[Footnote 1: Johnson, Lives of the Poets, ed. Cunningham, Vol. iii. p.
368.]
[Footnote 2: Marchmont Papers, Vol. ii. p. 335.]
[Footnote 3: Nichols, Lit. Anec. Vol. ii. p. 165.]
[Footnote 4: Johnson, Lives of the Poets, Vol. iii. p. 72.]
[Footnote 5: Prior's Life of Malone, p. 385.]
[Footnote 6: Prior's Malone, p. 370.]
[Footnote 7: Hurd said of Warburton's Pope, that "it was the best
edition that was ever given of any classic."]
[Footnote 8: Imit. Bk. i. Epist. vi. ver. 87.]
[Footnote 9: This last sentence was added by Warburton in the later
editions of his Pope.]
[Footnote 10: Nichols, Lit. Anec. Vol. IV. p. 429-437.]
[Footnote 11: Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. Cunningham, Vol. vi. p.
422.]
[Footnote 12: De Quincey, Works, ed. 1863. Vol. xv. p. 137. He usually
maintained the opposite view, and sided altogether with the "they who
could see nothing in Pope but 'dust a little gilt.'" "There is nothing,"
he says, "Pope would not have sacrificed, not the most solemn of his
opinions, nor the most pathetic memorial from his personal experiences,
in return for a sufficient consideration, which consideration meant
always with him poetic effect. Simply and constitutionally, he was
incapable of a sincere thought, or a sincere emotion. Nothing that ever
he uttered, were it even a prayer to God, but he had a fancy for reading
it backwards. And he was evermore false, not as loving or preferring
falsehood, but as one who could not in his heart perceive much real
difference between what people affected to call falsehood, and what they
affected to call truth."]
[Footnote 13: Macaulay's Essays, 1 Vol. ed. p. 719.]
[Footnote 14: Athenaeum, July 8, 1854, Sept. 1, Sept. 8, and Sept. 15,
1860.]
[Footnote 15: Mrs. Thomas to Cromwell, June 27, 1727.]
[Footnote 16: "Lives of the Poets," edited by Cunningham, Vol. III. p.
62.]
[Footnote 17: "The Curlliad," p. 22.]
[Footnote 18: Vol. I. p. xxxviii. Where no other work is mentioned, the
references throughout this Introduction are to the present edition of
Pope's Correspondence.]
[Footnote 19: Mr. Croker and myself have been indebted to the kindness
of the present Marquess of Bath for the use of the Oxford papers
preserved at Longleat. They are most important for the light they throw
upon the character and proceedings of Pope.]
[Footnote 20: Lord Oxford to Pope, Oct. 9, 1729.]
[Footnote 21: Pope to Lord Oxford, Oct. 16, 1729.]
[Footnote 22: Pope to Swift, Nov. 28, 1729.]
[Footnote 23: "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 62.]
[Footnote 24: Vol. I. p. xxxvii.]
[Footnote 25: The father was probably Lord Digby, and the letters were
those addressed to the Hon. Robert Digby, who died in April, 1726.]
[Footnote 26: Vol. I. pp. xxxvii, xxxviii.]
[Footnote 27: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 423.]
[Footnote 28: Warton's "Essay on Pope," Vol. II. p. 255.]
[Footnote 29: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 424.]
[Footnote 30: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 425.]
[Footnote 31: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 421, 423.]
[Footnote 32: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 441.]
[Footnote 33: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 422.]
[Footnote 34: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 422.]
[Footnote 35: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 425, 441.]
[Footnote 36: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 442.]
[Footnote 37: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 432.]
[Footnote 38: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 434.]
[Footnote 39: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 443.]
[Footnote 40: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 428.]
[Footnote 41: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 428, 433.]
[Footnote 42: "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 61. Mr. Roscoe says
that no evidence for this statement appears. Johnson is himself the
evidence. He went to London in 1737, when he was 28 years of age, to try
his fortunes as an author, and became intimate with Savage, who was the
ally of Pope, with Dodsley, who published the authentic edition of the
poet's correspondence, and with numerous other persons from whom he was
likely to have received reliable information upon a fact so recent. It
is not to be supposed that Johnson imagined or invented a circumstance
which there is nothing to discredit.]
