the public burden, fills the streets and highways with Robbers, and the Garrets with Clippers, Coiners, and Weekly Journalists.

But admitting that two or three of thefe offend lefs in their morals, than in their writings; muft Poverty make nonfenfe facred? If fo, 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 themselves his enemies, complain. of being put into the number of them.

Others,

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.

Such as claim a merit from being his Admirers, I would gladly afk, if it lays him under a perfonal obligation? At that rate he would be the most 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 worfe than ignorance, in the Author of the Effay on Criticism? Be it as it will, the reafons 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 foʊner allowed by himself than by any good judge befide, "That his own have found too much fuccefs with "the Public." But as it cannot confift with his modefty to claim this as a Juftice, it lies not on him, but entirely on the Public, to defend its own judgment. There remains what in my opinion might feem a better plea for thefe people, than any they have made

ufe

ufe of. If Obfcurity or Poverty were to exempt a man from fatire, much more fhould Folly or Dulnefs, 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 handfome; and fo muft Dulnefs 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, because particular interest 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 so dull, have been conftantly the topics of the most candid fatirists, from the Codrus of JUVENAL to the Damon of Boi

LEAU.

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 moft eminent rank and abi

lities in their refpective nations b. But the refemblance holds in nothing more, than in their being equally abufed 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 laft; 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 laft 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 Criticifm 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 Princefs 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 Essays and Differta tions on Homer, feveral times tranflated into French. Effay on Man, by the Abbé Reynel, in verfe; by 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 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 just 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 ceafe to praife, if not begin to calumniate them, I mean when out of power or out of fashion c. 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 Beft of all Parties. Let me add a further reafon, that, though engaged in their Friendships, he never efpoufed their Animofities; and can almoft 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 Interests, he was ever unwilling to own.

As Mr. Wycherley, at the time the Town declaimed against his book of Poems; Mr. Walfh, 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