Page:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu/56

Rh "Dr. Andrew Tripe ;" which proved to be one Dr. Wagstaff's. Mr. assures us, in Mist of the 27th of April, "That the treatise of the Profound is very dull, and that Mr. Pope is the author of it." The writer of Gulliveriana is of another opinion; and says, "the whole, or greatest part, of the merit of this treatise must and can only be ascribed to Gulliver ." [Here, gentle reader! cannot I but smile at the strange blindness and positiveness of men; knowing the said treatise to 2ppertain to none other but to me, Martinus Scriblerus.]

We are assured, in Mist of June 8, "That his own Plays and Farces would better have adorned the Dunciad, than those of Mr. Theobald; for he had neither genius for Tragedy nor Comedy." Which whether true or not, is not easy to judge; in as much as he hath attempted neither. Unless we will take it for granted, with Mr. Cibber, that his being once very angry at hearing a friend's Play abused, was an infallible proof the Play was his own; the said Mr. Cibber thinking it impossible for a man to be much concerned for any but himself: "Now let any man judge (saith he) by this concern, who was the true mother of the child ?"

But from all that hath been said, the discerning reader will collect, that it little availed our author to have any Candour, since when he declared he did not write for others, it was not credited; as little to have any Modesty, since, when he declined writing in any way himself, the presumption of others was imputed to him. If he singly enterprised one great work, he was taxed of Boldness and Madness to a prodigy : If he took assistants in another, it was complained of, and represented as a great injury to the public. The loftiest heroics, the lowest ballads, treatises, against the state or church, satyrs on lords and ladies, raillery on wits and authors, squabbles with booksellers, or even full and true accounts of monsters, poisons, and murders; of any hereof was there nothing, so good, nothing so bad, which hath not at one or other season been to him ascribed. If it bore no author's name, then lay he concealed; if it did, he, fathered it upon that author to be yet better concealed: If it resembled any of his styles, then was it evident; if it did not, then disguised he it on set purpose. Yea, even direct oppositions in religion, principles, and politics, have equally been supposed in him inherent. Surely a most rare and singular character! Of which let the reader make what he can.