She saw slow Philips creep like Tate's poor page,
And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.

He mentions him again slightly in his second Book, line 230, and in
his third Book, line 165, taking notice of a quarrel between him and
Mr. Gildon, he says,

Ah Dennis! Gildon ah! what ill-starr'd rage
Divides a friendship long confirm'd by age?
Blockheads, with reason, wicked wits abhor,
But fool with fool, is barbr'ous civil war,
Embrace, embrace, my sons! be foes no more!
Nor glad vile poets, with true critic's gore.

Our author gained little by his opposition to Pope, in which he must
either have violated his judgment, or been under the influence of the
strongest prejudice that ever blinded the eyes of any man; for not to
admire the writings of this excellent poet, is an argument of a total
deprivation of taste, which in other respects does not appear to be
the case of Mr. Dennis.

We shall now take a view of our author in the light of a dramatist.
In the year 1697 a comedy of his was acted at the Theatre-Royal
in Drury-Lane, called A Plot and No Plot, dedicated to the Earl of
Sunderland. The scope of this piece is to ridicule the credulity and
principles of the Jacobites, the moral of which is this, 'That there
are in all parties, persons who find it their interest to deceive
the rest, and that one half of every faction makes a property in
fee-simple of the other, therefore we ought never to believe any thing
will, or will not be, because it is agreeable, or contrary to our