Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast

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Title: Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast
Author: Welsted, Mr. (Leonard), 1688-1747, Anonymous
Language: English
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The Augustan Reprint Society

TWO POEMS AGAINST POPE:

_ONE EPISTLE_
_TO MR. A. POPE_

Leonard Welsted
(1730)

_THE BLATANT BEAST_

Anonymous
(1740)

_INTRODUCTION_
by
JOSEPH V. GUERINOT

[Decoration]

Publication Number 114
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California, Los Angeles
1965

GENERAL EDITORS

Earl R. Miner, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Lawrence Clark Powell, _Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

ADVISORY EDITORS

Richard C. Boys, _University of Michigan_
John Butt, _University of Edinburgh_
James L. Clifford, _Columbia University_
Ralph Cohen, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_
Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_
Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_
Everett T. Moore, _University of California, Los Angeles_
James Sutherland, _University College, London_
H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., _University of California, Los Angeles_

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

Edna C. Davis, _Clark Memorial Library_

INTRODUCTION

_One Epistle To Mr. Pope_, complained Pope to Bethel, “contains as many
Lyes as Lines.” But just for that reason it is not, as Pope also says in
the same letter, “below all notice.”[1] _The Blatant Beast_, published
twelve years later, is another attack on Pope almost as compendious and
quite as virulent. They are here presented to the modern student of Pope
as good examples of their kind. The importance of the pamphlet attacks
on Pope for a full understanding of his satiric art is universally
admitted, but the pamphlets themselves were cheap and ephemeral,
and copies are now rare and not easily come by. Both in the
comprehensiveness of their charges and in the slashing hatred which
informs them (however feeble the verse), _One Epistle_ and _The Blatant
Beast_ offer as fair a sample as any two such pamphlets can of the
calumny, detraction, and critical misunderstanding Pope endured, for the
most part patiently, from the publication of his _Essay on Criticism_ to
the year of his death. “Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past,”
(_Epistle to Arbuthnot_, l. 358) he exclaimed in his role as Satirist.

It was this public proclamation of Virtue that confused and enraged the
Dunces. We have again learned to read satire as something quite other
than an expression of personal malice and misanthropy. What the present
pamphlets amply testify to is that most of the Dunces were no more able
to read satire properly than were Pope’s nineteenth-century critics.
They were, as Pope quite properly kept pointing out, very bad writers
and very dull men. The _ethos_ of the satiric _persona_ was something
they could not understand. Although some of the Dunces knew their
classics well and although all of them, we may presume, read the Roman
satirists, one did not, typically, in Grub Street consult one’s Horace
with diurnal hand; one consulted the public. Literature to them was
sold. They were not deeply concerned about absolute standards of
right and wrong, about works of imagination which justify an entire
civilization, about the problem of tradition and the individual talent.
Accordingly, they explained satire, with the only vocabulary they had,
as the expression of ingratitude, purely personal malice, and demonic
pride, the product of a diseased heart and a misshapen body.

It would be misleading to suggest a narrow definition of Pope’s Dunces.
Some were critics of worth, such as Dennis and Gildon; some were not
despicable minor poets, such as Welsted and Cooke. But if we leave these
aside, as well as his aristocratic enemies, Lady Mary and Lord Hervey,
some valid generalizations emerge. The very persistency of the Dunces’
attacks on Pope (I have located over one hundred and fifty published
during Pope’s lifetime) and the large number of anonymous pamphlets that
we cannot definitely ascribe to anyone Pope ever mentioned suggest that
the Battle of the Dunces is best seen economically and sociologically.
They were, for the most part, hack-writers, who were attempting the
commercialization of literature that Pope recognized and deplored.
Since they were authors to be let, they were neither fastidious about
standards of taste nor filled with reverence for the Word. Yet Pope
had succeeded in doing what they could not do--he had made himself a
moderately rich man entirely by writing poetry. No theme recurs more
insistently and suggestively in Popiana than Pope’s wealth. Faced with
the nasty fact that if one wrote well enough, there was a public to
support one, they could only accuse Pope monotonously of venality and
avarice.

In all of this there is a strong element of class antagonism. The Dunces
were middle-class and Whiggish, their spirit capitalist. Pope, though
middle-class by birth, was aristocratic in his sympathies, Tory in
a loose sense, and firmly anti-Walpole. Perhaps verse satire is
essentially aristocratic. Perhaps wit is, too. Certainly they never seem
at home in a middle-class society. Wit comes to savor of indecency and
blasphemy; satire in its incessant defence of moral value and centers
of order comes to seem the expression of an arrogant disdain and a
disquieting unease. His poise and verbal brilliance and hieratic
commitment to the venerable tradition of classical and Christian ethical
thought set the Satirist coolly apart from the _profanum vulgus_. Had
Pope never mentioned one of the Dunces, although they would have done
so less frequently, they would still have cried out against him.

II.

_One Epistle To Mr. A. Pope, Occasion’d By Two Epistles Lately
Published_ appeared, according to the _Daily Journal_, on 28 April
1730.[2] Pope’s mention of it in Appendix II to _The Dunciad A_, his
“List of Books, Papers, and Verses, in which our Author was abused”
which is our best guide to Popiana, is somewhat confusing and made more
difficult because the first part dates from 1729, the second from 1735:
“_Labeo_, A Paper of Verses written by Leonard Welsted. [1729 a-d],
which after came into One Epistle, and was publish’d by James Moore.
4to. 1730. Another part of it came out in Welsted’s own name in 1731,
under the just Title of _Dulness and Scandal_, fol. [1735a].”[3]

The _Labeo_ reference is mysterious. Pope in his note on Welsted to _The
Dunciad A_ II.293 had said in a sentence omitted in all editions from
1735a, “The strength of the metaphors in this passage is to express the
great scurrility and fury of this writer, which may be seen, One day, in
a Piece of his, call’d (as I think) _Labeo_.”[4] Since no _Labeo_ has
ever turned up, it seems reasonable to conclude with Fineman that,
though Welsted may have toyed with the idea of writing one, “he either
never did enough with it to warrant its publication, or discarded it
entirely in favor of writing the collaborative _One Epistle to Mr. Pope_
that appeared in 1730. Naturally, he would not broadcast his plans, and
as a result the enemy camp continued to believe--or at any rate, to
say--that Welsted would retaliate with a _Labeo_.”[5] This was in 1729;
by 1735 Pope had realized no _Labeo_ would appear and deciding,
apparently on no evidence, that it had been incorporated into Welsted’s
_One Epistle_ and _Of Dulness and Scandal_ (1732), made the appropriate
changes in _The Dunciad_.

Pope did not at first realize that _One Epistle_ was by Welsted. It
had been announced as early as 1 Feb. 1729 in _The Universal Spectator_
“as the due Chastisement of Mr. Pope for his _Dunciad_, by James Moore
Smythe, Esq; and Mr. Welsted.” The poem must have been circulated
privately before publication at least by October, 1729 at which time
Pope believed it to be Lady Mary’s, since we find Lady Mary writing to
Dr. Arbuthnot twice in October 1729 denying Pope’s accusation that she
had written it.[6] There is no evidence that she was not telling the
truth, but on 21 May 1730 _The Grub-Street Journal_ reported that Lady
Mary had “some hand in the piece.”

