FOOTNOTES:
[1] Johnson, Lives of the Poets, ed. Cunningham, Vol. iii. p. 368.
[2] Marchmont Papers, Vol. ii. p. 335.
[3] Nichols, Lit. Anec. Vol. ii. p. 165.
[4] Johnson, Lives of the Poets, Vol. iii. p. 72.
[5] Prior's Life of Malone, p. 385.
[6] Prior's Malone, p. 370.
[7] Hurd said of Warburton's Pope, that "it was the best edition that was ever given of any classic."
[8] Imit. Bk. i. Epist. vi. ver. 87.
[9] This last sentence was added by Warburton in the later editions of his Pope.
[10] Nichols, Lit. Anec. Vol. IV. p. 429-437.
[11] Letters of Horace Walpole, ed. Cunningham, Vol. vi. p. 422.
[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."
[13] Macaulay's Essays, 1 Vol. ed. p. 719.
[14] Athenæum, July 8, 1854, Sept. 1, Sept. 8, and Sept. 15, 1860.
[15] Mrs. Thomas to Cromwell, June 27, 1727.
[16] "Lives of the Poets," edited by Cunningham, Vol. III. p. 62.
[17] "The Curlliad," p. 22.
[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.
[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.
[20] Lord Oxford to Pope, Oct. 9, 1729.
[21] Pope to Lord Oxford, Oct. 16, 1729.
[22] Pope to Swift, Nov. 28, 1729.
[23] "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 62.
[24] Vol. I. p. xxxvii.
[25] The father was probably Lord Digby, and the letters were those addressed to the Hon. Robert Digby, who died in April, 1726.
[26] Vol. I. pp. xxxvii, xxxviii.
[27] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 423.
[28] Warton's "Essay on Pope," Vol. II. p. 255.
[29] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 424.
[30] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 425.
[31] Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 421, 423.
[32] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 441.
[33] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 422.
[34] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 422.
[35] Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 425, 441.
[36] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 442.
[37] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 432.
[38] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 434.
[39] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 443.
[40] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 428.
[41] Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 428, 433.
[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.
[43] Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 433, 434.
[44] Though the work is printed in two thin volumes, it was always done up as one.
[45] "Notes and Queries," No. 260, p. 485. This article is from the same pen as the articles on Pope's correspondence in the "Athenæum."
[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.
[47] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 442.
[48] Vol. I. p. xxxvi.
[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.
[50] Vol. I. p. xxxvii. Appendix, p. 419.
[51] Vol. I. p. xxxv.
[52] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 420.
[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.
[54] Vol. I. p. xxxv.
[55] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 445.
[56] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 444.
[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.
[58] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 445.
[59] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 429.
[60] Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 429, 445.
[61] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 439.
[62] P. T. said 380, but the 3 was probably a misprint for 4.
[63] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 429.
[64] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 430.
[65] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 423.
[66] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 438. Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," Vol. II. p. 261.
[67] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 435.
[68] Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 61.
[69] "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence," 12mo. Vol. II. p. vi.
[70] vol. I. Appendix, p. 446.
[71] vol. I. Appendix, p. 430.
[72] vol. I. Appendix, p. 442.
[73] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 447.
[74] Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 431, 435.
[75] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 431.
[76] Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 61.
[77] "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence," 12mo. Vol. III. p. xii. Vol. I. Appendix, p. 439.
[78] The "Athenæum" of Sept. 8, 1860.
[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.
[80] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 420.
[81] Vol. I. p. xxxix.
[82] Warton's Pope, Vol. II. p. 339.
[83] "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 63.
[84] "Athenæum," Sept. 8, 1860.
[85] Maloniana, p. 385.
[86] "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 62.
[87] Vol. I. p. 417.
[88] Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 430, 431, 443.
[89] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 431.
[90] Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 431, 443.
[91] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 443.
[92] Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 444, 445.
[93] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 431.
[94] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 432.
[95] Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 423, 447.
[96] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 444.
[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."
[98] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 447.
[99] "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence," 12mo. Vol. III, p. x.
[100] Pope to Buckley, July 13, [1735].
