O thou! whatever title please thine ear, Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver! Whether thou choose Cervantes serious air, Or laugh and shake in Rabelais easy-chair.
Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale, Where in nice balance truth with gold she weighs, And solid pudding against empty praise.
The Dunciad. Book i. Line 52.
Note 1. This line is from a poem entitled To the Celebrated Beauties of the British Court, given in Bells Fugitive Poetry, vol. iii. p. 118.
The following epigram is from The Grove, London, 1721:
When one good line did much my wonder raise, In Brsts work, I stood resolved to praise, And had, but that the modest author cries, Praise undeserved is scandal in disguise. On a certain line of Mr. Br, Author of a Copy of Verses called the British Beauties. [back]