"With rueful eyes thou view'st thy wretched race,
The child of guilt, and destined to disgrace.
Thus when famed Joan usurp'd the Pontiff's chair,
With terror she beheld her new-born heir:
Ill-starr'd, ill-favour'd into birth it came;
In vice begotten, and brought forth with shame!
In vain it breathes, a lewd abandon'd hope!
And calls in vain, the unhallow'd father--Pope!"
The answers to this epigram by the Popeians are too gross. The
"One Epistle" is attributed to James Moore Smyth, in alliance
with Welsted and other unfortunate heroes.
[207] The six Letters are preserved in Ruffhead's Appendix, No. 1.