from capacious lungs, an enormous
explosion of superlative contempt for the mob of stupid thickskinned
scribblers. They are to be overwhelmed with gigantic cachinnations,
ducked in the dirtiest of drains, rolled over and over with rough
horseplay, pelted with the least savoury of rotten eggs, not skilfully
anatomized or pierced with dexterously directed needles. Pope has really
stood by too long, watching their tiresome antics and receiving their
taunts, and he must once for all speak out and give them a lesson.

Out with it Dunciad! let the secret pass,
That secret to each fool--that he's an ass!

That is his account of his feelings in the Prologue to the Satires, and
he answers the probable remonstrance.

You think this cruel? Take it for a rule,
No creature smarts so little as a fool.

To reconcile us to such laughter, it should have a more genial tone than
Pope could find in his nature. We ought to feel, and we certainly do not
feel, that after the joke has been fired off there should be some
possibility of reconciliation, or, at least, we should find some
recognition of the fact that the victims are not to be hated simply
because they were not such clever fellows as Pope. There is something
cruel in Pope's laughter, as in Swift's. The missiles are not mere
filth, but are weighted with hard materials that bruise and mangle. He
professes that his enemies were the first aggressors, a plea which can
be only true in part; and he defends himself, feebly enough, against the
obvious charge that he has ridiculed men for being obscure, poor, and
stupid--faults not to be amended by satire, nor rightfully provocative
of enmity. In fact, Pope knows in his better moments that a man is not
necessarily wicked because he sleeps on a bulk, or writes verses in a
garret; but he also knows that to mention those facts will give his
enemies pain, and he cannot refrain from the use of so handy a weapon.

Such faults make one half ashamed of confessing to reading the Dunciad
with pleasure; and yet it is frequently written with such force and
freedom that we half pardon the cruel little persecutor, and admire the
vigour with which he throws down the gauntlet to the natural enemies of
genius. The Dunciad is modelled upon the Mac Flecknoe, in which Dryden
celebrates the appointment of Elkanah Shadwell to succeed Flecknoe as
monarch of the realms of Dulness, and describes the coronation
ceremonies. Pope imitates many p