By virtue of the Authority in Us vested by the Act for subjecting poets to the power of a licenser, we have revised this piece; where finding the style and appellation of King to have been given to a certain pretender, pseudo-poet, or phantom, of the name of Tibbald; and apprehending the same may be deemed in some sort a reflection on Majesty, or at least an insult on that Legal Authority which has bestowed on another person the crown of poesy: We have ordered the said pretender, pseudo-poet, or phantom, utterly to vanish and evaporate out of this work: And do declare the said Throne of Poesy from henceforth to be abdicated and vacant, unless duly and lawfully supplied by the Laureate himself. And it is hereby enacted, that no other person do presume to fill the same. THE DUNCIAD:[234] BOOK THE FIRST. TO DR JONATHAN SWIFT. ARGUMENT. The proposition, the invocation, and the inscription. Then the original of the great empire of Dulness, and cause of the continuance thereof. The college of the goddess in the city, with her private academy for poets in particular; the governors of it, and the four cardinal virtues. Then the poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting her, on the evening of a Lord Mayor's day, revolving the long succession of her sons, and the glories past and to come. She fixes her eye on Bayes to be the instrument of that great event which is the subject of the poem. He is described pensive among his books, giving up the cause, and apprehending the period of her empire: after debating whether to betake himself to the Church, or to gaming, or to party-writing, he raises an altar of proper books, and (making first his solemn prayer and declaration) purposes thereon to sacrifice all his unsuccessful writings. As the pile is kindled, the goddess, beholding the flame from her seat, flies and puts it out by casting upon it the poem of Thule. She forthwith reveals herself to him, transports him to her temple, unfolds her arts, and initiates him into her mysteries; then announcing the death of Eusden the poet laureate, anoints him, carries him to court, and proclaims him successor. The mighty mother, and her son, who brings[235] The Smithfield Muses[236] to the ear of kings, I sing. Say you, her instruments, the great! Called to this work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate;[237] You by whose care, in vain decried and cursed, Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first: Say, how the goddess[238] bade Britannia sleep, And pour'd her spirit o'er the land and deep. In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read, Ere Pallas issued from the Thunderer's head, 10 Dulness o'er all possess'd her ancient right, Daughter of Chaos[239] and Eternal Night: Fate in their dotage this fair idiot gave, Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave, Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind,[240] She ruled, in native anarchy, the mind.