Like most Pope attacks, the poem was published anonymously. The preface,
a defence of the Dunces, is, with probably intentional ambiguity,
written in the first person singular but ends by referring to “the
Writers of the following Poem” (p. viii). One hand seems responsible for
the preface, but we can only conclude that a Dunce collaborating with
other Dunces produced the poem. Four days after its publication Pope
wrote to Broome that it was “by James Moore and others,” and a few weeks
later wrote to Bethel that “James Moore own’d it but was made by three
others, and he will disown it whenever any man takes him for it.”[7] It
was Moore Smythe who was attacked in _The Grub-Street Journal_ for
several months as the poem’s chief author.[8]

A letter from Welsted to Dodington, however, shows that though the poem
was a collaborative effort and though others may have made suggestions
and additions, Welsted felt himself responsible for the poem.[9] In 1735
Pope attributed _One Epistle_ finally to Welsted, with Moore Smythe as
publisher, and in 1737 _The Memoirs of Grub-Street_ said of Moore Smythe
that he “reported himself author” of _One Epistle_, “but was only a
publisher; it being written by Mr. Welsted and others.”[10]

As to the “others” we should remember Mallet’s caution that it would be
vain,

To guess, ere _One Epistle_ saw the light,
How many brother-dunces club’d their mite.[11]

Welsted himself had begun his quarrel with Pope with an attack on _Three
Hours after Marriage_, that amusing and much-abused play, in _Palaemon
To Caelia at Bath; Or, The Triumvirate_ (1717). Pope is said to have
collaborated with Gay not only in _Three Hours_, a play “so lewd,/ Ev’n
Bullies blush’d, and Beaux astonish’d stood” (Second Edition, p. 11),
but in _The Wife of Bath_ and _The What D’Ye Call It_. Welsted also hits
at _God’s Revenge Against Punning_, the _First Psalm_, praises Tickell,
and finds Pope’s versification flat. All of these charges (except the
one that Pope collaborated in _The Wife of Bath_) had appeared in print
before, but Pope was to remember _Palaemon To Caelia_ and include it in
a note to _The Dunciad A_ II.293, where it is neatly described as “meant
for a Satire on Mr. P. and some of his friends.”

In 1721 Welsted’s name appears in the title of a pamphlet containing an
attack on Pope’s Homer, _An Epistle To Mr. Welsted; And A Satyre on the
English Translations of Homer_, by that engagingly inept Dunce, Bezaleel
Morrice. In 1724 in the “Dissertation concerning the Perfection of the
English Language” prefixed to his _Epistles, Odes, &c._, Welsted quoted
(not quite correctly) and criticized Pope’s “And such as _Chaucer_ is,
shall _Dryden_ be” (p. x). The anonymous author of _Characters of The
Times_ (1728) thought that Welsted would have been spared Pope’s abuse
if he had not in his “Dissertation” “happen’d to cite a low and false
line from Mr. P[o]pe for the meer Purpose of refuting it, without
seeming to know, or care who was the Author of it” (p. 24).[12]

In the _Peri Bathous_ Pope included Welsted as a didapper and an eel.
Pope then put him into _The Dunciad_ in II.293-300 and, more memorably,
in III.163-166:

Flow Welsted, Flow! like thine inspirer, Beer,
Tho’ stale, not ripe; tho’ thin, yet never clear;
So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull;
Heady, not strong, and foaming tho’ not full.

Unable to leave well enough alone, Welsted continued his attack on Pope
with _One Epistle_ and then again in January 1732 with _Of Dulness and
Scandal_, which ran to three editions. The half-title of _One Epistle_
had promised that it was to be continued, and the writer of the preface
had said that he intended “in the preface to the next Epistle ... to
state several Matters of Fact, in Contradiction to the Notes of the
_Dunciad_” (p. viii). _Of Dulness and Scandal_, however, has no preface
and is an independent attack. Its main charge is Pope’s ingratitude to
the Duke of Chandos as shown in the _Epistle to Burlington_, a famous
charge frequently to be repeated,[13] but it claims as well that a lady
named Victoria died as a result of reading Pope’s Homer and attacks once
more _The Rape of the Lock_ and the _First Psalm_.

In February 1732 Welsted published his last attack on Pope, _Of False
Fame_, in which he attacks _Windsor Forest_, _The Rape of the Lock_,
Pope’s edition of Shakespeare, _The Dunciad_, and the _Epistle to
Burlington_. Pope then mentioned him in the _Epistle to Arbuthnot_, at
first in l. 49, although he altered this to “Pitholeon,” and then in
l. 375, where most twentieth-century college students first meet his
name.

The charges in _One Epistle_ are unusually comprehensive, but almost
none of them is original. To help the reader to evaluate the more
important, the following notes may be helpful. The denial in the preface
of Pope’s statement that no one is attacked in _The Dunciad_ “who had
not before, either in Print or private Conversation, endeavour’d
something to his Disadvantage” (p. v) is a reference to _The Dunciad_,
p. 203, where, however, conversation is not mentioned. This sentence of
Pope’s annoyed many of the Dunces.[14] What the preface says about Swift
and Arbuthnot and the _Peri Bathous_ (p. vii) may well be true.[15]
Welsted’s charge that Pope wrote the Prologue to _Cato_ and then “the
Play decried” (p. 12) is simply Dennis’s old charge first made in
_A True Character of Mr. Pope (1716)_ and repeated in _Remarks Upon ...
the Dunciad_ (1729) that Pope had teased Lintot into publishing Dennis’s
attack on _Cato_. The charge rests only on Dennis’s authority.[16] The
obscenity of _The Rape of the Lock_ was an old story.[17] So was the
notorious _First Psalm_.[18] Welsted’s attacks on the _Pastorals_, the
Homer, the _Peri Bathous_, and _The Dunciad_ are simply the commonplaces
of Popiana. The charge that he libeled Addison only after the great
man’s death is also familiar[19] (Welsted seems to have been the first,
though, to mention the libel on Lady Mary) and long since disproved by
Sherburn and Ault. That Pope was a plagiarist is an idea that turns up
constantly.[20]

Welsted’s other charges are more interesting. He seems to be the only
Dunce who objected (p. 12) to Pope’s mentioning Bishop Hoadly in _The
Dunciad A_ II.368. It may just possibly be true that Gildon was
dismissed by Buckingham because of Gildon’s dislike of Pope (p. 22).[21]

The most curious of the charges is that Pope,

... from the Skies, propitious to the Fair,
Brought down _Caecilia_, and sent _Cloris_ there. (p. 11)

Welsted apparently means that Pope debased St. Cecilia in his _Ode for
Musick on St. Cecilia’s Day_ and glorified a suicide in his _Elegy to
the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady_. He is not saying, as did _The Life
of the late Celebrated Mrs. Elizabeth Wisebourn_ (1721), that the
heroine of the _Elegy_ died of her unrequited love for Pope. Pope’s
note to l. 375 of the _Epistle to Arbuthnot_ accusing Welsted of having
“had the Impudence to tell in print, that Mr. _P._ had occasion’d a
Lady’s death, and to _name_ a person he never heard of” refers not to
Cloris but to Victoria in Welsted’s _Of Dulness and Scandal_ who died
from reading Pope’s _Illiad_.[22]

The _Grub-Street Journal_ for 21 May 1730 invited “any Person of Credit
and Character to stand forth and attest any of the following Facts....”

That the late Duke of Buckingham paid any Pension to Charles Gildon,
which he took from him since his acquaintance with Mr. P.

That the present Archbishop of Canterbury hath past any Censure on
Mr. P.

That Mr. F[ento]n and he ever were at distance on variance with each
other.

That the Rev. Mr. Br[oo]me ever asserted or complain’d, he was not
gratify’d with a competent Sum for his Share in the Odyssey; nay did
not own that he thought himself highly paid.

That Mr. Addison or any other but Mr. P. writ, or alter’d, one line
of the Prologue to Cato.

Who will name any young Writer, allow’d to have Merit, that hath
been personally discourag’d by him; or who hath not received either
actual Services, or amicable Treatment from him?

III.

_The Blatant Beast_ appeared in December 1742, according to _The London
Magazine_; its authorship remains unknown. Pope had published _The New
Dunciad_ in March 1742, and Cibber had published his famous _A Letter
From Mr. Cibber, To Mr. Pope_ in July. Five other pamphlets attacking
Pope appeared in August, obviously capitalizing on the Cibber attack.

