Let not this, my lord, pass for vanity in me;
for it is truth. More libels have been written against me than
almost any man now living; and I had reason on my side to have
defended my own innocence. I speak not of my poetry, which I have
wholly given up to the critics--let them use it as they please--
posterity, perhaps, may be more favourable to me; for interest and
passion will lie buried in another age, and partiality and prejudice
be forgotten. I speak of my morals, which have been sufficiently
aspersed--that only sort of reputation ought to be dear to every
honest man, and is to me. But let the world witness for me that I
have been often wanting to myself in that particular; I have seldom
answered any scurrilous lampoon when it was in my power to have
exposed my enemies; and, being naturally vindicative, have suffered
in silence, and possessed my soul in quiet.
Anything, though never so little, which a man speaks of himself, in
my opinion, is still too much; and therefore I will waive this
subject, and proceed to give the second reason which may justify a
poet when he writes against a particular person, and that is when he
is become a public nuisance.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127