In your Remarks upon the above Verses, your Wit, unwilling to have done with me, throws out an ironical Sneer at my Attempts in Tragedy: Let us see how far it disgraces me.
After your quoting the following Paragraph from Jacob’s Lives of the Dramatick Poets, viz.
“Mr. Colley Cibber, an Author, and an Actor, of a good share of Wit and uncommon Vivacity, which are much improv’d by the Conversation he enjoys, which is of the best,” &c.
Then say you,
“Mr. Jacob omitted to remark, that he is particularly admirable in Tragedy.”
Ay, Sir, and your Remark has omitted too, that (with all his Commendations) I can’t dance upon the Rope, or make a Saddle, nor play upon the Organ.—Augh! my dear, dear Mr. Pope! how could a Man of your stinging Capacity let so tame, so low a Reflexion escape him? Why this hardly rises above the pretty Malice of Miss Molly—Ay, ay, you may think my Sister as handsome as you please, but if you were to see her Legs—I know what I know! And so, with all these Imperfections upon me, the Triumph of your Observation amounts to this: That tho’ you should allow, by what Jacob says of me, that I am good for something, yet you notwithstanding have cunningly discover’d, that I am not good for every thing. Well, Sir, and am not I very well off, if you have nothing worse to say of me? But if I have made so many crowded Theatres laugh, and in the right Place too, for above forty Years together, am I to make up the Number of your Dunces, because I have not the equal Talent of making them cry too? Make it your own Case: Is what you have excell’d in at all the worse, for your having so dismally dabbled (as I before observ’d) in the Farce of Three Hours after Marriage? Non omnia possumus omnes, is an allow’d Excuse for the Insufficiencies of all Mankind; and if, as you see, you too must sometimes be forc’d to take shelter under it, as well as myself, what mighty Reason will the World have to laugh at my Weakness in Tragedy, more than at yours in Comedy? Or, to make us Both still easier in the matter, if you will say, you are not asham’d of your Weakness, I will promise you not to be asham’d of mine. Or if you don’t like this Advice, let me give you some from the wiser Spanish Proverb, which says, That a Man should never throw Stones, that has glass Windows in his Head.
Upon the whole, your languid Ill-will in this Remark, makes so sickly a Figure, that one would think it were quite exhausted; for it must run low indeed, when you are reduc’d to impute the want of an Excellence, as a Shame to me. But in ver. 261, your whole Barrel of Spleen seems not to have a Drop more in it, though you have tilted it to the highest: For there you are forc’d to tell a downright Fib, and hang me up in a Light where no body ever saw me: As for Example, speaking of the Absurdity of Theatrical Pantomimes, you say
When lo! to dark Encounter in mid Air
New Wizards rise: Here Booth, and Cibber there:
Booth, in his cloudy Tabernacle shrin’d,
On grinning Dragons Cibber mounts the Wind.
If you, figuratively, mean by this, that I was an Encourager of those Fooleries, you are mistaken; for it is not true: If you intend it literally, that I was Dunce enough to mount a Machine, there is as little Truth in that too: But if you meant it only as a pleasant Abuse, you have done it with infinite Drollery indeed! Beside, the Name of Cibber, you know, always implies Satyr in the Sound, and never fails to keep the Flatness or Modesty of a Verse in countenance.
Some Pages after, indeed, in pretty near the same Light, you seem to have a little negative Kindness for me, ver. 287, where you make poor Settle, lamenting his own Fate, say,