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Updated: June 19, 2025
Sometimes he had no money with which to hire a lodging, and was compelled to walk the streets all night to keep warm. Johnson reached London in the very darkest days for struggling authors, who were often subjected to the greatest hardships. They were the objects of general contempt, to which Pope's Dunciad had largely contributed.
To this day M. Huysman remains dazzled, and to those in search of reliable information on the subject, he says: "If you would be saved from the excesses of unseated reason, and from narratives of Dunciad dulness, try Mgr. Meurin; read the Archbishop on Palladism."
T. R. Lounsbury, The Text of Shakespeare, 275. "But the attack upon Mrs. Haywood exceeded all bounds of decency. To the credit of the English race nothing so dastardly and vulgar can be found elsewhere in English literature. If the influence of 'The Dunciad' was so all-powerful as to ruin the prospects of any one it satirized, it ought certainly to have crushed her beyond hope of any revival.
He translated the Iliad in prose along with others, and was employed by Pope, whom he excelled as a Greek scholar, in translating the Odyssey, of which he Englished the 8th, 11th, 12th, 16th, 18th, and 23rd books, catching the style of his master so exactly as almost to defy identification, and thus annoying him so as to earn a niche in The Dunciad.
His titles and pedigree were so closely scanned on this occasion that he grew quite out of conceit with the noble company, and was seriously thinking of launching a dunciad in their direction. His good nature was especially ruffled by Lord Carlisle, his guardian, who refused to stand as his legal sponsor.
From these I propose to compile a very grand Work, which shall not be inferior to Utopia, Carimania, Guttiverania, Art of Flogging, Daily Journal, Epigrams on the Dunciad, or Oratory Transactions." ... Although the author of "Utopia" and "Carimania" was pilloried in good company, she suffered more than she deserved.
This it was that gave birth to the 'Dunciad, and he thought it a happiness, that by the late flood of slander on himself, he had acquired such a peculiar right over their names as was necessary to this design." But gentlemanly reproof and delicate satire would be wasted on "libellers and common nuisances." They must be met upon their own ground and overwhelmed with filth.
"It may be," said the Professor absently. Then he added in his dreamy voice, "What is all that at the end of the 'Dunciad'? 'Nor public flame; nor private, dares to shine; Nor human light is left, nor glimpse divine! Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos, is restored; Light dies before thine uncreating word: Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall; And universal darkness buries all."
The poet retorted by giving Oldmixon a prominent place in the Dunciad, where at a diving-match in the putrid waters of Fleet Ditch, which "rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to the Thames," the heroes are bidden to "prove who best can dash through thick and thin, and who the most in love of dirt excel."
Before we read very far we come across such old acquaintances as "The proper study of mankind is man." "An honest man's the noblest work of God." "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet, seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace." The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot and The Dunciad are Pope's greatest satires.
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