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A LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER,

OCCASIONED BY

THE FIRST CORRECT EDITION

OF THE

DUNCIA D.

T is with pleasure I hear, that you

IT

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: A 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 those which are, or will be, tranfmitted to you by others; fince not only the Author's friends, but even strangers, appear engaged by humanity, to take fome care of an Orphan of fo much genius and spirit, which its parent seems to have abandoned from the very beginning, and fuffered to step into the world naked, unguarded, and unattended.

It was upon reading fome of the abufive papers lately published, that my great regard to a Perfon, whofe Friendship I esteem as one of the chief honours

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of my life, and a much greater respect to Truth, than to him or any man living, engaged me in enquiries, of which the enclofed Notes are the fruit.

-I perceived that most of these Authors had been (doubtlefs very wifely) the first aggreffors. They had tried, till they were weary, what was to be got by railing at each other: Nobody was either concerned or furprized if this or that scribler 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 such 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 Superiors, whom they daily abuse, only (as I charitably 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 abuse, either of himself, or (what I think he could less 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 fome had been fuch old offenders, that he had quite forgotten their persons as well as their flanders, till they were pleased to revive them.

Now what had Mr. Pope done before, to incenfe them? He had published those works which are in the hands of every body, in which not the least

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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 testify under their hands to the truth of it.

I should still 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 secure the most innocent; in a manner, which, though it annihilates the credit of the accufation with the juft 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, exposed to the world the private misfortunes of families, abufed all, even to women, and whofe prostituted papers (for one or other Party, in the unhappy divifions of their country) have infulted the fallen, the friendlefs, the exil'd, and the dead.

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