to calumniate them, I mean when out of power or out of fashion. A satire, therefore, on writers so notorious for the contrary practice, became no man so well as himself; as none, it is plain, was so little in their friendships, or so much in that of those whom they had most abused, namely, the greatest and best of all parties. Let me add a further reason, that, though engaged in their friendships, he never espoused their animosities; and can almost singly challenge this honour, not to have written a line of any man, which, through guilt, through shame, or through fear, through variety of fortune, or change of interests, he was ever unwilling to own.

I shall conclude with remarking what a pleasure it must be to every reader of humanity, to see all along, that our author in his very laughter is not indulging his own illnature, but only punishing that of others. As to his poem, those alone are capable of doing it justice, who, to use the words of a great writer, know how hard it is (with regard both to his subject and his manner) VETUSTIS DARE NOVITATEM, OBSOLETIS NITOREM, OBSCURIS LUCEM, FASTIDITIS GRATIAM. I am,

Your most humble servant,

St. James's, Dec. 22, 1728.

WILLIAM CLELAND.

DENNIS, REMARKS ON PRINCE ARTHUR.

I cannot but think it the most reasonable thing in the world, to distinguish good writers by discouraging the bad. Nor is it an ill-natured thing, in relation even to the very persons upon whom the reflections are made. It is true, it may deprive them, a little the sooner, of a short profit and a transitory reputation; but then it may have a good effect, and oblige them (before it be too late) to decline that for which they are so very unfit, and to have recourse to something in which they may be more successful.

CHARACTER OF MR. P. 1716.

The persons whom Boileau has attacked in his writings, have been for the most part authors, and most of those authors, poets: and the censures he hath passed upon them have been confirmed by all Europe.

GILDON, PREFACE TO HIS NEW REHEARSAL.

་

It is the common cry of the poetasters of the town, and their fautors, that it is an ill-natured thing to expose the pretenders to wit and poetry. The judges and magistrates may with full as good reason be reproached with ill-nature for putting the laws in execution against a thief or impostor. The same will hold in the republic of letters, if the critics and judges will let every ignorant pretender to scribbling pass on the world.

THEOBALD, LETTER TO MIST, JUNE 22, 1728.

Attacks may be levelled, either against failures in genius, or against the pretensions of writing without one.

CONCANEN, DEDICATION TO THE AUTHOR OF THE DUNCIAD.

A satire upon dullness is a thing that has been used and allowed in all ages.

Out of thine own mouth will Ijudge thee, wicked scribbler!

TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS

CONCERNING OUR POET AND HIS WORKS.

M. SCRIBLERUS Lectori S.

BEFORE we present thee with our exercitations on this most delectable poem (drawn from the many volumes of our Adversaria on modern authors) we shall here, according to the laudable usage of editors, collect the various judgments of the learned concerning our poet: various indeed, not only of different authors, but of the same author at different seasons. Nor shall we gather only the testimonies of such eminent wits, as would of course descend to posterity, and consequently be read without our collection; but we shall likewise with incredible labour seek out for divers others, which, but for this our diligence, could never at the distance of a few months appear to the eye of the most curious. Hereby thou may'st not only receive the delectation of variety, but also arrive at a more certain

judgment, by a grave and circumspect comparison of the witnesses with each other, or of each with himself. Hence also thou wilt be enabled to draw reflections, not only of a critical, but a moral nature, by being let into many particulars of the person as well as genius, and of the fortune as well as merit, of our author: In which if I relate some things of little concern peradventure to thee, and some of as little even to him: I entreat thee to consider how minutely all true critics and commentators are wont to insist upon such, and how material they seem to themselves, if to none other. Forgive me gentle reader, if (following learned example) I ever and anon become tedious: allow me to take the same pains to find whether my author were good or bad, well or ill-natured, modest or arrogant; as another, whether his author was fair or brown, short or tall, or whether he wore a coat or a cassock.

