-I, for my having or having not
deserv'd it.

I could wish it might be observed then, by those who have read the Works
of Mr. _Pope_, that the contemptuous Things he there says of me, are
generally bare positive Assertions, without his any sort of Evidence to
ground them upon: Why then, till the Truth of them is better prov'd,
should they stand for any more, than so many _gratis Dictums_? But I
hope I have given him fairer Play, in what I have said of him, and which
I intend to give him, in what I shall farther say of him; that is, by
saying nothing to his Disadvantage that has not a known Fact to support
it. This will bring our Cause to a fair Issue; and no impartial Reader,
then, can be at a loss on which side Equity should incline him to give
Judgment. But as in this Dispute I shall be oblig'd, sometimes to be
_Witness_, as well as _Accuser_, I am bound, in Conscience, not to
conceal any Fact, that may possibly mitigate, or excuse the resentful
manner, in which Mr. _Pope_ has publickly treated me. Now I am afraid,
that I once as publickly offended him, before a thousand Spectators; to
the many of them, therefore, who might be Witnesses of the Fact, I
submit, as to the most competent Judges, how far it ought, or ought not,
to have provoked him.

The Play of the _Rehearsal_, which had lain some few Years dormant,
being by his present Majesty (then Prince of _Wales_) commanded to be
revived, the Part of _Bays_ fell to my share. To this Character there
had always been allow'd such ludicrous Liberties of Observation, upon
any thing new, or remarkable, in the state of the Stage, as Mr. _Bays_
might think proper to take. Much about this time, then, _The Three Hours
after Marriage_ had been acted without Success; when Mr. _Bays_, as
usual, had a fling at it, which, in itself, was no Jest, unless the
Audience would please to make it one: But however, flat as it was, Mr.
_Pope_ was mortally sore upon it. This was the Offence. In this Play,
two Coxcombs, being in love with a learned Virtuoso's Wife, to get
unsuspected Access to her, ingeniously send themselves, as two
presented Rarities, to the Husband, the one curiously swath'd up like an
_Egyptian_ Mummy, and the other slily cover'd in the Paste-board Skin of
a Crocodile: upon which poetical Expedient, I, Mr. _Bays_, when the two
Kings of _Brentford_ came from the Clouds into the Throne again, instead
of what my Part directed me to say, made use of these Words, viz. "Now,
S