he employed some underlings to perform what,
according to his proposals, should come from his
own hands." To which heavy charge we can in
truth oppose nothing but the words of

MR. POPE'S PROposal for the ODYYSSEY (PRINTED
BY J. WATTS, JAN. 10, 1724.)

morality), to wit, plagiarism, from the inventive and quaint-conceited

JAMES-MOORE SMITH, GENT.

"Upon reading the third volume of Pope's Miscellanies, 1 found five lines which I thought excellent; and happening to praise them, a gentleman produced a modern comedy (the Rival Modes) published last year, where were the same verses to a tittle.

"These gentlemen are undoubtedly the first plagiaries, that pretend to make a reputation by stealing from a man's works in his own life-time, and out of a public print '," Let us join to this what is writ n by the author of the Rival Modes, the said Mr. James-Moore Smith, in a letter to our author himself, who had informed him a

"I take this occasion to declare that the subscription for Shakespeare belongs wholly to Mr. Tonson: and that the benefit of this proposal is not solely for my own use, but for that of two of my friends, who have assisted me in this work." But these very gentlemen are extolled above our poet himself in another of Mist's Journals, March 30, 1728, saying, "That he would not advise Mr. Pope to try the experiment again of getting a great part of a book done by assistants, lest those extraneous parts should unhappily ascend to the sub-month before that play was acted, Jan. 27, 1726-7, lime, and retard the declension of the whole." Behold! these underlings are become good

writers!

If any say, that before the said proposals wore printed, the subscription was begun without declaration of such assistance; verily those who set it on foot, or (as the term is) secured it, to wit, the right honourable the lord viscount Harcourt, were he living, would testify, and the right honourable the lord Bathurst, now living, doth testify, the same is a falsehood.

Sorry I am, that persons professing to be learned, or of whatever rank of authors, should either falsely tax, or be falsely taxed. Yet let us, who are only reporters, be impartial in our citations, and proceed.

MIST'S JOURNAL, JUNE 8, 1728. "Mr. Addison raised this author from obscurity, obtained him the acquaintance and friendship of the whole body of our nobility, and transferred his powerful interests with those great men to this rising bard, who frequently levied by that means unusual contributions on the public." Which surely cannot be, if, as the author of the Dunciad Dissected reporteth, Mr. Wycherley had before introduced him into a familiar acquaintance with the greatest peers and brightest wits then living."

that "These verses, which he had before given him leave to insert in it, would be known for his, some copies being got abroad. He desires, nevertheless, that since the lines had been read in his comedy to several, Mr. P. would not deprive it of them," &c. Surely, if we add the testimonies of the lord Bolingbroke, of the lady to whom the said verses were originally addressed, of Hugh Bethel, Esq. and others, who knew them as our author's, long before the said gentleman composed his play; it is hoped, the ingenuous, that affect not errour, will rectify their opinion by the suffrage of so honourable personages,

And yet followeth another charge, insinuating no less than his enmity both to church and state, which could come from no other informer than the said

MR. JAMES-MOORE SMITH. "The Memoirs of a Parish Clerk was a very dull and unjust abuse of a person who wrote in defence of our religion and constitution, and who has been dead many years." This seemeth also most untrue; it being known to divers that these Memoirs were written at the seat of the lord Harcourt in Oxfordshire, before that excellent person (bishop Burnett's) death, and many years before the appearance of that history, of which they are pretended to be an abuse. Most true it is, that "No sooner (saith the same journalist) was his Mr. Moore had such a design, and was himself the body lifeless, but this author, reviving his resent- man who prest Dr. Arbuthnot and Mr. Pope to ment, libelled the memory of his departed friend; assist him therein; and that he borrowed those and what was still more heinous, made the scan- memoirs of our author, when that history came dal public." Grievous the accusation! unknown forth, with intent to turn them to such abuse. the accuser! the person accused, no witness in his But being able to obtain from our author but one own cause; the person, in whose regard accused, single hint, and either changing his mind, or havdead! But if there be living any one nobleman ing more, mind than ability, he contented himself whose friendship, yea any one gentleman whose to keep the said memoirs, and read them as his subscription, Mr. Addison procured to our author, own to all his acquaintance. A noble person there let him stand forth, that truth may appear! is, into whose company Mr. Pope once chanced Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis amica to introduce him, who well remembereth the converitas. In verity, the whole story of the libel is versation of Mr. Moore to have turned upon the a lie; witness those persons of integrity, who, se. contempt he had for the work of that reverend veral years before Mr. Addison's decease, did see prelate, and how full he was of a design he deand approve of the said verses, in no wise a libel,clared himself to have of exposing it." This nobut a friendly rebuke sent privately in our author's ble person is the earl of Peterborough. own hand to Mr. Addison himself, and never made public, till after their own journals, and Curll had printed the same. One name alone, which I am here authorised to declare, will sufficiently evince this truth, that of the right honourable the earl of Burlington.

