[Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot]
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This paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some Persons of Rank and Fortune (the Authors of
Verses to the Imitator of Horace
, and of an
Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity from a Nobleman at Hampton Court
) to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my Writings (of which, being public, the Public is judge), but my P