The Hilliad - The Hilliad - Book One

Book One

The work is supported by a series of "Notes Variorum", a set of footnotes that nearly double the length of the work. They were likely written by Murphy, although possibly supplied directly by Smart. Years later, Jesse Foot described the creation of the notes as "Mr. Smart walking up and down the room, speaking the Verses, and Mr. Murphy writing the notes to them." However, it is quite possible that Fielding also contributed to the notes.

There are various pseudonyms used in the extensive footnotes that more than double the length of the work: "Quinbus Flestrin", of Swift origins, is a play off of Samuel Derrick; "Martinus Macularius, from the word "macula" and a combination of "Martinus Scriblerus" of Pope's The Dunciad and of "Margelina Scribelinda Macularia" of Kenrick's Old Woman's Dunciad, is a play off of Hill. Besides just drawing of names from two "Dunciads", the Dublin edition acknowledges that the work is an imitation of the original The Dunciad. Among the notes and verses, Smart praises various people, such as William Boyce, Fielding, Hogarth, and Garrick, while he attacked Henley and a Dr. Rock.

At the beginning of his poem, Smart addresses his subject, Hill/Hillario, by saying:

O thou, whatever name delight thine ear,

Pimp! Poet! Puffer! 'Pothecary! Play'r!

Whose baseless fame by vanity is buoy'd,

Like the huge earth self-center'd in the void,

Accept one part'ner thy own worth t'explore,

And in thy praise be singular no more. (The Hilliad lines 6-12)

These lines echo the lines of The Dunciad when Pope addresses Jonathan Swift as "Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!" However, the lines could be self-referential because Smart, like Hill and Swift, used many titles himself.

The first action of the poem is of a Sybil that comes to Hillario:

A tawny Sybil, whose alluring song,

Decoy'd the 'prentices and maiden throng

First from the counter young HILLARIO charm'd (The Hilliad lines 6-12)

Her charms transform Hillario from an apothecary into "th' INSPECTOR" (The Hilliad line 58). She is reminiscent of Pope's Dulness character, although she also has traits deriving from Smart's "Mrs Midnight".

Hillario's transformation is only to doom him; he quickly becomes "The UNIVERSAL BUTT of all mankind" (The Hilliad line 237). The poem does not end there, but instead expands with Fame declaring:

"While in the vale perennial fountains flow,

And fragrant Zephyrs musically blow;

While the majestic sea from pole to pole,

In horrible magnificence shall roll,

While yonder glorious canopy on high,

Shall overhang the curtains of the sky,

While the gay seasons their due course shall run,

Ruled by the brilliant stars and golden sun,

While wit and fool antagonist shall be,

And sense and taste and nature shall agree,

While love shall live, and rapture shall rejoice,

Fed by the notes of Handel, Arne and Boyce,

While with joint force o'er humour's droll domain,

Cervantes, Fielding, Lucian, Swift shall reign,

While thinking figures from the canvass start,

And Hogarth is the Garrick of his art.

So long in flat stupidity's extreme,

Shall H-ll the' ARCH-DUNCE remain o'er every dunce supreme." (The Hilliad lines 242-259)