forth, with intent to turn them to such abuse: but being able to obtain from our author but one single hint, and either changing his mind, or having more mind than ability, he contented himself to keep the said Memoirs, and read them as his own to all his acquaintance. A noble person there is into whose company Mr. Pope once chanced to introduce him, who well remembereth the conversation of Mr. Moore to have turned upon the 'contempt he had for the work of that reverend prelate, and how full he was of a design he declared himself to have of exposing it. This noble person is the Earl of Peterborough.

Here, in truth, should we crave pardon of all the aforesaid right honourable and worthy personages, for having mentioned them in the same page with such weekly riff-raff railers and rhymers, but that we had their ever-honoured commands for the same; and that they are introduced not as witnesses in the controversy, but as witnesses that cannot be controverted; not to dispute, but to decide.

Certain it is, that dividing our writers into two classes, of such who were acquaintance, and of such who were strangers, to our author; the former are those who speak well, and the other those who speak evil of him. Of the first class, the most noble

JOHN DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM

sums up his character in these lines:

26 And yet so wondrous, so sublime a thing,
As the great Iliad, scarce could make me sing.

16 Verses to Mr. P. on his translation of Homer.

Unless I justly could at once commend
A good companion, and as firm a friend :
One moral, or a mere well-natur'd deed,
Can all desert in sciences exceed.

So also is he deciphered by the honourable

SIMON HARCOURT.

" 27 Say, wondrous youth, what column wilt thou choose,
What laurel'd arch for thy triumphant Muse?
Though each great ancient court thee to his shrine,
Though evere laurel through the dome be thine-
Go to the good and just, an awful train!

1 by soul's delight.'

Recorded in like manner, for his virtuous disposition, and gentle bearing, by the ingenious

MR. WALTER HART,

in this apostrophe:

260! ever worthy, ever crown'd with praise!
Blest in thy life, and blest in all thy lays,
Add, that the Sisters every thought refine,
And ev'n thy life be faultless as thy line:
Yet Envy still with fiercer rage pursues,
Obscures the virtue, and defames the Muse.
A soul like thine, in pain, in grief, resign'd,
Views with just scorn the malice of mankind.'

The witty and moral satirist,

DR. EDWARD YOUNG,

wishing some check to the corruption and evil manners of the times, calleth out upon our poet to undertake a task so worthy of his virtue:

Why 29 slumbers Pope, who leads the Muse's train,
Nor hears that virtue, which he loves, complain?

27 Poems prefixed to his Works.

28 In his Poems, printed for B. Lintot.
29 Universal Passion, Sat. I.

MR. MALLET,

in his Epistle on Verbal Criticism:

'Whose life, severely scan'd, transcends his lays;
For wit supreme is but his second praise."

MR. HAMMOND,

that delicate and correct imitator of Tibullus, in his Love Elegies, Elegy xiv.

Now fir'd by Pope and virtue, leave the age,
In low pursuit of self-undoing wrong,

And trace the author through his moral page,
Whose blameless life still answers to his song.'

MR. THOMSON,

in his elegant and philosophical poem of the Seasons:

Although not sweeter his own Homer sings,

Yet is his life the more endearing song.'

To the same tune also singeth that learned clerk of Suffolk,

MR. WILLIAM BROOME:

Thus 30 nobly rising in fair virtue's cause,

From thy own life transcribe the' unerring laws.'

And, to close all, hear the Reverend Dean of St. Patrick's:

A soul with every virtue fraught,

By patriots, priests, and poets taught:
Whose filial piety excels

Whatever Grecian story tells.

A genius for each business fit,

Whose meanest talent is his wit,' &c.

Let us now recreate thee by turning to the other side, and showing his character drawn by those with whom he never conversed, and whose coun

so In his Poems, and at the end of the Odyssey.

tenances he could not know, though turned against him; first, again commencing with the high-voiced and never-enough quoted

MR. JOHN DENNIS;

who, in his Reflections on the Essay on Criticism, thus describeth him: A little affected hypocrite, who has nothing in his mouth but candour, trath, friendship, good-nature, humanity, and magnani- mity. He is so great a lover of falsehood, that whenever he has a mind to calumniate his contemporaries, he brands them with some defect which is just contrary to some good quality for which all their friends and their acquaintance commend them. He seems to have a particular pique to people of quality, and authors of that rank. He must derive his religion from St. Omers.'— But in the Character of Mr. P. and his writings, (printed by S. Popping, 1716) he saith, though he is a professor of the worst religion, yet he laughs at it; but that, nevertheless, he is a virulent Papist; and yet a pillar for the Church of England.' Of both which opinions

MR. LEWIS THEOBALD

seems also to be; declaring, in MIST'S JOURNAL of June 22, 1718,' that, if he is not shrewdly abused, he made it his business to cackle to both parties in their own sentiments.' But as to his pique against people of quality, the same Journalist doth not agree, but saith, (May 8, 1728) He had, by same means or other, the acquaintance and friendship of the whole body of our nobility.'

However contradictory this may appear, Mr.

Dennis and Gildon, in the character last cited, make it all plain, by assuring us, that he is a creature that reconciles all contradictions: he is a beast, and a man; a Whig and a Tory; a writer (at one and the same time) of Guardians and Examiners 31; an assertor of liberty, and of the dispensing power of kings; a Jesuitical professor of truth; a base and a foul pretender to candour.' So that upon the whole account, we must conclude him either to have been a hypocrite, or a very honest man; a terrible imposer upon both parties, or very moderate to either.

Be it as to the judicious reader shall seem good. Sure it is he is little favoured of certain authors whose wrath is perilous: for one declares he ought to have a price set on his head, and to be hunted down as a wild beast 32: another protests that he does not know what may happen; advises him to insure his person; says he has bitter enemies, and expressly declares it will be well if he escapes with his life 33. One desires he would cut his own throat, or hang himself 33. But Pasquin seemed rather inclined it should be done by the govern ment, representing him engaged in grievous designs with a Lord of Parliament then under prosecution 35. Mr. Dennis himself hath written to a minister, that he is one of the most dangerous persons in this kingdom 36; and assureth the public that he is an open and mortal enemy to his country; a monster that will, one day, show as daring

31 The names of two weekly papers.

92 Theobald, Letter in Mist's Journal, June 22d, 1728. 93 Smedley, Pref. to Gulliveriana, p. 14, 16.

34 Gulliveriana, p. 332.

56 Anno 1729.

53 Anno 1723..