Bailey, for leffer crimes than Defamation (for 'tis the cafe of almost all who are tried there), but fure it can be none here: For who will pretend that the robbing another of his Reputation fupplies the want of it in himself? I queftion not but fuch authors are poor, and heartily with the objection were removed by any honeft livelihood. But Poverty is here the accident, not the fubject: He who defcribes Malice and Villany to be pale and meagre, expreffes not the leaft anger against Palenefs or Leannefs, but against Malice and Villany. The Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet is poor; but is he therefore justified in vending poison? Not but Poverty itfelf becomes a juft fubject of fatire, when it is the confequence of vice, prodigality, or neglect of one's lawful calling for then it increases the public burden, fills the streets and highways with Robbers, and the garrets with Clippers, Coiners, nd Weekly Journalists

their morals, than in their writings; muft Poverty make nonfenfe facred? If so, the fame of bad authors would be much better confulted than that of all the good ones in the world; and not one of an hundred had ever been called by his right name.

They mistake the whole matter: It is not charity to encourage them in the way they follow, but to get them out of it; for men are not bunglers because they are poor, but they are poor because they are bunglers.

Is it not pleasant enough, to hear our authors crying out on the one hand, as if their persons and characters were too facred for fatire; and the Public objecting on the other, that they are too mean even for ridicule? But whether Bread or Fame be their end, it

must be allowed, our Author, by and in this Poem, has mercifully given them a little of both.

There are two or three, who by their rank and fortune have no benefit from the former objections, fuppofing them good, and these I was forry to fee in fuch company. But if, without any provocation, two or three Gentlemen will fall upon one, in an affair wherein his intereft and reputation are equally embarked; they cannot certainly, after they have been content to print them felves his enemies, complain of being put into the number of them.

Others, I am told, pretend to have been once his Friends. Surely they are their enemies who fay fo, fince nothing can be more odious than to treat a friend as they have done. But of this I cannot perfuade myfelf, when I confider the conftant and eternal averfion of all bad writers to a good one.

obligas claim a merit from being his Admir

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obliged humble fervant in the world. I dare fwear - for thefe in particular, he never defired them to be his admirers, nor promifed in return to be theirs That had truly been a fign he was of their acquaintance; but would not the malicious world have fufpected fuch an approbation of fome motive worse than ignorance, in the Author of the Effay on Criticifm? Be it as it will, the reasons of their Admiration and of his Contempt are equally fubfifting; for his works and theirs are the very fame that they were.

One, therefore, of their affertions I believe may be true, "That he has a contempt for their writings." And there is another, which would probably be fooner

allowed by himself, than by any good judge befide, "That his own have found too much fuccefs with "the Public." But as it cannot consist with his mo defty to claim this as a Justice, it lies not on him, but entirely on the Public, to defend its own judg

ment.

There remains what in my opinion might seem · a better plea for these people, than any they have made ufe of. If Obfcurity or Poverty were to exempt a man from fatire, much more fhould Folly or Dulness, which are ftill more involuntary; nay, as much fo as. perfonal Deformity. But even this will not help them: Deformity becomes an object of Ridicule when a man fets up for being handfome; and fo muft Dulness when he fets up for a Wit. They are not ridiculed becaufe Ridicule in itself is, or ought to be, a pleasure; but because it is just to undeceive and vindicate the honeft and unpretending part of mankind from impofition, be caufe particular intereft ought to yield to general, and a great number who are not naturally Fools, ought never to be made fo, in complaifance to a few who are. Accordingly we find that in all ages, all vain pretenders, were they ever fo poor or ever fo dull, have been conftantly the topics of the most candid fatirifts, from the Codrus of JUVENAL to the Damon of BOILEAU.

Having mentioned BOILEAU, the greatest Poet and moft judicious Critic of his age and country, admirable for his Talents, and yet perhaps more admirable for his judgment in the proper application of them; I cannot help remarking the refemblance betwixt him and our author, in Qualities, Fame, and Fortune; in the diftinctions fhewn them by their Superiors, in the

general esteem of their Equals, and in their extended reputation amongst Foreigners; in the latter of which ours has met with the better fate, as he has had for his Tranflators perfons of the moft eminent rank and abilities in their refpective nations. But the resemblance holds in nothing more, than in their being equally abufed by the ignorant pretenders to Poetry of their times; of which not the leaft memory will remain but in their own Writings, and in the Notes made upon them. What BOILEAU has done in almost all his Poems, our Author has only in this: I dare answer for him he will do it in no more; and on this principle, of attacking few but who had flandered him, he could not have done it at all, had he been confined from cenfuring obfcure and worthlefs perfons, for fcarce any other were his enemies. However, as the parity is fo remarkable, I hope it will continue to the laft; and if ever he should give us an edition of this Poem himfelf, I may fee fome of them treated as gently, on their repentance or better merit, as Perrault and Quinault were at laft by BOILEAU.

In one point I must be allowed to think the character of our English Poet the more amiable. He has not been a follower of Fortune or Succefs; he has

b Effay on Criticism in French verfe, by General Hamilton; the fame, in verfe alfo, by Monfieur Roboton, Counsellor and Privy Secretary to King George I. after by the Abbé Reynel, in verfe, with notes. Rape of the Lock, in French, by the Princess of Conti, Paris 1728; and in Italian verfe, by the Abbé Conti, a noble Venetian; and by the Marquis Rangoni, Envoy Extraordinary from Modena to King George II. Others of his works by Salvini of Florence, &c. His Effays and Differtations on Homer, feveral times tranflated into French. Effay on Man, by the Abbé Reynel, in verse; by Monfieur Silhouet, in prose, 1737, and fince by others in French, Italian, and Latin.

lived with the Great without flattery; been a friend to Men in power, without penfions, from whom, as he asked, fo he received, no favour, but what was done Him in his Friends. As his Satires were the more juft for being delayed, fo were his Panegyrics; bestowed only on fuch perfons as he had familiarly known, only for fuch virtues as he had long obferved in them, and only at fuch times as others cease to praise, if not begin to calumniate them, I mean when out of power or out of fashion . A fatire, therefore, on writers fo notorious for the contrary practice, became no man fo well as himself; as none, it is plain, was fo little in their friendships, or so much in that of thofe whom they had most abused, namely the Greatest and Best of all Parties. Let me add a further reason, that, though engaged in their Friendships, he never efpoufed their Animofities; and can almost singly challenge this honour, not to have written a line of any man, which, through Guilt, through Shame, or through Fear, through variety of Fortune, or change of Interefts, he was ever unwilling to own.

I shall conclude with remarking what a pleasure it must be to every reader of Humanity, to see all along, that our Author in his very laughter is not indulging his own ill-nature, but only punishing that of others. As to his Poem, thofe alone are capable of doing it juftice, who, to use the words of a great writer, know

c As Mr. Wycherley, at the time the Town declaimed against his book of Poems; Mr. Walsh, after his death; Sir William Trumball, when he had refigned the office of Secretary of State; Lord Bolingbroke, at his leaving England, after the Queen's death; Lord Oxford in his laft decline of life; Mr. Secretary Craggs, at the end of the South-Sea year, and after his death; Others only in Epitaphs.