I have at least taken off that
Imputation, by my using no Reserve in shewing the World from what you
have said of _Me_, what I think of _You_. Had not therefore this last
Usage of me been so particular, I scarce believe the Importunity of my
Friends, or the Inclination I have to gratify them, would have prevailed
with me to have taken this publick Notice of whatever Names you had
formerly call'd me.

I have but one Article more of your high-spirited Wit to examine, and
then I shall close our Account. In _ver._ 524 of the same Poem, you have
this Expression, _viz._

Cibberian _Forehead_------

By which I find you modestly mean _Cibber_'s Impudence; And, by the
Place it stands in, you offer it as a Sample of the _strongest_
Impudence.----Sir, your humble Servant----But pray, Sir, in your Epistle
to Dr. _Arbuthnot_, (where, by the way, in your ample Description of a
Great Poet, you slily hook in a whole Hat-full of Virtues to your own
Character) have not you this particular Line among them? _viz._

_And thought a_ Lye, _in Verse or Prose the same._

Now, Sir, if you can get all your Readers to believe me as Impudent as
you make me, your Verse, with the Lye in it, may have a good Chance to
be thought true: if _not_, the Lye in your Verse will never get out of
it.

This, I confess, is only arguing with the same Confidence that you
sometimes write; that is, we both flatly affirm, and equally expect to
be believ'd. But here, indeed, your Talent has something the better of
me; for any Accusation, in smooth Verse, will always sound well, though
it is not tied down to have a Tittle of Truth in it; when the strongest
Defence in poor humble Prose, not having that harmonious Advantage,
takes no body by the Ear: And yet every one must allow this may be very
hard upon an innocent Man: For suppose, in Prose now, I were as
confidently to insist, that you were an _Honest, Good-natur'd,
Inoffensive Creature_, would my barely saying so be any Proof of it? No,
sure! Why then might it not be suppos'd an equal Truth, that Both our
Assertions were equally false? _Yours_, when you call me _Impudent_;
_Mine_, when I call you _Modest_, &c. If, indeed, you could say, that
with a remarkable Shyness, I had avoided any Places of publick Resort,
or that I had there met with Coldness, Reproof, Insult, or any of the
usual Rebuffs that Impudence is liable to, or had been reduced to retire
from that part of the World I had impudently offended,