This was Dr.Pepusch, musical director at John Rich's theatre, the "Duke's," Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields.
"Dr.Pepusch is right," rejoined Gay.

"That is why I favoured Cibber.
But from his reception of me I doubt if he'll take the risk of staging the play." "Cibber likes not you, Mr.Gay, and he hates me," said Pope with his acid smile.

"He's a poet--or thinks he's one--and poets love not one another.

Nothing is so blinding to the merits of others as one's own vanity." "Nay, Mr.Pope, is not that assumption too sweeping ?" put in the fourth man, of cheerful, rubicund countenance and, like Gay, inclined to corpulency.

"What about yourself and Mr.Gay?
Is there anyone more conscious of his talents and has done more to foster and encourage them than you?
Who spoke and wrote in higher praise of Will Congreve than John Dryden ?" "Your argument's just, Arbuthnot," rejoined Pope.