The shatter’d lawrels of the _Acherontic_-walks, owe not so much of their misfortune to the shallowness of _Aganippe_, as to the ungenerous procedure of the sons of _Helicon_. Either the hill of _Parnassus_ is fortify’d, and what with antient and modern wit, even you, gentlemen of real parts, have none of you that applause, which in a thousand occasions you have so justly merited. These melancholy reflections, gentlemen, add a new thickness to the gloomy sulphur; and we cannot enjoy a perfect quiet here, seeing there is so great and so dangerous a misunderstanding between you on the other side of _Phlegethon_. Why should there be so many pointed satires against one another? Why mould you shew the very blockheads themselves where you men of sense are not quite such as you would pass upon the world for? Your invidious criticisms only shew others where you are vulnerable, and give an argument under your own hand against your own selves. There is a charity in concealing faults; but to make them more obvious, has a double ill-nature in it. Can’t _Arthur_ be a worthless poem, but a squadron of poets must tell all the world so? Is there honour in rummaging a dunghil, or telling the neighbours where there is one? The bee gathers honey from every flower, ’tis the beetles that delight in horse-dung. Is it not much more preferable to make something ones self useful to mankind, than only to shew wherein another is a coxcomb? Partisans in wit never do well; they only lay the country waste; they gratify their own private spleen, it may be, but they do not help the publick. Unite your forces, gentlemen, against ignorance, that growing and powerful enemy to you and us. Erect triumphal arches, to one another, and do not enviously pull down what others are endeavouring to set up. Your mutual quarrels have shaken the very foundation of wit and good humour. ’Tis the faction a man is of, determines what he is, not his learning and parts; we cannot hear, gentlemen, of those intestine dissensions, without a great concern and displeasure; and must take the liberty to tell you, we apprehend the muses may shortly be reduced to the necessity of shutting up the _Delphic_ library, and write upon the doors, _Ruit ipsa suis Roma viribus_. CHARON _to the most Illustrious and High-born_ JACK CATCH, _Esq; by Capt._ AYLOFF. _Most worthy Kinsman and Benefactor_,