at the letters were placed at
random: and while his oil could not smooth so turbulent a sea, every
one swore to the flying-fish or the tortoise, as he had described
them. It was still more serious when the _Dunciad_ appeared. Of that
class of authors who depended for a wretched existence on their
wages, several were completely ruined, for no purchasers were to be
found for the works of some authors, after they had been inscribed
in the chronicle of our provoking and inimitable satirist.[206]

It is in this collection by Savage I find the writer's admirable
satire on the class of literary prostitutes. It is entitled "An Author
to be Let, by Iscariot Hackney." It has been ably commended by Johnson
in his "Life of Savage," and on his recommendation Thomas Davies
inserted it in his "Collection of Fugitive Pieces;" but such is the
careless curiosity of modern re-publishers, that often, in preserving
a decayed body, they are apt to drop a limb: this was the case with
Davies; for he has dropped the preface, far more exquisite than the
work itself. A morsel of such poignant relish betrays the hand of the
master who snatched the pen for a moment.

This preface defends Pope from the two great objections justly raised
at the time against the _Dunciad_: one is, the grossness and
filthiness of its imagery; and the other, its reproachful allusions to
the poverty of the authors.

The _indelicacies_ of the _Dunciad_ are thus wittily apologised
for:--

"They are suitable to the subject; a subject composed, for the most
part, of authors whose writings are the refuse of wit, and who in
life are the very excrement of Nature. Mr. Pope has, too, used dung;
but he disposes that dung in such a manner that it becomes rich
manure, from which he raises a variety of fine flowers. He deals in
rags; but like an artist, who commits them to a paper-mill, and brings
them out useful sheets. The chemist extracts a fine cordial from the
most nauseous of all dung; and Mr. Pope has drawn a sweet poetical
spirit from the most offensive and unpoetical objects of the
creation--unpoetical, though eternal writers of poetry."

The reflections on the _poverty_ of its heroes are thus ingeniously
defended:--"Poverty, not proceeding from folly, but which may be owing
to virtue, sets a man in an amiable light; but when our wants are of
our own seeking, and prove the motive of every ill action (for the
poverty of bad authors has always a bad heart for its compani