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 said, 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 serious 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 fecure 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 whose prostituted papers (for one or other Party, in the unhappy divifions of their country) have infulted the fallen, the friendless, the exil'd, and the dead.

Befides this, which I take to be a public concern, I have already confeffed I had a private one. I am one of that number, who have long loved and efteemed Mr. Pope; and had often declared it was not his capacity or writings (which we ever thought the least valuable part of his character) but the honest, open, and beneficent man, that we most esteemed, and loved in him. Now, if what these people fay were believed, I must appear to all my friends either a fool, or a knave; either imposed on myself, or impofing on them; fo that I am as much interested in the confutation of these calumnies, as he is himself.

I am no author, and confequently not to be suspected either of jealousy or resentment against any of the men, of whom fcarce one is known to me by fight; and as for their writings, I have fought them (on this one occafion) in vain, in the closets and libraries of all my acquaintance, I had still been in the dark, if a Gentleman had not procured me (I fuppofe from fome of themselves, for they are generally much more dangerous friends than enemies) the paffages I fend you. I folemnly proteft I have added nothing to the malice or abfurdity of them; which it behoves me to declare, fince the vouchers themselves will be fo foon and fo irrecoverably loft. You may in fome measure prevent it, by preferving at least their titles, and difcovering (as far as you

a Which we have done in a lift printed in the Appendix.

can

can depend on the truth of your information) the names of the concealed authors.

The first objection I have heard made to the poem is, that the perfons are too obfcure for fatire. The persons themselves, rather than allow the objection, would forgive the fatire; and if one could be tempted to afford it a ferious anfwer, were not all affaffinates, popular infurrections, the infolence of the rabble without doors, and of domeftics within, most wrongfully chaftifed, if the meannefs of offenders indemnified them from punishment? On the contrary, obscurity renders them more dangerous, as less thought of: Law can pronounce judgment only on open facts; morality alone can pafs cenfure on intentions of mifchief; fo that for fecret calumny, or the arrow flying in the dark, there is no public punishment left, but what a good writer inflicts.

The next objection is, that these fort of authors are poor. That might be pleaded as an excufe at the Old Bailey, for leffer crimes than defamation, (for 'tis the cafe of almost all who are tried there), but fure it can be none here: For who will pretend that the robbing another of his Reputation fupplies the want of it in himfelf? I queftion not but fuch authors are poor, and heartily wish the objection were removed by any honest livelihood. But poverty is here the accident, not the subject: He who describes malice and villainy to be pale and meagre, expreffes not the leaft anger against palenefs or leannefs, but against

B 4

against malice and villainy. The Apothecary in Romeo and Juliet is poor; but is he therefore justified in vending poison? Not but poverty itself becomes a just subject of fatire, when it is the confequence of vice, prodigality, or neglect of one's lawful calling; for then it increases the public burden, fills the streets and highways with robbers, and the garrets with clippers, coiners, and weekly journalists.

But admitting that two or three of these offend less in their morals than in their writings; muft poverty make nonfenfe facred? If fo, the fame of bad authors would be much better confulted than that of all the good ones in the world; and not one of an hundred had ever been called by his right name.

They mistake the whole matter: It is not charity to encourage them in the way they follow, but to get them out of it; for men are not bunglers because they are poor, but they are poor because they are bunglers.

Is it not pleasant enough, to hear our authors crying out on the one hand, as if their persons and characters were too facred for fatire; and the public objecting on the other, that they are too mean even for ridicule? But whether bread or fame be their end, it must be allowed, our author, by and in this poem, has mercifully given them a little of both.

There are two or three, who by their rank and fortune have no benefit from the former objections, fuppofing them good, and these I was forry to fee in

fuch

fuch company. two or three gentlemen will fall upon one, in an affair wherein his intereft and reputation are equally embarked; they cannot certainly, after they have been content to print themselves his enemies, complain of being put into the number of them.

But if, without any provocation,

Others, I am told, pretend to have been once his friends. Surely they are their enemies who fay fo, fince nothing can be more odious than to treat a friend as they have done. But of this I cannot perfuade myself, when I confider the conftant and eternal averfion of all bad writers to a good one.

Such as claim a merit from being his admirers, I would gladly ask, if it lays him under a personal obligation? At that rate he would be the most obliged humble fervant in the world. I dare fwear for these in particular, he never defired them to be his admirers, nor promised in return to be theirs: That had truly been a fign he was of their acquaintance; but would not the malicious world have suspected such an approbation of fome motive worse than ignorance, in the author of the Effay on Criticism? Be it as it will, the reasons of their admiration and of his contempt are equally fubfifting, for his works and theirs are the very fame that they were.

One, therefore, of their affertions I believe may be true, "That he has a contempt for their writings.' And there is another, which would probably be fooner allowed by himself than by any good judge

befide,