Mr. MALLET, in his epistle on Verbal Criticism: "Whose life severely scan'd, transcends his lays; For wit fupreme, is but his second praise." 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, In low pursuit of felf-undoing wrong, And trace the author through his moral page, in his elegant and philofophical poem of the Seasons : "Altho' not fweeter his own Homer fings, Yet is his life the more endearing fong.' 99 To the fame tune alfo fingeth that learned clerk of Suffolk Mr. WILLIAM BROOME. "Thus, nobly rising in fair Virtue's cause, From thy own life transcribe th' unerring laws." And, to close all, hear the reverend Dean of St. Patrick's: "A foul with ev'ry virtue fraught, By Patriots, Priests, and Poets taught. Whatever Grecian story tells. A genius for each bus'nefs fit, Whose meaneft talent is his wit," &c. In his poems, and at the end of the Odyssey. Let Let us now recreate thee by turning to the other fide, and fhewing his character drawn by those with whom he never converfed, and whofe countenances he could not know, though turned against him: First again commencing with the high voiced and never enough quoted MR. JOHN DENNIS ; who, in his Reflections on the Effay on Criticism, thus defcribeth him: "A little affected hypocrite, who has nothing in his mouth but candour, truth, friendship, good-nature, humanity, and magnanimity. He is fo great a lover of falsehood, that whenever he has a mind to calumniate his cotemporaries, he brands them with fome defect which is juft contrary to fome good quality, for which all their friends and their acquaintance commend them. He feems to have a particular pique to people of quality, and authors of that rank. He muft derive his religion from St. Omer's."-But in the Character of Mr. P. and his writings, (printed by S. Popping 1716), he faith, "though he is a profeffor of the worst religion, yet he laughs at it ;" but that "nevertheless, he is a virulent Papift; and yet a pillar for the church of England." Of both which opinions Mr. LEWIS THEOBALD seems also to be; declaring, in Mift's Journal of June 22, 1718, "That if he is not shrewdly abused, he made it his bufinefs to cackle to both Parties in their own fentiments." But, as to his pique against people of quality, the fame Journalist doth not agree, but faith, (May 8, 1728), " He had, by fome means or other, the acquaintance and friendship of the whole body of our nobility." However contradictory this may appear, Mr. Dennis and Gildon, in the character last cited, make it all plain, by affuring us, "That he is a creature that reconciles all contradictions; he is a beaft, and a man; a Whig and a Tory; a writer (at one and the fame time) of Guardians and Examiners; an afferter of liberty, and of the dispensing power of kings; a Jefuitical profeffor 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 impofer upon both parties, or very moderate to either. Be it as to the judicious reader fhall feem good. Sure it is, he is little favoured of certain authors, whofe wrath is perilous: for one declares he ought to have a price fet on his head, and to be hunted down as a wild beaft". Another protefts that he does not know what may happen; advifes him to infure his perfon; fays he has bitter enemies, and exprefly declares it will be well if he escapes with his life'. One g The names of two weekly papers. h Theobald, letter in Mift's Journal, June 22, 1728. i Smedley, Pref. to Gulliveriana, p. 14, 16. One defires he would cut his own throat, or hang himself. But Pafquin feemed rather inclined it fhould be done by the government, representing him engaged in grievous defigns with a Lord of Parliament, then under profecution'. Mr. Dennis himself hath written to a Minifter, that he is one of the most dangerous perfons in this kingdom"; and affureth the public, that he is an open and mortal enemy to his country; a monster, that will, one day, fhew as daring a foul as a mad Indian, who runs a muck to kill the first Christian he meets ". Another gives information of Treafon difcovered in his poem. Mr. Curl boldly fupplies an imperfect verfe with Kings and Princeffes P. And one Matthew Concanen, yet more impudent, publishes at length the two most SACRED NAMES in this nation, as members of the Dunciad! This is prodigious! yet it is almost as strange, that in the midst of these invectives his greatest enemies have (I know not how) born teftimony to fome merit in him. laft * Gulliveriana, p. 332. 1 Anno 1723. Mr. m Anno 1729. a Pref. to Rem. on the Rape of the Lock, p. 12. and in the page of that treatise. • Page 6, 7. of the Preface, by Concanen, to a book intitled, A collection of all the Letters, Effays, Verfes, and Advertisements, occafioned by Pope and Swift's Miscellanies. Printed for A. Moore, octavo, 1712. P Key to the Dunciad, 3d edit. p. 18. A lift of perfons, &c. at the end of the forementioned Collection of all the Letters, Effays, &c. Mr. THEOBALD, in cenfuring his Shakespear, declares, "He has fo great an esteem for Mr. Pope, and fo high an opinion of his genius and excellencies; that notwithstanding he profeffes a veneration almost rising to Idolatry for the writings of this inimitable poet, he would be very loth even to do him juftice, at the expence of that other gentleman's character '." r Mr. CHARLES GILDON, after having violently attacked him in many pieces, at last came to wish from his heart, "That Mr. Pope would be prevailed upon to give us Ovid's Epiftles by his hand, for it is certain we see the original of Sappho to Phaon with much more life and likeness in his verfion, than in that of Sir Car. Scrope. And this (he adds) is the more to be wifhed, because in the English tongue we have scarce any thing truly and naturally written upon Love.” He also, in taxing Sir Richard Blackmore for his heterodox opinions of Homer, challengeth him to answer what Mr. Pope hath faid in his preface to that poet, Mr. OLDMIXON calls him a great mafter of our tongue; declares "the purity and perfection of the English language to be found in his Homer; and, faying there are more good verfes in Dryden's Virgil than in any other work, excepts this of our author only '.' Introduction to his Skakefpear reftored, in quarto, p. 3. The Commentary on the Duke of Buckingham's Effay, octavo, 1721, p. 97, 98. |