[Footnote 43: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 433, 434.]
[Footnote 44: Though the work is printed in two thin volumes, it was
always done up as one.]
[Footnote 45: "Notes and Queries," No. 260, p. 485. This article is from
the same pen as the articles on Pope's correspondence in the
"Athenaeum."]
[Footnote 46: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 430. The statement occurs in a
private note written at the time to Smythe, before the bookseller had
any idea of appealing to the public, or suspected that the letters were
printed by Pope himself.]
[Footnote 47: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 442.]
[Footnote 48: Vol. I. p. xxxvi.]
[Footnote 49: Vol. I. pp. xl. xli. All the statements to which I have
referred occur in this preface of Pope to the quarto of 1737, and some
of them in many other places besides.]
[Footnote 50: Vol. I. p. xxxvii. Appendix, p. 419.]
[Footnote 51: Vol. I. p. xxxv.]
[Footnote 52: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 420.]
[Footnote 53: Vol. I. p. xxxviii. The anonymous friend was put in the
place of Lord Oxford. Half the notes relate to the Wycherley manuscripts
in the Harley library, and could only have proceeded from the author of
that fiction. Pope's official editor, Warburton, signed all the notes
with Pope's name.]
[Footnote 54: Vol. I. p. xxxv.]
[Footnote 55: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 445.]
[Footnote 56: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 444.]
[Footnote 57: This circumstance at once attracted the attention of
Swift. "I detest the House of Lords," he wrote to Lady Betty Germain,
from Dublin, June 8, 1735, "for their indulgence to such a profligate,
prostitute villain as Curll; but am at a loss how he could procure any
letters written to Mr. Pope, although by the vanity or indiscretion of
correspondents the rogue might have picked up some that went from him.
Those letters have not yet been sent hither; therefore I can form no
judgment on them." Swift's detestation of the House of Lords for not
punishing a man who was proved to be innocent of the offence with which
he was charged, is an instance of the kind of justice to be expected
from violent partisans.]
[Footnote 58: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 445.]
[Footnote 59: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 429.]
[Footnote 60: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 429, 445.]
[Footnote 61: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 439.]
[Footnote 62: P. T. said 380, but the 3 was probably a misprint for 4.]
[Footnote 63: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 429.]
[Footnote 64: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 430.]
[Footnote 65: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 423.]
[Footnote 66: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 438. Johnson's "Lives of the Poets,"
Vol. II. p. 261.]
[Footnote 67: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 435.]
[Footnote 68: Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 61.]
[Footnote 69: "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence," 12mo. Vol. II. p.
vi.]
[Footnote 70: vol. I. Appendix, p. 446.]
[Footnote 71: vol. I. Appendix, p. 430.]
[Footnote 72: vol. I. Appendix, p. 442.]
[Footnote 73: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 447.]
[Footnote 74: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 431, 435.]
[Footnote 75: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 431.]
[Footnote 76: Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 61.]
[Footnote 77: "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence," 12mo. Vol. III. p.
xii. Vol. I. Appendix, p. 439.]
[Footnote 78: The "Athenaeum" of Sept. 8, 1860.]
[Footnote 79: When Pope put forth his preface to the quarto he could not
have intended to disguise that he was the writer of the "Narrative," or
he would have been at greater pains to vary his language. If the general
resemblance had been less marked, an invention common to both
productions would reveal their common origin. In the "Narrative" we are
informed that the complete collection of Pope's had been copied into a
couple of books before Theobald published his edition of Wycherley's
posthumous works, and that it was from these manuscript books that the
Wycherley correspondence was transcribed for press. This assertion was
untrue. Theobald's volume came out in 1728, while Pope's collection, as
appears from his announcements to Lord Oxford, was still in the process
of formation in September, 1729, and he was only "causing it to be
fairly written" in October, after his own Wycherley volume had passed
through the press. The false account is repeated in the preface to the
quarto, where we are told that the posthumous works of Wycherley were
printed the year after the copy of Pope's collection of letters had been
deposited in the library of Lord Oxford, which throws back the deposit
of the letters from the close of 1729 to 1727. Since the poet revived
and authenticated an anonymous fiction respecting his personal acts, he
may reasonably be supposed to have been the author of it. The object of
the imposition was to uphold the tale he had advanced in his Wycherley
volume. He had ceased to state openly that the publication was the act
of Lord Oxford; but he wished to have it believed that the letters were
in the keeping of his noble friend at the time, and to leave the
impression that the notion of printing them had not originated with
himself.]
