from the room. Pope difcovered, by a trick, that he was a fpy for the Court, and never confidered him as a man worthy of confidence.

He foon afterwards (1727) joined with Swift, who was then in England, to publish three volumes of Mifcellanies, in which amongst other things he inferted the Memoirs of a Parish Clerk, in ridicule of Burnet's importance in his own Hiftory, and a Debate upon Black and White Horfes, written in all the formalities of a legal procefs by the af fiftance, as is faid, of Mr. Fortescue, afterwards Mafter of the Rolls. Before thefe Mifcellanies is a preface figned by Swift and Pope, but apparently written by Pope; in which he makes a ridicu

lous

lous and romantick complaint of the robberies committed upon authors by the clandeftine feizure and fale of their papers. He tells, in tragick trains, how the cabinets of the Sick and the clofets of the Dead have been broke open and ranfacked; as if thofe violences were often committed for papers of uncertain and accidental value, which are rarely provoked by real treasures; as if epigrams and effays were in danger where gold and diamonds are fafe. hunted for his mufk, is, according to Pope's account, but the emblem of a wit winded by booksellers.

A cat,

His complaint, however, received fome attestation; for the fame year the Letters written by him to Mr. Cromwell, in

his

his youth, were fold by Mrs. Thomas to Curll, who printed them.

In thefe Mifcellanics was firft published the Art of Sinking in Poetry, which, by fuch a train of confequences as ufually paffes in literary quarrels, gave in a fhort time, according to Pope's account, occafion to the Dunciad.

In the following year (1728) he began to put Atterbury's advice in practice; and fhewed his fatirical powers by publishing the Dunciad, one of his greatest and most elaborate performances, in which he endeavoured to fink into contempt all the writers by whom he had been attacked, and fome others whom he thought unable to defend themfelves.

At

At the head of the Dunces he placed poor Theobald, whom he accused of ingratitude; but whofe real crime was fuppofed to be that of having revised Shakespeare more happily than himself. This fatire had the effect which he intended, by blasting the characters which it touched. Ralph, who, unneceffarily interpofing in the quarrel, got a place in a fubfequent edition, complained that for a time he was in danger of ftarving, as the bookfellers had no longer any confidence in his capacity.

The prevalence of this poem was gradual and flow the plan, if not wholly new, was little underflood by common readers. Many of the allufions required illuftration; the names were often expreffed

4

preffed only by the initial and final letters, and, if they had been printed at length, were fuch as few had known or recollected. The fubject itself had nothing generally interefting, for whom

did it concern to know that one or another fcribler was a dunce? If therefore it had been poffible for those who were attacked to conceal their pain and their refentment, the Dunciad might have made its way very flowly in the world.

This, however, was not to be expected every man is of importance to himself, and therefore, in his own opinion, to others; and, fuppofing the world already acquainted with all his pleasures and his pains, is perhaps the first to publish

I