The Dunciad in the City. Theobald sleeps with his head on the goddess's lap, with royal blue fogs surrounding him. In his dream, he goes to Hades and visits the shade of Elkannah Settle. There he sees millions of souls waiting for new bodies as their souls transmigrate. Bavius dips each soul in Lethe to make it dull before sending it to a new body. (In classical mythology, the souls of the dead were put into Lethe to forget their lives before passing on to their final reward, but these are dipped in Lethe before being born.) Elkannah Settle hails Theobald as
The Brief History of the Dead itself expands and contracts to accommodate the recently dead or the death of the last people to remember them. On earth things have continued on the trajectories predicted at the beginning of the century: The polar ice caps are melting and biological terrorism is a major societal concern. However, the Coca-Cola Company is trying to make the best of both developments by planning to use water from Antarctica in its soft drink; they use publicity stunts which exploit people's fears in order to build brand interest. As part of their latest publicity stunt, they send a team of scientists to