nciples are of a piece with his
cavils and his poetry; and so I have done with him for ever.

As for the City Bard, or Knight Physician, I hear his quarrel to me is
that I was the author of _Absalom and Achitophel_, which, he thinks,
is a little hard on his fanatic patrons in London.

But I will deal the more civilly with his two poems, because nothing
ill is to be spoken of the dead; and therefore peace be to the _manes_
of his _Arthurs_. I will only say that it was not for this noble
knight that I drew the plan of an epic poem on King Arthur, in my
preface to the translation of Juvenal. The guardian angels of kingdoms
were machines too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he
rejected them, as Dares did the whirlbats of Eryx, when they were
thrown before him by Entellus. Yet from that preface he plainly took
his hint: for he began immediately upon the story, tho' he had the
baseness not to acknowledge his benefactor but, instead of it, to
traduce me in a libel.

I shall say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he
has tax'd me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts
and expressions of mine which can be truly argued of obscenity,
profaneness, of immorality; and retract them. If he be my enemy,
let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal
occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes
me not to draw my pen in the defense of a bad cause, when I have so
often drawn it for a good one. Yet it were not difficult to prove
that in many places he has perverted my meaning by his glosses, and
interpreted my words into blasphemy and bawdry, of which they were
not guilty. Besides that, he is too much given to horseplay in his
raillery, and comes to battle like a dictator from the plow. I will
not say: "The zeal of God's house has eaten him up;" but I am sure it
has devoured some part of his good manners and civility. It might also
be doubted whether it were altogether zeal which prompted him to this
rough manner of proceeding: perhaps it became not one of his function
to rake into the rubbish of ancient and modern plays; a divine might
have employ'd his pains to better purpose than in the nastiness of
Plautus and Aristophanes; whose examples, as they excuse not me, so
it might be possibly supposed that he read them not without some
pleasure. They who have written commentaries on those poets, or on
Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, have explain'd some vices whic