Pope, although he might have anticipated a different reception from the friend, in whose cause he had armed, or affected to arm, was contented, for the present, to disguise his mortification, and even to apologize for his unauthorized interference, which he imputed to the keenness of his feelings in the cause of Addison. "It was never in my thoughts," said he, in a letter dated 20th July 1713,"to have offered you my pen in any direct reply to such a critic, but only in some little raillery; not in defence of you, but of contempt of him. But indeed your opinion, that 'tis entirely to be neglected, would have been my own, had it been my own case; but I felt more warmth here than I did when first I saw his book against myself, though, indeed, in two minutes it made me heartily merry." In this statement, Pope probably deserves no more credit than Addison, when he assured Pope, that none of this age were able to translate Homer but himself. But in all the correspondence between these eminent persons, as in that between the rival queens, Elizabeth and Mary, there was neither real friendship nor sincerity, but much falsehood, hypocrisy, and circumvention.

The

Ir is an acknowledged truth, that nothing is so dear to an honest man as his good name, nor ought he to neglect the just vindication of his character, when it is injuriously attacked by any man. person I have at present cause to complain of, is indeed in very melancholy circumstances, it having pleased God to deprive him of his senses, which may extenuate the crime in him. I should be wanting in my duty, not only to myself, but also to my fellow-creatures, to whom my talents may prove of benefit, should I suffer my profession of honesty to be undeservedly aspersed. I have therefore resolved to give the public an account of all that has passed between the unhappy gentleman and myself.

On the 20th instant, while I was in my closet pondering the case of one of my patients, I heard a knocking at my door, upon opening of which entered an old woman, with tears in her eyes, and told me, that without my assistance, her master would be utterly ruined. I was forced to interrupt her sorrow, by inquiring her master's name and place of abode. She told me, he was one Mr Dennis, an officer of the customhouse, who was taken ill of a violent frenzy last April, and had continued in those melancholy circumstances, with few or no intervals.

VOL. XIII.

Upon this I asked her some questions relating to his humour and extravagancies, that I might the better know under what regimen to put him, when the cause of his distemper was found out. "Alas, sir," says she, "this day fortnight, in the morning, a poor simple child came to him from the printer's; the boy had no sooner entered the room, but he cried out, "the devil was come." He often stares ghastfully, raves aloud, and mutters between his teeth the word Cator or Cato, or some such thing. Now, Doctor this Cator is certainly a witch, and my poor master is under an evil tongue; for I have heard him say Cator has bewitched the whole nation. It pitied my very heart to think, that a man of my master's understanding and great scholarship, who, as the child told me had a book of his own in print, should talk so outrageously. Upon this, I went and laid out a groat for a horse-shoe, which is at this time nailed on the threshold of the door; but I don't find my master is at all the better of it; he perpetually starts and runs to the window, when any one knocks, crying out, "'Sdeath! a messenger from the French king! I shall die in the Bastille."*

Having said this, the old woman presented me with a vial of his urine; upon examination of which I perceived the whole temperament of his body to be exceeding hot. I therefore instantly took my cane and my beaver, and repaired to the place where he dwelt,

* Dennis, who had a very high opinion of his own works in favour of the cause of the Protestant religion, and of the allies against Louis XIV., always conceived that the despot was highly incensed against him, and determined by force or fraud to get him into his power; this peculiarity is noticed by all his biographers. During the negotiations for the peace of Utrecht, he was in constant alarm lest the surrender of his person should be made the subject of some secret article of the treaty.

When I came to his lodgings near Charing Cross, up three pair of stairs (which I should not have published in this manner, but that this lunatic conceals the place of his residence, on purpose to prevent the good offices of those charitable friends and physicians who might attempt his cure), when I came into the room, I found this unfortunate gentleman seated on his bed, with Mr Bernard Lintot, bookseller, on the one side of him, and a grave elderly gentleman on the other, who, as I have since learned, calls himself a grammarian,* the latitude of whose countenance was not a little eclipsed by the fulness of his peruke. As I am a black lean man, of a pale visage, and hang my clothes on somewhat slovenly, I no sooner went in, but he frowned upon me, and cried out with violence, "'Sdeath, a Frenchman! I am betrayed to the tyrant! who could have thought the queen would have delivered me up to France in this treaty, and least of all that you, my friends, would have been in a conspiracy against me?" Sir," said I," here

is neither plot nor conspiracy, but for your advantage. The recovery of your senses requires my attendance, and your friends sent for me on no other account." I then took a particular survey of his person, and the furniture and disposition of his apartment. His aspect was furious; his eyes were rather fiery than lively, which he rolled about in an uncommon manner. He often opened his mouth,

*This seems to be Giles Jacob, author of the Lives of the Poets, and thus distinguished in the Dunciad:

"Jacob, the scourge of grammar, mark with awe,

Nor less revere him blunderbuss of law."

He was a friend of Dennis, to whom he afterwards (as a fellow sufferer) addressed a letter, printed in the critic's remarks upon the Dunciad.

as if he would have uttered some matter of importance, but the sound seemed lost inwardly. His beard was grown, which they told me he would not suffer to be shaved; believing the modern dramatic poets had corrupted all the barbers in the town to take the first opportunity of cutting his throat. His eyebrows were grey, long, and grown together, which he knit with indignation, when any thing was spoken; insomuch that he seemed not to have smoothed his forehead for many years. His flannel nightcap, which was exceedingly begrimed with sweat and dirt, hung upon his left ear; the flap of his breeches dangled between his legs, and the rolls of his stockings fell down to his ancles.

I observed his room was hung with old tapestry, which had several holes in it, caused, as the old woman informed me, by his having cut out of it the heads of divers tyrants, the fierceness of whose visages had much provoked him.* On all sides of his room were pinned a great many sheets of a tragedy, called Cato, with notes on the margin with his own hand. The words ABSURD, MONSTROUS, EXECRABLE, were everywhere written in such large characters, that I could read them without my spectacles. By the fireside lay three-farthings-worth of small coal in a Spectator, and behind the door, huge heaps of

* This alludes to the lines in the Essay on Criticism, which Dennis very justly considered as levelled against himself, he having written a tragedy called Appius.

""Twere well might critics still this freedom take,
But Appius reddens at each word you speak;
And stares tremendous with a threatening eye,
Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry.'

"This picture," says a note, "was taken to himself by John Dennis, a furious old critic by profession; who, upon no other provocation, wrote against this essay and its author, in a manner perfectly lunatic."