h you;
notwithstanding I am under the Disadvantage of having only the blunt
and weak weapon of Prose, to oppose you, or defend myself, against the
Sharpness of Verse, and that in the Hand of so redoubted an Author as
Mr. _Pope_.

Their spiriting me up to this unequal Engagement, I doubt is but an ill
Compliment to my Skill, or my Discretion; or, at best, seems but to put
me upon a level with a famous Boxer at the _Bear-Garden_, called _Rugged
and Tough_, who would stand being drubb'd for Hours together, 'till
wearying out his Antagonist by the repeated Labour of laying him on, and
by keeping his own Wind (like the _Roman_ Combatant of old, who
conquer'd by seeming to fly) honest _Rugged_ sometimes came off
victorious. All I can promise therefore, since I am stript for the
Combat, is, that I will so far imitate this Iron-headed Hero (as the
_Turks_ called the late King of _Sweden_) as always to keep my Temper,
as he did his Wind, and that while I have Life, or am able to set Pen to
Paper, I will now, Sir, have the last Word with you: For let the Odds of
your Wit be never so great, or its Pen dipt in whatever Venom it may,
while I am conscious you can say nothing truly of me, that ought to put
an honest Man to the Blush, what, in God's Name, can I have to fear
from you? As to the Reputation of my Attempts, in Poetry, that has taken
its Ply long ago, and can now no more be lessened by your coldest
Contempt, than it can be raised by your warmest Commendation, were you
inclin'd to give it any: Every Man's Work must and will always speak
_For_, or _Against_ itself, whilst it has a remaining Reader in the
World. All I shall say then as to that Point, is, that I wrote more to
be Fed, than be Famous, and since my Writings still give me a Dinner, do
you rhyme me out of my Stomach if you can. And I own myself so contented
a Dunce, that I would not have even your merited Fame in Poetry, if it
were to be attended with half the fretful Solicitude you seem to have
lain under to maintain it; of which the laborious Rout you make about
it, in those Loads of Prose Rubbish, wherewith you have almost smother'd
your _Dunciad_, is so sore a Proof: And though I grant it a better Poem
of its Kind, than ever was writ; yet when I read it, with those
vain-glorious encumbrances of Notes, and Remarks, upon almost every Line
of it, I find myself in the uneasy Condition I was once in at an Opera,
where sitting with a silent Desire to hear a favourite