Chapter II

_One Epistle To Mr. A. Pope, Occasion'd By Two Epistles Lately Published_ appeared, according to the _Daily Journal_, on 28 April 1730.[2] Pope's mention of it in Appendix II to _The Dunciad A_, his "List of Books, Papers, and Verses, in which our Author was abused" which is our best guide to Popiana, is somewhat confusing and made more difficult because the first part dates from 1729, the second from 1735: "_Labeo_, A Paper of Verses written by Leonard Welsted. [1729 a-d], which after came into One Epistle, and was publish'd by James Moore. 4to. 1730. Another part of it came out in Welsted's own name in 1731, under the just Title of _Dulness and Scandal_, fol. [1735a]."[3]

The _Labeo_ reference is mysterious. Pope in his note on Welsted to _The Dunciad A_ II.293 had said in a sentence omitted in all editions from 1735a, "The strength of the metaphors in this passage is to express the great scurrility and fury of this writer, which may be seen, One day, in a Piece of his, call'd (as I think) _Labeo_."[4] Since no _Labeo_ has ever turned up, it seems reasonable to conclude with Fineman that, though Welsted may have toyed with the idea of writing one, "he either never did enough with it to warrant its publication, or discarded it entirely in favor of writing the collaborative _One Epistle to Mr. Pope_ that appeared in 1730. Naturally, he would not broadcast his plans, and as a result the enemy camp continued to believe--or at any rate, to say--that Welsted would retaliate with a _Labeo_."[5] This was in 1729; by 1735 Pope had realized no _Labeo_ would appear and deciding, apparently on no evidence, that it had been incorporated into Welsted's _One Epistle_ and _Of Dulness and Scandal_ (1732), made the appropriate changes in _The Dunciad_.

Pope did not at first realize that _One Epistle_ was by Welsted. It had been announced as early as 1 Feb. 1729 in _The Universal Spectator_ "as the due Chastisement of Mr. Pope for his _Dunciad_, by James Moore Smythe, Esq; and Mr. Welsted." The poem must have been circulated privately before publication at least by October, 1729 at which time Pope believed it to be Lady Mary's, since we find Lady Mary writing to Dr. Arbuthnot twice in October 1729 denying Pope's accusation that she had written it.[6] There is no evidence that she was not telling the truth, but on 21 May 1730 _The Grub-Street Journal_ reported that Lady Mary had "some hand in the piece."

Like most Pope attacks, the poem was published anonymously. The preface, a defence of the Dunces, is, with probably intentional ambiguity, written in the first person singular but ends by referring to "the Writers of the following Poem" (p. viii). One hand seems responsible for the preface, but we can only conclude that a Dunce collaborating with other Dunces produced the poem. Four days after its publication Pope wrote to Broome that it was "by James Moore and others," and a few weeks later wrote to Bethel that "James Moore own'd it but was made by three others, and he will disown it whenever any man takes him for it."[7] It was Moore Smythe who was attacked in _The Grub-Street Journal_ for several months as the poem's chief author.[8]

A letter from Welsted to Dodington, however, shows that though the poem was a collaborative effort and though others may have made suggestions and additions, Welsted felt himself responsible for the poem.[9] In 1735 Pope attributed _One Epistle_ finally to Welsted, with Moore Smythe as publisher, and in 1737 _The Memoirs of Grub-Street_ said of Moore Smythe that he "reported himself author" of _One Epistle_, "but was only a publisher; it being written by Mr. Welsted and others."[10]

As to the "others" we should remember Mallet's caution that it would be vain,

To guess, ere _One Epistle_ saw the light,
How many brother-dunces club'd their mite.[11]

Welsted himself had begun his quarrel with Pope with an attack on _Three Hours after Marriage_, that amusing and much-abused play, in _Palaemon To Caelia at Bath; Or, The Triumvirate_ (1717). Pope is said to have collaborated with Gay not only in _Three Hours_, a play "so lewd,/ Ev'n Bullies blush'd, and Beaux astonish'd stood" (Second Edition, p. 11), but in _The Wife of Bath_ and _The What D'Ye Call It_. Welsted also hits at _God's Revenge Against Punning_, the _First Psalm_, praises Tickell, and finds Pope's versification flat. All of these charges (except the one that Pope collaborated in _The Wife of Bath_) had appeared in print before, but Pope was to remember _Palaemon To Caelia_ and include it in a note to _The Dunciad A_ II.293, where it is neatly described as "meant for a Satire on Mr. P. and some of his friends."

