Note 222 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS; (continued 2)

A wicked wag of a lord had enticed Pope into a tavern, and laid a love-plot against his health. Cibber describes his resolute interference by snatching “our little Homer by the heels. This was done for the honour of our nation. Homer would have been too serious a sacrifice to our evening’s amusement.” He has metamorphosed our Apollo into a “Tom-tit;” but the Ovidian warmth, however ludicrous, will not now admit of a narrative. This story, by our comic writer, was accompanied by a print, that was seen by more persons, probably, than read the Dunciad. In his second letter, Cibber, alluding to the vexation of Pope on this ridiculous story, observes—“To have been exposed as a bad man, ought to have given thee thrice the concern of being shown a ridiculous lover.” And now that he had discovered that he could touch the nerves of Pope, he throws out one of the most ludicrous analogies to the figure of our bard:—“When crawling in thy dangerous deed of darkness, I gently, with a finger and a thumb, picked off thy small round body by thy long legs, like a spider making love in a cobweb.”