And then, at the end of it all, he proceeds to justify Providence, in giving riches to those who squander them, in a way that will hardly commend itself to the student of the dismal science. A bad taste, he says in effect, employs more hands, and diffuses wealth more usefully than a good one! One would like to have heard John Stuart Mill on the subject of “Pope.” The “Epistle” was addressed to Pope’s patron, the Earl of Burlington, who was one of the noblemen who had helped to screen him a few years before on his publication of the _Dunciad_. “Timon” (mainly though not entirely) referred to the Duke of Chandos, who was, Johnson says, a man perhaps too much delighted with pomp and show, but of a temper kind and beneficent, and who had consequently the voice of the public in his favour.[20] {102} [20] Bowles says, “As Pope was the first to deal in personalities, the following severe retaliation was published in the papers of the time: “Let Pope no more what Chandos builds deride, Because he takes not Nature for his guide; Since, wond’rous critic! in thy form we see That _Nature_ may mistake, as well as he.” A violent outcry was therefore raised against the ingratitude and treachery of Pope, who was said to have been indebted to the patronage of Chandos for a present of a thousand pounds, and who gained the opportunity of insulting him by the kindness of his invitation to “Canons,” the Duke’s seat near Edgware. In a pamphlet entitled _Ingratitude_ published in 1733, of which only a portion of the frontispiece is in the British Museum,[21] the matter is thus alluded to. “A certain animal of diminutive size, who had translated a book into English metre (or at least had it translated for him), addressed himself to a nobleman of the first rank, and in the style of a gentleman-beggar requested him to subscribe a guinea for one of his books. The nobleman entertained him at dinner in a sumptuous manner, and continued so to do as often as the insignificant mortal came to his house. After dinner this generous man of quality, taking him aside, put a bank-note for five hundred pounds into his hands, and desired he might have but one book. But {103} what was the consequence of this? Why, truly, the wretch, who is a composition of peevishness, spleen and envy, having no regard to the benefits he had received, in a few years after, and without any manner of provocation, or the least foundation for truth, publishes a satire, as he terms it, but in reality it is an infamous and calumnious libel, calculated, with all the malice and virulency imaginable, to defame and render odious the character of his best benefactor.” [21] Vide _Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum_, Division I., _Satires_, vol. ii., No. 1935. From which it will be seen that Hogarth was not out of the fashion in retaliating upon Pope’s devoted head with the cartoon which we here reproduce.