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' 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 epi⚫demic madness of the times has given him reputation f.-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 shew 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 per❝sons 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.'

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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

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Dennis, Preface to his Reflections on the Essay on Criti

+ Preface to his Remarks on Homer. #Remarks on Homer, p. 8, 9.

he owed, in the whole course of his life, to any court, was a subscription for his Homer of 2007. from King George I. and 1007. 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 t. The DAILY JOURNAL, May 11, 1728, assures us, ' He is be'low Tom Durfey in the drama; because (as that writer thinks) the Marriage-Hater Matched, and the Boarding-School, are better than the Whatd'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 Gray;' 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 of Dr. Wagstaff's. Mr. Theobald assures us, in MIST, of the 27th of April, That the treatise of the Profound is very dull,

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and that Mr. Pope is the author of it.' The writer of Gulliveriana is of another opinion, and says, 'The whole, or greatest part of the merit of this ' treatise must, and can only be ascribed to Gulli' ver *.' [Here, gentle Reader! cannot I but smile at the strange blindness and positiveness of men, knowing the said treatise to appertain to none other but to me, Martinus Scriblerus.]

We are assured, in MIST, of June 8,' That his own plays and farces would better have adorned the Dunciad than those of Mr. Theobald; for he had neither genius for tragedy nor come. 'dy.'-Which, whether true, or not, it is not easy to judge, inasmuch as he had attempted neither; unless we will take it for granted, with Mr. Cibber, that his being once very angry at hear ing a friend's play abused, was an infallible proof, the play was his own; the said Mr. Cibber think ing it impossible for a man to be much concerned for any but himself: Now let any man judge (saith he) by this concern, who was the true mother of the child + ?'

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But from all that hath been said, the discerning reader will collect, that it little availed our Author to have any candor, 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

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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 +. 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 father'd 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

• Burnet's Homerides, p. 1. of his translation of the Iliad. + The London, and Mist's Journal, on his undertaking the Odyssey.

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 choose whether thou wilt incline to the tes timonies of authors avowed, or of authors concealed; of those who knew him, or of those who knew him not. P.

MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS

OF THE POEM.

THIS HIS Poem, as it celebrateth the most grave and ancient of things, Chaos, Night, and Dullness; so is it of the most grave and ancient kind. Homer (saith Aristotle) was the first who gave the form, and (saith Horace) who adapted the measure, to heroic poesy. But even before this, may be rationally presumed, from what the Ancients have left written, was a piece by Homer, composed of like nature and matter with this of our Poet: for of epic sort it appeareth to have been, yet of matter surely not unpleasant, witness what is reported of it by the learned Archbishop Eustachius, in Odyssey X.

And accordingly Aristotle, in his Poetics,

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