d I ever read.
The only Prejudice or wrong Bias of Judgment, I am afraid I may be
guilty of is, when I cannot help thinking, that your Wit is more
remarkably bare and barren, whenever it would fall foul upon _Cibber_,
than upon any other Person or Occasion whatsoever: I therefore could
wish the Reader may have sometimes considered those Passages, that if I
do you Injustice, he may as justly condemn me for it.

In this Epistle ver. 59. of your Folio Edition, you seem to bless
yourself, that you are not my Friend! no wonder then, you rail at me!
but let us see upon what Occasion you own this Felicity. Speaking of an
impertinent Author, who teized you to recommend his _Virgin Tragedy_ to
the Stage, you at last happily got rid of him with this Excuse----

_There (thank my Stars) my whole Commission ends,_
Cibber _and I, are luckily no Friends._

If you chose not to be mine, Sir, it does not follow, that it was
equally my Choice not to be yours: But perhaps you thought me your
Enemy, because you were conscious you had injur'd me, and therefore were
resolv'd never to forgive _Me_, because I had it in my Power to forgive
_You_: For, as _Dryden_ says,

_Forgiveness, to the Injur'd does belong;
But they ne'er pardon who have done the Wrong._

This, Sir, is the only natural Excuse, I can form, for your being my
Enemy. As to your blunt Assertion of my certain Prejudice to any thing,
that had your Recommendation to the Stage, which your above Lines would
insinuate; I gave you a late Instance in _The Miller of Mansfield_, that
your manner of treating Me had in no sort any Influence upon my
Judgment. For you may remember, sometime before that Piece was acted, I
accidentally met you, in a Visit to the late General _Dormer_, who,
though he might be your good Friend, was not for that Reason the less a
Friend to Me: There you join'd with that Gentleman, in asking my Advice
and Assistance in that Author's behalf; which as I had read the Piece,
though I had then never seen the Man, I gave, in such manner, as I
thought might best serve him: And if I don't over-rate my
Recommendation, I believe its way to the Stage was made the more easy by
it. This Fact, then, does in no kind make good your Insinuation, that my
Enmity to you would not suffer me to like any thing that you liked;
which though you call your good Fortune in Verse, yet in Prose, you see,
it happens not to be true. But I am glad to find, in your smaller
Edition, tha