Though each great Ancicnt court thee to shrine, "Thy soul's delight.' Recorded in like manner, for his virtuous disposition, and gentle bearing, by the ingenious MR. WALTER HÅRT, 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, Nor hears that Virtue, which he loves, complain?' MR. MALLET, in his Epistle on Verbal Criticism: Whose life, severely scan'd, transcends his lays In his Poems, printed for B. Lintot. + Universal Passion, Sat. I. 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, MK. THOMSON, in his elegant and philosophical poem of the Sea sons: Although not sweeter his own Homer sings, Yet is his life the more endearing song.' To the same tune, also, singeth that learned clerk of Suffolk, MR. WILLIAM BROOME. Thus nobly rising in fair Virtue's cause, And to close all, hear the Reverend Dean of St. A soul with ev'ry virtue fraught, 'Whatever Grecian story tells. A genius for each bus'ness fit, · Whose meanest talent is his wit,' &c. Let us now recreate thee, by turning to the other side, and shewing his character, drawn by In his Poems, and at the end of the Odyssey, those with whom he never conversed, and whose countenances he could not know, though turned against him: first again commencing with the highvoiced 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 magnanimity. He is so great a lover of falsehood, that ⚫ whenever he has a mind to calumniate his contemporaries, he brands them with some defect which is just contrary to some good quality for ⚫ which all their friends and acquaintance commend them. He seems to have a particular pique to • people of quality, and authors of that rank. He must derive his religion from St. Omer's.'-But in the character of Mr. P. and his writings, (print ed 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, Pa• pist; and yet a pillar of the Church of England.' Of both which opinions 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 C 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 6 creature that reconciles all contradictions: he is a beast, and a man; a Whig, and a Tory; a wri'ter (at one and the same time) of Guardians and 'Examiners*: an asserter of liberty, and of the 'dispensing 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 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 favored 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. One desires he would cut his own *The names of two weekly papers. + Theobald, Letter in Mist's Journal, June 22d, 1728, Smedley, Pref. to Gulliveriana, p. 14, 16. 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 the first Christian he meets ++. information of treason discovered in his Poem‡‡ Mr. 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 + ! a-muck to kill Another gives 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. Gulliveriana, p. 332, 1 Anno 1723. ** Anno 1729. ++Preface to Remarks on the Rape of the Lock, p. 12. and in the last page of that treatise. # Page 6, 7, of the preface, by Concanen, 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, 1712. 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. |