This Assertion is by no means true, as I shall immediately shew; if it were true, it might indeed bear some Weight, but however with this Distinction, that the Reports of private Conversation, brought to him by such Emissaries, as belong to him, are not always to be believed, and that no Attack in Print upon a Man’s Poetical Character, ought to be repaid by Lampoon and Virulence upon the Moral Character of his Antagonist: Every Person has a Right to determine upon the Talents of Writers, particularly of one, who appears in Publick only to gratify the two worst Appetites, that disgrace Human Nature, I mean Malice and Avarice; and sure no Man deserves a violent Injury to his Reputation, as a Gentleman, because perhaps at a Distance of several Years since he might have said, that Mr. Pope had nothing in him Original as a Writer, that Mr. Tickel greatly excelled him in his Translation of Homer, and many of his Contemporaries in other Branches of Writing, and that he is infinitely inferior to Mr. Phillips in Pastoral: And yet such Arguments or Apologies as these have been used by himself, or his Tea-Table Cabals, for calling Gentlemen Scoundrels, Blockheads, Gareteers, and Beggars,: If he can transmit them to Posterity under such Imputations, he is a bad Man; if he cannot, he is a bad Writer: I believe, that he would rather suffer under the first Character, than the last: But before I have done with him, I will make a very strict Inquiry into both.
In the mean time I shall shew the Reader, in general, the Falshood of his main Pretence, that he has meddled with no one, that had not before hurt him, and in this View, tho’ I should be ashamed of being too serious in a Controversy of this Sort, I think it proper to acquaint the Town with the original Design of the Dunciad, and the real Reasons of its Production. This Piece, which has been honour’d by Booksellers of Quality, contains only the Poetical Part of Dulness, extracted from a Libel, call’d, The Progress of it, and which included several other Branches of Science, and perhaps some of those Gentlemen, who have in the warmest Manner asserted the Cause of the Dunciad, might have seen a Publication of a Work, upon the Death of this Writer, in which no past Friendship could have screen’d them from Lampoon for any Pretences to excel in any Science whatever: It appears, therefore, that he was teaz’d into a Publication of these Cantos, which regarded the Writers of the Age, by some Attacks, that were made upon him about that Time: We must refer to a Miscellany of Poems published by Him and Swift, to which is prefix’d, An Essay on the Profund, to consider if those Attacks were justifiable; Mr. Dean Swift never saw the Profund, till made publick, and Dr. Arburthnot, who originally sketch’d the Design of it, desired that the Initial Letters of Names of the Gentlemen abused might not be inserted, that they might be A or B, or Do or Ro, or any thing of that Nature, which would make this Satire a general one upon any dull Writers in any Age: This was refused by Pope, and he chose rather to treat a Set of Gentlemen as Vermin, Reptiles, &c. at a Time when he had no Provocation to do so, when he had closed his Labours, finish’d his great Subscriptions, and was in a fashionable Degree of Reputation: Several Gentlemen, who are there ranked with the dullest Men, or dullest Beasts, never did appear in Print against him, or say any thing in Conversation which might affect his Character: Some Replies, which were made to the Profund, occasioned the Publication of the Dunciad, which was first of all begun with a general Malice to all Mankind, and now appears under an Excuse of Provocations, which he had received, after he himself had struck the first Blow in the above-mentioned Miscellanies.
I cannot indeed say much in Praise of some Performances, which appear’d against him, and am sorry that Voluntiers enter’d into the War, whom I could wish to have been only Spectators: But the Cause became so general, that some Gentlemen, who never aim’d at the Laurel, grew Poets merely upon their being angry: A Militia, in Case of publick Invasion, may perhaps be thought necessary, but yet one could always wish for an Army of regular Troops: I should not have touched upon this Circumstance, but to obviate some Imputations, which he had suggested, of my Writing several Pieces, which I never heard of, till I saw them with the rest of the Town: But these Suggestions shall be considered in the Preface to the next Epistle, in which, among other Things, I intend to state several Matters of Fact, in Contradiction to the Notes of the Dunciad, particularly as they concern the Writers of the following Poem.
