Since we don’t dispatch couriers every day from the kingdom of _Pluto_, you ought not to be surprized, that I have not had an opportunity till now, of telling you what sticks in my stomach. I thought your first satires very admirable, your expressions just and laboriously turn’d, yet charming and natural. Were the distribution of rewards in my power, I should certainly give you something for your _Art of Poetry_: but for your _Lutrin_, that master-piece of your wit, that highest effort of your imagination, I see nothing in it worthy of you, but the verification. Every one owns you can write, nay, your very enemies allow it; but you know a metamorphosis requires an entire change; therefore, since you resolve to imitate _Virgil_, you should have made choice of noble heroes. He that travestied the _Æneis_, understood it better than you, and did not fatigue himself so much; and as he was a man of clear and good sense, has judiciously remark’d, that his queen disguised like a country-wench, is infinitely beyond your clockmaker’s wife dress’d like an empress. But let us leave this subject, which now it is too late to amend, since what is done cannot be undone. What did you mean, you I say, who have been accused of stealing my lines, and who, to deal honestly with you, have often followed the same road I have traced? What did you mean, I say, by reflecting on particulars in your satire against women: Did I ever set you that example? Is not my sixth satire against the sex in general; and when I look back as far as the reigns of _Saturn_ and _Rhea_ for [27] modesty, do I pretend the least shadow of it is left upon the earth? Unthinking fool! those different characters you have drawn, will make you so many particular enemies; and I question, if the patroness you have chosen can secure you from their claws.