Addison procured to our author; let him stand forth, that truth may appear! Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis amica veritas. In verity, the whole story of the libel is a lye; witness those persons of integrity, who several years before Mr. Addison's decease, did see and approve of the said verses, in no wise a libel, but a friendly rebuke sent privately in our author's own hand to Mr. Addison himself, and never made public, 'till after their own Journals, and Curl had printed the same. One name alone, which I am here authorised to declare, will sufficiently evince this truth, that of the right honourable the Earl of BURLINGTON.

Next is he taxed with a crime (in the opinion of some authors, I doubt, more heinous than any in morality) to wit, Plagiarism, from the inventive and quaint-conceited

 

James Moore Smith Gent.

 

»24Upon 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 lifetime, and out of a Public print.« Let us join to this what is written by the author of the Rival Modes, the said Mr. James Moore Smith, in a letter to our author himself, who had informed him, a month before that play was acted, Jan. 27, 1726/7, that »These verses, which he had before given him leave to insert in it, would be known for his, some copies being got abroad. He desires, nevertheless, that, since the lines had been read in his comedy to several, Mr. P. would not deprive it of them,« etc. Surely if we add the testimonies of the Lord BOLINGBROKE, of the Lady to whom the said verses were originally addressed, of Hugh Bethel Esq. and others, who knew them as our author's, long before the said gentleman composed his play; it is hoped, the ingenuous that affect not error, will rectify their opinion by the suffrage of so honourable personages.

And yet followeth another charge, insinuating no less than his enmity both to Church and State, which could come from no other informer than the said

 

Mr. James Moore Smith.

»25The Memoirs of a Parish clerk was a very dull and unjust abuse of a person who wrote in defence of our Religion and Constitution, and who has been dead many years.« This seemeth also most untrue; it being known to divers that these memoirs were written at the seat of the Lord Harcourt in Oxfordshire, before that excellent person (bishop Burnet's) death, and many years before the appearance of that history, of which they are pretended to be an abuse. Most true it is, that Mr. Moore had such a design, and was himself the man who prest Dr. Arbuthnot and Mr. Pope to assist him therein; and that he borrowed those Memoirs of our author, when that History came forth, with intent to turn them to such abuse. But being able to obtain from our author but one single hint, and either changing his mind, or having more mind than ability, he contented himself to keep the said Memoirs, and read them as his own to all his acquaintance. A noble person there is, into whose company Mr. Pope once chanced to introduce him, who well remembereth the conversation of Mr. Moore to have turned upon the »Contempt he had for the work of that reverend prelate, and how full he was of a design he declared himself to have of exposing it.« This noble person is the Earl of PETERBOROUGH.

Here in truth should we crave pardon of all the foresaid right honourable and worthy personages, for having mentioned them in the same page with such weekly riff-raff railers and rhymers; but that we had their ever-honoured commands for the same; and that they are introduced not as witnesses in the controversy, but as witnesses that cannot be controverted; not to dispute, but to decide.

Certain it is, that dividing our writers into two classes, of such who were acquaintance, and of such who were strangers, to our author; the former are those who speak well, and the other those who speak evil of him. Of the first class, the most noble

 

John Duke of Buckingham

 

sums up his character in these lines:

 

»26And yet so wond'rous, so sublime a thing,

As the great Iliad, scarce could make me sing,

Unless I justly could at once commend

A good companion, and as firm a friend;

One moral, or a mere well-natur'd deed,

Can all desert in sciences exceed.«

 

So also is he decyphered by the honourable

 

Simon Harcourt.

»27Say, wond'rous youth, what column wilt thou chuse,

What laurel'd arch, for thy triumphant Muse?

Tho' each great ancient court thee to his shrine,

Tho' ev'ry laurel thro' the dome be thine,

Go to the good and just, an awful train!

Thy soul's delight. –«

 

Recorded in like manner for his virtuous disposition, and gentle bearing, by the ingenious

 

Mr. Walter Hart,

in this apostrophe:

 

»28O! ever worthy, ever crown'd with praise!

Blest in thy life and blest in all thy lays.

Add, that the Sisters ev'ry thought refine,

And ev'n thy life, be faultless as thy line.

Yet envy still with fiercer rage pursues,

Obscures the virtue, and defames the Muse.

A soul like thine, in pain, in grief, resign'd,

Views with just scorn the malice of mankind.«

 

The witty and moral satyrist

 

Dr. Edward Young,

wishing some check to the corruption and evil manners of the times, calleth out upon our poet to undertake a task so worthy of his virtue:

 

»29Why slumbers Pope, who leads the Muse's train,

Nor hears that Virtue, which he loves, complain?«

 

Mr. Mallet,

In his epistle on Verbal Criticism:

 

»Whose life, severely scan'd, transcends his lays;

For wit supreme is but his second praise.«

 

Mr. Hammond,

That delicate and correct imitator of Tibullus, in his Love Elegies, Elegy xiv.

 

»Now, fir'd by Pope and Virtue, leave the age,

In low pursuit of self-undoing wrong,

And trace the author thro' his moral page,

Whose blameless life still answers to his song.«

 

Mr. Thomson,

 

In his elegant and philosophical poem of the Seasons:

 

»Altho' not sweeter his own Homer sings,

Yet is his life the more endearing song.«

 

To the same tune also singeth that learned clerk of Suffolk

 

Mr. William Broome.

»30Thus, nobly rising in fair Virtue's cause,

From thy own life transcribe th' unerring laws.«

 

And, to close all, hear the reverend Dean of St. Patrick's:

 

»A Soul with ev'ry virtue fraught,

By Patriots, Priests, and Poets taught.

Whose filial Piety excells

Whatever Grecian story tells.

A genius for each bus'ness fit,

Whose meanest talent is his Wit,« etc.

 

Let us now recreate thee by turning to the other side, and shewing his Character drawn by those with whom he never conversed, and whose countenances he could not know, though turned against him: First again commencing with the high voiced and never enough quoted

 

Mr.