es. The "charms of _Parody_" in
_The Dunciad_ provide a contrast between its dark, fallen world and
the undimmed luster of epic realms (p. 10). By using the ambiguous
word _parody_, which in the eighteenth century could mean either
ridicule or straight imitation,[23] 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 great models; Pope, nominally writing
mock-epic, actually approaches epic achievement.

Harte's reply to those who believed Pope had wasted his talent in
attacking "the Refuse of the Town" centers in the stanza beginning on
p. 24 but can be found elsewhere as well. Literary "Refuse," he
realized, could not safely be ignored, for he at least came close to
understanding that it was "the metaphor by which bigger
deteriorations," social and moral, "are revealed" (Williams, p. 14).

... Rules, and Truth, and Order, Dunces strike;
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.

* * * * *

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."[24]

The only English translation of the _Discourse_ that I have discovered
before 1730 appears in volume two (1711)