Smith and Mr. Johnson, the main pillars of it, were two
such languishing gentlemen in their conversation that I could liken
them to nothing but to their own relations, those noble characters
of men of wit and pleasure about the town. The like considerations
have hindered me from dealing with the lamentable companions of
their prose and doggerel. I am so far from defending my poetry
against them that I will not so much as expose theirs. And for my
morals, if they are not proof against their attacks, let me be
thought by posterity what those authors would be thought if any
memory of them or of their writings could endure so long as to
another age. But these dull makers of lampoons, as harmless as they
have been to me, are yet of dangerous example to the public. Some
witty men may perhaps succeed to their designs, and, mixing sense
with malice, blast the reputation of the most innocent amongst men,
and the most virtuous amongst women.
Heaven be praised, our common libellers are as free from the
imputation of wit as of morality, and therefore whatever mischief
they have designed they have performed but little of it.
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