He had the audacity to declare that the initials were selected at random.

If so, a marvellous coincidence made nearly every pair of letters correspond to the name and surname of some contemporary poetaster.

The classification was rather vague, but seems to have given special offence.
Meanwhile Pope was planning a more elaborate campaign against his adversaries.

He now appeared for the first time as a formal satirist, and the Dunciad, in which he came forward as the champion of Wit, taken in its broad sense, against its natural antithesis, Dulness, is in some respect his masterpiece.

It is addressed to Swift, who probably assisted at some of its early stages.