_The Blatant Beast_ is pro-Cibber, of course, but it criticizes
specifically only a few lines from _The New Dunciad_. The writer’s chief
interest is in a general attack. The criticisms of the Shakespeare, of
_Three Hours_ and the _Epistle to Burlington_, and of Pope’s plagiarism
are perfectly conventional. More interesting is the accusation (p. 6)
that Pope wrote (as, of course, he did) his Homer on the backs of
personal letters. Also interesting is the reference to Pope’s
inscription on the Shakespeare monument in Westminster Abbey (p. 5).
Pope was, with several others, responsible for the Latin inscription;
it does not seem that he had anything to do with the lines from _The
Tempest_ IV. i. 152-156, which were added several months later. These
lines are given in the first note to _The Dunciad B_ I. and, in slightly
different form, in _The Gentleman’s Magazine_, XI, 276. The last line
reads, “Leave not a wreck behind.” Pope’s version of the lines in both
his 1725 and 1728 editions of Shakespeare (Griffith 149 and 210) does
not commit the errors of the inscription and prints, “Leave not a rack
behind!”[23] The bantering note about the monument which begins _The
Dunciad B_ may have been prompted by this passage in _The Blatant Beast_
as well as by the comment of Theobald which Sutherland refers to.

But it is the shrill personal abuse of Pope’s deformity and moral
obliquity,

The Morals blacken’d when the Writings scape;
The libel’d Person, and the pictur’d Shape

(_Epistle to Arbuthnot_, ll. 353-353)

which is most impressive. The writer shows a talent for invective, but
there is a good deal of evidence that he was well-read in other Pope
attacks. The phrase, Pope’s “Mountain Shoulders,” (p. 5) recalls Pope’s
“Mountain Back” in _The Difference Between Verbal and Practical Virtue_,
p. 5, published in August 1742. The image of the wasp (pp. 6, 10) had
appeared in Hervey’s and Lady Mary’s _Verses Address’d to the Imitator
Of ... Horace_ (1733), p. 7,[24] as had the metaphor of Pope as Satan
(pp. 5-6) with which _The Blatant Beast_ opens.[25]

Pope had already been pictured as a mad dog (p. 7) in _The
Metamorphosis_ (1728), attributed by Pope to Smedley and one of the
least pleasant of the pamphlets. Pope as Aesop’s toad bursting with
spleen (p. 12) had been used in _Codrus_ (1728), p. 12, attributed by
Pope to Curll and Mrs. Thomas. Cibber’s prevention of Pope from peopling
the isle with Calibans (p. 9) is a reference, of course, to Cibber’s
famous anecdote about rescuing Pope in the bawdy-house; but in _Mr.
Taste, The Poetical Fop_ (1732) where Pope figures as the monkey-like
poetaster Taste, the servant-maid who was to have married him is
delighted the marriage is broken off, “for fear our children should have
resembled Baboons, Ha, ha, ha!” (p. 73). Stern anti-sentimentalists
sometimes point out that we react too squeamishly to the abuse of Pope’s
deformity. I doubt it myself. The eighteenth century was probably a
coarser and more outspoken age than ours, but scurrilous attacks on the
physical appearance of distinguished poets do not otherwise seem to have
been a prominent feature of the Augustan literary scene.

It is hoped that both these pamphlets will prove useful to those who
have little first-hand knowledge of what his enemies said of Pope and
will help to warn the novice of the fatal ease with which we can read
“with but a Lust to mis-apply,/ Make Satire a Lampoon, and Fiction, Lye”
(_Epistle to Arbuthnot_, ll. 301-302).

_One Epistle_ was reprinted by John Nichols in his edition of _The
Works in Verse and Prose of Leonard Welsted_ (London, 1787). Nichols
normalizes the text, spells out several names in full, and adds several
unimportant notes. It is here reproduced from the copy in the Sterling
Library, Yale University. _The Blatant Beast_ has never been reprinted
and is reproduced from the copy in the Huntington Library.

_Hunter College_

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

1. Pope to Bethel, 9 June 1730, _The Correspondence of Alexander Pope_,
ed. George Sherburn (Oxford, 1956), III, 114.

2. Robert W. Rogers, _The Major Satires of Alexander Pope_ (Urbana,
1955), p. 139. The two epistles of the title are Edward Young’s _Two
Epistles To Mr. Pope_ which had appeared in January 1730 and which
praised Pope warmly. See _One Epistle_, p. 22.

3. _The Twickenham Edition of the Poems of Alexander Pope_, General
Editor, John Butt, 6 vols. (London, 1939-1961), W, 211-212. Citations
from Pope’s poetry in my text are from this edition.

4. Savage in _An Author To Be Lett_ (1729), which appeared nine days
after _The Dunciad A_, says, “I have extracted curious Hints to assist
_Welsted_ in his new Satire against _Pope_, which was once (he told me)
to have been christen’d _Labeo_. ’Tis yet an Embrio, and there are
divers Opinions about the Birth of it” (pp. 5-6). He seems clearly to
have been Pope’s informant about the unpublished _Labeo_. See Richard
Savage, _An Author To be Lett_, ed. James Sutherland, The Augustan
Reprint Society, Number 84 (Los Angeles, 1960), p. ii. For Labeo see
Persious 1. 4.

5. Daniel Fineman, _Leonard Welsted, Gentleman Poet of the Augustan Age_
(Philadelphia, 1950), p. 190.

6. _Correspondence_, III, 59-60 and n.

7. _Ibid._, III, 106, 114. Dr. Arbuthnot, for the abuse he received in
the poem, is reported to have flogged Moore Smythe (_ibid._, III, 106,
n. 2, and 114, n. 1)

8. For a convenient summary of these references from 14 May to 23 July
1730 see James T. Hillhouse, _The Grub-Street Journal_ (Durham, N.C.,
1928), pp. 58-63. On 14 May 1730 it printed a letter supposedly by Moore
Smythe in which he says of himself and his collaborators in _One
Epistle_, “we ... call our selves _Gentlemen_ which sure no body will
deny, because one of is the Son of an _Alehouse-keeper_ Thoms Cooke?,
one the Son of a _Foot-man_, and one the Son of a ____.”

9. Fineman, p. 192.

10. Hillhouse, p. 64, n. 19.

11. David Mallet, _Of Verbal Criticism_ (1733), p. 14. He added the
note: “See a Poem published some time ago under that title, said to be
the production of several ingenious and prolific heads; One contributing
a simile, Another a character, and a certain Gentleman four shrewd lines
wholly made up of Asterisks.”

12. See also Pope’s quotation from the “Dissertation” in _The
Dunciad A_, p. 26.

13. For the Duke’s protestation against Welsted’s attack see George
Sherburn, “‘Timon’s Villa’ and Cannons,” _The Huntington Library
Bulletin_, VIII (1935), 140.

14. See, for example, Giles Jacob’s _The Mirrour_ (1733), p. 6, although
oddly enough Jacob (like Welsted) had begun the quarrel with his _The
Rape of the Smock_ (1717).

15. _Twickenham_, V. xvi. For _The Progress of Dulness_ (pp. vi-vii) see
_ibid._ xvii., n. 2; xxi-xxii.

16. See the full discussion in George Sherburn, _The Early Career of
Alexander Pope_ (Oxford, 1934), pp. 105-106.

17. See _Twickenham_, II. 90, n. 1.

18. See, _inter alia_, _A Letter from Sir J____ B____ to Mr. P_____
(1716), p. 1; _The Female Dunciad_ (1728), p. 4; and the careful
discussion in Norman Ault, _New Light on Pope_ (London, 1949), pp.
156-162.

19. See _Cythereia_ (1723), pp. 92-93; _Characters of The Times_ (1728),
p. 29.

20. See Eliza Haywood, _Memoirs Of The Court of Lilliput_ (1727), p. 17;
_A Collection Of Several Curious Pieces_ (1728), pp. 4, 6; James Ralph,
_Sawney_ (1728), pp. 5-8.

