excellent perfon (bishop Burnet's) death, and many years before the appearance of that hiftory, of which they are pretended to be an abuse. Moft true it is, that Mr. Moore had fuch a defign, and was himself the man who preft Dr. Arbuthnot and Mr. Pope to affift him therein; and that he borrowed those Memoirs of our author, when that History came forth, with intent to turn them to fuch abufe. But being able to obtain from our author but one fingle hint, and either changing his mind, or having more mind than ability, he contented himself to keep the faid Memoirs, and read them as his own to all his acquaintance. A noble perfon there is, into whofe company Mr. Pope once chanced to introduce him, who well remembereth the conversation of Mr. Moore to have turnedupon the "Contempt he had for the work of that reve "rend prelate, and how full he was of a defign he declared "himself to have. of expofing it." This noble perfon is the Earl of PETERBOROUGH. Here in truth fhould we crave pardon of all the forefaid right honourable and worthy perfonages, for having mentioned them in the fame page with fuch weekly riffraff railers and rhymers; but that we had their everhonoured commands for the fame; and that they are introduced not as witneffes in the controverfy, but as witneffes that cannot be controverted; not to dispute, but to decide. Certain it is, that dividing our writers into two classes, of fuch who were acquaintance, and of such who were ftrangers to our author; the former are those who speak well, and the other those who speak evil of him. Of the first clafs, the most noble JOHN Duke of BUCKINGHAM fums up his character in thefe lines: "b And yet fo wond'rous, fo fublime a thing, b. Verfes to Mr. P. on his tranflation of Homer. "Unless I juftly could at once commend So alfo is he decyphered by the honourable "Say, wond'rous youth, what column wilt thou chuse, "What laurel'd.arch, for thy triumphant Mufe? "Tho' each great ancient court thee to his shrine, "Tho' ev'ry laurel thro' the dome be thine, "Go to the good and just, an awful train! "Thy foul's delight. Recorded in like manner for his virtuous difpofition, and gentle bearing, by the ingenious Mr. WALTER HART, in this apostrophe: "O! ever worthy, ever crown'd with praise! "Bleft in thy life and bleft in all thy lays. 66 Add, that the Sifters ev'ry thought refine, "And ev'n thy life, be faultless as thy line. "Yet ftill with fiercer rage pursues, envy "Obfcures the virtue, and defames the Mufe. "A foul like thine, in pain, in grief, refign'd, "Views with just scorn the malice of mankind." The witty and moral fatirift Dr. EDWARD YOUNG, wishing fome check to the corruption and evil manners of the times, calleth out upon our poet to undertake a tafk fo worthy of his virtue: "Why flumbers Pope, who leads the Mufe's train, "Nor hears that Virtue, which he loves, complain? < Poem prefix'd to his works, Univerfal Paffion, Sat, i, Lintot. a In his poems, printed for B. M. MALLET, In his epiftle on Verbal Criticifm. "Whofe life, feverely fcan'd, tranfcends his lays; "For wit fupreme is but his fecond praise." Mr. HAMMOND, That delicate and correct imitator of Tibullus, in his Love Elegies, Elegy xiv. "Now, fir'd by Pope and Virtue, leave the age, In low purfuit of felf-undoing wrong, "And trace the author thro' his moral page, In his elegant and philofophical poem of the Seasons To the fame tune alfo fingeth that learned clerk of Suffolk ❝f Thus, nobly rifing in fair Virtue's cause, "From thy own life tranfcribe th' unerring laws."" And, to close all, hear the reverend Dean of St. Patrick's: "A Soul with ev'ry virtue fraught, By Patriots, Priefts, and Poets taught. "Whofe filial Piety excells "Whatever Grecian story tells. "A genius for each bus'nefs fit, "Whose meaneft talent is his Wit," &c. 1 Let us now recreate thee by turning to the other fide, and fhewing his character drawn by those with whom he never converfed, and whofe countenances he could not know, though turned against him: First again commencing with the high voiced and never enough quoted f In his Poems, and at the end of the Odyssey. 66 Mr. JOHN DENNIS; Who, in his Reflections on the Effay on Criticism, thus defcribeth him: A little affected hypocrite, who has no"thing in his mouth but candour, truth, friendship, & good-nature, humanity, and magnanimity. He is fo great a lover of falfhood, that, whenever he has a "mind to calumniate his cotemporaries, he brands them "with fome defect which is juft contrary to fome good qua lity, for which all their friends and their acquaintance "commend them. He feems to have a particular pique to People of Quality, and authors of that rank.-He "muft derive his religion from St. Omer's."-But in the Character of Mr. P. and his writings, (printed by S. Popping, 1716.) he faith, "Though he is a profeffor of "the worst religion, yet he laughs at it," but that "nevertheless, he is a virulent Papift; and yet a Pillar "for the Church of England." Of both which opinions Mr. LEWIS THEOBALD feems alfo to be; declaring, in Mift's Journal of June 22, 1718. "That, if he is not fhrewdly abused, he made it his practice to cackle to both parties in their own fentiments." But, as to his pique against People of quality, the fame Journalist doth not agree, but faith (May 8, 1728.) "He had, by fome means or other, "the acquaintance and friendship of the whole body of our "nobility. However contradictory this may appear, Mr. Dennis and Gildon, in the character laft cited, make it all plain, by affuring us, "That he is a creature that reconciles all contradictions; he is a beast, and a man; a Whig, " and a Tory; a writer (at one and the fame time) of ¤ "Guardians and Examiners; an Affertor of liberty, and "of the difpenfing power of kings; a Jefuitical profeffor of truth a bafe and a foul pretender to candour." So that, upon the whole account, we must conclude him g The Names of two weekly Papers. either to have been a great hypocrite, or a very honest man; a terrible imposer upon both parties, or very moderate to either. Be it as to the judicious reader fhall feem good. Sure it is, he is little favoured of certain authors, whose wrath is perilous For one declares he ought to have a price fet on his head, and to be hunted down as a wild beaft Another protests that he does not know what may happen; advifes him to infure his perfon; fays he has bitter enemies, and exprefly declares it will be well if he escapes with his life. One defires he would cut his own throat, or hang himself. But Pafquin feemed rather inclined it fhould be done by the Government, reprefenting him engaged in grievous defigns with a Lord of Parliament, then under profecution. Mr. Dennis himself hath writ ten to a Minifter, that he is one of the most dangerous perfons in this kingdom; and affureth the public, that he is an open and mortal enemy to his country; a monfter, that will, one day, fhew as daring a foul as a mad Indian, who runs a muck to kill the first Christian he meets". Another gives information of Treafon difcovered in his poem. Mr. Curl boldly fupplies an imperfect verfe with Kings and Princeffes. And one Matthew Concanen, yet more impudent, publishes at length the Two moft SACRED NAMES in this Nation, as members of the Dunciad 9! This is prodigious! yet it is almost as strange, that in the midst of these invectives his greatest Enemies have (I know not how) born teftimony to fome merit in him. m Anno 1729. ⚫i Smed P Page Theobald, Letter in Mift's Journal, June 22, 1728. k Gulliveriana. p. 332 ley, Pref. to Gulliveriana, p. 14, 16. Anno 1723. n Preface to Rem. on the Rape of the Lock, p. 12. and in the last page of that treatise. 6, 7. of the Preface, by Concanen, to a book intitled, A Collection of all the Letters, Effays, Verfes and Advertisements, occafioned by Pope and Swift's Miscellanies, Printed for A. Moore, octavo, 1712. P Key to the Dunciad, 3d edit. p. 18. q A Lift of Perfons, &c. at the end of the forementioned Collection of all the Letters, Effays, &c. |