such miserable scribblers can disturb or ruffle. Of all that gross Beotian phalanx who have written scurrilously against the editor, he knows not so much as one whom a writer of reputation would not wish to have his enemy, or whom a man of honour would not be ashamed to own for his friend.[13] He is indeed but slightly conversant in their works, and knows little of the particulars of their defamation. To his authorship they are heartily welcome. But if any of them have been so far abandoned by truth as to attack his moral character in any respect whatsoever, to all and every one of these and their abettors, he gives the lie in form, and in the words of honest Father Valerian, _mentiris impudentissime_. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: "I own the late encroachments upon my constitution made me willing to see the end of all further care about me or my works. I would rest for the one in a full resignation of my being to be disposed of by the Father of all mercy; and for the other (though indeed a trifle, yet a trifle may be some example) I would commit them to the candour of a sensible and reflecting judge, rather than to the malice of every short-sighted and malevolent critic, or inadvertent and censorious reader. And no hand can set them in so good a light," &c.--_Let. cxx._ to Mr. W.--WARBURTON.] [Footnote 2: "I also give and bequeath to the said Mr. Warburton, the property of all such of my works already printed as he hath written or shall write commentaries or notes upon, and which I have not otherwise disposed of or alienated; and as he shall publish without future alterations."--_His Last Will and Testament._--WARBURTON.] [Footnote 3: A subscription would have been simply a petition from Warburton to the public, soliciting them to increase the value of the legacy bequeathed him by Pope.] [Footnote 4: The engravings were execrable; the type and paper good, but not extraordinary. The outlay upon the edition, for which Warburton takes credit as for a munificent act, was a common-place commercial transaction, with the certainty of a large return.] [Footnote 5: The corrections are few and trivial. The account which Warburton gives of the novelties in his edition is from first to last exaggerated.] [Footnote 6: The only restored lines which improve the orthodoxy of the Essay on Man relate to a future state.] [Footnote 7: Either Warburton had never heard of Madame de Sévigné's letters, or what is more likely, he was unable to taste their charm. Their delicate graces, and native liveliness, would have been lost upon the man who thought that Pope's artificial epistles were "true models of familiar" letters.] [Footnote 8: The assertion that the copies had not been published is unaccountable. Every line of them had been published twice over by Pope in his lifetime, and all but two or three pages, had been published again and again.] [Footnote 9: A wit's a feather, and a chief's a rod, An honest man's the noblest work of God.--WARBURTON.]