_D'Israeli: Pope and Goldsmith._--Mr. D'Israeli congratulates himself
with much satisfaction, in his _Essay on the Literary Character_, both
in his Preface, p. xxix., and in the text, p. 187. vol. i., in having
written _this_ immortal sentence:
"The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces."
--more particularly as it appears Lord Byron had "deeply _underscored_
it." Perhaps he was unaware that Pope, in a letter to Swift, Feb. 16,
1733, had said:
"A few loose things sometimes fall from men of wit by which
_censorious fools_ judge as ill of them as they possibly can, for
_their own comfort_."
And that Goldsmith says:
"The folly of others is ever most ridiculous to those who are
themselves most foolish."--_Citizen of the World._