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Yet soft by Nature, more a Dupe than Wit, 350
Sapho can tell you how this Man was bit:
This dreaded Sat'rist Dennis will confess
Foe to his Pride, but Friend to his Distress:
So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door,
Has drank with Cibber, nay has rym'd for Moor. 355
Full ten years[1] slander'd, did he once reply?
Three thousand Suns went down on Welsted's Lye:[2]
To please a Mistress, One aspers'd his life;
He lash'd him not, but let her be his Wife:
Let Budgel charge low Grubstreet on his quill, 360
And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his Will:
Let the Two Curls of Town and Court abuse
His Father, Mother, Body, Soul, and Muse.
Sapho can tell you how this Man was bit:
This dreaded Sat'rist Dennis will confess
Foe to his Pride, but Friend to his Distress:
So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door,
Has drank with Cibber, nay has rym'd for Moor. 355
Full ten years[1] slander'd, did he once reply?
Three thousand Suns went down on Welsted's Lye:[2]
To please a Mistress, One aspers'd his life;
He lash'd him not, but let her be his Wife:
Let Budgel charge low Grubstreet on his quill, 360
And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his Will:
Let the Two Curls of Town and Court abuse
His Father, Mother, Body, Soul, and Muse.
Yet
- ↑ Ten Years.] It was so long, before the Author of the Dunciad published that Poem, till when, he never writ a word of the many Scurrilities and Falsehoods concerning him.
- ↑ Welsted's Lye.] This Man had the Impudence to tell in print, that Mr. P. had occasion'd a Lady's Death, and to name a person he never heard of. He also publish'd that he had libell'd the Duke of Chandos; with whom (it was added) that he had liv'd in familiarity and receiv'd from him a Present of five hundred pounds: The falsehood of which is known to his Grace, whom Mr. P. never had the honour to see but twice, and never receiv'd any Present farther than the the subscription for Homer, from him, or from Any Great Man whatsoever.
Budgel in a Weekly Pamphlet call'd the Bee, bestow'd much abuse on him, in the imagination that he writ some things about the Last Will of Dr. Tindal, in the Grubstreet Journal; a Paper wherein he never had the least Hand, Direction, er Supervisal, nor the least knowledge of its Authors. He took no notice of so fran-
