"There was no ftopping a torrent with "a finger, fo out it came.

"Many ludicrous circumstances at"tended it. The Dunces (for by this "name, they were called) held weekly

clubs, to confult of hoftilities against "the author: one wrote a Letter to a

66

great minister, affuring him Mr. Pope "was the greatest enemy the govern

ment had; and another bought his

image in clay, to execute him in

effigy, with which fad fort of fatisfac"tions the gentlemen were a little com"forted.

"Some falfe editions of the book "having an owl in their frontispiece, "the true one, to distinguish it, fixed in "its ftead an afs laden with authors, "Then

I 4

"Then another furreptitious one being.

printed with the fame afs, the new "edition in octavo returned for distinc"tion to the owl again. Hence arofe "a great contest of booksellers against bookfellers, and advertisements against "advertisements; fome recommending "the edition of the owl, and others the "edition of the afs; by which names "they came to be diftinguifhed, to the

great honour alfo of the gentlemen of "the Dunciad."

Pope appears by this narrative to have contemplated his victory over the Dunces with great exultation; and fuch was his delight in the tumult which he had raifed, that for a while his natural fenfi. bility was fufpended, and he read re

proaches

proaches and invectives without emation, confidering them only as the neceffary effects of that pain which he rejoiced in having given.

It cannot however be concealed that, by his own confeffion, he was the aggreffor; for nobody believes that the letters in the Bathos were placed at random; and it may be difcovered that, when he thinks himself concealed, he indulges the common vanity of common men, and triumphs in thofe diftinctions which he had affected to defpife. He is proud that his book was prefented to the King and Queen by the right honourable Sir Robert Walpole; he is proud that they had read it before; he is proud that the edition was taken off

by

by the nobility and perfons of the first

diftinction.

The edition of which he speaks was, I believe, that, which by telling in the text the names and in the notes the characters of those whom he had fatirifed, was made intelligible and diverting. The criticks had now declared their approbation of the plan, and the common reader began to like it without fear; thofe who were ftrangers to petty literature, and therefore unable to decypher initials and blanks, had now names and perfons brought within their view; and delighted in the vifible effect of those shafts of malice, which they had hitherto contemplated, as fhot into the

air.

Dennis,

Dennis, upon the fresh provocation now given him, renewed the enmity which had for a time been appeased by mutual civilities; and published remarks, which he had till then fuppreffed, upon the Rape of the Lock. Many more grumbled in fecret, or vented their refentment in the newspapers by epigrams or invectives.

Ducket, indeed, being mentioned as loving Burnet with pious paffion, pre

tended that his moral character was injured, and for fome time declared his refolution to take vengeance with a cudgel. But Pope appeafed him, by changing pious paffion to cordial friendShip, and by a note, in which he vehe

mently