Ay, marry Sir! here you souse me with a Witness! This is a Triumph indeed! I can hardly help laughing at this myself; for, _Se non e vero, ben Trovato_! A good Jest is a good Thing, let it fall upon who it will: I dare say _Cibber_ would never have complain'd of Mr. _Pope_,
----_Si sic_ ----_Omnia dixisset_------ Juv.
If he had never said any worse of him. But hold, Master _Cibber_! why may not you as well turn this pleasant Epigram into an involuntary Compliment? for a King's Fool was no body's Fool but his Master's, and had not his Name for nothing; as for Example,
_Those Fools of old, if Fame says true, Were chiefly chosen for their Wit; Why then, call'd Fools? because, like you Dear_ Pope, _too Bold in shewing it._
And so, if I am the King's Fool; now, Sir, pray whose Fool are you? 'Tis pity, methinks, you should be out of Employment: for, if a satyrical Intrepidity, or, as you somewhere call it, a _High Courage of Wit_, is the fairest Pretence to be the _King's Fool_, I don't know a Wit in the World so fit to fill up the Post as yourself.
Thus, Sir, I have endeavour'd to shake off all the Dirt in your _Dunciad_, unless of here and there some little Spots of your Ill-will, that were not worth tiring the Reader's Patience with my Notice of them. But I have some more foul way to trot through still, in your Epistles and Satyrs, _&c._ Now whether I shall come home the filthy Fellow, or the clean contrary Man to what you make me, I will venture to leave to your own _Conscience_, though I dare not make the same Trust to your _Wit_: For that you have often _spoke_ worse (merely to shew your Wit) than you could possibly _think_ of me, almost all your Readers, that observe your Good-nature _will easily_ believe.
However, to shew I am not blind to your Merit, I own your Epistle to Dr. _Arbuthnot_ (though I there find myself contemptibly spoken of) gives me more Delight in the whole, than any one Poem of the kind I ever read. The only Prejudice or wrong Bias of Judgment, I am afraid I may be guilty of is, when I cannot help thinking, that your Wit is more remarkably bare and barren, whenever it would fall foul upon _Cibber_, than upon any other Person or Occasion whatsoever: I therefore could wish the Reader may have sometimes considered those Passages, that if I do you Injustice, he may as justly condemn me for it.