21. See _Twickenham_, V. 440-441.

22. See Daniel A. Fineman, “The Case of the Lady ‘Killed’ by Alexander
Pope,” _MLO_, XII (1951), 137-149. Sutherland in his continuation of
Pope’s note confuses the two charges.

23. For the debate over the Latin inscription see _Twickenham_, VI.
395-396, and _The Gentleman’s Magazine_, XI, 105.

24. See Pope’s note to l. 319 of the _Epistle to Arbuthnot_.

25. Dennis, as far back as 1716, in _A True Character of Mr. Pope_, pp.
10-11, had used the metaphor. So had _An Epistle To the Egregious Mr.
Pope_ (1734), pp. 15-16.

* * * * *
* * * *

[Transcriber’s Note:

The consecutive title pages are as in the original, as are the lines of
closely spaced asterisks in the poem.

Format of notes reproduces the original as closely as possible. Long
notes, marked with lower-case letters (a-l), were collected at the end
of the text. Footnotes are here shown between stanzas. Markers are
unchanged, except where a symbol has been doubled (**, ††) because it
occurs twice in one stanza.]

ONE

E P I S T L E

Mr. _A. P O P E_,

Occasion’d By

Two Lately Publish’d.

[To be Continued.]

ONE

E P I S T L E

Mr. _A. P O P E_,

Occasion’d By

Two Epistles Lately Published.

_Spiteful he is not, tho’ he writ a Satire,
For still there goes some Thinking to Ill-Nature._
DRYDEN.

_L O N D O N_:

Printed for J. ROBERTS, in _Warwick-Lane_.

[Price One Shilling.]

[Decoration]

THE

PREFACE.

_The indecent Images, and the frequent and bad Imitations of the
Classics in the _Dunciad_, have occasioned several just Observations
upon so new and coarse a Manner of Writing: I shall wave this Topic at
present, and only regard the most plausible Insinuation in Favour of
this Author; which is, that he never begun an Attack upon any Person,
who had not before, either in Print or private Conversation, endeavour’d
something to his Disadvantage._

_This Assertion is by no means true, as I shall immediately shew; if
it were true, it might indeed bear some Weight, but however with this
Distinction, that the Reports of private Conversation, brought to him by
such Emissaries, as belong to him, are not always to be believed, and
that no Attack in Print upon a Man’s Poetical Character, ought to be
repaid by Lampoon and Virulence upon the Moral Character of his
Antagonist: Every Person has a Right to determine upon the Talents of
Writers, particularly of one, who appears in Publick only to gratify
the two worst Appetites, that disgrace Human Nature, I mean Malice and
Avarice; and sure no Man deserves a violent Injury to his Reputation,
as a Gentleman, because perhaps at a Distance of several Years since
he might have said, that Mr. _Pope_ had nothing in him Original as a
Writer, that Mr. _Tickel_ greatly excelled him in his Translation of
_Homer_, and many of his Contemporaries in other Branches of Writing,
and that he is infinitely inferior to Mr. _Phillips_ in Pastoral: And
yet such Arguments or Apologies as these have been used by himself,
or his Tea-Table Cabals, for calling Gentlemen Scoundrels, Blockheads,
Gareteers, and Beggars,: If he can transmit them to Posterity under
such Imputations, he is a bad Man; if he cannot, he is a bad Writer:
I believe, that he would rather suffer under the first Character, than
the last: But before I have done with him, I will make a very strict
Inquiry into both._

_In the mean time I shall shew the Reader, in general, the Falshood of
his main Pretence, that he has meddled with no one, that had not before
hurt him, and in this View, tho’ I should be ashamed of being too
serious in a Controversy of this Sort, I think it proper to acquaint the
Town with the original Design of the _Dunciad_, and the real Reasons of
its Production. This Piece, which has been honour’d by Booksellers of
Quality, contains only the Poetical Part of Dulness, extracted from a
Libel, call’d, _The Progress of it_, and which included several other
Branches of Science, and perhaps some of those Gentlemen, who have in
the warmest Manner asserted the Cause of the _Dunciad_, might have seen
a Publication of a Work, upon the Death of this Writer, in which no past
Friendship could have screen’d them from Lampoon for any Pretences to
excel in any Science whatever: It appears, therefore, that he was teaz’d
into a Publication of these Cantos, which regarded the Writers of the
Age, by some Attacks, that were made upon him about that Time: We must
refer to a Miscellany of Poems published by Him and _Swift_, to which
is prefix’d, _An Essay on the Profund_, to consider if those Attacks
were justifiable; Mr. Dean _Swift_ never saw the _Profund_, till made
publick, and Dr. _Arburthnot_, who originally sketch’d the Design of it,
desired that the Initial Letters of Names of the Gentlemen abused might
not be inserted, that they might be _A_ or _B_, or _Do_ or _Ro_, or any
thing of that Nature, which would make this Satire a general one upon
any dull Writers in any Age: This was refused by _Pope_, and he chose
rather to treat a Set of Gentlemen as Vermin, Reptiles, _&c._ at a Time
when he had no Provocation to do so, when he had closed his Labours,
finish’d his great Subscriptions, and was in a fashionable Degree of
Reputation: Several Gentlemen, who are there ranked with the dullest
Men, or dullest Beasts, never did appear in Print against him, or say
any thing in Conversation which might affect his Character: Some
Replies, which were made to the _Profund_, occasioned the Publication of
the _Dunciad_, which was first of all begun with a general Malice to all
Mankind, and now appears under an Excuse of Provocations, which he had
received, after he himself had struck the first Blow in the
above-mentioned Miscellanies._

_I cannot indeed say much in Praise of some Performances, which appear’d
against him, and am sorry that Voluntiers enter’d into the War, whom I
could wish to have been only Spectators: But the Cause became so
general, that some Gentlemen, who never aim’d at the Laurel, grew Poets
merely upon their being angry: A Militia, in Case of publick Invasion,
may perhaps be thought necessary, but yet one could always wish for
an Army of regular Troops: I should not have touched upon this
Circumstance, but to obviate some Imputations, which he had suggested,
of my Writing several Pieces, which I never heard of, till I saw them
with the rest of the Town: But these Suggestions shall be considered in
the Preface to the next Epistle, in which, among other Things, I intend
to state several Matters of Fact, in Contradiction to the Notes of the
_Dunciad_, particularly as they concern the Writers of the following
Poem._

[Decoration]

One

E P I S T L E

Mr. _A. P O P E_,

Occasion’d By

Two Lately Publish’d.

If noble _B----m_, (a) in Metre known,
With Strains has grac’d thee, humble as thy own;
Who (b) _G--l--n_’s Dullness did for thine discard,
A better Critick, for as bad a Bard!
Not unregarded let this Tribute be,
Tho’ humble, just; well-bred, tho’ paid to Thee.

_Parnassian_ Groves, and _Twick’nam_ Fountains, say,
What Homage to the Bard shall _Britain_ pay!
The Bard! that first, from _Dryden’s_ thrice-glean’d Page,
Cull’d his low Efforts to Poetic Rage;
Nor pillag’d only that unrival’d Strain,
But rak’d for Couplets * _Chapman_ and _Duck-Lane_,
Has sweat each Cent’ry’s Rubbish to explore,
And plunder’d every Dunce that writ before,
Catching half Lines, till the tun’d Verse went round,
Complete, in smooth dull (c) Unity of Sound;
Who, stealing Human, scorn’d Celestial Fire,
And strung to _Smithfield_ Airs the † _Hebrew_ Lyre;
Who taught declining (d) _Wycherley_ to doze
O’er wire-drawn Sense, that tinkled in the Close,
To lovely _F----r_ impious and obscene,
To mud-born _Naiads_ faithfully unclean;
Whose raptur’d Nonsense, with Prophetick Skill,
First taught that Ombre, which fore-ran Quadrille;
Who from the Skies, propitious to the Fair,
Brought down _Cæcilia_, and sent ** _Cloris_ there,
Censur’d by _W--ke_, by _A------ry_ blest,
Prais’d _Sw----t_ in Earnest, and sung Heav’n in Jest,
Here, mov’d by Whim, and there by Envy stung,
Would flatter _Ch----s_, or would libel ‡ _Y----ge_,
By _F----n_ left, by Reverend Linguists hated,
Now learns to read the _Greek_ he once translated.

