Though I was thus to my eternal grief deprived of his conversation, he has for some years continued his correspondence, and communicated to me many of his projects for the benefit of mankind. He sent me some of his writings, and recommended to my care the recovery of others straggling about the world, and assumed by other men. The last time I heard from him was on occasion of his strictures on the Dunciad: since when, several years being elapsed, I have reason to believe this excellent person is either dead, or carried by his vehement thirst of knowledge into some remote, or perhaps undiscovered reigion of the world. In either case, I think it a debt no longer to be delayed, to reveal what I know of this prodigy of science, and to give the history of his life, and of his extensive merits to mankind; in which I dare promise the Reader, that whenever he begins to think any one chapter dull, the style will be immediately changed in the next, war. MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS ΠΕΡΙ ΒΑΘΟΥΣ. ALTHOUGH the plan of the Memoirs of Scriblerus was aban. doned as a mode of conveying general satire, Pope, it would seem, kept that fictitious character in view, as the means of exposing the dunces, with whom he did not disdain to carry on personal The following satire, which to us conveys little more than a sarcastic exposure of the common-places of poetry, was, I fear, rather dictated by the desire to ridicule individual authors than to point out the errors of the parties mentioned. Yet it is a work which detects with such address, and ridicules with so much pleasantry the usual resources of mere versifiers, that it may be considered as the Index Expurgatorius of English poetry, and has had, unquestionably, no small share in exploding the errors of taste and diction which it exposes. The quotations are partly selected from contemporary poetry, partly written by Pope himself. It may be remarked, that even the infantine simplicity of Philips, the bombast of Lee, and the cant of L'Estrange, together with all the other foibles of the scribblers of the day, would have been unequal to supply Pope's magazine of quotations, without the ponderous, persevering, and laborious dulness of Sir Richard Blackmore. There was a simple and blind faith with which that voluminous author wrought, by repeated touches, an idea, perhaps in the outline not ill-conceived, into utter absurdity; there was so much industry and exertion necessary to produce the specimens he has afforded of the bathos, as rendered them an inexhaustible source of ridicule. The name of Scriblerus was prefixed to this essay, although many parts of it are written in a style more light than was altogether congenial to the original conception of his character. But it was then I suppose questionable, whether the original me moirs would ever appear at all; and at least very probable, that the general plan would never be completed, so that absolute uniformity became a matter of no great consequence. Scriblerus might, therefore, be considered as a general patron of absurdity in every or any branch of literature. MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS ΠΕΡΙ ΒΑΘΟΥΣ. CHAP. I. INTRODUCTION. IT hath been long (my dear countrymen) the subject of my concern and surprise, that whereas numberless poets, critics, and orators, have compiled and digested the art of ancient poesy, there hath not risen among us one person so public-spirited, as to perform the like for the modern; although it is universally known, that our every way industrious moderns, both in the weight of their writings, and in the velocity of their judgments, do so infinitely excel the said ancients. Nevertheless, too true it is, that while a plain and direct road is paved to their os, or sublime; no track has been yet chalked out to arrive at our Balos, or profund. The Latins, as they came between the Greeks and us, make use of the word altitudo, which implies equally heighth and depth. Wherefore considering, with no small grief, how many promising geniuses of this age are wandering (as I may say) in the dark without a guide, I have undertaken this arduous, but necessary task, to lead |