'
All I can reasonably hope for by this letter is to convince
my friends, and others who are to wish me well, that
I have neither been so ill a subject nor So stupid an author as
I have been represented by the virulence of libellers, whose
malice has taken the same train in both, by fathering dan-
gerous principles in government upon me, which I never
maintained, and insipid productions, which I am not capable
of writing; for, however I may have been soured by personal
ill treatment, or by melancholy prospects for the public, I am
too much a politician to expose my own safety by offensive
words.
All I can reasonably hope for by this letter is to convince
my friends, and others who are to wish me well, that
I have neither been so ill a subject nor So stupid an author as
I have been represented by the virulence of libellers, whose
malice has taken the same train in both, by fathering dan-
gerous principles in government upon me, which I never
maintained, and insipid productions, which I am not capable
of writing; for, however I may have been soured by personal
ill treatment, or by melancholy prospects for the public, I am
too much a politician to expose my own safety by offensive
words.
Alexander Pope - v07
