quarrel to me is,
that I was the author of Absalom and Achitophel, which he thinks is a
little hard on his fanatic patrons in London.

But I will deal the more civilly with his two poems, because nothing ill
is to be spoken of the dead; and therefore peace be to the manes of his
Arthurs! I will only say, that it was not for this noble knight that I
drew the plan of an Epic poem on King Arthur, in my preface to the
translation of Juvenal. The guardian angels of kingdoms were machines
too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he rejected them, as
Dares did the whirlbats of Eryx, when they were thrown before him by
Entellus. Yet from that preface he plainly took his hint; for he began
immediately upon the story, though he had the baseness not to
acknowledge his benefactor, but instead of it, to traduce me in a libel.

I shall say the less of Mr Collier, because in many things he has taxed
me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of
mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or
immorality; and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he
be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise,
he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in
the defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it for a good
one. Yet it were not difficult to prove, that in many places he has
perverted my meaning by his glosses; and interpreted my words into
blasphemy and bawdry, of which they were not guilty; besides that he is
too much given to horse-play in his raillery; and comes to battle like a
dictator from the plough. I will not say, the zeal of God's house has
eaten him up; but I am sure it has devoured some part of his
good-manners and civility. It might also be doubted whether it were
altogether zeal which prompted him to this rough manner of proceeding:
perhaps it became not one of his function to rake into the rubbish of
ancient and modern plays: a divine might have employed his pains to
better purpose than in the nastiness of Plautus and Aristophanes; whose
examples, as they excuse not me, so it might be possibly supposed that
he read them not without some pleasure. They who have written
commentaries on those poets, or on Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, have
explained some vices, which without their interpretation had been
unknown to modern times. Neither has he judged impartially betwixt the
former age and us.

There is more bawd