thers of the same malicious Disposition, I doubt is
but too thin a Disguise of the many restless Hours they have given you.
If your Revenge upon them was necessary, we must own you have amply
enjoy'd it: But to make that Revenge the chief Motive of writing your
_Dunciad_, seems to me a Weakness, that an Author of your Abilities
should rather have chosen to conceal. A Man might as well triumph for
his having kill'd so many silly Flies that offended him. Could you have
let them alone, by this time, poor Souls, they had been all peaceably
buried in Oblivion! But the very Lines, you have so sharply pointed to
destroy them, will now remain but so many of their Epitaphs, to transmit
their Names to Posterity: Which probably too they may think a more
eligible Fate than that of being totally forgotten. Hear what an Author
of great Merit, though of less Anxiety for Fame, says upon this
Weakness,

_Fame is a Bubble, the Reserv'd enjoy,
Who strive to grasp it, as they touch, destroy._
Y-- Univers. Passion.

In a word, you seem in your _Dunciad_, to have been angry at the rain
for wetting you, why then would you go into it? You could not but know,
that an Author, when he publishes a Work, exposes himself to all
Weathers. He then that cannot bear the worst, should stay at home, and
not write at all.

But Sir--That _Cibber_ ever murmured at your Fame, or endeavoured to
blast it, or that he was not always, to the best of his Judgment, as
warm an Admirer of your Writings as any of your nearest Friends could
be, is what you cannot, by any one Fact or Instance, disprove. How comes
it then, that in your Works you have so often treated him as a Dunce or
an Enemy? Did he at all intrench upon your Sovereignty in Verse, because
he had now and then written a Comedy that succeeded? Or could not you
bear, that any kind of Poetry, but that, to which you chiefly pretended,
should meet with Applause? Or was it, that he had an equal Reputation
for Acting his own Characters as for Writing them, or that with such
inferior Talents he was admitted to as good Company as you, with your
superior, could get into; or what other offensive Merit had he, that has
so often made him the Object of your Contempt or Envy? It could not be,
sure, simple Ill-nature, that incited you, because in the Preface to
your _Dunciad_ you declare that you have------

"In this Poem attacked no Man living, who had not before printed,