contributions on the public." Which furely cannot be, if, as the author of the Dunciad diffected reporteth; "Mr. Wycherley had before introduced him into a familiar acquaintance with the greatest Peers and brightest Wits then living." "No fooner (faith the fame Journalist) was his body lifeless, but this author reviving his resentment, libelled the memory of his departed friend; and what was ftill more heinous, made the fcandal public." Grievous the accufation! unknown the accufer! the perfon accufed no witness in his own caufe; the perfon, in whofe regard accused, dead! But if there be living any one nobleman whose friendship, yea any one gentleman whofe fubfcription Mr. Addison procured to our author; let him ftand forth, that truth may appear! "Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, fed magis amica veritas." In verity the whole story of the libel is a lie; witness those perfons of integrity, who feveral years before Mr. Addison's decease, did fee and approve of the faid verses, in no wife a libel, but a friendly rebuke, fent privately in our author's own hand to Mr. Addison himself, and never made public, till after their own Journals, and Curl had printed the fame. One name alone, which I am here authorised to declare, will fufficiently evince the truth, that of the right honourable the Earl of Burlington. Next is he taxed with a crime (in the opinion of fome authors, I doubt, more heinous than any in morality), 32 morality), to wit, plagiarifm, from the inventive and quaint-conceited JAMES MOORE SMITH, Gent. "Upon reading the third volume of Pope's Mifcellanies, I found five lines which I thought excellent; and happening to praise them, a gentleman procured a modern comedy, (the Rival Modes), published last year, where were the fame 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 faid 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 verfes, which he had before given him leave to infert in it, would be known for his, fome copies being got abroad. He defires, nevertheless, that fince the lines had been read in his comedy to feveral, Mr. P. would not deprive it of them;" &c. Surely if we add the teftimonies of the Lord Bolingbroke, of the lady to whom the faid verses were originally addreffed, of Hugh Bethel Efq. and others who knew them as our author's long before the said gentleman compofed his play; it is hoped, the ingenuous that affect not error, will rectify their opinion by the fuffrage of fo honourable perfonages. z Daily Journal, March 18, 1728. And And yet followeth another charge, infinuating no lefs than his enmity both to Church and State, which could come from no other informer than the faid Mr. JAMES MOORE SMITH. "The Memoirs of a Parifh Clerk was a very dull and unjust abufe of a perfon who wrote in defence of our Religion and Constitution, and who has been dead many years." This feemeth also most untrue; it being known to divers that these Memoirs were written at the feat of the Lord Harcourt in Oxfordshire, before that excellent perfon (bifhop Burnet's) death, and many years before the appearance of that hiftory, of which they are pretended to be an abufe. Moft true it is that Mr. Moore had fuch a defign, and was himself the man who preft Dr. Arbuthnot and Mr. Pope to affift 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 fingle hint, and either changing his mind, or having more mind than ability, he contented himself to keep the faid Memoirs, and read them as his own to all his acquaintance. A noble perfon there is, into whofe company Mr. Pope once chanced to introduce him, who well remembereth the converfation of Mr. Moore to have turned upon the "Contempt he had for the work of that reverend prelate, prelate, and how full he was of a defign he declared himself to have of exposing it." This noble person is the Earl of Peterborough. Here in truth should we crave pardon of all the forefaid right honourable and worthy perfonages, for having mentioned them in the fame page with fuch weekly riff-raff railers and rhymers; but that we had their ever-honoured commands for the fame; and that they are introduced not as witneffes in the controverfy, but as witneffes that cannot be controverted; not to dispute, but to decide. Certain it is, that dividing our writers into two claffes, of fuch who were acquaintance, and of fuch 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 fums up his character in these lines; "And yet fo wond'rous, fo fublime a thing, So alfo is he decyphered by the honourable SIMON HARCOURT. b Verfes to Mr. P. on his tranflation of Homer. "Say What laurel'd arch for thy triumphant Mufe? Recorded in like manner for his virtuous difpofition, and gentle bearing, by the ingenious Mr. WALTER HART, in this apostrophe: "O! ever worthy, ever crown'd with praise! Bleft in thy life, and bleft in all thy lays. Add, that the Sisters ev'ry thought refine, And ev'n thy life be faultlefs as thy line. Yet envy still with fiercer rage pursues, Obfcures the virtue, and defames the Muse. A foul like thine, in pain, in grief, refign'd, Views with just scorn the malice of mankind.” The witty and moral fatirist Dr. EDWARD YOUNG, wishing fome check to the corruption and evil manners of the times, calleth out upon our poet to undertake a task fo worthy of his virtue : (6 с Why flumbers Pope, who leads the Mufes' train, Mr. < Poem prefixed to his works. for B. Lintot. a In his poems, printed • Univerfal Paffion, Sat. I. |