Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/222

212 any chagrin; and he uſed to obſerve, that he was now ſecure of being tranſmitted to poſterity: an honour which, ſays he, I could never have arrived at, but by Pope’s means. The cauſe of the quarrel between this gentleman and that great poet ſeems to have been this.

In a letter publiſhed in the Daily Journal March 18, 1728, written by Mr. More, he has the following words, ‘Upon reading the third volume of Pope’s Miſcellanies, I found five lines which I thought excellent, and happening to praiſe them, a gentleman produced a modern comedy, the Rival Modes, publiſhed laſt year, where were the ſame verſes to a tittle. Theſe gentlemen are undoubtedly the firſt plagiaries that pretend to make a reputation, by ſtealing from a man’s works in his own life-time, and out of a public print.’ But it is apparent from the notes to the Dunciad, that Mr. More himſelf borrowed the lines from Pope; for in a letter dated January 27, 1726, addreſſed to Mr. Pope, he obſerves, ‘That theſe verſes which he had before given him leave to inſert in the Rival Modes, would be known for his, ſome copies being got abroad. He deſires, nevertheleſs, that ſince the lines in his comedy have been read to ſeveral, Mr. Pope would not deprive it of them.’

As a proof of this circumſtance, the teſtimony of lord Bolingbroke is adduced, and the lady of Hugh Bethel, eſq; to whom the verſes were originally addreſſed, who knew them to be Mr. Pope’s long before the Rival Modes was compoſed.

Our author further charges Mr. Pope with being an enemy to the church and ſtate. ‘The Memoirs of a Pariſh Clerk, ſays he, was a very dull, and unjuſt abuſe of the biſhop of Sarum (who wrote in defence of our religion and conſtitution) who has been dead many years.’ ‘This alſo,