Page:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu/85

54 Mr. D. had a private one; which, by his manner of expressing it in p. 92. appears to have been equally strong. He was even in bodily fear of his life from the machinations of the said Mr. P. "The story (says he) is too long to be told, but who would be acquainted with it, may hear it from Mr. Curl, my bookseller.—However, what my reason has suggested to me, that I have with a just confidence said, in defiance of his two clandestine weapons, his Slander and his Poison." Which last words of his book plainly discover Mr. D.'s suspicion was that of being poisoned, in like manner as Mr. Curl had been before him; of which fact see A full and true account of a horrid and barbarous revenge, by poison, on the body of Edmund Curl, printed in 1716, the year antecedent to that wherein these Remarks of Mr. Dennis were published. But what puts it beyond all question, is a passage in a very warm treatise, in which Mr. D. was also concerned, price two pence, called A true character of Mr. Pope and his writings, printed for S. Popping, 1716; in the tenth page whereof he is said "to have insulted people on those calamities and diseases which he himself gave them, by administring Poison to them;" and is called (p. 4.) "a lurking way-laying coward, and a stabber in the dark." Which (with many other things most lively set forth in that piece) must have rendered him a terror, not to Mr. Dennis only, but to all christian people.

For the rest; Mr. John Dennis was the son of a Sadler in London, born in 1657. He paid court to Mr. Dryden: and having obtained some correspondence with Mr. Wycherly and Mr. Congreve, he immediately obliged the public with their Letters. He made himself known to the Government by many admirable schemes and projects; which the Ministry, for reasons best known to themselves, constantly kept private. For his character, as a writer, it is given us as follows: "Mr. Dennis is excellent at Pindaric writings, perfectly regular in all his performances, and a person of sound Learning. That he is master of a great deal of Penetration and Judgment, his criticisms, (particularly on Prince Arthur) do sufficiently demonstrate." From the same account it also appears that he writ Plays "more to get Reputation than Money." of himself. See Giles Jacob's Lives of Dram. Poets, p. 68, 69. compared with p. 286.