Next is he taxed with a crime (in the opinion of some authors, I doubt, more heinous than any in

Here in truth should we crave pardon of all the foresaid 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-honour'd commands for the

'Daily Journal, March 18, 1728.

Daily Journal, April 3, 1728.

that delicate and correct imitator of Tibullus, in
his Love Flegies, 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 Sea

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

thus wrote to the unknown author, on the first publication of the said essay; "I must own, after the reception which the vilest and most immoral ribaldry hath lately met with, I was surprised to see what I had long despaired, a performance deserving the name of a poet. Such, sir, is your work. It is, indeed, above all commendation, and ought to have been published in an age and country more worthy of it. If my testimony be of weight any where, you are sure to have it in the amplest manner," &c. &c. &c.

Thus we see every one of his works hath been extolled by one or other of his most inveterate enemies; and to the success of thein all they do unanimously give testimony. But it is sufficient, instar omnium, to behold the great critic, Mr. Dennis, sorely lamenting it, even from the Essay on Criticism to this day of the Dunciad! A most notorious instance (quoth he) of the depravity of genius and taste, the approbation

1 in concert] Hear how Mr. Dennis hath proved our mistake in this place: "As to my writing in concert with Mr. Gildon, I declare upon the honour and word of a gentleman, that I never wrote so much as one line in concert with any one man whatsoever. And these two letters from Gildon will plainly show, that we are not writers in concert with each other.

this Essay meets with'.-I can safely affirm, that I never attacked any of these writings, unless they had success infinitely beyond their merit. This, though an empty, has been a popular scribbler. The epidemic madness of the times has given him reputation. -If, after the cruel treatment so many extraordinary men (Spenser, Lord Bacon, Ben Jonson, Milton, Butler, Otway, and others) have received from this country, for these last hundred years, I should shift the scene, and show all that penury changed at once to riot and profuseness; and more squandered away upon one object, than would have satisfied the greater part of those extraordinary men; the reader to whom this one creature should be unknown, would fancy him a prodigy of art and nature, would believe that all the great qualities of these persons were centered in him alone. But if I should venture to assure him, that the people of England had made such a choice the reader would either believe me a malicious enemy, and slanderer; or that the reign of the last (queen Anne's) ministry was designed by fate to encourage fools."

But it happens, that this our poet never had any place, pension, or gratuity, in any shape, from the said glorious queen, or any of her ministers. All he owed, in the whole course of his life, to any court, was a subscription for his Homer, of 2001. from king George I. and 1001. from the prince and princess.

However, lest we imagine our Author's success was constant and universal, they acquaint us of certain works in a less degree of repute, whereof, although owned by others, yet do they assure us he is the writer. Of this sort Mr. Dennis* ascribes to him two farces, whose names he does not tell, but assures us that there is not one jest in them: and an imitation of Horace, whose title he does not mention, but assures us it is much more execrable than all his works. The Daily Journal, Durfey in the drama, because (as that writer May 11, 1728, assures us, "He is below Tom thinks) the Marriage-hater matched, and the Boarding-school, are better than the What-d'ye call-it;" which is not Mr. P.'s, but Mr. Gay's. Mr. Gildon assures us, in his New Rehearsal, p. 48. "That he was writing a play of the lady Jane Grey" but it afterwards proved to be Mr. Rowe's. We are assured by another, "He wrote a pamphlet called Dr. Andrew Tripe";" which proved to be one Dr. Wagstaff's. Mr. Theobald assures us, in Mist of the 27th of April, “That the treatise of the Profound is very dull, and that Mr. Pope is the author of it." The writer of Gulliveriana is of another opinion; and says, I had not the opportunity of hearing of your "The whole, or greatest part, of the merit of excellent pamphlet till this day. I am infinitely this treatise must and can only be ascribed to Batisfied and pleased with it, and hope you will Gulliver'." [Here, gentle reader! cannot I br meet with that encouragement your admirable per-smile at the strange blindness and positiveness of formance deserves,' &c. men; knowing the said treatise to appertain none other but to me, Martinus Scri

· SIR,

The height of my ambition is to please men of the best judgment; and finding that I have entertained my master agreeably, I have the extent of the reward of my labout.'

SIR,

'CH. GILDON.'

"Now is it not plain that any one who sends such compliments to another, has not been used to write in partnership with him to whom he sends them?" Dennis, Remarks on the Dunciad, p. 50. Mr. Dennis is therefore welcome to take this piece to himself.

In a letter under his own hand, dated March 12, 1733.

to

blerus.]

