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A LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER.
Occafioned by the first correct Edition of

THE DUNCIAD.

IT is with pleafure I hear that you have procured a correct copy of the Dunciad, which the many furreptitious ones have rendered fo neceffary; and it is yet with more that I am informed it will be attended with a Commentary; work fo requifite, that I cannot think the Author himself would have omitted it, had he approved of the first appearance of this Poem.

Such Notes as have occurred to me I herewith fend you you will oblige me by inferting them amongst thofe which are, or will be, tranfinitted to you by others; fince not only the Author's friends, but even ftrangers, appear engaged, by humanity, to take fome care of an Orphan of fo much genius and fpirit, which its Parent feems to have abandoned from the very beginning, and fuffered to step into the world, naked, unguarded, and unattended.

was upon reading fome of the abufive papers lately published, that my great regard to a perfon whose friendship I esteem as one of the chief honours of my life, and a much greater refpect to truth than to him or any man living, engaged me in enquiries of which the enclosed Notes are the fruit.

I perceive that most of these authors had been (doubtlefs very wifely) the firft aggreffors. They had tried, till they were weary, what was to be got by railing at each other: nobody was either concerned or furprised if this or that fcribbler was proved a dunce, but every one was curious to read what could be faid to prove Mr. Pope one, and was ready to pay fomething for fuch a discovery; a ftratagem which, would they fairly own it, might not only reconcile them to me, but fcreen them from the refentment of their lawful fuperiors, whom they daily abule, only (as I charitably

ritably hope) to get that by them, which they cannot get from them.

I found this was not all: ill fuccefs in that had transported them to perfonal abufe, either of himfeif, or (what I think he could lefs forgive) of his friends. They had called men of virtue and honour bad men, long before he had either leifure or inclination to call them bad writers; and some of them had been fuch old offenders, that he had quite forgotten their perfons, as well as their flanders, till they were pleafed to revive

them.

Now, what had Mr. Pope done before to incenfe them? He had publifhed thofe Works which are in the hands of every body, in which not the leaft mention is made of any of them. And what has he done fince? He has laughed, and written the Dunciad. What has that faid of them? A very ferious truth, which the Public had faid before, that they were dull; and what it had no fooner faid, but they themselves were at great pains to procure, or even purchase, room in the prints to teftify under their hands to the truth of it.

I fhould ftill have been filent, if either I had feen any inclination in my friend to be ferious with fuch accufers, or if they had only meddled with his writings; fince whoever publishes puts himself on his trial by his country but when his moral character was attacked, and in a manner from which neither truth nor virtue can fecure the most innocent; in a manner which, though it annihilates the credit of the accufation with the just and impartial, yet aggravates very much the guilt of the accufers, I mean by authors without names; then I thought, fince the danger was common to all, the concern ought to be fo; and that it was an act of justice to detect the authors, not only on this account, but as many of them are the fame who, for several years past, have made free with the greatest names in Church and State, expofing to the world the private misfortunes of families, abufed all, even to women, and whofe proftituted papers (for one or VOL. II. R

other

other party in the unhappy divifions of their country) have infulted the fallen, the friendlefs, the exiled, and the dead.

Befides this, which I take to be a public concern, I am I have already confeffed I had a private one. one of that number who have long loved and esteemed Mr. Pope and had often declared it was not his capacity or writings, (which we ever thought the least valuable part of his character,) but the honeft, open, and beneficent man, that we most esteemed and loved in him. Now, if what these people fay were believed, I must appear to all my friends either a fool or a knave; either imposed on myself, or impofing on them; fo that I am as much interested in the confutation of thefe calumnies as he is himself.

I am no author, and confequently not to be fufpected either of jealoufy or relentment against any of the men, of whom fcarce one is known to me by fight; and as for their writings, I have fought them (on this one occafion) in vain, in the clofets and libraries of all my acquaintance. I had ftill been in the dark, if a gentleman had not procured me (I suppose from some of themfelves, for they are generally much more dangerous friends than enemies) the paffages I send you. I folemnly proteft I have added nothing to the malice or abfurdity of them; which it behoves me to declare, fince the vouchers themselves will be fo foon and fo irrecoverably loft. You may, in fome measure, prevent it, by preferving at leaft their titles,* and difcovering (as far as you can depend on the truth of your information) the names of the concealed authors.

The first objection I have heard made to the Poem is, that the perfons are too obfcure for fatire. The perfons themselves, rather than allow the objection, would forgive the satire; and if one could be tempted to afford it a ferious anfwer, were not all affaffinates, popular infurrections, the infolence of the rabble without doors, and of domeftics within, moft wrongfully chaftifed, if the meanness of offenders indemnified them

• Which we have done in a Lift hereto fubjoined.

from

from punishment? On the contrary, obfcurity renders them more dangerous, as lefs thought of: law can pronounce judgment only on open facts: morality alone can pafs cenfure on intentions of mifchief; fo that for fecret calumny, or the arrow flying in the dark, there is no public punishment left but what a good writer inflicts.

The next objection is, that thefe fort of authors are poor. That might be pleaded as an excufe at the Old Bailey for leffer crimes than defamation, (for it is the cafe of almost all who are tried there,) but fure it can be none here: for who will pretend that the robbing another of his reputation fupplies the want of it in himfelf? I queftion not but fuch authors are poor, and heartily with the objection were removed by any honeft livelihood; but poverty is here the accident, not the fubject. He who defcribes malice and villany to be pale and meagre, expreffes not the leaft anger against palenefs or leanness, but againft malice and villany. The Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet is poor; but is he therefore juftified in vending poifon? Not but poverty itself becomes a juft fubject of fatire, when it is the confequence of vice, prodigality, or neglect of one's lawful calling; for then it increafes 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 there offend lefs in their morals than in their writings, mutt 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 pleafant enough to hear our authors crying out on the one hand, as if their perfons and characters were too facred for fatire; and the Public objecting on the other, that they are to mean even for ridicule? But

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