th each
other.

That the Rev. Mr. Br[oo]me ever asserted or complain'd, he was not
gratify'd with a competent Sum for his Share in the Odyssey; nay did
not own that he thought himself highly paid.

That Mr. Addison or any other but Mr. P. writ, or alter'd, one line
of the Prologue to Cato.

Who will name any young Writer, allow'd to have Merit, that hath
been personally discourag'd by him; or who hath not received either
actual Services, or amicable Treatment from him?

III.

_The Blatant Beast_ appeared in December 1742, according to _The London
Magazine_; its authorship remains unknown. Pope had published _The New
Dunciad_ in March 1742, and Cibber had published his famous _A Letter
From Mr. Cibber, To Mr. Pope_ in July. Five other pamphlets attacking
Pope appeared in August, obviously capitalizing on the Cibber attack.

_The Blatant Beast_ is pro-Cibber, of course, but it criticizes
specifically only a few lines from _The New Dunciad_. The writer's chief
interest is in a general attack. The criticisms of the Shakespeare, of
_Three Hours_ and the _Epistle to Burlington_, and of Pope's plagiarism
are perfectly conventional. More interesting is the accusation (p. 6)
that Pope wrote (as, of course, he did) his Homer on the backs of
personal letters. Also interesting is the reference to Pope's
inscription on the Shakespeare monument in Westminster Abbey (p. 5).
Pope was, with several others, responsible for the Latin inscription;
it does not seem that he had anything to do with the lines from _The
Tempest_ IV. i. 152-156, which were added several months later. These
lines are given in the first note to _The Dunciad B_ I. and, in slightly
different form, in _The Gentleman's Magazine_, XI, 276. The last line
reads, "Leave not a wreck behind." Pope's version of the lines in both
his 1725 and 1728 editions of Shakespeare (Griffith 149 and 210) does
not commit the errors of the inscription and prints, "Leave not a rack
behind!"[23] The bantering note about the monument which begins _The
Dunciad B_ may have been prompted by this passage in _The Blatant Beast_
as well as by the comment of Theobald which Sutherland refers to.

But it is the shrill personal abuse of Pope's deformity and moral
obliquity,

The Morals blacken'd when the Writings scape;
The libel'd Person, and the pictur'd Shape

(_Epistle to Arbuthnot_, ll. 353-353)

which is most impressive. The writer shows a talent for invect