[Footnote 80: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 420.]
[Footnote 81: Vol. I. p. xxxix.]
[Footnote 82: Warton's Pope, Vol. II. p. 339.]
[Footnote 83: "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 63.]
[Footnote 84: "Athenaeum," Sept. 8, 1860.]
[Footnote 85: Maloniana, p. 385.]
[Footnote 86: "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 62.]
[Footnote 87: Vol. I. p. 417.]
[Footnote 88: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 430, 431, 443.]
[Footnote 89: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 431.]
[Footnote 90: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 431, 443.]
[Footnote 91: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 443.]
[Footnote 92: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 444, 445.]
[Footnote 93: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 431.]
[Footnote 94: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 432.]
[Footnote 95: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 423, 447.]
[Footnote 96: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 444.]
[Footnote 97: From a letter which Lord Oxford addressed to Swift on June
19, 1735, he would appear to have known no more than the rest of the
public. "Master Pope," he writes, "is under persecution from Curll, who
has by some means (wicked ones most certainly) got hold of some of
Pope's private letters, which he has printed, and threatens more."]
[Footnote 98: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 447.]
[Footnote 99: "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence," 12mo. Vol. III, p.
x.]
[Footnote 100: Pope to Buckley, July 13, [1735].]
[Footnote 101: Art. Atterbury in "A General Biographical Dictionary
translated from Bayle, interspersed with several thousand lives never
before published. By Rev. J. P. Bernard, Rev. T. Birch, Mr. John
Lockman, and other hands." Vol II. p. 447.]
[Footnote 102: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 447.]
[Footnote 103: Pope to Fortescue, March 26, 1736, and April, 1736.]
[Footnote 104: Pope to Allen, June 5 and Nov. 6, 1736.]
[Footnote 105: Pope to Allen, Nov. 6, 1736.]
[Footnote 106: Pope to Fortescue, April, 1736.]
[Footnote 107: Pope to Allen, Nov. 6, 1736.]
[Footnote 108: Chancery Bill, Dodsley _v._ Watson.]
[Footnote 109: Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 63.]
[Footnote 110: Ruffhead's "Life of Pope," p. 465.]
[Footnote 111: Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 423, 447.]
[Footnote 112: Pope to Allen, June 5, 1736.]
[Footnote 113: Pope probably kept back from the quarto the unpublished
letters he inserted in the octavo that their novelty might assist the
sale of the edition which was intended to come out last. He would not
use the new letters without his unfailing pretext that they "were in
such hands as to be in imminent danger of being printed."]
[Footnote 114: These particulars are derived from the Chancery Bill
_Dodsley_ v. _Watson_, and from the documents preserved by Pope's
solicitor, Mr. Cole, and now in the possession of his successors in the
business, Messrs. Janssen and Co. I owe the extracts from Cole's papers
to Mr. Dilke, who was indebted for them to the present members of the
firm.]
[Footnote 115: Vol. I. p. xliii.]
[Footnote 116: The words were introduced by the poet's friend and
counsel Murray when he revised, or, in legal phrase, settled the bill.
The rough draft submitted to him is among the papers of Mr. Cole, and
the parallel passage only states that the letters written and received
by Mr. Pope "having fallen into the hands of several booksellers, they
thought fit to print a surreptitious edition," which did not preclude
the supposition that one or more of the editions might be genuine.
Whenever Pope, throughout the business, could use equivocal language he
always selected it.]
[Footnote 117: "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence," 12mo. Vol. III. p.
xii.]
[Footnote 118: Vol. I. Appendix, p. 423, 447.]
[Footnote 119: Vol. I. p. 1. He is speaking of Curll's reprint, which
has no letters that were not in the original P. T. volume.]
[Footnote 120: Pope to Swift, May 17, 1739.]
[Footnote 121: Covent Garden Journal, No. 23, March 21, 1752.]
