(Vol. vii., p. 57.)
This, which is headed "Note," ought to have been headed _Query_: and it
affords an instance of ignorance on the part of some of our correspondents;
and of, I fear I must add, inattention on that of our worthy Editor, which
I think it right to notice as a warning to all parties for the future: and
I appeal to the candour of our Editor himself to give my protest a place.
The first step in this curious affair is to be found in "N. & Q.," Vol.
ii., p. 7., where "_the Editor of Bishop Warburton's Literary Remains_"
produced, as attributed to Mr. Charles Yorke, a kind of epitaph of sixteen
lines, beginning--
"Stript to the naked soul, escaped from clay."
That the "editor of Bishop Warburton's _Literary Remains_," and his friend
"an eminent critic," should have been at a loss to know where these
well-known verses were to be found, and should have countenanced their
having been Charles Yorke's, seems the more wonderful: for the verses are
given in _Warburton's own letters_ as _Pope's_, and were printed near a
hundred years ago in Ruffhead's _Life of Pope_, _as Pope's_; and in the MS.
copy furnished by Mr. Yorke, they are marked as "Mr. Pope's."
The next error is, that this mention of Mr. Yorke's name--though his MS.
bore the name of _Pope_--seems to have given rise to the idea that _he_ was
the author, which Lord Campbell has so fully adopted as to have reprinted,
in his _Lives of the Chancellors_ (vol. v. p. 428.), the verses as the
composition of _Charles Yorke_.
We next find in "N. & Q.," Vol. iii., p. 43., a reply of W. S. to the Query
of Warburton's editor, stating "that the verses were by _Pope_," and
_lately_ republished in a miscellany by James Tayler, with a statement that
they _were not inserted in any edition of Pope's works_. The fact being,
that they have been inserted in Warton's edition, 1797; and in Bowles', and
in all subsequent editions that I have seen: and it seems strange that W.
S. did not take the trouble of verifying, by a reference to _any_ edition
of Pope, the statement that he quoted.
Next we have, in the same (3rd) volume of "N. & Q.," a communication from
MR. CROSSLEY, which states correctly all the foregoing circumstances, with
the addition, that the verses appeared as _Aaron Hill's_ in an edition of
his works as early as 1753. Thence arises another discussion; were they
Pope's or Hill's? Roscoe thought they were Hill's; MR. CROSSLEY thinks they
were Pope's. I think, both from external and internal evidence, that they
were not Pope's. But that has little to do with my present object, which is
to show how often the matter has been already discussed in "N. & Q." I must
observe, however, that MR. CROSSLEY has fallen into a slight anachronism.
He says that the verses were "transferred from Ruffhead into _Bowles'_
edition;" whereas they, as I have stated, were transferred into _Warton's_
many years earlier.
After all this disquisition comes a recent Number of "N. & Q.," of which a
_column and a quarter_ is wasted by a correspondent A. T. W., who confesses
that he (or she) has _not a modern edition of Pope within reach_, and begs
to know whether these verses (repeated _in extenso_) "have been yet
introduced to the public?"
Surely "N. & Q." should beware of correspondents that write to inquire
about Pope, without having an edition of his works; and I cannot but wonder
that this _crambe_, which had been served up thrice before, and so fully by
MR. CROSSLEY, should have been _recocta_, and introduced as a new theme,
entitled to a special attention.