"The causes that led to the writing of the _Dunciad_ were laid down, chiefly with a view of justifying the author, though Mr. Thackeray admitted that Pope's arrows are so sharp, and his slaughter so wholesale, that the reader's sympathies are often enlisted on the side of the devoted inhabitants of Grub-street. The vile jokes and libels that were aimed against the illustrious poet, and the paltry allusions to his personal defects, were brought forward as sufficient motives; and the lecturer dwelt with admiration on the personal courage which the "gallant little cripple" displayed when the indignant dunces threatened him with corporeal chastisement. At the same time, he declared it his conviction that the _Dunciad_ had done the greatest possible harm to the literary profession. Prior to its publication there were great prizes for literary men in the shape of government appointments and the like; but Pope, a lover of high society--a man so refined that he kept thin while his friends grew fat--hated the rank and file of literature, and if there was one point in his assailants on which he dwelt with savage partiality, it was their abject poverty. He it was who brought the notion of a vile Grub-street before the minds of the general public; he it was who created such associations as author and rags--author and dirt--author and gin. The occupation of authorship became ignoble through his graphic descriptions of misery, and the literary profession was for a long time destroyed. "Pope's well known affection for his mother, on which Mr. Thackeray feelingly expatiated, and the love which his friends entertained for him, were introduced as a sentimental relief in describing the character of a man whose career Mr. Thackeray compared to that of a great general, obtaining his end by a series of brilliant conquests." HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING.