Book II. Satire VI.
Book IV. Ode I.
Part of the Ninth Ode of the Fourth Book
THE SATIRES OF DR JOHN VERSIFIED--
Satire II.
Satire IV.
EPILOGUE TO THE SATIRES: IN TWO DIALOGUES--
Dialogue I.
Dialogue II.




POPE'S POETICAL WORKS.



PREFACE.[2]


I am inclined to think that both the writers of books, and the readers
of them, are generally not a little unreasonable in their expectations.
The first seem to fancy that the world must approve whatever they
produce, and the latter to imagine that authors are obliged to please
them at any rate. Methinks, as on the one hand, no single man is born
with a right of controlling the opinions of all the rest; so, on the
other, the world has no title to demand that the whole care and time of
any particular person should be sacrificed to its entertainment.
Therefore I cannot but believe that writers and readers are under equal
obligations for as much fame, or pleasure, as each affords the other.