'the whole.' Behold! these underlings are become good writers! If any say, that before the said Proposals were 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 LordViscount 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 friend, ship of the whole body of our nobility, and transferred his powerful interests with those great 8 men to this rising bard, who frequently levied, by that means, unusual contributions on the Pub'lic.' Which surely cannot be, if, as the author of the Dunciad Dissected reporteth, Mr. Wycherly had before introduced him into a familiar ac'quaintance with the greatest peers and brightest wits then living.' ! No sooner (saith the same Journalist) was his body lifeless, but this Author, reviving his resentment, libelled the memory of his departed 'friend; and, what was still more henious, made the scandal public.' Grievous the accusation! unknown the accuser! the person accused no witness in his own cause; the person, in whose regard accused, dead! But if there be living any one nobleman, whose friendship, yea, any one gentleman, whose subscription, Mr. Addison procured to our Author, let him stand forth, that truth may ap pear! Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis In verity, the whole story of the libel is a lie; witness those persons of integrity who, several years before Mr. Addison's decease, did see and approve of the said verses, in no wise a libel, but a friendly rebuke, sent privately, in our Author's own hand, to Mr. Addison himself, and never made publick, till after their own Journals, and Curl had printed the same. One name alone, which I am here authorised to declare, will sufficiently evince this truth, that of the Right Hono rable the Earl of Burlington. amica veritas. Next he is taxed with a crime (in the opinion of some authors, I doubt, more heinous than any in morality), to wit, Plagiarism, from the inven tive and quaint-conceited * JAMES MOORE-SMITH, GENT. Upon reading the third volume of Pope's * Daily Journal, March 18, 1728. Miscellanies, I found five lines which I thought 'excellent; and happening to praise them, a gen'tleman 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 written 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 month before that play was acted, Jan. 27, 1726-7, ‘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 hisComedy, to seve'ral, 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 error, will rectify their opinion by the suffrage of so honorable 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's (Bishop Burnet) death, and many years before the appearance of that history of which they are pretended to be an abuse. Most true it is, that Mr. Moore had such a design, and was himself the man who pressed Dr. Arbuthnot and Mr. Pope to assist him therein; and that he borrowed those Memoirs of our Author, when that history came 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 * Daily Jounal, April 3, 1728. 'prelate, and how full he was of a design he de'clared 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 Honorable 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 honored-commands for the same; and that they are introduced not as witnesses in the controversy, but as witnesses that cannot be controverted; 1. t 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: *And yet so wondrous, so sublime a thing, So also is he decyphered by the Honorable SIMON HARCOURT. + Say, wondrous youth, what column wilt thou chuse, 'What laurel'd arch for thy triumphant muse? • Verses to Mr. P. on his Translation of Homer. |