other useful Parts of Architecture, which would be come a Prince: These are Imperial Works, and worthy Kings! For this Poem was publish'd in the Year 1732: When some of the new built Churches, by the Act of Q. Anne, were ready to fall, being founded in boggy Land, and others vilely executed, thro’ fraudulent Cavils between Undertakers, Officers, &c. when Dagenham Breach had done very great Mischiefs ; when the Proposal of building a Bridge at Wefto minster had been petition'd againft, and rejected ? when many of the Highways throughout Englana were hardlý paffable, and most of those that were repair'd by Turnpikes, made Jobbs for private Lu. cre, and infamously executed, even to the Entrances of London itself.

These four original Epistles, we desire to distinguifh from those wrote when our Poet was younger, as well as from those wherein he professes to imitate Horace, and Dr. Donne, these being purely his OWN Wit and Philosophy, and are sufficient, had he wrote nothing else, to have prov'd him a very great Poet and nice Thinker, where nothing but Morals were to be discours'd of; of this Sort, or very like, we have one more to Dr. Arbuthnot, which contains an Apology of Mr. Pope for himself and Writings ; it was drawn up at several Times, as Occasion offer'd; he had no Thought of publishing it, till it pleas'd fome Perfons of Rank and Fortune to attack, in a very extraordinary Manner, not only his Writings, but his Morals, Person, and Family, of which he therefore thought himself oblig'd to give fome Account.

Dr. Arbuthnot was besides an excellent Physician, a very ingenious Gentleman, his Epitaph on Col. Chartres shows it: It was reported that he, as well

as

as Mr. Pope, had a Hand in the Comedy callid,
Three Hours after Marriage, that goes in the Name
of Mr. Gay, which not succeeding, for it was a mean
Performance, occasioned Reflections on all the three
Gentlemen beforementioned : In the Prologue to the
Sultaness, spoken by Mr. Wilks, was this Fling at it.
Such were the Wags who boldly did adventure,
To club a Farce by Tripartite Indenture :
But let them share their Dividend of Praise.
And wear their own Fools Cap instead of Bays.

Mr. Pope us’d to say, and has confess’d it in Writing, that if it had not been for Dr. Arbuthnot, he should not have had sufficient Health to apply himself to Study, so that much of Mr. Pape's Writings, must be allowed to be owing to his Care of him; he had a Brother of the greatest Affability and good Nature, of whom Mr. Pope, writing to Mr. Digby. then at Bath, speaks, September 1, 1722.

D e w

there a Fortnight or more: Perhaps you would be comforted to have a sight of, whether you need him or not. I think him as good a Doctor as any Man for one that is ill, and a better Doctor for one that is well. He would do admirably for Mrs. Mary Digby: She needed only to follow his Hints, to be in eternal Business and Amusement of Mind, and as active as she could destre. But indeed I fear the would out-walk him; for (as Dean Swift obsery'd to me the very first Time I saw the Doctor) « He “ is a Man that can do every Thing, but walk." His Brother, who is lately come into England, goes also to the Bath; and is a more extraordinary Man than he, worth your going thither on purpose to know him. The Spirit of Philanthropy, so long

dead

dead to our World, is reviv'd in him: He is a Philofopher all of Fire; so warmly, nay so wildly in the right, that he forces all others about him to be so too, and draws them into his Vortex. He is a Star that looks as if it were all Fire, but is all Benignity, all gentle and beneficial Influence. If there be other Men in the World that would serve a Friend, yet he is the only one I believe that could make even an Enemy serve a Friend, &c.

In this Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, our Author complains how he is pefter'd with troublesome and impertinent Visitants, which put him by better Company, and consequently out of Humour; of these Difturbers of his Peace he reckons up a few :

Is there a Parfon, much be-mus'd in Beer,
A maudlin Poetess, a rhyming Peer,
A Clerk, foredoom'd his Father's Soul to cross,
Who pens a Stanza when he should engrofs ?
Is there, who lock'd from Ink and Paper, scrawls
With defp'rate Charcoal round his darken'd Walls ?
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble Strain
Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.
Arthur, whose giddy Son neglects the Laws,
Imputes to me and my damn'd Works the Cause :
Poor Cornus sees his frantic Wife elope,
And curses Wit, and Poetry, and Pope.

And after he makes a second Person (like Horace)
object against him for meddling with the Great, with
Minifters, and Queens, and Kings; to which he
replies:
Whom have I hurt? Has Poet yet, or Peer,
Loft the arch'd Eye-brow, or Parnafian Sneer?
- VOL. II,

And

1

And has not Colley still his Lord and Whore ?
His Butcher Henbey and Free-Mason Moor?

The Lines which reflects on Mr. Cibber he quietly let alone, not thinking it (I believe) for his Advantage, to take up a Pen against an Adversary fo potent, and now so much in Favour with the World; but after the Publication of the new Dunciad, where Mr. Pope was still very bright upon his Dulness, he immediately endeavoured to answer those Bills of Difcredit, which he says Mr. Pope had drawn on him: And Mr. Cibber has been of that very peacea able Nature, in Regard to the Defence of his Odes and other poetical Performances, that though he has been persecuted for Twenty Years together, he ne ver 'till now made

any Answer ; nay, he has wrote erses against his own Odes, meerly for the Pleasure of sitting in Coffee-Houses and hearing them (for they were not known to be his) praised and called palpable Hits, keen, Things with a Spirit in them, &c. He had in this Contest with Mr. Pope, which is a Letter to him,

the Cunning to write in Prose, and to keep his Temper, which he has done extremely well. As to his own Poetry, he openly and candidly confeffes, that he wrote more to be fed than to be famous; and that he is so contented a Dunce, that he would not have even Mr. Pope's merited Fame attended with the Solicitude he has been at to mantain it, allowing at the same Time the Dunciad to be a better Poem, in its Kind, than cvers was writ.

He protests that he had never used Mr. Pope nor any Body else with Ill-manners, and seems to give other Reasons for his Ill-will towards him. In his: Letter he says:

THE

HE Play of the Rehearsal, which had lain

do Majesty (then Prince of Wales) commanded to be revived, the Part of Bays fell to my Share. To this Character there had always been allow'd such ludicrous Liberties of Observation, upon any Thing new or remarkable in the State of the Stage, as Mr. Bays might think proper to take. Much about this Time, then, the Three Hours after Marriage had been acted without Success; when Mr. Bays, as usual, had a Fling at it, which in itself was no Jeft, unless the Audience would please to make it one : But however, flat as it was, Mr. Pope was mortally fore upon it. This was the Offence; in this Play two Coxcombs being in Love with a learned Virtuofo's Wife, to get unsuspected Access to her, ingenibufly send themselves, as two presented Rarities to the Husband, the one curiously swath'd up like an Egyptian Mummy, and the other Nily covered in the Paste-board Skin of a Crocodile: Upon which poetical Expedient I, Mr. Bays, when the two Kings of Brentford came from the Clouds into the Thronę again, instead of what my Part directed me to say, mnade Use of these Words, viz. "Now, Sir, this 66 Revolution I had some Thoughts of introducing « by a quite different Contrivance; but my Design 66. taking Air, fome of your sharp Wits, I found, 66 had made Use of it before me; otherwise, I inos tended to have stolen one of them in the Shape “ of a Mummy, and tother in that of a Crocodile. Upon which, I doubt, the Audience by the Roar of their Applause, shew'd their proportionable Contempt of the Play they belong'd to. But why am I answerable for that? I did not lead them, by any Reflexion of my own, into that Contempti Surely; to

have