On receiving from the Right Honourable the Lady 98 The Fourth Epistle of the First Book of Horace......... 126 A Sermon against Adultery; being sober Advice from Horace to the Young Gentlemen about Town, as On Sir William Trumbull, one of the principal Secre- taries of State to King William III......................... On Mrs. Corbet, who died of a Cancer in her Breast... On the Monument of the Hon. R. Digby and of his A Letter to the publisher, occasioned by the first correct Edition of the Dunciad ...... Martinus Scriblerus his Prolegomena and Illustra- List of Books, Papers, and Verses, in which our Author was abused before the Publication of the Dunciad, with the true Names of the Authors... 219 Advertisement to the first Edition, with Notes, in Advertisement to the first Edition of the Fourth Book of the Dunciad, when printed separately, 1742........ 228 Advertisement to the complete Edition of 1743..... 229 Advertisement printed in the Journals, 1730.... 231 Of the Poet Laureate. Nov. 19, 1729. Parallel of the Characters of Mr. Dryden and Mr. Parallel of the Characters of Mr. Pope and Mr. EPISTLE TO DR. ARBUTHNOT, BEING THE PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES. ADVERTISEMENT. This paper is a sort of bill of complaint, begun many years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions offered. I had no thoughts of publishing it, till it pleased some persons of rank and fortune [the authors of "Verses to the imitator of Horace," and of an "Epistle to a doctor of divinity from a nobleman at Hampton Court"] to attack, in a very extraordinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the public is judge), but my person, morals, and family; whereof, to those who know me not, a truer information may be requisite. Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself, and my own laziness to undertake so awkward a task, I thought it the shortest way to put the last hand to this epistle. If it have any thing pleasing, it will be that by which I am most desirous to please, the truth and the sentiment; and if any thing offensive, it will be only to those I am least sorry to offend, the vicious or the ungenerous. Many will know their own pictures in it, there being not a circumstance but what is true; but I have, for the most part, spared their names, and they may escape being laughed at if they please. I would have some of them know it was owing to the request of the learned and candid friend to whom it is inscribed 1 See Memoir prefixed to these volumes, p. xcii. that I make not as free use of theirs as they have done of mine. However, I shall have this advantage and honour on my side, that whereas, by their proceeding, any abuse may be directed at any man, no injury can possibly be done by mine, since a nameless character can never be found out but by its truth and likeness. P. "SHUT, shut the door, good John!" fatigued, I said; "Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead." Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand, They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide, By land, by water, they renew the charge, Is there a parson much bemus'd in beer, 2 John Searl, Pope's faithful servant. |