mently difclaims the malignity of meaning imputed to the first expreffion.

Aaron Hill, who was reprefented as diving for the prize, expoftulated with Pope in a manner fo much fuperior to all mean folicitation, that Pope was reduced to sneak and fhuffle, fometimes to deny, and fometimes to apologise; he firft endeavours to wound, and is then afraid to own that he meant a blow.

The Dunciad, in. the complete edi tion, is addreffed to Dr. Swift: of the notes, part was written by Dr. Arbuthnot, and an apologetical Letter was prefixed, figned by Cleland, but fuppofed to have been written by Pope.

After this general war upon dulnefs, he feems to have indulged himfelf awhile

in tranquillity; but his fubfequent productions prove that he was not idle. He published (1731) a poem on Tafte, in which he very particularly and feverely criticises the house, the furniture, the gardens, and the entertainments of Timon, a man of great wealth and little tafte. By Timon he was univerfally fuppofed, and by the Earl of Burlington, to whom the poem is addreffed, was privately faid, to mean the Duke of Chandos; a man perhaps too much delighted with pomp and fhow, but of a temper kind and beneficent, and who had confequently the voice of the publick in his favour.

A violent outcry was therefore raised against the ingratitude and treachery of

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Pope,

Pope, who was faid to have been indebted to the patronage of Chandos for a prefent of a thousand pounds, and who gained the opportunity of infulting him by the kindness of his invitation.

The receipt of the thousand pounds Pope publickly denied; but from the reproach which the attack on a character fo amiable brought upon him, he tried all means of efcaping. The name of Cleland was again employed in an apology, by which no man was fatisfied; and he was at laft reduced to fhelter his temerity behind diffimulation, and endeavour to make that. difbelieved which he never had confidence openly to deny. He wrote an exculpatory Letter to the Duke, which was answered

with great magnanimity, as by a man who accepted his excufe without believing his profeffions. He faid, that to have ridiculed his tafte, or his buildings, had been an indifferent action in another man; but that in Pope, after the reciprocal kindness that had been exchanged between them, it had been lefs eafily excufed.

Pope, in one of his Letters, complaining of the treatment which his poem had found, owns that fuch criticks can intimidate him, nay almoft perfuade him to write no more, which is a compliment this age deferves. The man who threatens the world is always ridiculous; for the world can eafily go on without him, and in a fhort time will cease

cease to miss him. I have heard of an ideot, who used to revenge his vexations by lying all night upon the bridge. There is nothing, fays Juvenal, that a man will not believe in his own favour. Pope had been flattered till he thought himself one of the moving powers in the fyftem of life. When he talked of laying down his pen, thofe who fat round him intreated and implored, and felf-love did not fuffer him to fufpect that they went away and laughed.

The following year deprived him of 'Gay, a man whom he had known early, and whom he feemed to love with more tenderness than any other of his literary friends. Pope was now forty-four years

old;