kind of
literary gazette of some campaigns of the time, records the
skirmishes with tolerable neutrality, though with a strong
leaning in favour of the prevailing genius.

The _Popeians_ did not always do honour to their great leader;
and the _Theobaldians_ proved themselves, at times, worthy of
being engaged, had fate so ordered it, in the army of their
renowned enemy. When Young published his "Two Epistles to
Pope, on the Authors of the Age," there appeared "One Epistle
to Mr. A. Pope, in Answer to two of Dr. Young's." On this, a
Popeian defends his master from some extravagant accusations
in "The Grub-street Memoirs." He insists, as his first
principle, that all accusations against a man's character
without an attestor are presumed to be slanders and lies, and
in this case every gentleman, though "Knight of the Bathos,"
is merely a liar and scoundrel.

"You assure us he is not only a bad poet, but a stealer from
bad poets: if so, you have just cause to complain of invasion
of property. You assure us he is not even a versifier, but
steals the _sound_ of his verses; now, to _steal a sound_ is
as ingenious as to _paint an echo_. You cannot bear
_gentlemen_ should be treated as vermin and reptiles; now, to
be impartial, you were compared to _flying-fishes_,
_didappers_, _tortoises_, and _parrots_, &c., not vermin, but
curious and beautiful creatures"--alluding to the abuse, in
this "Epistle," on such authors as Atterbury, Arbuthnot,
Swift, the Duke of Buckingham, &c. The Popeian concludes:--

"After all, _your poem_, to comfort you, is more innocent than
the _Dunciad_; for in the one there's no man abused but is
very well pleased to be abused in such company; whereas in the
other there's no man so much as named, but is extremely
affronted to be ranked with such people as style each other
the _dullest of men_."

The publication of the _Dunciad_, however, drove the
_Theobaldians_ out of the field. Guerillas, such as the "One
Epistle," sometimes appeared, but their heroes struck and
skulked away. A _Theobaldian_, in an epigram, compared the
_Dunciad_ of Pope to the offspring of the celebrated Pope
Joan. The neatness of