In 1721 Welsted's name appears in the title of a pamphlet containing an attack on Pope's Homer, _An Epistle To Mr. Welsted; And A Satyre on the English Translations of Homer_, by that engagingly inept Dunce, Bezaleel Morrice. In 1724 in the "Dissertation concerning the Perfection of the English Language" prefixed to his _Epistles, Odes, &c._, Welsted quoted (not quite correctly) and criticized Pope's "And such as _Chaucer_ is, shall _Dryden_ be" (p. x). The anonymous author of _Characters of The Times_ (1728) thought that Welsted would have been spared Pope's abuse if he had not in his "Dissertation" "happen'd to cite a low and false line from Mr. P[o]pe for the meer Purpose of refuting it, without seeming to know, or care who was the Author of it" (p. 24).[12]

In the _Peri Bathous_ Pope included Welsted as a didapper and an eel. Pope then put him into _The Dunciad_ in II.293-300 and, more memorably, in III.163-166:

Flow Welsted, Flow! like thine inspirer, Beer,
Tho' stale, not ripe; tho' thin, yet never clear;
So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull;
Heady, not strong, and foaming tho' not full.

Unable to leave well enough alone, Welsted continued his attack on Pope with _One Epistle_ and then again in January 1732 with _Of Dulness and Scandal_, which ran to three editions. The half-title of _One Epistle_ had promised that it was to be continued, and the writer of the preface had said that he intended "in the preface to the next Epistle ... to state several Matters of Fact, in Contradiction to the Notes of the _Dunciad_" (p. viii). _Of Dulness and Scandal_, however, has no preface and is an independent attack. Its main charge is Pope's ingratitude to the Duke of Chandos as shown in the _Epistle to Burlington_, a famous charge frequently to be repeated,[13] but it claims as well that a lady named Victoria died as a result of reading Pope's Homer and attacks once more _The Rape of the Lock_ and the _First Psalm_.

In February 1732 Welsted published his last attack on Pope, _Of False Fame_, in which he attacks _Windsor Forest_, _The Rape of the Lock_, Pope's edition of Shakespeare, _The Dunciad_, and the _Epistle to Burlington_. Pope then mentioned him in the _Epistle to Arbuthnot_, at first in l. 49, although he altered this to "Pitholeon," and then in l. 375, where most twentieth-century college students first meet his name.

The charges in _One Epistle_ are unusually comprehensive, but almost none of them is original. To help the reader to evaluate the more important, the following notes may be helpful. The denial in the preface of Pope's statement that no one is attacked in _The Dunciad_ "who had not before, either in Print or private Conversation, endeavour'd something to his Disadvantage" (p. v) is a reference to _The Dunciad_, p. 203, where, however, conversation is not mentioned. This sentence of Pope's annoyed many of the Dunces.[14] What the preface says about Swift and Arbuthnot and the _Peri Bathous_ (p. vii) may well be true.[15] Welsted's charge that Pope wrote the Prologue to _Cato_ and then "the Play decried" (p. 12) is simply Dennis's old charge first made in _A True Character of Mr. Pope (1716)_ and repeated in _Remarks Upon ... the Dunciad_ (1729) that Pope had teased Lintot into publishing Dennis's attack on _Cato_. The charge rests only on Dennis's authority.[16] The obscenity of _The Rape of the Lock_ was an old story.[17] So was the notorious _First Psalm_.[18] Welsted's attacks on the _Pastorals_, the Homer, the _Peri Bathous_, and _The Dunciad_ are simply the commonplaces of Popiana. The charge that he libeled Addison only after the great man's death is also familiar[19] (Welsted seems to have been the first, though, to mention the libel on Lady Mary) and long since disproved by Sherburn and Ault. That Pope was a plagiarist is an idea that turns up constantly.[20]

Welsted's other charges are more interesting. He seems to be the only Dunce who objected (p. 12) to Pope's mentioning Bishop Hoadly in _The Dunciad A_ II.368. It may just possibly be true that Gildon was dismissed by Buckingham because of Gildon's dislike of Pope (p. 22).[21]

The most curious of the charges is that Pope,

... from the Skies, propitious to the Fair,
Brought down _Caecilia_, and sent _Cloris_ there. (p. 11)

Welsted apparently means that Pope debased St. Cecilia in his _Ode for Musick on St. Cecilia's Day_ and glorified a suicide in his _Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady_. He is not saying, as did _The Life of the late Celebrated Mrs. Elizabeth Wisebourn_ (1721), that the heroine of the _Elegy_ died of her unrequited love for Pope. Pope's note to l. 375 of the _Epistle to Arbuthnot_ accusing Welsted of having "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" refers not to Cloris but to Victoria in Welsted's _Of Dulness and Scandal_ who died from reading Pope's _Illiad_.[22]

The _Grub-Street Journal_ for 21 May 1730 invited "any Person of Credit and Character to stand forth and attest any of the following Facts...."

That the late Duke of Buckingham paid any Pension to Charles Gildon,
which he took from him since his acquaintance with Mr. P.

That the present Archbishop of Canterbury hath past any Censure on
Mr. P.

That Mr. F[ento]n and he ever were at distance on variance with each
other.

That the Rev. Mr. Br[oo]me ever asserted or complain'd, he was not
gratify'd with a competent Sum for his Share in the Odyssey; nay did
not own that he thought himself highly paid.

That Mr. Addison or any other but Mr. P. writ, or alter'd, one line
of the Prologue to Cato.

Who will name any young Writer, allow'd to have Merit, that hath
been personally discourag'd by him; or who hath not received either
actual Services, or amicable Treatment from him?