Page:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu/66

Rh in the late spurious editions, by I can't tell what Sham-hero, or Phantom: But it was not so easy to impose on whom this egregious error most of all concerned. For no sooner had the fourth book laid open the high and swelling scene, but he recognized his own heroic Acts: And when he came to the words,

(though Laureat imply no more than one crowned with laurel, as befitteth any Associate or Consort in Empire) he (like a Lion) and : Indeed not without cause, he being there represented as fast asleep; so unbeseeming the eye of Empire, which, like that of Providence, should never slumber. "Hah! (saith he) fast asleep "it seems! that's a little too strong. Pert and dull at least you might have allowed me, but as seldom asleep as any fool ." However, the injured Hero may comfort himself with this reflexion, that tho' it be sleep, yet it is not the sleep of death, but of immortality. Here he will live at least, tho' not awake; and in no worse condition than many an enchanted Warrior before him. The famous Durandarte, for instance, was, like him, cast into a long slumber by Merlin the British Bard and Necromancer: and his example, for submitting to it with so good a grace, might be of use to our Hero. For this disastrous knight being sorely pressed or driven to make his answer by several persons of quality, only replied with a sigh, Patience, and shuffle the cards.

But now, as nothing in this world, no not the most sacred or perfect things either of Religion or Government, can escape the teeth or tongue of Envy, methinks I already hear these carpers objecting to the clear title of our Hero.

"It would never (say they) have been esteemed sufficient to make an Hero for the Iliad or Æneis, that Achilles was brave enough to overturn one Empire, or Æneas pious enough to raise another, had they not been Goddess-born, and Princes bred. What then did this Author mean, by erecting a Player instead of one of his Patrons, (a person "never a hero even on the stage ,") to this dignity of Collegue in the empire of Dulness, and Atchiever of a work that neither old Omar, Attila, nor John of Leiden could entirely compass."

To all this we have, as we conceive, a sufficient answer from the Roman historian, Fabrum esse suæ quemque fortunæ: Every man is the Smith of his own fortune. The politic Florentine Nicholas Machiavel goeth still farther, and affirms that a man needs but to believe himself a Hero to be one