Page:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu/46

Rh on the Proposal below quoted, and on what follows (some months after the former assertion) in the same Journalist of June 8. "The bookseller, proposed the book by subscription, and raised some thousands of pounds for the same: I believe the gentleman did not share in the profits of this extravagant subscription.

"After the Iliad, he undertook (saith

"the sequel of that work, the Odyssey; and having secured the success by a numerous subscription, he employed some underlings to perform what, according to his proposals, should come from his own hands." To which heavy charge we can in truth oppose nothing but the words of

"I take this occasion to declare that the subscription for Shakespear belongs wholly to Mr. Tonson: And that the benefit of this Proposal is not solely for my own use, but for that of two of my friends, who have assisted me in this work." But these very gentlemen are extolled above our poet him self in another of Mist's Journals, March 30, 1728. saying, "That he would not advise Mr. Pope to try the experiment again of getting a great part of a book done by assistants, lest those extraneous parts should unhappily ascend to the sublime, and retard the declension of the whole." Behold! these Underlings are become good writers!

If any say, that before the said Proposals were printed, the subscription was begun without declaration of such assistance; verily those who set it on foot, or (as their term is ) secured it, to wit, the right honourable the Lord Viscount, were he living, would testify, and the right honourable the Lord , now living, doth testify the same is a falshood.

Sorry I am, that persons professing to be learned, or of whatever rank of authors, should either falsely tax, or be falsely taxed. Yet let us, who are only reporters, be impartial in our citations, and proceed.

"Mr. Addison raised this author from obscurity, obtained him the acquaintance and friendship of the whole body of our nobility, and transferred his powerful interests with those great men to this rising bard, who frequently levied by that means unusual contributions on the public." Which surely cannot be, if, as the author of The Dunciad dissected reporteth; "Mr. Wycherley had before introduced him into a familiar acquaintance with the greatest Peers and brightest Wits then living."

"No sooner (saith the same Journalist) was his body lifeless, but this