[Footnote *: A Translator of _Homer_.]

[Footnote †: Burlesque of the first _Psalm_, more profest than
_Sternbold’s_.]

[Footnote **: See Verses, in _P--pe_’s Poems, to the Memory of an
unfortunate young Lady.]

[Footnote ‡: _Sir W. Y._]

Oh say, to him what Trophies shall be rais’d,
That unprovok’d will strike, and fawn unprais’d!
Each fav’rite Toast who marks, or rising Wit,
To sketch a Satire, that in Time may fit;
Still hopes your Sun-set, while he views your Noon,
And still broods o’er the closely-kept Lampoon;
The lurking Presents o’er the Tomb he paid,
And thus atton’d our _British Virgil_’s Shade,
A Mushroom * Satire in his Life conceal’d,
Since chang’d to Libel, and in Print reveal’d;
Who lets not † Beauty base Detraction ’scape,
And mocks Deformity with _Æsop_’s Shape;
Who _Cato_’s Muse with faithless Sneers belied,
The Prologue father’d, and the Play decried,
On ‡ _H----y_’s learned Page, dull-sporting trod,
Betray’d his Patrons, and lampoon’d his God;
Translator, Editor, could far out-go
In _Homer_ _Ogleby_, in _Shakespeare_ _R----_
O! how burlesqu’d, great _Dryden_, is thy Strain,
When little _Alexander_ ‖ _slays the Slain_!

[Footnote *: Libel on Mr. _Addison_ in _P--pe_ and _Sw--t_’s
Miscellanies.]

[Footnote †: Lady _M. W. M._]

[Footnote ‡: Lord B----p of _Salisbury_.]

[Footnote ‖: See _Dryden_’s Ode on St. _Cæcilia_’s Day.

------Fought all his Battles o’er again;
------And thrice he _slew the Slain_.]

On, mighty Rhimer, haste new Palms to seize,
Thy little, envious, angry Genius teize;
Let thy weak wilful Head, unrein’d by Art,
Obey the Dictates of thy flatt’ring Heart;
Divide a busy, fretful Life between
Smut, Libel, Sing-song, Vanity, and Spleen;
With long-brew’d Malice warm thy languid Page,
And urge delirious Nonsense into Rage;
Let bawdy Emblems, now, thy Hours beguile;
Now, Fustian Epic, aping _Virgil_’s Stile;
To _Virgil_ like, to _Indian_ Clay as _Delf_,
Or _Pulteney_, drawn by _Jervase_, to Herself:
Rheams heap’d on Rheams, incessant, mayst thou blot,
A lively, trifling, pert, one knows not what!
Form thy light Measures, nimbler than the Wind,
Whilst heavy lingring Sense is left behind;
With all thy Might pursue, and all thy Will,
That unabating Thirst, to scribble still,
Giv’n at thy Birth! the Poetaster’s Gust,
False and unsated as the Eunuch’s Lust!

Illustrious Fops, mean time, o’er-rate thy Lays,
And blooming Critics, as they spell thee, praise:
Blest Coupleteer! by blooming Critics read,
At Toilets _ogled_, and with Sweetmeats fed:
See, lisping Toilers grace thy _Dunciad_’s Cause,
And scream their witty Scavenger’s Applause,
While powder’d Wits, and lac’d Cabals rehearse
Thy bawdy _Cento_, and thy _Bead-roll_ Verse;
Gay, bugled Statesmen on thy Side debate,
And libel’d Blockheads court thee, tho’ they hate.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
Fools of all Kinds their Suffrages impart,
The Fools of Nature, and the Fools of Art.

These in thy threadbare Farce shall Beauties show,
Shall praise thy ribald Mirth, and maudlin Woe;
Praise ev’n thy imitating _Chaucer_’s Tales,
And call that merry * Temple, Fame’s _Versailles_:
Thy ‡ Shepherd-Song with Rapture they shall see,
Which rivals _Philips_, as _Banks_ rivals _Lee_;
Thy † _Guernsey_ and _Barbados_ Wreath shall own,
Where _Durfey_ ne’er was read, nor _Settle_ known;
That Wreath, that Name, which thro’ both Worlds is gone,
Which Doctor (e) _Y----_ applauds, and _Prestor John_.

[Footnote *: Temple of Fame by _P----_]

[Footnote ‡: _P----pe_’s Pastorals.]

[Footnote †: See the Original Preface to the _Dunciad_.]

Lo! as _Anchises_, to the Goddess-born,
So I the Worthies, that thy Page adorn,
Point out to Thee.----See ‖ here * * * *
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
The Prelate! next, exil’d by cruel Fates,
Who plagues all Churches, and confounds all States;
With Treasons past perplex’d, and present Cares;
A Fop in Rhime, and Bungler in Affairs.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
And here! a Groupe of Brother Quill-men see,
Co-witlings all, and Demi-bards like Thee;
Such whom the Muse shall pass with just Disdain,
Nor add one Trophy to thy mottly Train:
But Quack _Arb----t_ shall Oblivion blot,
That puzzling, plodding, prating, pedant _Scot_!
The grating Scribler! whose untun’d Essays
Mix the _Scotch_ Thistle with the _English_ Bays,
By either _Phœbus_ pre-ordain’d to Ill,
The Hand prescribing, or the flattering Quill,
Who doubly plagues, and boasts two Arts to kill!

[Footnote ‖: The Characters left out here may perhaps be inserted
in some future Edition of this Poem.]

’Midst this vain Tribe, that aid thy setting Ray,
The Muse shall view, but spare ill-faced _G--y_:
Poor (f) _G--y_, who loses most when most he wins.
And gives his Foes his Fame, and bears their Sins;
Who more by Fortune than by Nature curst,
Yields his best Pieces, and must own _Thy_ worst.

Thus prop’d, thy Head with _Grub-street_ Zephyrs tainted,
By (g) _Rich_ recorded, and by _J----_ painted;
_J----!_ who so refin’d a Rake is reckon’d,
He breaks all (h) _Sinai_’s Laws, except the Second:
Thus prais’d, thus drawn, t’extend thy Projects try,
Leave the _Blue * Languish_, and the Crimson Sigh;
Leave the gay Epithets that Beauty crown,
White ** _Whitylinda_, and _Brownissa_ Brown;
Forget awhile (i) _Belinda_ and the Sun;
Forget the _Fights of Stand_, and Flights of Run:
No more let _Ombre_’s Play inspire thy Vein,
Nor strow with Captive Kings the † _Velvet Plain_;
Omit awhile the _Silver Peal_ to ring, }
Nor talk dulcissant, nor mellifluous sing, }
Nor _hang suspended_, nor _adherent cling_. }
But haste to mount Immortal Envy’s Throne,
To crush all Merit, that disputes thy own;
For thou wert born to damp each rising Name,
And hang, like Mildews, on the Growth of Fame;
Fame’s fairest Blossoms let thy Rancour blast,
Bane of the modern Laurel, like the past;
While stupid Riot stands in Humour’s Place,
And bestial Filth, Humanity’s Disgrace,
Low Lewdness, unexcited by Desire,
And all great †† _Wilmot_’s Vice, without his Fire.

[Footnote *: The Phrases distinguished here in _Italics_, are
truly quoted from _P----pe_; and the others in Company with them,
ought to be in no other Company.]

[Footnote **: See _Dunciad_. _Nigrina_ Black.]

[Footnote †: Here a Card Table; in _P--pe_, a Field of Grass.]

[Footnote ††: _Wilmot_, Earl of _Rochester_.]

