Note 64 — AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
Reading edition
In the manuscript there are two more lines, of which the second was afterwards introduced into the Dunciad:
Though such with reason men of sense abhor; Fool against fool is barb'rous civil war. Though Mævius scribble and the city knight, &c.
The city knight was Sir Richard Blackmore, who resided in Cheapside. "In the early part of Blackmore's time," says Johnson, "a citizen was a term of reproach, and his place of abode was a topic to which his adversaries had recourse in the penury of scandal."