"I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom. I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients." Gustave Courbet

22 January 2025

Possible.

Richards, Alexander Pope, 1737


Wonderful it is, that so few of the moderns have been stimulated to attempt some Dunciad! Since in the opinion of the multitude, it might cost less pain and oil, than an imitation of the greater Epic. But possible it is also that on due reflection, the maker might find it easier to paint a Charlemagne, a Brute or a God­fry, with just pomp and dignity heroic, than a Mar­gites, a Codrus, a Fleckno, or a Tibbald.

We shall next declare the occasion and the cause which moved our Poet to this particular work. He lived in those days, when (after providence had per­mitted the Invention of Printing as a scourge for the Sins of the learned) Paper also became so cheap, and printers so numerous, that a deluge of authors cover’d the land: Whereby not only the peace of the honest unwriting subject was daily molested, but unmerciful demands were made of his applause, yea of his money, by such as would neither earn the one, or deserve the other.

Alexander Pope, from The Dunciad: With notes variorum, and the prolegomena of Scriblerus. Written in the year, 1727

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