his lists. Sir Robert Walpole, the great Whig statesman, took ten
copies, and Harley, the fallen Tory leader, put himself, his wife, and
his daughter down for sixteen. Pope made, it is said, about L3700 by
this work.

In 1726, Swift visited Pope and encouraged him to complete a satire
which he seems already to have begun on the dull critics and hack
writers of the day. For one cause or another its publication was
deferred until 1728, when it appeared under the title of the 'Dunciad'.
Here Pope declared open war upon his enemies. All those who had attacked
his works, abused his character, or scoffed at his personal deformities,
were caricatured as ridiculous and sometimes disgusting figures in a
mock epic poem celebrating the accession of a new monarch to the throne
of Dullness. The 'Dunciad' is little read to-day except by professed
students of English letters, but it made, naturally enough, a great stir
at the time and vastly provoked the wrath of all the dunces whose names
it dragged to light. Pope has often been blamed for stooping to such
ignoble combat, and in particular for the coarseness of his abuse, and
for his bitter jests upon the poverty of his opponents. But it must be
remembered that no living writer had been so scandalously abused as
Pope, and no writer that ever lived was by nature so quick to feel and
to resent insult. The undoubted coarseness of the work is in part due to
the gross license of the times in speech and writing, and more
particularly to the influence of Swift, at this time predominant over
Pope. And in regard to Pope's trick of taunting his enemies with
poverty, it must frankly be confessed that he seized upon this charge as
a ready and telling weapon. Pope was at heart one of the most charitable
of men. In the days of his prosperity he is said to have given away one
eighth of his income. And he was always quick to succor merit in
distress; he pensioned the poet Savage and he tried to secure patronage