Page "The Dunciad" Paragraph 62

In the ditch, the political hacks are ordered to strip off their clothes and engage in a diving contest.

Dulness says, " Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around / The stream, be his the Weekly Journals, bound " ( II 267-8 ), while a load of lead will go to the deepest diver and a load of coal to the others who participate.

" The Weekly Journals " was a collective noun, referring to London Journal, Mist's Journal, British Journal, Daily Journal, inter al.

In this contest, John Dennis climbs up as high as a post and dives in, disappearing forever.

Next, " Smedly " ( Jonathan Smedley, a religious opportunist who criticized Jonathan Swift for gain ) dives in and vanishes.

Others attempt the task, but none succeed like Leonard Welsted ( who had satirized Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot's play Three Hours after Marriage in 1717 ), for he goes in swinging his arms like a windmill ( to splash all with mud ): " No crab more active in the dirty dance ,/ Downward to climb, and backward to advance " ( II 296-7 ).

He wins the Journals, but Smedly reappears, saying that he had gone all the way down to Hades, where he had seen that a branch of Styx flows into the Thames, so that all who drink city water grow dull and forgetful from Lethe.