MR. WALTER HART, in this apostrophe: *O! ever worthy, ever crown'd with praise! 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 slumbers Pope, who leads the Muses' train, in his Epistle on Verbal Criticism: "Whose life, severely scan'd, transcends his lays; 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, "And trace the Author through his moral page, 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." *In his Poems, printed for B. Lintot. To the same tune, also, sings that learned clerk of Suffolk, MR. WILLIAM BROOME, Thus nobly rising in fair Virtue's cause, "From thy own life transcribe th unerring laws." And, to close all, hear the Reverend Dean of St. Patrick's: "A soul with ev'ry virtue fraught, By patriots, priests, and poets taught: "Whatever Grecian story tells. "Whose meanest talent is his wit," &c. Let us now recreate thee, by turning to the other side, and shewing his character, drawn by those with whom he never conversed, and whose countenances 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, truth, "friendship, good-nature, humanity, and magnani"mity. He is so great a lover of falsehood, that "whenever he has a mind to calumniate his contem"poraries, 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 * In his Poems, and at the end of the Odyssey. "must derive his religion from St. Omer's."---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 66 yet a pillar of the Church of England." Of both which opinions 66 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 practice 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 some means or other, the acquaint"ance and friendship of the whole body of our no"bility." 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 Exa* miners*: an asserter of liberty, and of the dis"pensing 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 great hypocrite, or a very *The names of two weekly papers. 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*; 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 t. One desires he would cut his own throat, or hang himself. But Pasquin seemed rather inclined it should be done by the government, representing him engaged in grievous designs with a Lord of Parliament then under prosecution. Mr. Dennis himself hath written to a minister, that he is one of the most dangerous persons in this kingdom**; and assureth the Public that he is an open and mortal enemy to his country; a monster that will, one day, shew as daring a soul as a mad Indian, who runs a-muck to kill the first Christian he meetstt. Another gives information of treason discovered in his Poem ‡‡. Mi. ** *Theobald, Letter in Mist's Journal, June 22d, 1728, + Smedley, Pref. to Gulliveriana, p. 14, 16. Gulliveriana, p. 332. || Anno 1723. Anno 1729. ++ Preface to Remarks on the Rape of the Lock, p. 12. and in the last page of that treatise. 1 Page 6, 7, of the preface, by Coucanen, to a book entitled, A Collection of all the Letters, Essays, Verses, and Advertisements, occasioned by Pope and Swift's Miscellanies. Printed for A. Moore, octavo, 1714. Volume IV. D Curl boldly supplies an imperfect verse with kings and princesses*; and one Matthew Concanen, yet more impudent, publishes, at length, the two most sacred names in this nation as members of the Dunciad†! This is prodigious! yet it is almost as strange that, in the midst of these invectives, his greatest enemies have (I know not how) borne testimony to some merit in him. MR. THEOBALD, in censuring his Shak pere, declares," He has so "great an esteem for Mr. Pope, and so high an opinion of his genius and excellencies, that, notwithstanding he professes a veneration almost "rising to idolatry for the writings of this inimitable Poet, he would be very loath even to do him justice at the expence of that other gentleman's cha"racter." MR. CHARLES GILDON, after having violently attacked him in many pieces, at last came to wish from his hear, "That Mr. "Pope would be prevailed upon to give us Ovid's Epistles by his hand; for it is certain we see the original of Sappho to Phaon with much more life and likeness in his version than in that of Sir Car Scrope. And this (he adds) is the more to be wished, because in the English tongue we *Key to the Dunciad, 3d edition, p. 18. + A List of Persons, &c. at the end of the fore-mentioned Collection of all the Letters, Essays, &c. Introduction to his Shakspeare Restored, 4to. p. 3. |