[Footnote 122: Warton's Pope, Vol. I. p. lv.]
[Footnote 123: The second edition of the octavo has a few more notes
than the first edition. To distinguish it I have quoted it by the title
of Cooper 1737, from the name of the publisher. I had not seen the first
edition of the octavo till after Vol. I. of the Correspondence was
printed, and I have erroneously stated of one or two letters that they
originally appeared in the Cooper edition of 1737 which had not any new
letters.]
[Footnote 124: De Quincey, Works, Vol. xv. p. 132.]
[Footnote 125: Works, Vol. vii. p. 66.]
[Footnote 126: Carruthers, Life of Pope, p. 442.]
[Footnote 127: Warburton's Pope, Ed. 1753, Vol. IX. p. 111.]
[Footnote 128: Pope to Lord Orrery, March, 1737.]
[Footnote 129: Pope to Lord Orrery, March, 1737.]
[Footnote 130: It is among the papers of his friend Lord Bathurst. The
letter is undated, and was published without any date by Curll. When
Pope reproduced it in the quarto of 1737, he dated it August, 1723; and
in the quarto of 1741 he changed the date to January, 1723, which must
be incorrect, since Bolingbroke was then abroad, and did not return to
England till June. Swift's reply is dated September 20, and as it was
between this period and June that the joint letter must have been
written, August is either the true date, or a close approximation to
it.]
[Footnote 131: Pope to Lord Orrery, March, 1737.]
[Footnote 132: Mrs. Whiteway to Lord Orrery.]
[Footnote 133: It is stated in a note to the Dublin edition of the
collection of 1741 that the original of Bolingbroke's appendix had been
discovered among Swift's papers since the publication of the letter by
Curll.]
[Footnote 134: Lord Orrery to Pope, Oct. 4, 1738.]
[Footnote 135: Pope to Mr. Nugent, August 14, 1740. This letter was
first published in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for August, 1849. It is
printed, together with the other letters on the subject, among the Pope
and Swift correspondence in this edition.]
[Footnote 136: The earliest of the three letters bears in the body of
the work, the heading "Mr. Gay to Dr. Swift;" but in the Table of
Contents it is entitled "From Mr. Gay and Mr. Pope," and the language in
portions of the letter itself shows that it was the production of both.]
[Footnote 137: "I never," said the poet to Caryll, November 19, 1712,
"kept any copies of such stuff as I write," which would be decisive of
his custom at that early date, if much reliance could be placed on his
word. In 1716 he commenced correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu, and afterwards published several of the letters among his
"Letters to Ladies." He was then at enmity with her, and as she retained
the originals, he must either have borrowed them prior to the quarrel
for the purpose of copying them, or else must have copied them before
they were sent. There is no direct evidence to show at what time he
commenced the practice of transcribing letters; but at the close of 1726
he began to compile the collection of 1735, and thenceforward he was
sure to let nothing escape which could contribute to his design.]
[Footnote 138: Mrs. Whiteway to Lord Orrery.]
[Footnote 139: Dr. Hawkesworth published a letter from Swift to Pope,
introducing his cousin, Mr. D. Swift, and three more were published by
Mr. D. Swift himself. He does not say by what means he obtained them,
but they form part of a collection of some seventy stray letters
addressed by Swift to thirty or forty different persons, who had
certainly not returned them.]
[Footnote 140: Pope to Lord Oxford, Dec. 14, 1725.]
[Footnote 141: Pope to Lord Oxford, Dec. 14, 1725.]
[Footnote 142: Nichols's "Illustrations of the Literary History of the
Eighteenth Century," Vol. V. p. 379.]
[Footnote 143: Birch MSS. Brit. Mus., quoted in Warton's Pope, Vol. II.
p. 339. When Mr. Gerrard was about to return to Ireland from Bath, Pope
wrote to him, May 17, 1740, to say that he had found another conveyance
for the letter he had intended to send by him to Swift. Mr. Gerrard may
nevertheless have carried over the printed correspondence, which would
not have been openly entrusted to him by Pope, who professed to know
nothing about it. The poet may have thought upon reflection that it
would look less suspicious if his avowed letter and the anonymous parcel
were not transmitted by the same bearer.]