[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.
[102] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 447.
[103] Pope to Fortescue, March 26, 1736, and April, 1736.
[104] Pope to Allen, June 5 and Nov. 6, 1736.
[105] Pope to Allen, Nov. 6, 1736.
[106] Pope to Fortescue, April, 1736.
[107] Pope to Allen, Nov. 6, 1736.
[108] Chancery Bill, Dodsley v. Watson.
[109] Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 63.
[110] Ruffhead's "Life of Pope," p. 465.
[111] Vol. I. Appendix, pp. 423, 447.
[112] Pope to Allen, June 5, 1736.
[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."
[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.
[115] Vol. I. p. xliii.
[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.
[117] "Mr. Pope's Literary Correspondence," 12mo. Vol. III. p. xii.
[118] Vol. I. Appendix, p. 423, 447.
[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.
[120] Pope to Swift, May 17, 1739.
[121] Covent Garden Journal, No. 23, March 21, 1752.
[122] Warton's Pope, Vol. I. p. lv.
[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.
[124] De Quincey, Works, Vol. xv. p. 132.
[125] Works, Vol. vii. p. 66.
[126] Carruthers, Life of Pope, p. 442.
[127] Warburton's Pope, Ed. 1753, Vol. IX. p. 111.
[128] Pope to Lord Orrery, March, 1737.
[129] Pope to Lord Orrery, March, 1737.
[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.
[131] Pope to Lord Orrery, March, 1737.
[132] Mrs. Whiteway to Lord Orrery.
[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.
[134] Lord Orrery to Pope, Oct. 4, 1738.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[138] Mrs. Whiteway to Lord Orrery.
[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.
[140] Pope to Lord Oxford, Dec. 14, 1725.
[141] Pope to Lord Oxford, Dec. 14, 1725.
[142] Nichols's "Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century," Vol. V. p. 379.
[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.
[144] Mrs. Whiteway to Lord Orrery.
[145] Pope to Mr. Nugent, March 26, 1740, and Mr. Nugent to Mrs. Whiteway, April 2, 1740.
[146] Pope to Mr. Nugent, August 14, 1740.
[147] Ruffhead's "Life of Pope," p. 469. The letter to Allen was not published till twenty-five years after Pope's death.
[148] Millar v. Taylor, Burrow's Reports, Vol. IV. p. 2397.
[149] "Athenæum" for Sept. 15, 1860.
[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 "Athenæum" 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.
[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.
[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.
[153] Pope to Lord Orrery, March, 1737.
[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.
[155] Atkyns's Reports, Vol. II. p. 342.
[156] The other counsel were Sir Dudley Ryder, then Attorney-General, and Mr. Noel. They all paid Pope the tribute of refusing their fees.
[157] Tonson v. Collins, Blackstone's Reports, Vol. I. p. 311.
[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.
[159] Mrs. Whiteway to Lord Orrery.
[160] Pope to Caryll, Feb. 3, 1729. Pope to Swift, March 23, 1737.
[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."
[162] Pope to Nugent, August 14, 1740.
[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.
[164] "All's Well that Ends Well." Act II. Scene 2.
[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.
[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.
[167] I did not discover the letters of Wycherley at Longleat till after his correspondence with Pope had been printed off.
[168] "Notes and Queries," No. 260, p. 485.
[169] Oxford MSS.
[170] Oxford MSS.
[171] "Notes and Queries," No. 260, p. 485.
[172] "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 9.
[173] Oxford MSS. The rest of the letter is taken up with an account of some religious fanatics.
[174] "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 10.
[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.
[176] Oxford MSS.
[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.
[178] Advertisement to the edition of 1749.
[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.
[180] "A Letter to the Editor of the Letters" in Ruffhead, p. 573.
[181] "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 232.
[182] "A Letter to the Editor of the Letters" in Ruffhead, p. 572.
[183] Warburton says that the expense had been considerable.—Ruffhead, 571.
[184] "Lives of the Poets," Vol. III. p. 92.
[185] Macaulay's Essays. I Vol. edit. p. 718.