Now, Sir, as for my Scurrility, when ever a Proof can be produced, that I have been guilty of it to you, or any one Man living, I will shamefully unsay all I have said, and confess I have deserv’d the various Names you have call’d me.
Having therefore said enough to clear my self of any Ill-will or Enmity to Mr. Pope, I should be glad he were able equally to acquit himself to Me, that I might not suppose the satyrical Arrows he has shot at me, to have flown from that Malignity of Mind, which the talking World is so apt to accuse him of. In the mean while, it may be worth the trouble to weigh the Truth, or Validity of the Wit he has bestow’d upon me, that it may appear, which of us is the worse Man for it; He, for his unprovoked Endeavour to vilify and expose me, or—I, for my having or having not deserv’d it.
I could wish it might be observed then, by those who have read the Works of Mr. Pope, that the contemptuous Things he there says of me, are generally bare positive Assertions, without his any sort of Evidence to ground them upon: Why then, till the Truth of them is better prov’d, should they stand for any more, than so many gratis Dictums? But I hope I have given him fairer Play, in what I have said of him, and which I intend to give him, in what I shall farther say of him; that is, by saying nothing to his Disadvantage that has not a known Fact to support it. This will bring our Cause to a fair Issue; and no impartial Reader, then, can be at a loss on which side Equity should incline him to give Judgment. But as in this Dispute I shall be oblig’d, sometimes to be Witness, as well as Accuser, I am bound, in Conscience, not to conceal any Fact, that may possibly mitigate, or excuse the resentful manner, in which Mr. Pope has publickly treated me. Now I am afraid, that I once as publickly offended him, before a thousand Spectators; to the many of them, therefore, who might be Witnesses of the Fact, I submit, as to the most competent Judges, how far it ought, or ought not, to have provoked him.
The Play of the Rehearsal, which had lain some few Years dormant, being by his present 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 Jest, unless the Audience would please to make it one: But however, flat as it was, Mr. Pope was mortally sore upon it. This was the Offence. In this Play, two Coxcombs, being in love with a learned Virtuoso’s Wife, to get unsuspected Access to her, ingeniously send themselves, as two presented Rarities, to the Husband, the one curiously swath’d up like an Egyptian Mummy, and the other slily cover’d 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 Throne again, instead of what my Part directed me to say, made use of these Words, viz. “Now, Sir, this Revolution, I had some Thoughts of introducing, by a quite different Contrivance; but my Design taking air, some of your sharp Wits, I found, had made use of it before me; otherwise I intended to have stolen one of them in, in the Shape of a Mummy, and t’other, 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 Reflection of my own, into that Contempt: Surely to have used the bare Word Mummy, and Crocodile, was neither unjust, or unmannerly; Where then was the Crime of simply saying there had been two such things in a former Play? But this, it seems, was so heinously taken by Mr. Pope, that, in the swelling of his Heart, after the Play was over, he came behind the Scenes, with his Lips pale and his Voice trembling, to call me to account for the Insult: And accordingly fell upon me with all the foul Language, that a Wit out of his Senses could be capable of———How durst I have the Impudence to treat any Gentleman in that manner? &c. &c. &c. Now let the Reader judge by this Concern, who was the true Mother of the Child! When he was almost choked with the foam of his Passion, I was enough recover’d from my Amazement to make him (as near as I can remember) this Reply, viz. “Mr. Pope——You are so particular a Man, that I must be asham’d to return your Language as I ought to do: but since you have attacked me in so monstrous a Manner; This you may depend upon, that as long as the Play continues to be acted, I will never fail to repeat the same Words over and over again.” Now, as he accordingly found I kept my Word, for several Days following, I am afraid he has since thought, that his Pen was a sharper Weapon than his Tongue to trust his Revenge with. And however just Cause this may be for his so doing, it is, at least, the only Cause my Conscience can charge me with. Now, as I might have concealed this Fact, if my Conscience would have suffered me, may we not suppose, Mr. Pope would certainly have mention’d it in his Dunciad, had he thought it could have been of service to him? But as he seems, notwithstanding, to have taken Offence from it, how well does this Soreness of Temper agree with what he elsewhere says of himself?
But touch me, and no Minister so sore.
1 Sat. 2 B. of Hor. ver. 76.
Since then, even his Admirers allow, that Spleen has a great share in his Composition, and as Thirst of Revenge, in full Possession of a conscious Power to execute it, is a Temptation, which we see the Depravity of Human Nature is so little able to resist, why then should we wonder, that a Man so easily hurt, as Mr. Pope seems to be, should be so frequently delighted in his inflicting those Pains upon others, which he feels he is not himself able to bear? This is the only way I can account for his having sometimes carried his satyrical Strokes farther, than, I doubt, a true and laudable Satyrist would have thought justifiable. But it is now time to open, what on my own part I have to charge him with.
In turning over his Works of the smaller Edition, the eldest Date I find, in print, of my being out of his Favour, is from an odd Objection he makes to a, then, new Play of mine, The Non-Juror. In one of his Letters to Mr. Jervas, p. 85. he writes thus——
“Your Acquaintance, on this side the Water, are under terrible Apprehensions, from your long stay in Ireland, that you may grow too polite for them; for we think (since the great Success of such a Play as the Non-Juror) that Politeness is gone over the Water, &c.
(By the way, was not his Wit a little stiff and weary, when he strained so hard to bring in this costive Reflection upon the Non-Juror? Dear Soul! What terrible Apprehensions it gave him!) And some few Lines after he cries out——
“Poor Poetry! the little that’s left of thee, longs to cross the Seas——