In this Epistle ver. 59. of your Folio Edition, you seem to bless yourself, that you are not my Friend! no wonder then, you rail at me! but let us see upon what Occasion you own this Felicity. Speaking of an impertinent Author, who teized you to recommend his _Virgin Tragedy_ to the Stage, you at last happily got rid of him with this Excuse----
_There (thank my Stars) my whole Commission ends,_ Cibber _and I, are luckily no Friends._
If you chose not to be mine, Sir, it does not follow, that it was equally my Choice not to be yours: But perhaps you thought me your Enemy, because you were conscious you had injur'd me, and therefore were resolv'd never to forgive _Me_, because I had it in my Power to forgive _You_: For, as _Dryden_ says,
_Forgiveness, to the Injur'd does belong; But they ne'er pardon who have done the Wrong._
This, Sir, is the only natural Excuse, I can form, for your being my Enemy. As to your blunt Assertion of my certain Prejudice to any thing, that had your Recommendation to the Stage, which your above Lines would insinuate; I gave you a late Instance in _The Miller of Mansfield_, that your manner of treating Me had in no sort any Influence upon my Judgment. For you may remember, sometime before that Piece was acted, I accidentally met you, in a Visit to the late General _Dormer_, who, though he might be your good Friend, was not for that Reason the less a Friend to Me: There you join'd with that Gentleman, in asking my Advice and Assistance in that Author's behalf; which as I had read the Piece, though I had then never seen the Man, I gave, in such manner, as I thought might best serve him: And if I don't over-rate my Recommendation, I believe its way to the Stage was made the more easy by it. This Fact, then, does in no kind make good your Insinuation, that my Enmity to you would not suffer me to like any thing that you liked; which though you call your good Fortune in Verse, yet in Prose, you see, it happens not to be true. But I am glad to find, in your smaller Edition, that your Conscience has since given this Line some Correction; for there you have taken off a little of its Edge; it there runs only thus----
The Play'rs _and I, are luckily no Friends._