Evidently it was the strangeness of this alliance between the two opponents of Pope that struck the fancy of that unidentified "Scriblerus" whose "Epistle to the Dunces," _The Scribleriad_, was published between 30 September and 2 October 1742. When Hervey was "affectionately yours" to Cibber, the two stood shoulder to shoulder so temptingly open to a single volley that the author of _The Scribleriad_ could fairly claim, as Pope had claimed in the appendix to _The Dunciad Variorum_ of 1729, that "the _Poem was not made for these Authors, but these Authors for the Poem_." Hervey appears as "Narcissus," the nickname Pope had used for him in _The New Dunciad_. A "late Vice-Chamberlain" (because he had been dismissed from that post in July 1742) still gorged with the fulsome dedication of Conyers Middleton's _Life of Cicero_ (1741), he is shown (pp. 11-13) rousing Cibber. Cibber's situation, reclining on the lap of Dulness where he is found by Hervey, is taken from _The New Dunciad_, while his general Satanic role parallels Theobald's in _The Dunciad Variorum_. This may reflect common knowledge that Pope was at work on revisions that would raise Cibber to the Dunces' throne, but the belief that Cibber was King of the Dunces had been widespread from the date of his appointment as Poet Laureate.[3] _The Scribleriad_ follows the general run of satires against Cibber--attacking his senile infatuation for Peg Woffington, his violently demagogic and chauvinistic _Nonjuror_ (first acted in 1717 but still drawing an audience in 1741), his laureate odes and his frank commercialization of art. Although the writer of _The Scribleriad_ was obviously prompted by the example of _The Dunciad_ and borrows many details from Pope, his poem has very little of that mock-epic quality its title might lead a reader to expect. There are slight traces of parody of Virgil when, on page 16, Cibber appears as Aeneas (the character he was soon to assume in _The Dunciad in Four Books_) and the epicene Hervey is portrayed as a rejuvenated Sybil guiding the hero through a hell of duncery. There are hints of _Paradise Lost_ too, when Cibber, Satan-like, undertakes his mission (p. 17) and the dunces, Belial-like, agree "they're better in a cursed State,/Than to be totally annihilate" (p. 5). But "Scriblerus'" use of Virgil and Milton, unlike Pope's, does not import some graver meaning into his poem; it provides him with neither a framework of moral symbols nor a continuous narrative thread.