the sly Father of the Fire has willed by hints to prefigure
an everlasting war of light and darkness, the irreconcilable hostility
of the Wits and Dunces, and the sudden interposition of some divine
poet, clothed with preternatural power, for the "foul dissipation and
forced rout" of the miscreated multitude.

The foe, whose pretensions to the empire of the world are to be signally
defeated, advances to the combat--"ope barbarica"--helped with a
confederacy of barbarians. Queen Dulness herself is characteristically
described as heartening and harking forward her legions with pure
noise.

"REGINA in mediis _patrio_ vocat agmina
sistro,"

that is, rather with her father Chaos's drum, or the drum native to the
land of Dulness. Either interpretation forcibly marks out the most
turbulent and unintellectual of all musical instruments; and we think at
once of her mandate on a later day,

"'Tis yours to shake the soul
With thunder rumbling, from the mustard-bowl."

The contending powers are presented under a bold allegory.

"Omnigenumque Deum MONSTRA et LATRATOR Anubis,
Contra NEPTUNUM et Venerem, contraque Minervam,
Tela tenent."

Neptune prefigures this island, the confessed ruler of the waves and the
precise spot of the globe vindicated, as we have seen, by two great
poets from the reign of Dulness. Venus is here understood in her noblest
character, as the Alma Venus of Lucretius's invocation, as the Power of
Love and the Beautiful in the Universe. The Goddess of Wisdom speaks for
herself. Against them a heterogeneous rabble of monsters direct their
artillery, under a dog-headed barking protagonist, (what a chosen symbol
of an impudent, wide-mouthed, yelping Bayes!) the ringleader of the Cry
of Dunces.

Behold the striking and principal figure of the poet himself, armed and
ready to loose from his hand his unerring shafts.

"Actius haec cernens arcum intendebat Apollo
Desuper."

The poet, impersonated in the patron god of all true poets, is high
Virgilian; and the proud station and posture, and the godlike
annihilating menace of that "DESUPER" is equally picturesque and
sublime.

The same verse continued brings out the effect of the god's, or of the
poet's interposition, in the instantaneous consternation and utter
scattering of the rascal rout.

"... Omnis eo terrore AEgyptus et Indus,
Omnis Arabs, omnes vertebant terga Saboei."

The entire progeny of barbarism ar