Notes & Queries Archive
MISCELLANIES1850

Praise undeserved

By D.S.

Does any one know where the oft-quoted line, "Praise undeserved in censure in disguise," is to be found? A long search for it has hitherto proved ineffectual. [This line, which is so often quoted, with the variation— "Praise undeserved is *Satire* in disguise," is to be found in Pope's *First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace*; where, however, we find that neither *Censure* nor *Satire* is the correct reading. It is moreover, both in Warton's edition and in the *Aldine Poets*, edited by the Rev. A. Dyce, marked as a quotation, as will be seen in the following extract; so that Pope, it appea…

Topics: Literature, Quotations, Poetry