ufe of. If Obfcurity or Poverty were to exempt a man from fatire, much more fhould Folly or Dulness, which are still 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 handsome; and so must Dulness when he fet's up for a Wit. They are not ridiculed because 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 imposition, because particular intereft ought to yield to general, and a great number who are not naturally Fools, ought never to be made fo, in complaisance 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 moft candid fatirists, 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 resemblance 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 most eminent rank and abi

lities in their respective nations b. But the refemblance holds in nothing more, than in their being equally abused by the ignorant pretenders to Poetry of their times; of which not the least 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 anfwer 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 worthless perfons, for fcarce any other were his enemies. However, as the parity is fo remarkable, I hope it will continue to the last; and if ever he fhould give us an edition of this Poem himself, I may fee some of them treated as gently, on their repentance or better merit, as Perrault and Quinault were at last by BOILEAU.

In one point I must be allowed to think the character of our English Poet the more amiable. He has not

b Effay on Criticism in French verfe, by General Ha milton; 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 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 verfe; bỷ Monfieur Silhout, in profe, 1737, and fince by others in French, Italian, and Latin.

been

been a follower of Fortune or Succefs; he has lived with the Great without flattery; been a friend to Men in power, without pensions, from whom, as he asked, fo he received, no favour, but what was done Him in his Friends. As his Satires were the more just for being delayed, fo were his Panegyrics; beftowed only on fuch perfons as he had familiarly known, only for such 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 fafhion. 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 fo much in that of those whom they had most abused, namely the Greatest and Best of all Parties. Let me add a further reafon, that, though engaged in their Friendships, he never espoused their Animofities; and can almost fingly 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.

As Mr. Wycherley, at the time the Town declaimed against his book of Poems; Mr. Walsh, after his death; Sir William Trumbull, 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.

I fhall

I fhall conclude with remarking, what a pleasure it must be to every reader of Humanity, to fee 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 how hard it is (with regard both to his fubject and his manner) VETUSTIS DARE NOVITATEM, OBSOLETIS NITOREM, OBSCURIS LUCEM,

TIAM.

FASTIDITIS GRA

I am

St. James's, Dec. 22d, 1728.

Your most humble Servant,

WILLIAM CLELAND d.

This gentleman was of Scotland, and bred at the University of Utrecht, with the Earl of Mar. He ferved in Spain under Earl Rivers. After the Peace, he was made one of the Commiffioners of the Customs in Scotland, and then of Taxes in England; in which, having fhewn himself for twenty years diligent, punctual, and incorruptible, (though without any other affiftance of Fortune) he was fuddenly displaced by the Minister, in the fixty-eighth year of his age; and died two months after, in 1741. He was a perfon of universal Learning, and an enlarged Conversation; no man had a warmer heart for his Friend, or a fincerer attachment to the Constitution of his Country.

MAR