Note 250 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS; (continued 2)

This original image a late caustic wit (Horne Tooke), who probably had never read this poem, employed on a certain occasion. Godwin, who had then distinguished himself by his genius and by some hardy paradoxes, was pleading for them as hardily, by showing that they did not originate in him—that they were to be found in Helvetius, in Rousseau, and in other modern philosophers. “Ay,” retorted the cynical wit; “so you eat at my table venison and turtle, but from you the same things come quite changed!” The original, after all, is in Donne, long afterwards versified by our poet. See Warton’s edition, vol. iv. p. 257. Pope must have been an early reader of Donne.