At length, when banish’d _Pallas_ shall withdraw,
And Wit’s made Treason by the _Popian_ Law;
When minor Dunces cease, at length, their Strife,
And own thy Patent to be dull for Life;
By Tricks sustain’d, in Poet-craft compleat,
Retire triumphant to thy _Twick’nam_ Seat;
That Seat! the Work of (k) half-paid drudging _Br----me_,
And call’d by joking _Tritons_, _Homer_’s Tomb:
There to stale, stol’n, stum Crambo bid adieu,
And sneer the Fops, that thought thy Crambo new;
There, like the _Grecian_ Chief, on whom thy Song
Has well reveng’d unhappy _Priam_’s Wrong;
Waste, in thy hidden Cave, the Festive Day,
With mock _Machaon_, and _Patroclus G----_
_Sleep_, (l) _Sleep in Peace_ the Works, for _Wapping_ born!
No more thy Cuckoo Note shall wake the Morn;
In Ease, and Avarice, and aukward State,
_The Fool of Fortune_, shalt thou hail thy Fate;
Slumbring in Quiet o’er Lampoons half writ,
Which, ripe in Malice, only wait for Wit.

So when _Vanessa_ yielded up her Charms,
The blest _Cadenus_ languish’d in her Arms;
High, on a Peg, his unbrush’d Beaver hung,
His Vest unbutton’d, and his God unsung;
Raptur’d he lies; Deans, Authors are forgot,
_Wood_’s Copper Pence, and _Atterbury_’s Plot;
For her he quits the Tythes of _Patrick_’s Fields,
And all the Levite to the Lover yields.

[Decoration]

NOTES

On the Foregoing

POEM.

(a) _If Noble _B------m_,_

The late Duke of _Buckingham!_ who made that fine Alteration of the
Tragedy of _Julius Cæsar_ from _Shakespeare_, and who is said by Mr.
_Pope_ to have bestow’d the finest Praise upon _Homer_ that he ever
received, in the following Lines;

Read _Homer_ once, and you need read no more;
For all Things else will be so mean and poor,
Verse will seem Prose: Yet often on him look,
And you will never need another Book.

D---- of B----’s Essay on Poetry.

He has also printed a Copy of Verses in Praise of _Pope_, which were
returned by another in Praise of his Grace. There is so great a
Similitude in the Stile of these Writers, that the Reader, I think, need
not doubt their Sincerity in admiring each other.

’Tis great Delight to laugh at some Mens Ways;
But ’tis much greater to give Merit Praise.

D---- of B----.

_Sheffield_ approves, consenting _Phœbus_ bends,
And I and Malice from this Hour, am Friends.

Pope.

(b) _Who _G------n_’s Dulness------_

_Charles Gildon_, dismiss’d from the D----’s Pension and Favour, on
Account of his Obstinacy in refusing to take the Oaths to _P--pe_’s
Supremacy.

_P--pe_’s Reputation for versifying is a vulgar Error, founded only on
discreet Theft: Half a Line from Mr. _Dryden_’s _Conquest of Mexico_,
and another from his Translation of _Virgil_, have seemingly made
tolerable Music, when join’d in his Works; but Music of the _Morocco_
Kind, which has but one Note.

(d) _Who taught declining _Wycherley_------_

Mr. _Wycherley_ subscribed to a Compliment (some say, before his Death)
upon _P--pe_’s Pastorals, in which he says, his _Arcadia speaks the
Language of the Mall_, but does not explain, whether he means at Noon or
Night. I do not agree with what Mr. _Wycherley_ is supposed to have writ
of him, but I do with what he certainly said of him, _viz._ _That he was
not able to make a Suit of Cloaths, but could perhaps turn an old Coat._

(e) _Which Doctor _Y------__

The Reverend Doctor _Edward Young_, who, in this Quarrel of the great
contending Powers in Poesy, has been courted by all Sides: But some late
Incidents give a Suspicion, that he has privately acceded to the _Treaty
of Twickenham_.

(f) _Poor _G----_, who loses most----_

Mr. _Gay_, not thought to be the entire Author of the _Beggar’s Opera_,
and ordered to own _Three Hours after Marriage_.

(g) _By _Rich_ recorded------_

_Gilbert Pickering Rich._ A great Admirer of _P--pe_, eminent for his
Translation of _Horace_, which can be equall’d by nothing but _P--pe_’s
translating of _Homer_. He concludes the first Ode by giving (_sublimi
feriam sidera vertice_) in these Words;

I’ll bound, I’ll spring, I’ll strike the weaken’d Pole,
I’ll knock so hard, I’ll knock thro’ it a Hole.

(h) _------Breaks all _Sinai_’s Laws except the Second._

Second Commandment: “Thou shalt not make the Likeness of any Thing in
Heaven above, or on the Earth beneath, or the Waters under the Earth.”

(i) _Forget awhile _Belinda_ and the Sun._

In the _Rape of the Lock_, _Belinda_ and the Sun are very often said to
be very much alike, which occasion’d two Lines in Praise of that Poem,
written by a Friend of Mr. _Pope_;

Here, like the Sun, _Belinda_ strikes the Swain,
In the same Page like the same Sun again.

Monsieur _Boileau_, speaking of the Poetasters of his Nation, in a Poem
to the King, makes this Comparison the Consummation of Dulness;

_Et enfin te compare au Solœil._

And in the End he compares your Majesty to the Sun.

(k) _------Half-paid drudging _B----me_._

The Reverend Mr. _B----me_, who translated a great Part of _Homer_, and
construed the Rest: _N.B. A half-paid Poet_ is oftentimes the Occasion
of an _unpaid Taylor_.

(l) _Sleep, Sleep in Peace------_

These Lines are a Parody of a famous Passage in the Tragedy of _Phædra_
and _Hyppolitus_.

Sleep, Sleep in Peace, ye Monsters of the Wood:
No more my early Horn shall wake------

_So when bright _Venus_ yielded up her Charms,
The blest _Adonis_ languish’d in her Arms;
His idle Horn on flagrant Myrtle hung,
His Arrows scatter’d, and his Bow unstrung;
Obscure in Covert lay his dreaming Hounds,
And bay’d the fancy’d Boar with feeble Sounds:
For nobler Sports he quits the savage Fields,
And all the Hero to the Lover yields._

FINIS.

[Decoration]

* * * * *
* * * *

[Transcriber’s Note:

Footnotes are here shown between stanzas. The labels (a, b, c) are
unchanged.]

The

_BLATANT-BEAST._

POEM.

What is that Blatant-Beast? Then he reply’d.
It is a Monster bred of hellish Race,
Then answered he, which often hath annoy’d
Good Knights and Ladies true, and many else destroy’d.
SPENCER’s Fairy Queen, Book VI. Canto I.

No Might, no Greatness in Mortality
Can Censure ’scape: Back-wounding Calumny
The whitest Virtue strikes. What King so strong,
Can tye the Gall up in sland’rous Tongue?
SHAKESPEAR.

[Decoration]

_LONDON:_

Printed for J. ROBINSON, at the _Golden Lyon_
in _Ludgate-street_.

MDCCXLII.

[Decoration]

The

_BLATANT-BEAST_

POEM.

Beauty, the fondling Mother’s earliest Pray’r,
Nature’s kind Gift to sweeten worldly Care.
Beauty the greatest Extasy imparts,
Steals thro’ our Eyes, and revels in our Hearts;
Adds Lustre to a Crown, gives Weight to Sense,
The Orator assists in Truth’s Defence.
The very Fool our Hearts resistless warms,
And while we curse the Tongue, the Figure charms.
If Beauty be the Subject of our Praise,
A rude, mishapen Lump Contempt must raise.

When _Lucifer_ with Angels held first Place,
Seraphic Beauty sparkled in his Face.
By Pride and Malice tempted to rebel,
Vengeance pursu’d him to the lowest Hell:
Not sulph’rous Lakes suffic’d, nor dreary Plains;
Deformity was join’d t’ improve his Pains.

