The notoriety, if not the sale, of the Essay on Criticism must have been promoted by the angry pamphlet put forth by Dennis six months before the laudatory paper of Addison appeared in the Spectator.[8] Dennis was the only living writer who was openly abused in the poem, and there was an asperity in the language which savoured of personal hostility. He and Pope were slightly acquainted. "At his first coming to town," says Dennis, "he was very importunate with the late Mr. Henry Cromwell to introduce him to me. The recommendation of Mr. Cromwell engaged me to be about thrice in company with him; after which I went into the country, and neither saw him, nor thought of him, till I found myself insolently attacked by him in his very superficial Essay on Criticism."[9] A passage quoted by Bowles from Pope's Prologue to the Satires reveals the cause of the enmity: Soft were my numbers; who could take offence While pure description held the place of sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme, A painted mistress, or a purling stream. Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answered,--I was not in debt.[10] Here we learn that Dennis thought meanly of Pope's Pastorals. The critic had enough taste for true poetry to despise the conventional puerilities which, more than "pure description, held the place of sense" in these juvenile effusions. He frequented the coffee-houses where authors congregated, he indulged in professional talk, and his unfavourable judgment was sure to get round to Pope. The irritation at the time must have been great, since the censure continued to rankle in the mind of the poet at the distance of five-and-twenty years. His memory was less faithful when he claimed credit for not replying. He found it convenient to forget that he had seized an early opportunity for retaliating in the Essay on Criticism.