_The Dunciad_ appeared in 1728, with many subterfuges to conceal the authorship, and it reappeared in a larger, though not in an improved form, in 1742. In this poem he turns to rend the host of minor writers who had been making his life a misery with their pin-pricks. It shows his satirical powers at their best and at their worst. It is charged with a stinging wit, but is too spiteful and venomous, and confounds the good with the bad. Yet here as elsewhere Pope has many fine passages. The conclusion is probably the noblest that he ever composed: In vain, in vain--the all-composing hour Resistless falls: the Muse obeys the Power. She comes! She comes! The sable throne behold Of Night primeval and of Chaos old! Before her, Fancy’s gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires.... See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, Mountains of casuistry heaped o’er her head!... See Mystery to Mathematics fly! In vain! They gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. Religion blushing veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires.... Lo! thy dread empire, CHAOS! is restored; Light dies before thy uncreating word; Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all. The last years of his life were occupied chiefly in the composition of poetical epistles and satires (1731–35). Some of these are of great power, and show Pope’s art at its best. The _Epistle to Arbuthnot_ contains the famous satirical portrait of Addison, with whom Pope had quarreled: Peace to all such; but were there one whose fires True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; Blest with each talent and each art to please, And born to write, converse, and live with ease: Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to blame, or to commend, A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend; Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging, that he ne’er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise:-- Who but must laugh, if such a man there be? Who would not weep, if Atticus were he? In this passage, though he does not perceive it, Pope is holding up a glass to his own method. Observe how he “damns with faint praise”; how he is “willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike.” Nearly the whole extract might be applied to its author.