To the Editor of Mr. Popes Works by Thomas Edwards Lyrics

O born in luckless hour, with every muse
And every grace to foe! what wayward fate
Drives thee with fell and unrelenting hate
Each choicest work of genius to abuse?
Sufficed it not with sacrilegious views
Great Shakespeare's awful shade to violate:
And his fair Paradise contaminate,
Whom impious Lauder blushes to accuse?
Must Pope, thy friend, mistaken, hapless bard!
(To prove no sprig of laurel ever can grow
Unblasted by thy venom) must he groan
Now daubed with flattery, now by censure scarred,
Disguised, deformed, and made the public show
In motley weeds and colours not his own?