Walter Harte

“ The greatest epic poets and satirists have always transcended rules to follow "Nature's light"; Pope, over-topping them all, has "still corrected Nature as she stray'd" (pp. 19, 21) . But perhaps Harte's most successful attempt to elevate The Dunciad comes in section two of his poem. Unlike Dryden, in whose Discourse the account of the "progress" of satire is confined almost exclusively to a few Roman writers, Harte begins his account of its progress with Homer and brings it down to Pope. Deriving the ancestry of The Dunciad from Homer, the greatest epic poet, obviously enhances Pope's satire. ”

“ Pope could never become the English Virgil if he "let meaner Satire ... stain the Glory" of his "nobler Lays." [16] And Aaron Hill wrote an allegorical poem to show Pope the error of The Dunciad and to suggest means of escape from entombment "in his own PROFUND." [17] In such censure we perhaps glimpse an opinion attributable to the still influential genres theories: a poet of "sublime Genius" should work in a more sublime poetic genre than satire.
In opposing this low view of satire, Harte drew upon ideas more congenial to his purposes and far more congenial to The Dunciad. ”

“ Enemy as he was to Reason, and fond as every one knows of his own Works, he was gallant enough to take this Raillery on his Verses, and did not think that the Emperor on this occasion should assert the Character of the Poet.
Juvenal, who flourish'd under Trajan, shews a little more respect towards the great Men of his age; and was contented to sprinkle the gall of his [Pg 44] Satire on those of the precedent reign. But as for the Writers, he never look'd for them further than his own time. ”

“ Will they banish from Parnassus, him, and all the ancient Poets, to establish the reputation of Fools and Coxcombs? If so, I shall be very easy in my banishment, and have the pleasure of very good company. Without Raillery, wou'd these Gentlemen really be more wise than Scipio and Lelius, more delicate than Augustus, or more cruel than Nero? But they who are so angry at the Critics, how comes it that they are so merciful to bad Authors? I see what it is that troubles them; they have no mind to be undeceiv'd. ”

“ Harte skillfully suggests the complex purpose of Pope's epic backdrop. The dunces, not Pope, ridicule the epic world by their words and deeds; but in turn, this world ridicules them simply by being "imitated" and incorporated in The Dunciad. And its incorporation is by no means equivalent to the pollution of epic. That, Harte hints, is the achievement of scribblers like Blackmore (p. 12) . It is they who inadvertently write mock-epics, parodies which degrade their [Pg vii] great models; Pope, nominally writing mock-epic, actually approaches epic achievement. ”

“ Although it is frequently impossible to determine exactly which critics Harte was answering in his Essay, brief illustration of two prominent types of attack can indicate what he had to vindicate The Dunciad against. One of those types resembled Blackmore's objection to a mixing of genres. If satire should be barred from heroic poetry, the reverse, for some critics, was also true, and Pope should not have used epic allusions and devices in The Dunciad. ”

“ The term "Epic Satire" (p. 6) certainly seems to refer to the wedding of two disparate genres in The Dunciad, lifting it above satire that is merely "rugged" or "mischievously gay" (p. 8) . (The epithet is also, perhaps, a thrust at Edward Ward, who had pinned it on The Dunciad with a sneer.) [22] Harte's claim that
[Pg vi] Books and the Man demands as much, or more,
Than He who wander'd to the Latian shore (p. 9)
has a similar effect. ”

“ After complimenting Boileau's Lutrin for its successful imitation of Virgil, its blend of "the majesty of the heroic" with the "venom" of satire, Dryden speaks of "the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which are as requisite in this [satire] , as in heroic poetry itself, of which the satire is undoubtedly a species"; and earlier in the Discourse he had called heroic poetry "certainly the greatest work of human nature." [20]
It is clear that Harte's Essay belongs in the tradition of criticism established by the commentaries on classical satire and continued by Dryden. ”

“ Harte also rejected the critical habit of giving satire a relatively low rank in the scale of literary genres. This habit can be traced to Horace, who belittled the literary status of his own satires, [8] and it was prominent in the Renaissance. The place of satire in a hierarchical list of Julius Caesar Scaliger is perhaps typical: "'And the most noble, of course, are hymns and paeans. In the second place are songs and odes and scolia, which are concerned with the praises of brave men. In the third place the epic, in which there are heroes and other lesser personages. ”

“ Thro' heavy comments, yet ne'er lost nor won:
Much may be done in twenty winters more,
And let him then learn English at threescore.
No sacred Maro glitters on his shelf,
He wants the mighty Stagyrite himself. ”

“ A few words remain to be said about Boileau's Discourse of Satires Arraigning Persons by Name, which so far as I know appeared with all early printings of Harte's Essay.
The Discourse was first published in 1668, with the separately printed edition of Boileau's ninth satire; in the same year it was included in a collected edition of the satires. It was occasioned, evidently, by a critic's complaint that the modern satirist, departing from ancient practice, "offers insults to individuals." ”

