on), is
it not a vice, and properly the subject of satire?" The preface then
proceeds to show how "all these _said writers_ might have been _good
mechanics_." He illustrates his principles with a most ungracious
account of several of his contemporaries. I shall give a specimen of
what I consider as the polished sarcasm and caustic humour of Pope, on
some favourite subjects.

"Mr. Thomas _Cooke_.--His enemies confess him not without merit. To do
the man justice, he might have made a tolerable figure as a _Tailor_.
'Twere too presumptuous to affirm he could have been a _master_ in any
profession; but, dull as I allow him, he would not have been
despicable for a third or a fourth hand journeyman. Then had his wants
have been avoided; for, he would at least have learnt to _cut his coat
according to his cloth_.

"Why would not Mr. _Theobald_ continue an attorney? Is not _Word-catching_
more serviceable in splitting a cause, than explaining a fine poet?

"When Mrs. _Haywood_ ceased to be a strolling-actress, why might not
the lady (though once a theatrical queen) have subsisted by turning
_washerwoman_? Has not the fall of greatness been a frequent distress
in all ages? She might have caught a beautiful bubble, as it arose
from the suds of her tub, blown it in air, seen it glitter, and then
break! Even in this low condition, she had played with a bubble; and
what more is the vanity of human greatness?

"Had it not been an honester and more decent livelihood for Mr.
_Norton_ (Daniel De Foe's son of love by a lady who vended oysters)
to have dealt in a _fish-market_, than to be dealing out the dialects
of Billingsgate in the Flying-post?

"Had it not been more laudable for Mr. _Roome_, the son of an
_undertaker_, to have borne a link and a mourning-staff, in the long
procession of a funeral--or even been more decent in him to have sung
psalms, according to education, in an Anabaptist meeting, than to have
been altering the _Jovial Crew, or Merry Beggars_, into a _wicked_
imitation of the _Beggar's Opera_?"

This satire seems too exquisite for the touch of Savage, and is quite
in the spirit of the author of the _Dunciad_. There is, in Ruffhead's
"Life of Pope," a work to which Warburton contributed all his care, a
passage which could only have been written by Warburton. The strength
and coarseness of the imagery could never have been produced by the
dull and feeble intellect of Ruffhead: it is the opinion, therefore,
of