[Footnote 144: Mrs. Whiteway to Lord Orrery.]
[Footnote 145: Pope to Mr. Nugent, March 26, 1740, and Mr. Nugent to
Mrs. Whiteway, April 2, 1740.]
[Footnote 146: Pope to Mr. Nugent, August 14, 1740.]
[Footnote 147: Ruffhead's "Life of Pope," p. 469. The letter to Allen
was not published till twenty-five years after Pope's death.]
[Footnote 148: Millar _v._ Taylor, Burrow's Reports, Vol. IV. p. 2397.]
[Footnote 149: "Athenaeum" for Sept. 15, 1860.]
[Footnote 150: "Whereas there is an impression of certain letters
between Dr. Swift and Mr. Pope openly printed in Dublin without Mr.
Pope's consent, and there is reason to think the same hath been, or will
be done clandestinely in London, notice is hereby given that they will
be speedily published with several additional letters, &c., composing
altogether a second volume of his works in prose."--"London Daily Post"
for March 24, 1741, quoted in the "Athenaeum" for September 15, 1860. The
advertisement displays the same cautious phraseology as was employed in
the prefatory notice to the quarto, and speaks of the Dublin volume as
only printed, not published. One motive which probably induced Faulkner
to delay it was, that the work would have been incomplete without the
additional letters.]
[Footnote 151: Page 89 in the quarto bears, in the cancelled division,
the signature M., and the later page 89 has the signature N. The cause
of the difference is plain. It is the ordinary habit to begin the body
of a work on sheet B, and reserve the signature A, for the preliminary
matter. This is the method adopted with the three previous quarto
volumes of Pope's works, and was followed in the original quarto
impression of the correspondence; but after the poet had cancelled the
beginning of the volume, the sheet commonly marked B was in the second
state of the quarto marked A, which occasioned the usual sheet N to
become M. The discrepancy is an additional proof that the opening sheets
had been cancelled and reprinted.]
[Footnote 152: There were probably minor cancels which did not disturb
the general arrangement, as at page 124, where there is a note which
purports to be copied from the Dublin edition. The final sheet of all
was evidently printed after Faulkner's volume was in type.]
[Footnote 153: Pope to Lord Orrery, March, 1737.]
[Footnote 154: Curll, who delivered his answer upon oath, was no doubt
aware that the work was not first published in Dublin. He therefore used
the evasive word "printed," and left it to his opponents to detect the
fallacy. The methods, however, by which Pope had obtained his priority
would not permit him to plead it, nor was he likely, by mooting the
question, to risk the revelation of his plot.]
[Footnote 155: Atkyns's Reports, Vol. II. p. 342.]
[Footnote 156: The other counsel were Sir Dudley Ryder, then
Attorney-General, and Mr. Noel. They all paid Pope the tribute of
refusing their fees.]
[Footnote 157: Tonson _v._ Collins, Blackstone's Reports, Vol. I. p.
311.]
[Footnote 158: Millar _v._ Taylor, Burrow's Reports, Vol. IV. p. 2396.
"I know," Lord Mansfield observed, "that Mr. Pope had no paper upon
which the letters were written," which means that he had received this
assurance from Pope, and supposed it to be true. In one particular the
memory of Lord Mansfield deceived him. Blackstone on the authority of
the preface to the quarto of 1741, stated, while arguing the case of
Tonson _v._ Collins, that the letters "were published with the
connivance at least, if not under the direction of Swift," to which Lord
Mansfield replied, "Certainly not. Dr. Swift disclaimed it, and was
extremely angry." But this is opposed to the united evidence of Mrs.
Whiteway, Faulkner, and Pope, who all concur in testifying that Swift
consented to the publication.]
[Footnote 159: Mrs. Whiteway to Lord Orrery.]
[Footnote 160: Pope to Caryll, Feb. 3, 1729. Pope to Swift, March 23,
1737.]
[Footnote 161: To Lord Orrery, March, 1737. "His humanity, his charity,
his condescension, his candour are equal to his wit, and require as good
and true a taste to be equally valued. When all this must die, I would
gladly have been the recorder of so great a part of it as shines in his
letters to me, and of which my own are but as so many
acknowledgements."]
