One fool lolls his tongue out at another,
  And shakes his empty noddle at his brother.

The citation of this couplet Mr. Dennis imagined, was rather meant to affront him, than pay a compliment to his genius, as he could discover nothing excellent in the lines, and if there was, they being only a translation, in some measure abated the merit of them.  Being fired with resentment at this affront, he immediately, in a spirit of fury, wrote a letter to the Spectator, in which he treated him with very little ceremony, and informed him, that if he had been sincere in paying a compliment to him, he should have chosen a quotation from his poem on the Battle of Ramellies; he then points out a particular passage, of which he himself had a very high opinion, and which we shall here insert as a specimen of that performance.

A coelestial spirit visits the duke of Marlborough the night before the battle, and after he has said several other things to him, goes on thus,

  A wondrous victory attends thy arms,
  Great in itself, and in its sequel vast;
  Whose ecchoing sound thro’ all the West shall run,
  Transporting the glad nations all around,
  Who oft shall doubt, and oft suspend their joy,
  And oft imagine all an empty dream;
  The conqueror himself shall cry amaz’d,
  ’Tis not our work, alas we did it not;
  The hand of God, the hand of God is here! 
  For thee, so great shall be thy high renown,
  That same shall think no music like thy name,
  Around the circling globe it shall be spread,
  And to the world’s last ages shall endure;
  And the most lofty, most aspiring man,
  Shall want th’ assurance in his secret prayers
  To ask such high felicity and fame,
  As Heav’n has freely granted thee; yet this
  That seems so great, so glorious to thee now,
  Would look how low, how vile to thy great mind,
  If I could set before th’ astonished eyes,
  Th’ excess of glory, and th’ excess of bliss
  That is prepar’d for thy expiring soul,
  When thou arriv’st at everlasting day.

The quotation by Mr. Dennis is longer, but we are persuaded the reader will not be displeased that we do not take the trouble to transcribe the whole, as it does not improve, but rather grows more languid.  How strangely are people deceived in their own productions!  In the language of sincerity we cannot discover a poetical conception, one striking image, or one animated line in the above, and yet Mr. Dennis observes to Sir Richard Steele, that these are the lines, by quoting which, he would really have done him honour.