it came.

"Many ludicrous circumstances attended it. The 'Dunces' (for by
this name they were called) held weekly clubs, to consult of
hostilities against the author. One wrote a letter to a great
minister, assuring him Mr. Pope was the greatest enemy the
Government had, and another bought his image in clay to execute him
in effigy, with which sad sort of satisfaction the gentlemen were a
little comforted. Some false editions of the book, having an owl in
their frontispiece, the true one, to distinguish it, fixed in his
stead an ass laden with authors. Then another surreptitious one
being printed with the same ass, the new edition in octavo returned
for distinction to the owl again. Hence arose a great contest of
booksellers against booksellers, and advertisements against
advertisements, some recommending the edition of the owl, and others
the edition of the ass, by which names they came to be
distinguished, to the great honour also of the gentlemen of the
'Dunciad.'"

Pope appears by this narrative to have contemplated his victory over
the "Dunces" with great exultation; and such was his delight in the
tumult which he had raised, that for a while his natural sensibility
was suspended, and he read reproaches and invectives without
emotion, considering them only as the necessary effects of that pain
which he rejoiced in having given. It cannot, however, be concealed
that, by his own confession, he was the aggressor, for nobody
believes that the letters in the "Bathos" were placed at random; and
at may be discovered that, when he thinks himself concealed, he
indulges the common vanity of common men, and triumphs in those
distinctions which he affected to despise. He is proud that his