all take from the Merit of those more successful Pieces, which
were entirely my own? Is a Tailor, that can make a new Coat well, the
worse Workman, because he can mend an old one? When a Man is abus'd, he
has a right to speak even laudable Truths of himself, to confront his
Slanderer. Let me therefore add, that my first Comedy of _The Fool in
Fashion_ was as much (though not so valuable) an Original, as any one
Work Mr. _Pope_ himself has produc'd. It is now forty-seven Years since
its first Appearance upon the Stage, where it has kept its Station, to
this very Day, without ever lying one Winter dormant. And what Part of
this Play, Sir, can you charge with a Theft either from any _French_
Author, from _Plautus_, _Fletcher_, _Congreve_, or _Corneille_? Nine
Years after this I brought on _The Careless Husband_, with still greater
Success; and was that too

_A patch'd, vamp'd, future, old, reviv'd, new Piece?_

Let the many living Spectators of these Plays then judge between us,
whether the above Verses, you have so unmercifully besmear'd me with,
were fit to come from the _honest Heart_ of a Satyrist, who would be
thought, like you, the upright Censor of Mankind. Indeed, indeed, Sir,
this Libel was below you! How could you be so wanting to yourself as not
to consider, that Satyr, without Truth, tho' flowing in the finest
Numbers, recoils upon its Author, and must, at other times, render him
suspected of Prejudice, even where he may be just; as Frauds, in
Religion, make more Atheists than Converts? And the bad Heart, Mr.
_Pope_, that points an Injury with Verse, makes it the more
unpardonable, as it is not the Result of sudden Passion, but of an
indulg'd and slowly meditating Ill-nature; and I am afraid yours, in
this Article, is so palpable, that I am almost asham'd to have made it
so serious a Reply.

What a merry mixt Mortal has Nature made you? that can thus debase that
Strength and Excellence of Genius she has endow'd you with, to the
lowest human Weakness, that of offering unprovok'd Injuries; nay, at the
Hazard of your being ridiculous too, as you must be, when the Venom you
spit falls short of your Aim! For I shall never believe your Verses have
done me the Harm you intended, or lost me one Friend, or added a single
Soul to the number of my Enemies, though so many thousands that know me,
may have read them. How then could your blind Impatience in your
_Dunciad_ thunder out such poetical _Anathemas_ on your own