The Dunciad

The fourth book begins with its own invocation to Chaos and Night, and then dives into the apocalypse. The prophecies of Book 3 have come to pass, and England has been plunged into chaos and darkness. Dulness takes her throne, with Cibber on her lap. Science has been chained; Wit has been exiled; Logic has been gagged; Rhetoric has been stripped. Mathematics has been left alone, considered too mad to be bound. The imprisoned Muses are watched over by Envy and Flattery.

The beautiful and the logical now sufficiently restrained, Dulness’s supplicants appear to praise her each in turn. The first is Opera, a foreigner in patchwork clothing. She tells Dulness how she will drive the Muses away and be triumphant in both the church and on the stage—unless she is thwarted by George Frideric Handel. The queen has him exiled to Ireland.

Fame blows her trumpet and all the Dunces of the world surround Dulness like bees buzzing around their queen. These followers include those who actively use her power to influence the world, as well as those who aid her through weakness or ignorance, those who support the dull work of other Dunces, and many others: “There marched the bard and blockhead, side by side, / who rhym’d for hire, and patroniz’d for pride” (4: 101-02).