_This Assertion is by no means true, as I shall immediately shew; if it were true, it might indeed bear some Weight, but however with this Distinction, that the Reports of private Conversation, brought to him by such Emissaries, as belong to him, are not always to be believed, and that no Attack in Print upon a Man’s Poetical Character, ought to be repaid by Lampoon and Virulence upon the Moral Character of his Antagonist: Every Person has a Right to determine upon the Talents of Writers, particularly of one, who appears in Publick only to gratify the two worst Appetites, that disgrace Human Nature, I mean Malice and Avarice; and sure no Man deserves a violent Injury to his Reputation, as a Gentleman, because perhaps at a Distance of several Years since he might have said, that Mr. _Pope_ had nothing in him Original as a Writer, that Mr. _Tickel_ greatly excelled him in his Translation of _Homer_, and many of his Contemporaries in other Branches of Writing, and that he is infinitely inferior to Mr. _Phillips_ in Pastoral: And yet such Arguments or Apologies as these have been used by himself, or his Tea-Table Cabals, for calling Gentlemen Scoundrels, Blockheads, Gareteers, and Beggars,: If he can transmit them to Posterity under such Imputations, he is a bad Man; if he cannot, he is a bad Writer: I believe, that he would rather suffer under the first Character, than the last: But before I have done with him, I will make a very strict Inquiry into both._ _In the mean time I shall shew the Reader, in general, the Falshood of his main Pretence, that he has meddled with no one, that had not before hurt him, and in this View, tho’ I should be ashamed of being too serious in a Controversy of this Sort, I think it proper to acquaint the Town with the original Design of the _Dunciad_, and the real Reasons of its Production. This Piece, which has been honour’d by Booksellers of Quality, contains only the Poetical Part of Dulness, extracted from a Libel, call’d, _The Progress of it_, and which included several other Branches of Science, and perhaps some of those Gentlemen, who have in the warmest Manner asserted the Cause of the _Dunciad_, might have seen a Publication of a Work, upon the Death of this Writer, in which no past Friendship could have screen’d them from Lampoon for any Pretences to excel in any Science whatever: It appears, therefore, that he was teaz’d into a Publication of these Cantos, which regarded the Writers of the Age, by some Attacks, that were made upon him about that Time: We must refer to a Miscellany of Poems published by Him and _Swift_, to which is prefix’d, _An Essay on the Profund_, to consider if those Attacks were justifiable; Mr. Dean _Swift_ never saw the _Profund_, till made publick, and Dr. _Arburthnot_, who originally sketch’d the Design of it, desired that the Initial Letters of Names of the Gentlemen abused might not be inserted, that they might be _A_ or _B_, or _Do_ or _Ro_, or any