Poor Furius, where 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 antients.  His very panegyric is spiteful, and he uses it for the same reason as some ladies do their commendations of a dead beauty, who never would 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.’

Mr. Dennis in resentment of this representation made of him, in his remarks on Pope’s Homer, page 9. 10. thus mentions him.  ’There is a notorious idiot, one HIGHT WHACHUM, who from an Under-spur-leather to the law, is become an Under strapper to the play-house, who has lately burlesqued the Metamorphoses of Ovid, by a vile translation, &c.  This fellow is concerned in an impertinent paper called the Censor.’  Such was the language of Mr. Dennis, when enflamed by contradiction.

In the year 1729 Mr. Theobald introduced upon the stage a Tragedy called the Double Falsehood; the greatest part of which he asserted was Shakespear’s.  Mr. Pope insinuated to the town, that it was all, or certainly the greatest part written, not by Shakespear, but Theobald himself, and quotes this line,

  None but thyself can be thy parallel.

Which he calls a marvellous line of Theobald, ’unless (says he) the play called the Double Falsehood be (as he would have it thought) Shakespear’s; but whether this line is his or not, he proves Shakespear to have written as bad.’  The arguments which Mr. Theobald uses to prove the play to be Shakespear’s are indeed far from satisfactory;—­First, that the MS. was above sixty years old;—­Secondly, that once Mr. Betterton had it, or he hath heard so;—­Thirdly, that some body told him the author gave it to a bastard daughter of his;—­But fourthly, and above all, that he has a great mind that every thing that is good in our tongue should be Shakespear’s.

This Double Falsehood was vindicated by Mr. Theobald, who was attacked again in the art of sinking in poetry.  Here Mr. Theobald endeavours to prove false criticisms, want of understanding Shakespear’s manner, and perverse cavelling in Mr. Pope:  He justifies himself and the great dramatic poet, and essays to prove the Tragedy in question to be in reality Shakespear’s, and not unworthy of him.  We cannot set this controversy in a clearer light, than by transcribing a letter subjoined to the Double Falsehood.

Dear Sir,

You desire to know, why in the general attack which Mr. Pope has lately made against writers living and dead, he has so often had a fling of satire at me.  I should be very willing to plead guilty to his indictment, and think as meanly of myself as he can possibly do, were his quarrel altogether upon a fair, or unbiassed nature.  But he is angry at the man; and as Juvenal says—­

  Facit indignatio versum.