We purposed to begin with his life, parentage, and education: but as to these, even his contemporaries do exceedingly differ. One saith, he was educated at home; another, that he was bred at St. Omer's by Jesuits; a third, not at St. Omer's, but at Oxford; a fourth, that he had no university education at all. Those who allow him to be bred at home, differ as much concerning his tutor: one saith, he was kept by his father on purpose; a second, that he was an itinerant priest; a third, that he was a parson; one calleth him a secular clergyman of the church of Rome; another, a monk. As little do they agree about his father, whom one supposeth, like the father of Hesiod, a tradesman or merchant; another, a husbandman; another, a hatter, &c. Nor has an author been wanting to give our poet such a father as Apuleius hath to Plato, Jamblicus to Pythagoras, and divers to Homer, namely, a demon: for thus Mr. Gildon: "Certain it is, that his original is not from Adam, but the devil; and that he wanteth nothing but horns and tail to be the exact resemblance of his infernal father." Finding, therefore, such contrariety of opinions, and (whatever be ours of this sort of generation) not being fond to enter into controversy, we shall defer writing the life of our poet, until authors can determine among themselves what parents or education he had, or whether he had any education or parents at all.

Proceed we to what is more certain, his works, though not less uncertain the judgments concerning them; be

ginning with his ESSAY on CRITICISM, of which hear first the most ancient of critics.

MR. JOHN DENNIS.

"His precepts are false, or trivial, or both; his thoughts are crude and abortive, his expressions absurd, his numbers harsh and unmusical, his rhymes trivial and common; -instead of majesty, we have something that is very mean; instead of gravity, something that is very boyish; and instead of perspicuity and lucid order, we have but too often obscurity and confusion." And in another place: "What rare numbers are here! Would not one swear that this youngster had espoused some antiquated muse, who had sued out a divorce from some superannuated sinner, upon account of impotence, and who, being poxed by her former spouse, has got the gout in her decrepid age, which makes her hobble so damnably. No less peremptory is the censure of our hypercritical historian,

MR. OLDMIXON.

"I dare not say anything of the Essay on Criticism in verse; but if any more curious reader has discovered in it something new which is not in Dryden's prefaces, dedications, and his essay on dramatic poetry, not to mention the French critics, I should be very glad to have the benefit of the discovery."

He is followed (as in fame, so in judgment) by the modest and simple-minded

MR. LEONARD WELSTED;

who, out of great respect to our poet, not naming him, doth yet glance at his Essay, together with the Duke of Buckingham's, and the criticisms of Dryden, and of Horace, which he more openly taxeth: "As to the numerous treatises, essays, arts, &c. both in verse and prose, that have been written by the ntoderns on this ground-work, they do but hackney the same thoughts over again, making them still more trite. Most of their pieces are nothing but a pert, insipid heap of commonplace. Horace has even in his Art of Poetry thrown out several things which plainly show, he thought an art of poetry was of no use, even while he was writing one."

To all which great authorities, we can only oppose

that of

MR. ADDISON.

"The Art of Criticism (saith he) which was published some months since, is a master-piece in its kind. The observations follow one another, like those in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose writer. They are some of them uncommon, but such as the reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that ease and perspicuity in which they are delivered. As for those which are the most known and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty; and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, still more convinced of their truth and solidity. And here give me leave to mention what Monsieur Boileau has so well enlarged upon in the preface to his works: That wit and fine writing doth not consist so much in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn. It is impossible for us who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others: we have little else left us, but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights. If a reader examines Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find but few precepts in it, which he may not meet with in Aristotle, and which were not commonly known by all the poets of the Augustan age. His way of expressing, and applying them, not his invention of them, is what we are chiefly to admire.

Longinus, in his reflections, has given us the same kind of sublime, which he observes in the several passages that occasioned them: I cannot but take notice that our English author has after the same manner exemplified several of the precepts in the very precepts themselves." He then produces some instances of a particular beauty in the numbers, and concludes with saying, that "there are three poems in our tongue of the same nature, and each a master-piece in its kind; the Essay on Translated Verse; the Essay on the Art of Poetry; and the Essay on Criticism."