s some Thinking to Ill-Nature._
DRYDEN.

_L O N D O N_:

Printed for J. ROBERTS, in _Warwick-Lane_.

[Price One Shilling.]

[Decoration]

THE

PREFACE.

_The indecent Images, and the frequent and bad Imitations of the
Classics in the _Dunciad_, have occasioned several just Observations
upon so new and coarse a Manner of Writing: I shall wave this Topic at
present, and only regard the most plausible Insinuation in Favour of
this Author; which is, that he never begun an Attack upon any Person,
who had not before, either in Print or private Conversation, endeavour'd
something to his Disadvantage._

_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
Tow