Paint then the Person, and expose the Mind,
Who rails at others, to his own Faults blind.
Sly _Sancho_’s Paunch, meagre _Don Quixot_’s Love,
The Satyr and the Ridicule improve.
So when fam’d _Butler_ wou’d Rebellion paint,
He lasht the Traitor and the Mimic Saint.
Sir _Hudibras_ he sung; the crumpled Wight,
Contempt and Laughter ever will excite.

The Blatant-Beast once more has broke his Chains,
Disperses Falshoods, and remorseless reigns.
Scornful of all thy Verses dare design,
(Where useless Epithets crowd ev’ry Line,)
The Blatant-Beast shall be afresh pursu’d,
Nor cease my Labours till again subdu’d.

Distorted Elf! to Nature a Disgrace,
Thy Mind envenom’d pictur’d in thy Face;
Malice with Envy in thy Breast combines,
And in thy Visage grav’d those ghastly Lines.
Like Plagues, like Death thy ranc’rous Arrows fly,
At Good and Bad, at Friend and Enemy.
To thy own Breast recoils the erring Dart,
Corrupts thy Blood, and rankles in thy Heart.
There swell the Poisons which thy Breast distend,
And with the Load thy Mountain Shoulders bend.
Horrid to view! retire from human Sight,
Nor with thy Figure pregnant Dames affright.
Crawl thro’ thy childish Grot, growl round thy Grove,
A Foe to Man, an Antidote to Love.
In Curses waste thy Time instead of Pray’r,
(a) And with thy Breath pollute the fragrant Air.
There doze o’er _Shakespear_; then thy Blunders fell
(b) At mighty Price; this Truth let _Tonson_ tell.
Then frontless intimate, (oh perjur’d Bard!)
Thy Labours were bestow’d without Reward.
On that immortal Author wreak thy Spite,
(c) And on his Monument thy Nonsense write.
Should _Theobald_ thy presumptuous Errors shew,
Be thou to _Theobald_ an invet’rate Foe.
_Cibber_ shall foremost in thy Satyrs stand;
His Plays succeed, and thine was justly damn’d.
But _Colley_ call him, when thou would’st declame;
Great is the Jest that lies in _Colley_’s Name.

[Footnote a: It is surely allowable to treat a Man after this
manner who abuses all others, and to make this just Reflexion,
since in his new _Dunciad_ he not only calls _Mummius_ a Fool,
but uses this filthy Expression--who stinks above the Ground.]

[Footnote b: See this farther explained in the ingenious Dialogues
of _Sawney_ and _Colley_.]

[Footnote c: Tho’ he was informed that Wreck was improper, yet he
was resolv’d it should be inscrib’d, because the Nonsense was in
his Edition of _Shakespear_.]

Beware all ye, whom he as Friends carest,
How ye entrust your Secrets to his Breast.
(a) On Backs of Letters was his _Homer_ wrote,
All your Affairs disclos’d to save a Groat.
He valu’d not to whom he gave Offence;
He sav’d his Paper, tho’ at your Expence.

[Footnote a: When he sent his _Homer_ to his Acquaintance for
their Emendations, it was written on the Back of the Letters of
his Correspondents, whether of Business, Complement or Secrecy.
A shameful Instance of Avarice and Treachery!]

But shall a low-born Wretch the best traduce,
And call it Poetry, because Abuse?
The Heav’n-born Muse, by Truth and Justice sway’d,
To false Aspersions ne’er vouchsafes her Aid.
When unprovok’d, not vengeful Wasps molest,
Nor dart their Stings, when undisturb’d their Nest.
Thy Muse, by _Virgil_’s Harpies taught to write,
Scatters her Ordure in her screaming Flight;
Sacred Religion and her Priests defames,
And against Monarchs saucily exclames.
(a) The Fathers, of our Church the surest Guides,
As a poor Pack of Punsters she derides.
But chief O _Cam!_ and _Isis!_ dread her Frown,
(b) Chain’d to the Footstool of the Goddess’ Throne.
No Order, no Degree escapes her Rage,
And dull, and dull, and dull swells ev’ry Page.
Thirsty, she Poison draws from ev’ry Flow’r,
Like Satan, seeks whom next she may devour.

[Footnote a: _Vide_ Notes on the new _Dunciad_.]

[Footnote b: Goddess of Dullness.]

So have I seen a Dog distracted roam;
He bites, he snaps at all, disgorging Foam.
The frighten’d Passenger the Danger flies,
And sees the Poison flashing from his Eyes.
Till some stout Dray-man dashes out his Brains,
And his corrupted Blood the Kennel stains.

Thy Notes pedantic shall no more engage;
_Arbuthnot_’s Wit enlivens not the Page.
Thy Muse, that Prostitute abandon’d Jade,
Now flounders in the Mire without _Swift_’s Aid.
Thy base Invectives Men no more regard;
With just Disdain thy Scare-Crow Muse is heard.

So when the latent Seeds their Fruits display,
And gain fresh Vigour from a genial Ray:
The careful Hind a monst’rous Figure frames;
From various Rags unwonted Terror streams.
The feather’d Choristers in Flocks retreat,
And at a Distance view the tempting Bait.
At length grown bold, they perch upon his Head,
And with their Meute bedawb what late they fled.

_B-ns-n_ abuse for raising _Milton_’s Bust,
And impiously molest learn’d _Johnston_’s Dust.
Religious, he the Psalms in _Latin_ sung,
From hence the Malice of the Deist sprung.
While with a just Derision we survey,
Thy wretched Epitaph on poor _John Gay_.

Had _Peter_, _Charters_ thee with Gold supply’d,
_Peter_ and _Charters_ had been deify’d.
But ev’ry Lord, each gen’rous Friend implore,
And by Subscriptions meanly swell thy Store.
When to the Town by sordid Int’rest led,
Mump for a Dinner, flatter for a Bed.
Then to thy Grot retire, indulge thy Spite,
And rail at those who for Subsistence write.
Summon thy Rags, invoke thy scurril Muse,
With keenest Malice _Addison_ abuse.
Sculking, the Scandal privately disperse,
(a) Then own in Prose the Baseness of thy Verse.

[Footnote a: He writ a vile Lampoon on Mr. _Addison_, and then in
a Preface owns, he deserves Respect from every Lover of Learning.]

So e’re _Arachne_ to her Cell repairs,
Insidiously she weaves her glewy Snares.
Sullen, she meditates on Deaths to come,
And meliorates the Poison in her Womb.
(b) Should hapless _Clarion_ thither take his Flight,
He falls her Prey, mindful of ancient Spite.

[Footnote b: _Vide_ _Spencer_’s Fate of the Butterfly.]

With Malice swoll’n, Pride, Envy, Avarice,
Ingratitude attends this Train to Vice.
Yet one remains untold; with Lust endu’d,
Behold the Fribler lab’ring to be lewd.
Kind _Cibber_ interpos’d, forbad the Banns,
He’d peopled else this Isle with _Calibans_.

(a) The noble _Timon_, in thy waspish Strains,
A Proof of thy Ingratitude remains.
Courteous to all, munificent, humane,
Subject of others Praise, to thee of Pain.
Exalted far above thy groveling State,
The Object of his Pity, not his Hate.
He smiles at Scandal so unjustly thrown,
And at thy Malice he disdains to frown.

[Footnote a: _Vide_ a Poem on Taste.]

Thus oft we see a currish, Mungrel Crew,
A stately Mastiff eagerly pursue.
They swarm around, they yelp, they snarl, they grin,
Bold in Appearance, timerous within:
With such mean Foes he deigns not to engage,
But lifts his Leg, and pisses out their Rage.

How dar’st thou, Peasant, give thy Pen this Loose?
Becomes it thee thus madly to traduce?
The Great, the Low, the Virtuous, and the Base,
Alike are grown thy Subject of Disgrace.
Safe in thy Weakness, thou defi’st a Foe;
E’en (b) _Cibber_’s Cudgel scorn’d to stoop so low.
The Mercy of the Law restrains thy Fears;
_Coventry_’s Act secures thy Nose and Ears.
Yet there remains, to fill thy Soul with Care,
A Blanket to curvet thee in the Air.

