EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT. Motto to the first edition, published in folio, 1734: spem pofueris rerum tuarum; suis te oportet illecebris ipsa virtus trahat ad verum decus. Quid de te alii loquantur, ipfi videant, fed loquentur tamen." CICERO ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF THIS EPISTLE. This paper is a fort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occafions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some Persons of Rank and Fortune [the Authors of Verses to the Imitator of Horace, and of an Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton-Court] to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my Writings (of which, being public, the Public is judge) but my Perfon, Morals, and Family, whereof, to those who know me not, a truer information may be requifite. Being divided between the neceffity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so aukward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the laft hand to this Epistle. If it have any thing pleafing, it will be that by which I am most defirous to please, the Truth, and the Sentiment; and if any thing offenfive, it will be only to those I am least forry to offend, the vicious, or the ungenerous. Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have for the most part spared their Names, and they may escape being laughed at, if they please. I would have fome of them know, it was owing to the request of the learned and candid Friend to whom it is inscribed, that I make not as free use of theirs, as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage, and honour, on my fide, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a nameless Character can never be found out, but by its truth and likeness. POPE, Lady Wortley Montagu begins her Address to Mr. Pope, on his Imitation of the ist Satire of the Second Book of Horace, in these words: " In two large columns, on thy motley page, Who can believe, who view the bad and good, Than heretofore the Greek he did translate? } Horace |