Superior virtue and superior sense,
To knaves and fools will always give offence:
Nay, men of real worth can scarcely bear—
So nice is jealousy—a rival there."
Such is the introduction to Churchill's Epistle, and I believe the reader will grant that it is quite as applicable to the poet as the painter. After some lines which would apply to any other subject as well as that under consideration, he thus proceeds:
"Hogarth,—I take thee, Candour, at thy word,
Accept thy proffer'd terms, and will be heard;
Thee have I heard with virulence declaim,
Nothing retained of Candour but the name;
By thee have I been charg'd in angry strains,[162]