l
Tartar, whose resentment, that your punishment might be
proportionate to the smart of your poetry, had stuck up a birchen
rod in the room, to be ready whenever you might come within reach
of it; and at this rate you writ and rallied and writ on, till you
rhymed yourself quite out of the coffee-house." The "pastoral
Tartar" was Ambrose Philips, who, says Johnson, "hung up a rod at
Button's, with which he threatened to chastise Pope."

Pope, in a letter to Crags, thus explains the affair: "Mr. Philips
did express himself with much indignation against me one evening at
Button's Coffee-house (as I was told), saying that I was entered
into a cabal with Dean Swift and others, to write against the Whig
interest, and in particular to undermine his own reputation and
that of his friends, Steele and Addison; but Mr. Philips never
opened his lips to my face, on this or any like occasion, though I
was almost every night in the same room with him, nor ever offered
me any indecorum. Mr. Addison came to me a night or two after
Philips had talked in this idle manner, and assured me of his
disbelief of what had been said, of the friendship we should always
maintain, and desired I would say nothing further of it. My Lord
Halifax did me the honour to stir in this matter, by speaking to
several people to obviate a false aspersion, which might have done
me no small prejudice with one party. However, Philips did all he
could secretly to continue to report with the Hanover Club, and
kept in his hands the subscriptions paid for me to him, as
secretary to that Club. The heads of it have since given him to
understand, that they take it ill; but (upon the terms I ought to
be with such a man) I would not ask him for this money, but
commissioned one of the players, his equals, to receive it. This is
the whole matter; but as to the secret grounds of this malignity,
they will make a very pleasant history when we meet."

Another account says that the rod was hung up at the bar of
Button's, and that Pope avoided it by remaining at home--"his
usual custom." Philips was known for his courage and superior
dexterity with the sword; he afterwards became justice of the
peace, and used to mention Pope, whenever he could get a man in
authority to listen to him, as an enemy to the