I pleased.

The reader will easily perceive that this condescension either flowed
from the hope of making my poetical capacity subservient to their
malice, or at least of screening themselves from the lash of my
resentment, which they had effectually provoked. I enjoyed this triumph
with great satisfaction, and not only rejected their offer with disdain,
but in all my performances, whether satire or panegyric, industriously
avoided mentioning their names, even while I celebrated those of their
intimates: this neglect mortified their pride exceedingly and incensed
them to such a degree that they were resolved to make me repent of
my indifference. The first stroke of their revenge consisted in their
hiring a poor collegian to write verses against me, the subject of which
was my own poverty, and the catastrophe of my unhappy parents; but,
besides the badness of the composition (of which they themselves were
ashamed), they did not find their account in endeavouring to reproach me
with those misfortunes which they and their relations had brought upon
me; and which consequently reflected much more dishonour on themselves
than on me, who was the innocent victim of their barbarity and avarice.

Finding this plan miscarry, they found means to irritate a young
gentleman against me, by telling him I had lampooned his mistress;
and so effectually succeeded in the quality of incendiaries that this
enraged lover determined to seize me next night as I returned to my
lodgings from a friend's house that I frequented: with this view, he
waited in the street, attended by two of his companions, to whom he had
imparted his design of carrying me down to the river, in which proposed
to have me heartily ducked, notwithstanding the severity of the weather,
it being then about the middle of December. But this stratagem did not
succeed; for, being apprised of their ambush, I got home another way,
and by the help of my landlord's apprentice, discharged a volley from
the garret window, which did great execution upon them, and next day
occasioned so much mirth at their expense that they found themselves
under a necessity of leaving the town, until the adventure should be
entirely forgotten.

My cousins (though twice baffled in their expectation) did not,
however, desist from persecuting me, who had now enraged them beyond a
possibility of forgiveness by detecting their malice and preventing its
effects: neither should I have found them more human