[Footnote 162: Pope to Nugent, August 14, 1740.]
[Footnote 163: The statement is recorded by Dr. Birch in his Journal,
May 14, 1751. He received the information from Dr. Heberden, who was
then attending Lord Bolingbroke in his last illness.]
[Footnote 164: "All's Well that Ends Well." Act II. Scene 2.]
[Footnote 165: In September, 1725, Arbuthnot had an illness which was
expected to prove mortal. Pope, in announcing his recovery to Swift on
October 15, added, "He goes abroad again, and is more cheerful than even
health can make a man." He meant that Arbuthnot was able to go about
again, which was still one of the commonest significations of the
phrase. Arbuthnot did not leave England, and from his letter to Swift on
October 17, it is clear that he had never entertained the design.]
[Footnote 166: Roscoe dated the letter 1726. Without recapitulating the
circumstances, which are fatal to the conjecture, it is enough to say
that on September 10, 1726, Pope was unable to hold a pen, owing to the
injury he had received a day or two before when he was upset in
Bolingbroke's carriage. It was several weeks before he recovered the use
of his hand. In the case of Digby there is the additional difficulty
that as the nurse did not die till after September, 1725, so he himself
was dead before September, 1726.]
[Footnote 167: I did not discover the letters of Wycherley at Longleat
till after his correspondence with Pope had been printed off.]
[Footnote 168: "Notes and Queries," No. 260, p. 485.]
[Footnote 169: Oxford MSS.]
[Footnote 170: Oxford MSS.]
[Footnote 171: "Notes and Queries," No. 260, p. 485.]
[Footnote 172: "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 9.]
[Footnote 173: Oxford MSS. The rest of the letter is taken up with an
account of some religious fanatics.]
[Footnote 174: "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 10.]
[Footnote 175: The general impression produced by the correspondence was
expressed by Spence, when he observed to Pope, "People have pitied you
extremely on reading your letters to Wycherley. Surely it was a very
difficult thing for you to keep well with him." "The most difficult
thing in the world," was Pope's reply. On another occasion he said to
Spence, "Wycherley was really angry with me for correcting his verses so
much. I was extremely plagued, up and down, for almost two years with
them. However it went off pretty well at last." When Pope tampered with
the written records which he cited as evidence upon the question, we can
place no reliance on his passing words.]
[Footnote 176: Oxford MSS.]
[Footnote 177: This statement is from the edition of the pamphlet
published in 1749. Mallet was the nominal, and Bolingbroke the real
editor. The particulars of Pope's misconduct are related with much
asperity in a preliminary advertisement, of which the original,
corrected by Bolingbroke, is in the British Museum.]
[Footnote 178: Advertisement to the edition of 1749.]
[Footnote 179: Advertisement to the edition of 1749. In the same year
Warburton put forth a short pamphlet entitled, "A Letter to the Editor
of the Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism," &c., which was reprinted,
in 1769, in the Appendix to Ruffhead's Life of Pope. In this reply
Warburton extenuates, without justifying, the act of his friend, and is
more successful in his attack upon Bolingbroke for exposing the
treachery than in his defence of Pope for perpetrating it. The "Letter
to the Editor of the Letters" is chiefly valuable for its admission of
the principal charges against the poet. His advocate, who had seen both
the genuine and corrupted edition of the phamphlet, allows that he had
tampered with the text. Bolingbroke had only specified alterations and
ommissions. Warburton goes further, and speaks of interpolations. In the
body of Ruffhead's work it is stated that Pope altered nothing, and
"only struck out some insults on the throne and the then reigning
monarch." But this is opposed to the language of Warburton twenty years
before, when the subject was fresh, and Bolingbroke was
living.--Ruffhead's Life of Pope, p. 526. Appendix, p. 573.]
[Footnote 180: "A Letter to the Editor of the Letters" in Ruffhead, p.
573.]
[Footnote 181: "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 232.]
[Footnote 182: "A Letter to the Editor of the Letters" in Ruffhead, p.
572.]
[Footnote 183: Warburton says that the expense had been
considerable.--Ruffhead, 571.]
[Footnote 184: "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 92.]
[Footnote 185: Macaulay's Essays. I Vol. edit. p. 718.]