n the
_Dunciad_, were readily supplied. It would be curious to
discover by what stratagem Pope obtained all that secret
intelligence about his Dunces, with which he has burthened
posterity, for his own particular gratification. Arbuthnot, it
is said, wrote some notes merely literary; but Savage, and
still humbler agents, served him as his _Espions de Police_.
He pensioned Savage to his last day, and never deserted him.
In the account of "the phantom Moore," Scriblerus appeals to
Savage to authenticate some story. One curious instance of the
fruits of Savage's researches in this way he has himself
preserved, in his memoirs of "An Author to be Let, by Iscariot
Hackney." This portrait of "a perfect Town-Author" is not
deficient in spirit: the hero was one Roome, a man only
celebrated in the _Dunciad_ for his "funereal frown." But it
is uncertain whether this fellow had really so dismal a
countenance; for the epithet was borrowed from his profession,
being the son of an undertaker! Such is the nature of some
satire! Dr. Warton is astonished, or mortified, for he knew
not which, to see the pains and patience of Pope and his
friends in compiling the Notes to the _Dunciad_, to trace out
the lives and works of such paltry and forgotten scribblers.
"It is like walking through the darkest alleys in the dirtiest
part of St. Giles's." Very true! But may we not be allowed to
detect the vanities of human nature at St. Giles's as well as
St. James's? Authors, however obscure, are always an amusing
race to authors. The greatest find their own passions in the
least, though distorted, or cramped in too small a compass.

It is doubtless from Pope's great anxiety for his own literary
celebrity that we have been furnished with so complete a
knowledge of the grotesque groups in the _Dunciad_. "Give me a
shilling," said Swift, facetiously, "and I will insure you
that posterity shall never know one single enemy, excepting
those whose memory you have preserved." A very useful hint for
a man of genius to leave his wretched assailants to dissolve
away in their own weakness. But Pope, having written a
_Dunciad_, by accompanying it with a commentary, took the only