptor and painter of antiquity.
113. palmers: Pilgrims who brought back palm branches from the Holy Land.
114. cowled: Wearing the hoods of monks.
115. linsey-woolsey: ‘made of linen and wool mixed; vile; mean; of different and unsuitable parts’ (Dictionary, citing this line).
116. mummers: ‘mummer: a masker; one who performs frolics in a personated dress’ (Dictionary, citing this line).
118. had Easter never been: In the seventh century there was bitter controversy over the correct date of Easter between the Celtic church of Britain and the Church of Rome; the latter used this issue to assert its authority.
121. visit: ‘to send good or evil’ (Dictionary).
127. scene she draws: Pulls back the curtain to reveal the stage (scenery).
131. Berecynthia: Cybele, the Great Mother of the Mediterranean, who had a hundred offspring.
139. that youth: Cibber’s son Theophilus, also an actor.
144. modest: i.e. discreetly drinking in secret.
145. drams: ‘spirits; distilled liquor’ (Dictionary, citing this line).
146. Durfey: Thomas Durfey, author of popular drinking songs. Ward: Edward Ward: see I, 232n.
147. gill house: Tavern where liquor was served in small quantities (gill: quarter of a pint).
149. Jacob: Giles Jacob, a critic of Pope, but not in fact guilty of bad grammar.
150. blunderbuss: ‘a gun that is charged with many bullets, so that, without any exact aim, there is a chance of hitting the mark’ (Dictionary); Jacob had been trained in the law.
151. Popple: William Popple, lawyer and playwright; just how he was ‘tremendous’ is unclear.
152–3. Horneck’s … Roome’s … Goode: Writers who had all satirized Pope; Roome’s family were morticians.
155. cygnet: Immature swan; Pope acknowledges that the writers in the next several lines are too obscure even to be named.
158. damned to Fame: i.e. damned by disappointed readers.
160. jacks: Noisy device, driven by clockwork, to keep a roast turning on a spit.
162. Priscian: Roman grammarian. Pegasus: The winged horse of poetic inspiration.
163. larum: Cry of alarm; thus, battle cries.
166. makes Night hideous: Pope cleverly invokes the Shakespearean phrase ‘making night hideous’ (Hamlet, I, iv, 54) to apply to an ambitious poem by Ralph called Night.
165. Ralph: James Ralph, who got into the ‘Dunciad’ after writing an abusive attack on Pope called Sawney (a diminutive for ‘Alexander’). Cynthia: The moon; also 243.
168. Morris: Besaleel Morris: see II, 126n.
169–72. Flow … not full: These lines parody John Denham’s Cooper’s Hill, the principal inspiration of ‘Windsor Forest’ (see its headnote).
169. Welsted: Leonard Welsted: see II, 207n.
173. Gildon: Charles Gildon; Pope apparently alludes to some forgotten quarrel between Gildon and Welsted.
175. wits: Persons of intelligence.
179. in strict embraces: Embracing tightly. Although Pope unconvincingly denied it, this passage was believed to suggest a homosexual relationship between George Duckett and Thomas Burnet, authors of Pasquin and The Grumbler respectively; also 184n.
184. consul … commissioner: Burnet served as British Consul in Lisbon, and Duckett as Commissioner of Excise.
185–8. close y-pent … hight: Parodic Spenserian language, satirizing the antiquarian scholar Thomas Hearne. y-pent: Penned up, confined. besprent: Bestrewed. arede: Perceive. myster wight: Uncouth person. Wormius hight: ‘named Wormius’, implying fondness for worm-eaten old manuscripts, but also the name of a Danish antiquarian scholar.
191. scholiasts: Textual commentators.
193. lumberhouse: Junk room.
195. lifts its modern type: Holds up an allegorical representation of itself.
196. pot: Of ale.
197. repines: Frets, feels discontented.
198. Dishonest: Disgraceful.
199. Henley: John Henley (see ‘Donne’, 51n.); ‘he preached on the Sundays upon theological matters, and on the Wednesdays upon all other sciences’ (Pope’s note).
200. balancing his hands: Henley was fond of eccentric gestures.
203. break the benches … thy strain: Bring down the house with your eloquence.
204. Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson: Pro-Walpole bishops, by implication less successful at attracting congregations than the ludicrous Henley.
206. zany: ‘one employed to raise laughter by his gestures, actions, and speeches’ (Dictionary, citing this line).
209. butchers … stall: Henley preached near Newport Market; Pope implies that he kept a ‘priestly stall’ equivalent to the butchers’ stalls.
212. Toland, Tindal: See II, 399n. Woolston: Thomas Woolston, ‘an impious madman, who wrote in a most insolent style against the miracles of the Gospel’ (Pope’s note).
214. preserve the ears you lend: Lest
their ears be cut off for blasphemy, with an allusion to ‘lend me your ears’ in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
215. Bacon: Francis Bacon, statesman and philosopher of science under Elizabeth and James I. Locke: John Locke: see Horace, Epistle, I, i, 26n.
216. flame: Inspiration.
217. One: God, whom the Dunces are advised not to offend.
218. sense: ‘perception of intellect; apprehension of mind’ (Dictionary).
219. Content: i.e. be content to attack everything God has created, but not God himself.
231. His never-blushing head: Apparently Cibber’s, who doesn’t blush because he is shameless.
232. Goodman prophesied: Veteran actor Cardell Goodman heard Cibber in one of his first rehearsals and predicted that he would be highly successful.
233. sorc’rer: Dr Faustus, in a farcical Harlequin Doctor Faustus, played by John Rich (see 261 and note).
234. wingèd volume flies: A special stage effect in the farce.
235. gorgons: Mythical sisters with snakes for hair.
246. dolphins in the skies: Echoing Horace on incongruous poetic images, Ars Poetica, 30.
248. egg: In a farce, ‘Harlequin is hatched upon the stage, out of a large egg’ (Pope’s note).
249. his soul: Cibber’s.
254. sarsenet: Or sarcenet, ‘fine thin woven silk’ (Dictionary); here, as used onstage to suggest clouds.
258. unclassic ground: Echoing Addison’s poem ‘A Letter from Italy’: ‘I seem to tread on classic ground.’ See also ‘Arbuthnot’, 150n.
261. Rich: John Rich, manager of the Covent Garden theatre and noted for these spectacular effects; he also produced Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, which was said to have ‘made Gay rich, and Rich gay’, i.e. merry.
262. paper … peas: Dissatisfied audiences would throw crumpled paper at the stage or blow dried peas through peashooters.
263–4. And proud … directs the storm: Adapting Addison’s Campaign, I, 291–2: ‘And pleased th’ Almighty’s orders to perform / Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm’. his Mistress: Dullness.
267. Booth: Barton Booth: see Horace, Epistle, II, i, 123.
277. Lud: London: see II, 359n.
278. Bow: See ‘Rape of the Lock’, IV, 118n.
The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings: Poems and Other Writings (Penguin Classics) Page 55