[Footnote b: _Vide_ _Cibber_’s Letter to _Pope_.]

O wretched Life consum’d in restless Pains,
Where Dread of Punishment incessant reigns!
Poor Self-Tormentor! in whose gloomy Breast
The Vulture dwells, inhospitable Guest.
Be to my Foe no greater Curse assign’d!
Than a malignant Heart and envious Mind.

Thrice happy he! that’s with Good Nature blest,
Love of his Species rules his tender Breast;
Nor there confin’d: The Brute Creation share
His kind Beneficence and gen’rous Care.
No base malicious Thoughts his Peace annoy:
Are others happy? he partakes their Joy.
Chearful and innocent the Day he spends,
And Silver Sleep his quiet Nights attends.

But thou, a Stranger to this Peace of Mind,
Search where thou may’st conspicuous Merit find:
There strive to blacken with thy utmost Art,
And rail the more, the greater the Desert.

Is there a Man, an Honour to the Age,
Unsully’d by the keenest Party-rage;
By Vice untainted; who, from early Youth,
Firmly adher’d to Honour, Justice, Truth;
Whom no unruly Passions e’re cou’d blind,
Nor ruffle his Serenity of Mind;
His Country’s Good, the Patriot’s noblest View,
Unbrib’d, unaw’d, does stedfastly pursue;
Polite in Manners, and rever’d his Sense,
And long in Senates fam’d for Eloquence;
But if to these Endowments of the Mind,
A graceful Figure happily is join’d,
Then flows thy Gall, then raves thy half-form’d Clay,
Then frets thy putrid Carcass to Decay.

So when the croaking Toad the Ox beheld,
His envious Heart with Indignation swell’d.
Vainly the Reptil thought he could extend
His bloated Form, and Nature’s Error mend.
He drew his Breath; he swell’d--he burst; he dy’d
A Victim to his Arrogance and Pride.

_FINIS._

* * * * *
* * * *

The Augustan Reprint Society

WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY

University of California, Los Angeles

PUBLICATIONS IN PRINT

[Where available, LibraryBlog e-text numbers are shown in
brackets.]

1948-1949

16. Nevil Payne, _Fatal Jealousy_ (1673). [16916]

17. Nicholas Rowe, _Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespeare_
(1709). [16275]

18. “Of Genius,” in _The Occasional Paper_, Vol. III, No. 10 (1719); and
Aaron Hill’s Preface to _The Creation_ (1720). [15870]

1949-1950

22. Samuel Johnson, _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ (1749) and two
_Rambler_ papers (1750). [13350]

23. John Dryden, _His Majesties Declaration Defended_ (1681). [15074]

1950-1951

26. Charles Macklin, _The Man of the World_ (1792). [14463]

1951-1952

31. Thomas Gray, _An Elegy Wrote in a Country Churchyard_ (1751); and
_The Eton College Manuscript_. [15409]

1952-1953

41. Bernard Mandeville, _A Letter to Dion_ (1732).

1954-1955

49. Two St. Cecilia’s Day Sermons (1696, 1697).

52. Pappity Stampoy, _A Collection of Scotch Proverbs_ (1663). [7018]

1958-1959

75. John Joyne, _A Journal_ (1679).

76. André Dacier, _Preface to Aristotle’s Art of Poetry_ (1705).

1959-1960

80. [P. Whalley], _An Essay on the Manner of Writing History_ (1746).

83. _Sawney and Colley_ (1742) and other Pope Pamphlets.

84. Richard Savage, _An Author to be lett_ (1729).

1960-1961

85-6. _Essays on the Theatre from Eighteenth-Century Periodicals_.

90. Henry Needler, _Works_ (1728).

1961-1962

93. John Norris, _Cursory Reflections Upon a Book Call’d, An Essay
Concerning Human Understanding_ (1690).

94. An. Collins, _Divine Songs and Meditacions_ (1653).

95. _An Essay on the New Species of Writing Founded by Mr. Fielding_
(1751).

96. _Hanoverian Ballads_.

1962-1963

97. Myles Davies, Selections from _Athenae Britannicae_ (1716-1719).

98. _Select Hymns Taken Out of Mr. Herbert’s Temple_ (1697).

99. Thomas Augustine Arne, _Artaxerxes_ (1761).

100. Simon Patrick, _A Brief Account of the New Sect of Latitude Men_
(1662).

101-2. Richard Hurd, _Letters on Chivalry and Romance_ (1762).

1963-1964

103. Samuel Richardson, _Clarissa_: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and
Postscript.

104. Thomas D’Urfey, _Wonders in the Sun, or, the Kingdom of the Birds_
(1706).

105. Bernard Mandeville, _An Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent
Executions at Tyburn_ (1725).

106. Daniel Defoe, _A Brief History of the Poor Palatine Refugees_
(1709).

107-8. John Oldmixon, _An Essay on Criticism_ (1728).

William Andrews Clark Memorial Library: University of California, Los
Angeles

The Augustan Reprint Society

GENERAL EDITORS

EARL MINER
University of California, Los Angeles

MAXIMILLIAN E. NOVAK
University of California, Los Angeles

LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL
Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library

_Corresponding Secretary_:

Mrs. Edna C. Davis, Wm. Andrews Clark Memorial Library

The Society’s purpose is to publish reprints (usually facsimile
reproductions) of rare seventeenth and eighteenth century works. All
income of the Society is devoted to defraying costs of publication and
mailing.

Correspondence concerning subscriptions in the United States and Canada
should be addressed to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2205
West Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. Correspondence concerning
editorial matters may be addressed to any of the general editors. The
membership fee is $5.00 a year for subscribers in the United States and
Canada and 30/- for subscribers in Great Britain and Europe. British
and European subscribers should address B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street,
Oxford, England. Copies of back issues in print may be obtained from the
Corresponding Secretary.

PUBLICATIONS FOR 1964-1965

JOHN TUTCHIN, _Selected Poems_ (1685-1700). Introduction by Spiro
Peterson.

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, _An Essay upon the Original and Nature of
Government_ (1680). Introduction by Robert C. Steensma.

T. R., _An Essay Concerning Critical and Curious Learning_ (1698).
Introduction by Curt A. Zimansky.

ANONYMOUS, _Political Justice. A Poem_ (1736). Introduction by Burton R.
Pollin and John W. Wilkes.

_Two Poems Against Pope_: LEONARD WELSTED, _One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope_
(1730); ANONYMOUS, _The Blatant Beast_ (1740). Introduction by Joseph V.
Guerinot.

ROBERT DODSLEY, _An Essay on Fable_ (1764). Introduction by Jeanne K.
Welcher and Richard Dircks.

THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

2205 WEST ADAMS BOULEVARD, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90018

Make check or money order payable to THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA.

* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *

Errata (added by transcriber):

Editor’s Introduction
in which our Author was abused
[_Text reads “was / was” at line break. It is assumed that this
error was not present in the original text, since the editor does
not include a (sic) or similar notation_]
probably intentional ambiguity [international]
it being written by Mr. Welsted and others.[10] [_” missing_]
Pope’s _Illiad_.[22] [_spelling unchanged_]
The writer shows a talent for invective, [invenctive]

Editor’s Introduction: Footnotes
the Son of a ____.
[_here and later, the text uses lowlines in place of dashes_]

One Epistle: Preface
Gareteers, and Beggars,: If he can
[_punctuation unchanged_]
Dr. _Arburthnot_, who originally sketch’d the Design
[_spelling unchanged_]

Blatant-Beast
BEAUTY, the fondling Mother’s earliest [_’ invisible_]
A rude, mishapen Lump Contempt must raise. [_spelling unchanged_]

Augustan Reprint Society
22. ... and two _Rambler_ papers (1750) [_final . added_]

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast" ***

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