“ Can [Pg 46] they expect, that to comply with their particular Taste, we should renounce common Sense? applaud indifferently all the Impertinencies which a Coxcomb shall think fit to throw upon paper? and instead of condemning bad Poets (as they did in certain Countries) to lick out their Writings with their own Tongue, shall Books become for the future inviolable Sanctuaries, where all Blockheads shall be made free Denizens, not to be touch'd without Profanation? I could say much more on this subject; but as I have already treated it in my ninth Satire, I shall thither refer the Reader. ”

“ From the time of Piers Plowman, it was characteristic of English satirists "to taxe the common abuses and vice of the people in rough and bitter speaches." [5] This native character was reenforced by the Elizabethan assumption that there should be similarities between satire and its supposed etymological forebears—the satyrs, legendary half men, half goats of ancient Greece. Believing that the Roman satirists Persius and Juvenal had imitated the uncouth manners and vituperative diction of the satyrs, Elizabethan satirists likewise strove to be as rough, harsh, and licentious as possible. ”

“ What will my Critics say to this? When they are ever so little touch'd, they wou'd drive from the Republick of Letters all the Satirical Poets, as so many disturbers of the Peace of the Nation. But what will they say of Virgil; the wise, the discreet Virgil? who in an Eclog where he has nothing to do with [Pg 45] Satire, has made in one Line two Poets for ever ridiculous. ”

“ The Ancients; Homer, Simonides, Archilochus, Aristophanes, Menippus, Ennius, Lucilius, Varro, Horace, Persius, Petronius, Juvenal, Lucian, the Emperor Julian. 2. The Moderns; Tassone, Coccaius, Rabelais, Regnier, Boileau, Dryden, Garth, Pope.
III. From the Practice of all the best Writers and Men in every Age and Nation, the Moral Justice of Satire in General, and of this Sort in Particular, is Vindicated. The Necessity of it shewn in this Age more especially, and why bad Writers are at present the most proper Objects of Satire. The True Causes of bad Writers. ”

“ To come from the Ancients to the Moderns. Regnier who is almost the only Satirical Poet we have, has in truth been a little more discreet than the rest; nevertheless he speaks very freely of Gallet the famous Gamester, who paid his Creditors with Sept and Quatorze, and of the Sieur de Provins who chang'd his long Cloak into a Doublet, and of Cousin who run from his house for fear of repairing it, and of Pierre de Puis, and many others. ”

“ But Harte also addressed himself to such critics more directly. Although Aubrey Williams (p. 54) has clearly demonstrated Harte's awareness that the world of The Dunciad does in one sense sully epic beauties, at the same time, I think, Harte knew that the epic poems to which The Dunciad continually alludes remain fixed, unsullied polestars; otherwise the reader of the poem would lack a way of measuring the meanness of its characters and principles. The "charms of Parody" in The Dunciad provide a contrast between its dark, fallen world and the undimmed luster of epic realms (p. 10) . ”

“ He fears no enemies, but dust and mice.
If Pope but writes, the Devil Legion raves,
And meagre Critics mutter in their caves:
(Such Critics of necessity consume
All Wit, as Hangmen ravish'd Maids at Rome.)
Names he a Scribler? all the world's in arms,
Augusta, Granta, Rhedecyna swarms:
[Pg 23] The guilty reader fancies what he fears,
And every Midas trembles for his ears. ”

“ Of Arts, and Virtues, enemies alike. (p. 24)
Ultimately, then, Harte seemed aware that the dunces pose a colossal threat, a threat which warrants Pope's numerous echoes of Paradise Lost. Harte's Essay, in fact, contains several echoes of the same poem. Though, like most of Pope's, these Miltonic echoes are given a comic turn which indicates a wide gap between the real satanic host and its London auxiliary, there is little doubt that Harte grasped the underlying seriousness of his mentor's analogies and his own. ”

“ William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: University of California, Los Angeles The Augustan Reprint Society
General Editors: George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles; Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles; Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.
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The Society's purpose is to publish reprints (usually facsimile reproductions) of rare seventeenth and eighteenth century works. All income of the Society is devoted to defraying costs of publication and mailing. ”

“ Et chaque Acte en fa pièce & una pièce entière. Boil.
[46] 'When a poor Genius has labour'd much, he judges well not to expect the Encomiums of the Publick: for these are not his due. Yet for fear his drudgery shou'd have no recompense, God (of his goodness) has given him a personal Satisfaction. To envy him in this wou'd be injustice beyond barbarity itself: Thus the same Deity (who is equally just in all points) has given Frogs the comfort of Croaking, &c
Le Pere Gerasse Sommes Theol. ”

“ Two Epistles to Mr. POPE, concerning the Authors of the Age. By the Author of the Universal Passion.
Imperium Pelagi: A Naval Lyrick; Written in Imitation of Pindar's Spirit. Occasion'd by His Majesty's Return, Sept. 1729, and the succeeding Peace. By the same Author.
Just publish'd, The Second Edition of the DUNCIAD Variorum, 8o with some additional Notes and Epigrams.
The Art of Politicks, in Imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry, with a curious Frontispiece. Risum Teneatis Amici.
M. Hieronymi Vidæ Opera Omnia Poetica, quibus adjicitur ejusdem de dignitate Rei-publicæ recensione. Dialogus. ”