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"b And yet fo wond'rous, so fublime a thing,
"As the great Iliad scarce could make me fing,
"Unless I justly could at once commend
"A good companion, and as firm a friend;
"One moral, or a mere well-natur'd deed,
"Can all defert in sciences exceed."

So alfo is he decyphered by the honourable

SIMON HARCOURT.

❝e Say, wond'rous youth, what column wilt thou "chufe,

"What laurel'd arch, for thy triumphant Muse? "Tho' each great ancient court thee to his shrine, "Tho' ev'ry laurel thro' the dome be thine, "Go to the good and juft, an awful train! "Thy foul's delight.-

Recorded in like manner for his virtuous difpofition, and gentle bearing, by the ingenious

Mr WALTER HART,

in this apoftrophe:

"O! ever worthy, ever crown'd with praife!
"Bleft in thy life and bleft in all thy lays.
"Add, that the Sifters ev'ry thought refine,
"And ev'n thy life, be faultless as thy line.

b Verfes to Mr P. on his tranflation of Homer. c Poem prefixed to his works.

■ In his poems, printed for B. Lintot.

"Yet envy ftill 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 fatirift

Dr EDWARD YOUNG,

wishing fome check to the corruption and evil manners of the times, calleth out upon our poet to undertake a task so worthy of his virtue:

66 e Why flumbers Pope, who leads the Mufe's

❝ train,

"Nor hears that Virtue, which he loves, complain?

Mr MALLET,

In his Epistle on Verbal Criticism:

"Whofe life, feverely scan'd, transcends his lays: "For wit fupreme, is but his fecond 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 purfuit of felf-undoing wrong, "And trace the author thro' his moral page, "Whose blameless life ftill answers to his fong."

e Univerfal Paffion, fat. 1.

Mr THOMSON,

In his elegant and philofophical poem of the Seafons:

"Altho' not sweeter his own Homer fings, "Yet is his life the more endearing fong."

To the fame tune alfo fingeth that learned clerk of Suffolk,

Mr WILLIAM BROOME.

❝f Thus, nobly rifing 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 Soul with ev'ry virtue fraught,

"By Patriots, Priests, and Poets taught.

"Whofe filial piety excels

"Whatever Grecian story tells.

"A genius for each bus'ness fit,

"Whose meanest talent is his Wit, &c.

Let us now recreate thee by turning to the other fide, and fhewing his Character drawn by thofe with whom he never converfed, and whofe countenances he could not know, though turned against him: First a

f In his Poems, and at the end of the Odyffey.

gain 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 falfhood, that, whenever he has a "mind to calumniate his cotemporaries, he brands "them with some defect which is just contrary to some "good quality, for which all their friends and their ac6.6 quaintance commend them. He feems to have a "particular pique to People of Quality, and authors "of that rank.—He must 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 vi"rulent Papift; and yet a Pillar for the Church of "England."

Of both which opinions

Mr LEWIS THEOBALD

feems alfo to be; declaring, in Mift's Journal of June 22. 1718, That, if he is not fhrewdly abufed, "he "made it his practice to cackle to both parties in their "own fentiments." But, as to his pique against Peo"ple 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 re"conciles all contradictions; he is a beast, and a man; ❝a Whig, and a Tory; a writer (at one and the same "time) of 8 Guardians and Examiners; an Affertor "of liberty, and of the difpenfing power of Kings; "a Jefuitical profeffor of truth; a bafe and a foul pre"tender 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, whose wrath is perilous: For one declares he ought to have a price set on his head, and to be hunted down as a wild beast h. Another protests that he does not know what may happen; advises him to insure his perJon; fays he has bitter enemies, and expressly declares it will be well if he escapes with his life1. One defires he would cut his own throat; or hang himself. But Pafquin femed rather inclined it should 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

g The Names of two weekly Papers.

h Theobald, Letter in Mist's journal, June 22. 1728.
i Smedley, Pref. to Gulliveriana, p. 14, 16.

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k Gulliveriana

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