In each she marks her Image full exprest,
But chief in Bays's monster-breeding breast;
Remarks
Ver. 106. And all the mighty Mad in Dennis rage.] Mr. Theobald, in the Censor, vol. ii. N.33. calls Mr. Dennis by the name of Furius. "The modern Furius is to be looked upon as more an object of pity, than of that which he daily provokes, laughter and contempt. Did we really know how much this poor man" (I wish that reflection on poverty had been spared) "suffers by being contradicted, or, which is the same thing in effect, by hearing another praised; we should, in compassion, sometimes attend to him with a silent nod, and let him go away with the triumphs of his ill nature.—Poor Furius (again) when any of his cotemporaries are spoken well of, quitting the ground of the present dispute, steps back a thousand years to call in the succour of the Ancients. His very panegyric is spiteful, and he uses it for the same reason as some Ladies do their commendations of a dead beauty, who would never have had their good word, but that a living one happened to be mentioned in their company. His applause is not the tribute of his Heart, but the sacrifice of his Revenge," &c. Indeed his pieces against our poet are somewhat of an angry character, and as they are now scarce extant, a taste of his style may be satisfactory to the curious. "A young, squab, short gentleman, whose outward form, though it should be that of downright monkey, would not differ so much from human shape as his unthinking immaterial part does from human understanding.—He is as stupid and as venomous as a hunch-back'd toad.—A book through which folly and ignorance, those brethren so lame and impotent, do ridiculously look very big and very dull, and strut and hobble, cheek by jowl, with their arms on kimbo, being led and supported, and bully-back'd by that blind Hector, Impudence." Reflect. on the Essay on Criticism, p. 26. 29, 30.
It would be unjust not to add his reasons for this Fury, they are so strong and so coercive: "I regard him (saith he) as an Enemy, not so much to me, as to my King, to my Country, to my Religion, and to that Liberty which has been the sole felicity of my life. A vagary of Fortune, who is sometimes pleased to be frolicksome, and the epidemic Madness of the times have given him Reputation, and Reputation (as Hobbes says) is Power, and that has made him dangerous. Therefore I look on it as my duty to King George, whose faithful subject I am; to my Country, of which I have appeared a constant lover; to the Laws, under whose protection I have so long lived; and to the Liberty of my Country, more dear to me than life, of which I have now for forty years been a constant assertor. &c. I look upon it as my duty, I say, to do—you shall see what—to the lion's skin from this little Ass, which popular error has thrown round him; and to shew that this Author, who has been lately so much in vogue, has neither sense in his thoughts, nor English in his expressions." Dennis Rem. on Hom. Pref. p. 2. 91, &c
Besides these public-spirited reasons,
