Page:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu/244

Rh from his having in this poem attacked no man living, who had not before printed, or published, some scandal against this gentleman.

How I came possest of it, is no concern to the reader; but it would have been a wrong to him had I detain'd the publication; since those names which are its chief ornaments die off daily so fast, as must render it too soon unintelligible. If it provoke the author to give us a more perfect edition, I have my end.

Who he is I cannot say, and (which is great pity) there is certainly nothing in his style and manner of writing which can distinguish or discover him: For if it bears any resemblance to that of Mr. Pope, 'tis not improbable but it might be done on purpose, with a view to have it pass for his. But by the frequency of his allusions to Virgil, and a labour'd (not to say affected) shortness, in imitation of him, I should think him more an admirer of the Roman poet than of the Grecian, and in that not of the same taste with his friend.

I have been well inform'd, that this work was the labour of full six years of his life, and that he wholly retired himself from all the avocations and pleasures of the world, to attend diligently to its correction and perfection; and six years more he in tended to bestow upon it, as it should seem by this verse of Statius which was cited at the head of his manuscript,

Hence also we learn the true title of the poem; which with the same certainty as we call that of Homer the Iliad, of Virgil the Æneid, of Camoens the Lusiad, we may pronounce could have been, and can be no other than