But where is my Parenthesis, Mr. Filch? If you are asham’d of it, I have no reason to be so, and therefore the Reader shall have it: My Sentence then runs thus——
“I never look upon those Lines as Malice meant to me (for he knows I never provok’d it) &c.
These last Words indeed might have star’d you too full in the Face, not to have put your Conscience out of countenance. But a Wit of your Intrepidity, I see, is above that vulgar Weakness.
After this sneaking Omission, you have still the same Scruple against some other Lines in the Text to come: But as you serve your Purposes by leaving them out, you must give me leave to serve mine by supplying them. I shall therefore give the Reader the rest entire, and only mark what you don’t choose should be known in Italicks, viz.
“One of his Points must be to have many Readers: He considers, that my Face and Name are more known than those of many Thousands of more Consequence in the Kingdom, that, therefore, right or wrong, a Lick at the Laureat will always be a sure Bait, ad captandum vulgus, to catch him little Readers: And that to gratify the unlearned, by now and then interspersing those merry Sacrifices of an old Acquaintance to their Taste, in a Piece of quite right Poetical Craft.”
Now, Sir, is there any thing in this Paragraph (which you have so maim’d and sneer’d at) that, taken all together, could merit the injurious Reception you have given it? Ought I, for this, to have had the stale Affront of Dull, and Impudent, repeated upon me? or could it have lessen’d the Honour of your Understanding, to have taken this quiet Resentment of your frequent ill Usage in good part? Or had it not rather been a Mark of your Justice and Generosity, not to have pursued me with fresh Instances of your Ill-will upon it? or, on the contrary, could you be so weak as to Envy me the Patience I was master of, and therefore could not bear to be, in any light, upon amicable Terms with me? I hope your Temper is not so unhappy as to be offended, or in pain, when your Insults are return’d with Civilities? or so vainly uncharitable as to value yourself for laughing at my Folly, in supposing you never had any real malicious Intention against me? No, you could not, sure, believe, the World would take it for granted, that every low, vile Thing you had said of me, was evidently true? How then can you hold me in such Derision, for finding your Freedom with my Name, a better Excuse than you yourself are able to give, or are willing to accept of? or, admitting, that my deceived Opinion of your Goodness was so much real Simplicity and Ignorance, was not even That, at least, pardonable? Might it not have been taken in a more favourable Sense by any Man of the least Candour or Humanity? But—I am afraid, Mr. Pope, the severely different Returns you have made to it, are Indications of a Heart I want a Name for.
Upon the whole, while you are capable of giving such a trifling Turn to my Patience, I see but very little Hopes of my ever removing your Prejudice: for in your Notes upon the above Paragraph (to which I refer the Reader) you treat me more like a rejected Flatterer, than a Critick: But, I hope, you now find that I have at least taken off that Imputation, by my using no Reserve in shewing the World from what you have said of Me, what I think of You. Had not therefore this last Usage of me been so particular, I scarce believe the Importunity of my Friends, or the Inclination I have to gratify them, would have prevailed with me to have taken this publick Notice of whatever Names you had formerly call’d me.
I have but one Article more of your high-spirited Wit to examine, and then I shall close our Account. In ver. 524 of the same Poem, you have this Expression, viz.
By which I find you modestly mean Cibber’s Impudence; And, by the Place it stands in, you offer it as a Sample of the strongest Impudence.——Sir, your humble Servant——But pray, Sir, in your Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, (where, by the way, in your ample Description of a Great Poet, you slily hook in a whole Hat-full of Virtues to your own Character) have not you this particular Line among them? viz.