We are assured, in Mist of June 8, "That so is it of the most grave and ancient kind. his own plays and farces would better have Homer (saith Aristotle) was the first who gave adorned the Dunciad, than those of Mr. Theobald; the form, and (saith Horace) who adapted the for he had neither genius for tragedy ner comedy." measure, to heroic poesy. But even before this, Which whether true or not, it is not easy to may be rationally presumed from what the anjudge; in as much as he had attempted neither. cients have left written, was a piece by Homer Unless we will take it for granted, with Mr. composed, of like nature and matter with this of Cibber, that his being once very angry at hearing our poet. For of epic sort it appeareth to have a friend's play abused, was an infallible proof the been, yet of matter surely not unpleasant, witplay was his own; the said Mr. Cibber thinkingness what is reported of it by the learned archit impossible for a man to be much concerned for bishop Eustathius, in Odyss. x. And accordingly any but himself: "Now let any man judge (saith Aristotle, in his Poetics, chap. iv. doth further he) by his concern, who was the true mother of set forth, that as the Iliad and Odyssey gave exthe child?” ample to tragedy, so did this poem to comedy its first idea.

But from all that hath been said, the discerning reader will collect, that it little availed our author to have any candour, since, when he declared he did not write for others, it was not credited; as little to have any modesty, since, when he declined writing in any way himself, the presumption of others was imputed to him. If he singly enterprised one great work, he was taxed of boldness and madness to a prodigy: if he took assistants in another, it was complained of, and represented as a great injury to the public 3. The loftiest heroics, the lowest ballads, treatises against the state or church, satires on lords and ladies, raillery on wits and authors, squabbles with booksellers, or even full and true accounts of monsters, poisons, and murders; of any hereof was there nothing so good, nothing so bad, which hath not at one or other season been to him ascribed. If it bore no author's name, then lay he concealed; if it did, he fathered it upon that author to be yet better concealed: if it resembled any of his styles, then was it evident; if it did not, then disguised he it on set purpose. Yea, even direct oppositions in religion, principles, and politics, have equally been supposed in him inherent. Surely a most rare and singular character; of which let the reader make what he

can.

Doubtless most commentators would hence take occasion to turn all to their author's advantage, and from the testimony of his very enemies would affirm, that his capacity was boundless, as well as his imagination; that he was a perfect master of all styles, and all arguments; and that there was in those times no other writer, in any kind, of any degree of excellence, save he himself. But as this is not our own sentiment, we shall determine on nothing but leave thee, gentle reader, to steer thy judgment equally between various opinions, and to chuse whether thou wilt incline to the testimonies of authors avowed, or of authors concealed of those who knew him, or of those who knew him not.

MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS

OF THE POEM.

P.

From these authors also it should seem, that the hero, or chief personage of it was no less obscure, and his understanding and sentiments no less quaint and strange (if indeed not more so) than any of the actors of our poem. Margites was the name of this personage, whom antiquity recordeth to have been Dunce the first; and surely from what we hear of him, not unworthy to be the root of so spreading a tree, and so numerous a posterity. The poem therefore celebrating him was properly and absolutely a Dunciad; which though now unhappily lost, yet is its nature sufficiently known by the infallible tokens aforesaid. And thus it doth appear that the first Dunciad was the first epic poem, written by Homer himself, and anterior even to the Iliad or Odyssey.

Now, forasmuch as our poet hath translated those two famous works of Homer which are yet left, he did conceive it in some sort his duty to imitate that also which was lost and was therefore induced to bestow, on it the same form which Homer's is reported to have had, namely, that of Epic Poem; with a title also framed after the ancient Greek manner, to wit, that of Dunciad.

Wonderful it is, that so few of the moderns have been stimulated to attempt some Dunciad ! since, in the opinion of the multitude, it might cost less pain and toil than an imitation of the greater epic. But possible it is also, that, on due reflection, the maker might find it easier to paint a Charlemagne, a Brute, or a Godfrey, with just pomp and dignity heroic, than a Margites, a Codrus, or a Fleckno.

We shall next declare the occasion and the cause which moved our poet to this particular work. He lived in those days, when (after Providence had permitted the invention of printing as a scourge for the sins of the learned) paper also became so cheap, and printers so numerous, that a deluge of authors covered the land: whereby not only the peace of the honest unwriting subject was daily molested, but unmerciful deinands were made of his applause, yea of his money, by such as would neither earn the one, nor deserve the other. At the same time, the licence of the press was such, that it grew dangerous to refuse them either: for they would forthwith públish slanders unpunished, the authors being anonymous, and skulking under the wings of publishers, a set of men who neither scrupled to vend either calumny or blasphemy, as long as the town would call for it.

Now our author, living in those times, did

! Vide Bossu, Du Poeme Epique, chap. viii.