Criticism_.

I had not mentioned the modest Liberty I have here and there taken of
animadverting on my Author, but that I was willing to obviate in time the
splenetick Exaggerations of my Adversaries on this Head. From past
Experiments I have reason to be conscious in what Light this Attempt may
be placed: and that what I call a _modest Liberty_, will, by a little of
their Dexterity, be inverted into downright _Impudence_. From a hundred
mean and dishonest Artifices employ'd to discredit this Edition, and to
cry down its Editor, I have all the Grounds in nature to beware of
Attacks. But tho' the Malice of Wit, join'd to the Smoothness of
Versification, may furnish some Ridicule; Fact, I hope, will be able to
stand its Ground against Banter and Gaiety.

It has been my Fate, it seems, as I thought it my Duty, to discover some
_Anachronisms_ in our Author; which might have slept in Obscurity but for
_this Restorer_, as Mr. _Pope_ is pleas'd affectionately to stile me: as,
for Instance, where _Aristotle_ is mentioned by _Hector_ in _Troilus_ and
_Cressida_: and _Galen_, _Cato_, and _Alexander_ the Great, in
_Coriolanus_. These, in Mr. _Pope_'s Opinion, are Blunders, which the
Illiteracy of the first Publishers of his Works has father'd upon the
Poet's Memory: _it not being at all credible, that These could be the
Errors of any Man who had the least Tincture of a School, or the least
Conversation with Such as had._ But I have sufficiently proved, in the
course of my _Notes_, that such _Anachronisms_ were the Effect of Poetic
Licence, rather than of Ignorance in our Poet. And if I may be permitted
to ask a modest Question by the way, Why may not I restore an
_Anachronism_ really made by our Author, as well as Mr. _Pope_ take the
Privilege to fix others upon him, which he never had it in his Head to
make; as I may venture to affirm he had not, in the Instance of Sir
_Francis Drake_, to which I have spoke in the proper Place?

But who shall dare make any Words about this Freedom of Mr. _Pope_'s
towards _Shakespeare_, if it can be prov'd, that, in his Fits of
Criticism, he makes no more Ceremony with good _Homer_ himself? To try,
then, a Criticism of his own advancing; In the 8th Book of the _Odyssey_,
where _Demodocus_ sings the Episode of the Loves of _Mars_ and _Venus_;
and that, upon their being taken in the Net by _Vulcan_,

----The God of Arms
Must pay the Penalty for lawless Charms;

Mr. _Pope_ is so kind