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, suppofing 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 themfelves his enemies, complain of being put into the number of them.

Others, I am told, pretend to have been once his friends. Surely they are their enemies who say so, 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 moft obliged humble fervant in the world. I dare fwear for these 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 worse than ignorance, in the Author of the Eflay 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 sooner 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 juítice, it lies not on him, but entirely on the Public, to defend its own judgment.

There

There remains what, in my opinion, might seem a better plea for these people than any they have made ufe of. If obfcurity or poverty were to exempt a man from fatire, much more fhould folly or dullness, which are ftill 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 dullnets, when he fets up for a wit. They are not ridiculed because ridicule in itfelf is, or ought to be, a pleafure; but because it is just to undeceive and vindicate the honeft and unpretending part of mankind from impofition; because particular interefts ought to yield to general; and a great number, who are not naturally fools, ought never to be made fo, in complaifance to thofe who are. Accordingly we find that, in all ages, all vain pretenders, were they ever fo poor, or ever fo dull, have been conftantly the topics of the most candid fatirifts, from the Codrus of Juvenal to the Damon of Boileau.

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 refemblance betwixt him and our Author in qualities, fame, and fortune; in the diftinctions fhewn them by their fuperiors, in the general efteem 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 abilities in their respective nations.* But the refemblance holds

R 3

Effay on Criticifm, in French verfe, by General Hamilton; the fame, in verfe alfo, by Monfieur Roboton, counfellor and privy fecretary to King George I. after by the Abbe Reynel, in verfe, with notes. Rape of the Lock, in French, by the Princefs of Conti, Paris, 1728; and in Italian verfe by the Abbe Conti, a roble Venetian; and by the Marquis Rangoni, envoy extraordinary from Modena to King George II. Others of his works by Salvini of Fiorence, &c. His Effy's and Differtations on Homer, feveral times tranflated into French. Effy on Man, by the Abbe Reynel, in verfe: by Monfieur Silhouet, in proie, 1737; and fince by others in French, Italian, and Latin,

holds in nothing more than in their being equally abuled by the ignorant pretenders to poetry of their times; of which not the leaft 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 worthlefs 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 fome of them treated as gently, on their repentance or better merit, as Perrault and Quinault were at last by Boileau.

In one point I must be allowed to think the character of our English Poet the more amiable. He has not been a follower of fortune or fuccefs; 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; beftowed 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 praise, if not begin to calumniate them-I mean when out of power, or out of fashion.* 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 thofe whom they had moft abufed, namely, the greatest and best of all parties. Let me add a further reason, that, though engaged in their friendships, he never efpoufed their animofities;

*As Mr. Wycherley, at the time the Town declaimed against his book of Poems, Mr. Walth, after his death; Sir William Trumball, when he had refigned the office of fecretary of state; Lord Bolingbroke, at his leaving England, after the Queen's death; Lord Oxford, in nis lat decline of life; Mr. Secretary Craggs, at the end of the Southfea year, and after his death: others only in Epitaphs.

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.

I fhall conclude with remarking, what a pleasure it must be to every reader of humanity to fee all along, that our Author, in his very laughter, is not indulging his own ill-nature, but only punishing that of others. As to his Poem, thofe alone are capable of doing it justice who, to ufe the words of a great writer, know how hard it is (with regard both to his fubject and his manner) vetufiis dare novitatem, obfoletis nitorem, obfcuris lucem, faftiditis gratiam.

St. James's, Dec. 22, 1728.

I am your most humble fervant,

WILLIAM CLELAND.

This gentleman was of Scotland, and bred at the university of Utrecht, with the Earl of Mar. He ferved in Spain under Earl Rivers. After the peace, he was made one of the commiffioners of the customs in Scotland, and then of taxes in England; in which having thewn himfelf for twenty years diligent, punctual, and incorruptible, (though without any other affiftance of fortune,) he was fuddenly displaced by the minister, in the fixty-eighth year of his age, and died two months after, in 1741. He was a perfon of univerfal learning, and an enlarged converfation. No man had a warmer heart for his friend, or a fincerer attachment to the constitution of his country; and yet, for all this, the Public would never believe him to be the Author of this Letter

HIS PROLEGOMENA AND ILLUSTRATIONS

TO THE DUNCIAD.

WITH THE HYPERCRITICS OF ARISTARCHUS.

DENNIS, Remarks on Pr. Arthur.

I CANNOT but think it the most reasonable thing in the world to diftinguish good writers, by dilcouraging the bad: nor is it an ill-natured thing, in relation even to the very perfons upon whom the reflections are made. It is true, it may deprive them a little the fooner of a fhort profit and a tranfitory reputation; but then it may have a good effect, and oblige them (before it be too late) to decline that for which they are fo very unfit, and to have recourse to fomething in which they may be more fuccessful.

Character of Mr. P. 1716.

The Perfons whom Boileau has attacked in his writings, have been for the most part authors, and most of those authors poets: and the cenfures he hath passed upon them have been confirmed by all Europe.

GILDON, Pref. to his New Rehearsal.

It is the common cry of the poetafters of the Town, and their fautors, that it is an ill-natured thing to expofe the pretenders to wit and poetry. The judges and magiftrates may with full as good reafon be reproached with ill-nature for putting the laws in execution against a thief or impoftor.-The fame will hold in the Republic of Letters, if the critics and judges will let every ignorant pretender to scribbling pass on the world.

THEOBALD, Letter to MIST, June 22, 1728. Attacks may be levelled either against failures in genius, or against the pretenfions of writing without one, CONCANEN, Ded. to the Author of the Dunciad.

A Satire upon dulnefs is a thing that has been used and allowed in all ages.

Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, wicked Scribbler!