As Shakespear says, without Ceremony, threw open the Door upon him, where I found this little hasty Hero, like a terrible Tom Tit, pertly perching upon the Mount of Love! But such was my Surprize, that I fairly laid hold of his Heels, and actually drew him down safe and sound from his Danger. My Lord, who staid tittering without, in hopes the sweet Mischief he came for would have been compleated, upon my giving an Account of the Action within, began to curse, and call me an hundred silly Puppies, for my impertinently spoiling the Sport; to which with great Gravity I reply’d; pray, my Lord, consider what I have done was, in regard to the Honour of our Nation! For would you have had so glorious a Work as that of making Homer speak elegant English, cut short by laying up our little Gentleman of a Malady, which his thin Body might never have been cured of? No, my Lord! Homer would have been too serious a Sacrifice to our Evening Merriment. Now as his Homer has since been so happily compleated, who can say, that the World may not have been obliged to the kindly Care of Colley that so great a Work ever came to Perfection?

And now again, gentle Reader, let it be judged, whether the Lord and the Whore above-mention’d might not, with equal Justice, have been apply’d to sober Sawney the Satyrist, as to Colley the Criminal?

Though I confess Recrimination to be but a poor Defence for one’s own Faults; yet when the Guilty are Accusers, it seems but just, to make use of any Truth, that may invalidate their Evidence: I therefore hope, whatever the serious Reader may think amiss in this Story, will be excused, by my being so hardly driven to tell it.

I could wish too, it might be observed, that whatever Faults I find with the Morals of Mr. Pope, I charge none to his Poetical Capacity, but chiefly to his Ruling Passion, which is so much his Master, that we must allow, his inimitable Verse is generally warmest, where his too fond Indulgence of that Passion inspires it. How much brighter still might that Genius shine, could it be equally inspired by Good-nature!

Now though I may have less Reason to complain of his Severity, than many others, who may have less deserv’d it: Yet by his crowding me into so many of his Satyrs, it is plain his Ill-will is oftner at Work upon Cibber, than upon any Mortal he has had a mind to make a Dunce, or a Devil of: And as there are about half a Score remaining Verses, where Cibber still fills up the Numbers, and which I have not yet produced, I think it will pretty near make good my Observation: Most of them, ’tis true, are so slight Marks of his Disfavour, that I can charge them with little more, than a mere idle Liberty with my Name; I shall therefore leave the greater part of them without farther Observation to make the most of their Meaning. Some few of them however (perhaps from my want of Judgment) seem so ambiguous, as to want a little Explanation.

In his First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace, ver. 86, speaking of the Uncertainty of the publick Judgment upon Dramatick Authors, after naming the best, he concludes his List of them thus:

But for the Passions, Southern sure, and Rowe.
These, only these support the crouded Stage,
From eldest Heywood down to Cibber’s Age.

Here he positively excludes Cibber from any Share in supporting the Stage as an Author; and yet, in the Lines immediately following, he seems to allow it him, by something so like a Commendation, that if it be one, it is at the same time a Contradiction to Cibber’s being the Dunce, which the Dunciad has made of him. But I appeal to the Verses; here they are—ver. 87.

All this may be; the Peoples Voice is odd,
It is, and it is not the Voice of God.
To Gammer Gurton if it give the Bays,
And yet deny The Careless Husband Praise.

Now if The Careless Husband deserv’d Praise, and had it, must it not (without comparing it with the Works of the above-cited Authors) have had its Share in supporting the Stage? which Mr. Pope might as well have allow’d it to have had, as to have given it the Commendation he seems to do: I say (seems) because is saying (if) the People deny’d it Praise, seems to imply they had deny’d it; or if they had not deny’d it, (which is true) then his Censure upon the People is false. Upon the whole, the Meaning of these Verses stands in so confus’d a Light, that I confess I don’t clearly discern it. ’Tis true, the late General Dormer intimated to me, that he believ’d Mr. Pope intended them as a Compliment to The Careless Husband; but if it be a Compliment, I rather believe it was a Compliment to that Gentleman’s Good-nature, who told me a little before this Epistle was publish’d, that he had been making Interest for a little Mercy to his Friend Colley in it. But this, it seems, was all he could get for him: However, had his Wit stopt here, and said no more of me, for that Gentleman’s sake, I might have thank’d him: But whatever Restraint he might be under then, after this Gentleman’s Decease we shall see he had none upon him: For now out comes a new Dunciad, where, in the first twenty Lines he takes a fresh Lick at the Laureat; as Fidlers and Prize-fighters always give us a Flourish before they come to the Tune or the Battle in earnest. Come then, let us see what your mighty Mountain is in Labour of? Oh! here we have it! New Dun. ver. 20. Dulness mounts the Throne, &c. and——