FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40  
41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   >>  
or published some Scandal against you." How comes it, I say, that you have so often fallen foul upon _Cibber_ then, against whom you have no Complaint, nor whose Name is so much as mentioned in the printed List you have given us of all those high Offenders, you so imperiously have proscribed and punish'd. Under this Class at least, you acquit him of having ever provoked you? But in your Notes, to this Preface (that is, in your Notes upon Notes) from this general Declaration, you make an Exception,--"Of two, or three Persons only, whose Dulness or Scurrility all Mankind agreed, to have justly intitled them to a Place in the _Dunciad_." Here then, or no where, you ground your Pretence of taking Me into it! Now let us enquire into the Justness of this Pretence, and whether Dulness in one Author gives another any right to abuse him for it? No sure! Dulness can be no Vice or Crime, or is at worst but a Misfortune, and you ought no more to censure or revile him for it, than for his being blind or lame; the Cruelty or Injustice will be evidently equal either way. But if you please I will wave this part of my Argument, and for once take no advantage of it; but will suppose Dulness to be actually Criminal, and then will leave it to your own Conscience, to declare, whether you really think I am generally so guilty of it, as to deserve the Name of the Dull Fellow you make of me. Now if the Reader will call upon My Conscience to speak to the Question, I do from my Heart solemnly declare, that I don't believe you _do_ think so of me. This I grant may be Vanity in me to say: But if what I believe is true, what a slovenly Conscience do you shew your Face with? Now, Sir, as for my Scurrility, when ever a Proof can be produced, that I have been guilty of it to you, or any one Man living, I will shamefully unsay all I have said, and confess I have deserv'd the various Names you have call'd me. Having therefore said enough to clear my self of any Ill-will or Enmity to Mr. _Pope_, I should be glad he were able equally to acquit himself to Me, that I might not suppose the satyrical Arrows he has shot at me, to have flown from that Malignity of Mind, which the talking World is so apt to accuse him of. In the mean while, it may be worth the trouble to weigh the Truth, or Validity of the Wit he has bestow'd upon me, that it may appear, which of us is the worse Man for it; He, for his unprovoked Endeavour to vilify and expose me, or-
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40  
41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   >>  



Top keywords:

Dulness

 

Conscience

 

guilty

 

suppose

 

Scurrility

 

declare

 

Pretence

 

acquit

 
living
 

produced


Reader

 

Question

 

Fellow

 
generally
 

deserve

 
solemnly
 
slovenly
 
Vanity
 

shamefully

 
trouble

accuse

 

Malignity

 

talking

 

unprovoked

 

Endeavour

 

vilify

 

expose

 

Validity

 

bestow

 
Having

confess
 
deserv
 
Enmity
 

satyrical

 

Arrows

 

equally

 
Preface
 
general
 
Declaration
 

provoked


punish
 

Exception

 

agreed

 

justly

 

intitled

 

Mankind

 

Persons

 

proscribed

 

imperiously

 

fallen