Bear, like the Turk, no Brother near the Throne.
Vers. 190 of the same Epist.
Yet you, like outragious Nero, are for whipping and branding every poor Dunce in your Dominions, that had the stupid Insolence not to like you, or your Musick! If this is not a greater Tyranny than that of your Atticus, at least you must allow it more ridiculous: For what have you gain’d by it? a mighty Matter! a Victory over a parcel of poor Wretches, that were not able to hurt or resist you, so weak, it was almost Cowardice to conquer them; or if they actually did hurt you, how much weaker have you shewn yourself in so openly owning it? Besides, your Conduct seems hardly reconcileable to your own Opinion: For after you have lash’d them (in your Epistle to Dr. Arburthnot, ver. 84.) you excuse the Cruelty of it in the following Line.
———Take it for a Rule,
No Creature smarts so little as a Fool.
Now if this be true, to what purpose did you correct them? For wise Men, without your taking such Pains to tell them, knew what they were before. And that publick-spirited Pretence of your only chastising them, in terrorem to others of the same malicious Disposition, I doubt is but too thin a Disguise of the many restless Hours they have given you. If your Revenge upon them was necessary, we must own you have amply enjoy’d it: But to make that Revenge the chief Motive of writing your Dunciad, seems to me a Weakness, that an Author of your Abilities should rather have chosen to conceal. A Man might as well triumph for his having kill’d so many silly Flies that offended him. Could you have let them alone, by this time, poor Souls, they had been all peaceably buried in Oblivion! But the very Lines, you have so sharply pointed to destroy them, will now remain but so many of their Epitaphs, to transmit their Names to Posterity: Which probably too they may think a more eligible Fate than that of being totally forgotten. Hear what an Author of great Merit, though of less Anxiety for Fame, says upon this Weakness,
Fame is a Bubble, the Reserv’d enjoy,
Who strive to grasp it, as they touch, destroy.
Y— Univers. Passion.
In a word, you seem in your Dunciad, to have been angry at the rain for wetting you, why then would you go into it? You could not but know, that an Author, when he publishes a Work, exposes himself to all Weathers. He then that cannot bear the worst, should stay at home, and not write at all.
But Sir—That Cibber ever murmured at your Fame, or endeavoured to blast it, or that he was not always, to the best of his Judgment, as warm an Admirer of your Writings as any of your nearest Friends could be, is what you cannot, by any one Fact or Instance, disprove. How comes it then, that in your Works you have so often treated him as a Dunce or an Enemy? Did he at all intrench upon your Sovereignty in Verse, because he had now and then written a Comedy that succeeded? Or could not you bear, that any kind of Poetry, but that, to which you chiefly pretended, should meet with Applause? Or was it, that he had an equal Reputation for Acting his own Characters as for Writing them, or that with such inferior Talents he was admitted to as good Company as you, with your superior, could get into; or what other offensive Merit had he, that has so often made him the Object of your Contempt or Envy? It could not be, sure, simple Ill-nature, that incited you, because in the Preface to your Dunciad you declare that you have———
“In this Poem attacked no Man living, who had not before printed, or published some Scandal against you.”
How comes it, I say, that you have so often fallen foul upon Cibber then, against whom you have no Complaint, nor whose Name is so much as mentioned in the printed List you have given us of all those high Offenders, you so imperiously have proscribed and punish’d. Under this Class at least, you acquit him of having ever provoked you?
But in your Notes, to this Preface (that is, in your Notes upon Notes) from this general Declaration, you make an Exception,—“Of two, or three Persons only, whose Dulness or Scurrility all Mankind agreed, to have justly intitled them to a Place in the Dunciad.” Here then, or no where, you ground your Pretence of taking Me into it! Now let us enquire into the Justness of this Pretence, and whether Dulness in one Author gives another any right to abuse him for it? No sure! Dulness can be no Vice or Crime, or is at worst but a Misfortune, and you ought no more to censure or revile him for it, than for his being blind or lame; the Cruelty or Injustice will be evidently equal either way. But if you please I will wave this part of my Argument, and for once take no advantage of it; but will suppose Dulness to be actually Criminal, and then will leave it to your own Conscience, to declare, whether you really think I am generally so guilty of it, as to deserve the Name of the Dull Fellow you make of me. Now if the Reader will call upon My Conscience to speak to the Question, I do from my Heart solemnly declare, that I don’t believe you do think so of me. This I grant may be Vanity in me to say: But if what I believe is true, what a slovenly Conscience do you shew your Face with?